Becoming Beloved Community–Attending to Diversity from the Inside Out

By Virginia Holmstrom

I met Edna 32 years ago at a national ABW committee meeting and conference. She was the one who invited me to see her African-American sisters as my sisters, too. Edna wisely and quite accurately assessed my limited exposure to African-American persons when she prescribed a step-by-step journey for me to personally know and nurture friendship with black women.

Ten years later, I transferred my church membership to a Black congregation of American Baptists, largely comprised of Caribbean-born individuals and extended families once rooted in Georgia and Virginia and the Carolinas. I reveled in the spirited music that invited me to clap along on the up-beats. I learned to sing at half tempo the gospel hymns of the black church. One Sunday I brought my violin to church and began to play with the instrumental group, knowing all the while that I had no clue how to improvise for the rhythms I heard and felt.

Church services, worship styles, church-led activities, church dinners, and even women’s ministries take on the distinct traditions within a congregation; these contribute to the blessings of being an American Baptist. However, from the vantage point of our familiar church pew, we may rarely see or experience the beautiful cultures and traditions happening in American Baptist churches across the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

When your church’s AB Women’s Ministries group or circle meets, you might be surprised to learn that ABWM groups in other cities or states aren’t just like yours. The ABWM group in the next city may be praying in their first language brought with them as immigrants or refugees to this country. There’s an ABWM over in the next state that may accommodate as many toddlers as women because their congregation has plenty of young adults but is sparse on the grandparent ages. The Euro-American church across town may have monthly ABWM meetings in the church parlor, and the African-American church women in the next region are organizing their next supper fundraiser to support the church’s wider ministry.

Our American Baptist denomination is among the most diverse Protestant denominations in the U.S. in terms of race, ethnicity, culture, class, and theology. That’s a gift from God, and the stewardship of that good gift is entrusted to each of us and all of us. American Baptist Women’s Ministries, just like our wider denominational family, is greater when we can learn to appreciate and respect every individual for her spiritual gifts, her perspectives, and her service to God. Offering one another the space and encouragement to serve God according to her spiritual gifts and in her own way is a beautiful thing.

Diversity indeed resides in your church’s women’s ministry group, whether or not it’s visible at first glance. In order to lead amidst our diversity, we can learn how to navigate through our differences. Developing cultural competency is a skill that can be taught and learned and practiced. Every group can learn how to make good decisions together amid differences, similarities, and related tensions. It begins from the inside out.

Becoming Beloved Community is God’s intentional desire. God created the differences within us as a faith community. American Baptist Women’s Ministries invites you to lead and share and learn how to be Beloved Community. Practical information, how-to’s, and resources for learning will be ready for you to access in July 2017 at www.abwministries.org.

Virginia Holmstrom is executive director of American Baptist Women’s Ministries.

Becoming Beloved Community–Walking Together toward Relevant Goals

By Deborah Malavé Díaz

American Baptist Women’s Ministries as a national organization has been engaged in an initiative named “Becoming Beloved Community.” This initiative was developed to help us explore God’s vision for our ministries in the midst of today’s realities. This is the third of a series of four blog posts on “Becoming Beloved Community” that will address those four themes. For all the posts, click on “beloved community” in the tag cloud on the right.

C2R4: AB Women’s Ministries retreat for young adult women, 2012

Before becoming the national coordinator of Events (2015-18) for American Baptist Women’s Ministries, I was the coordinator for Young Women for the Puerto Rico Region, when the position was included for the first time as part of the region American Baptist Women’s Ministries (Mujeres Bautistas Americanas) board. It was exciting, as there was no previous path to follow, and, at the same time, challenging. I had to both reach out and make space for young women at our beloved (but also very “established”) community. To make it more challenging, when it came to demographics, part of the board said the young women must be between 25 and 35 years of age, and other half said between 30 and 45. That difference of opinion went on for my three-year term. I was approaching my 46^th birthday during the first year of my term year and found myself outside the demographic “box” I was elected to represent. Fast-forward to 2015 when I became coordinator of Events. I told myself, “Deb, you got this! This first year, follow The Guide, follow the way AB Women’s Ministries has done things in the past, add your perspective, and you be fine.” I quickly discovered, however, that AB Women’s Ministries was breaking new ground, and the events planning process was the platform to do it. I was, again, in a very exciting and challenging time in which new paradigms were leading the way.

I invite you consider the common thread between these two leadership experiences with the beloved community. In the first one, there was a need to bridge a gap; on the second, an emphasis on meaningfulness. In both, the common thread is the urgency to be relevant. Is the AB Women’s Ministries beloved community relevant to you? Are you relevant to the AB Women’s Ministries beloved community?

How can we walk together toward relevant goals? This is what I have learned: First, I cannot do it alone. I know what is important to me, but I must learn from you what is important to you. We must build relationships among ourselves. In my role as coordinator of Events, I frequently lead one-hour long conference calls. There can be between five to eight women on these calls, and half of them I have never met in person! But from the start I think of them as my sisters. We have a purpose: we make sure everyone expresses themselves in our conversations, and we are respectful of time set aside for AB Women’s Ministries. You, too, can build relationships for relevant goals using this model in your formal or informal AB Women’s Ministries meetings: Define your purpose; listen and talk to one another; and respect everyone’s time. The second thing I learned is that leadership is a shared responsibility, and inclusiveness is the glue holding it all together. To achieve relevance in a group is like holding a kaleidoscope where each woman is one of the facets. Like a kaleidoscope, relevance is ever-changing; therefore, you must be inclusive in your endeavor.

One last thought: What has God taught me about leadership with the AB Women’s Ministries?  “You know better than to put new wine into old wineskins. They would burst. The wine would be spilled out and the wineskins ruined. New wine needs fresh wineskins,” Mark 2:22 (TLB).

Deborah Malavé Díaz serves as coordinator of Events for American Baptist Women’s Ministries.

Becoming Beloved Community–Inclusive Leadership

By Rev. Angel L. Sullivan

American Baptist Women’s Ministries as a national organization has been engaged in an initiative named “Becoming Beloved Community.” This initiative was developed to help us explore God’s vision for our ministries in the midst of today’s realities. This is the second of a series of four blog posts on “Becoming Beloved Community” that will address those four themes. For all the posts, click on “beloved community” in the tag cloud on the right.

Gardens at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, UK. Photo by ukgardenphotos on Flickr. Used by permission, Creativecommons.org.

Take a moment and imagine yourself standing in a flower garden. Take a deep breath. Breathe in the smells; notice the honeysuckle and roses. In your mind’s eye, look around and ponder the bright colors. Imagine yourself bending down, running your hands across the blades of grass, noticing how it feels under your fingertips. Finally, picture yourself sitting against the trunk of a giant oak tree, allowing the leaves from the branches overhead to provide you with cooling shade from the warm sun. How do you feel? Good, right? Now, imagine standing in the same place, but this time there are no trees, flowers, grass, or sweet smells. It is just you in the midst of dirt. Now, how do you feel? Perhaps you feel a little lonely, empty.

You see, God designs everything to have a purpose and place in the world. At our best, we all work together. Nothing competes but, rather, everything complements and builds on everything else. This is a model for inclusive leadership.

Growing up, I viewed leadership as a hierarchical model, where one person was in charge of, or over, others. The person in charge had to have all the answers and could not, and should not, ask for help. To do so would be a sign of weakness and ignorance. Over the years, however, I have come to learn that leadership, especially inclusive leadership, is not about managing. Rather, it is about engaging people of diverse ethnicities, age, and life experience in such a way that you bring out their gifts and skills for the purpose of sharing within the greater community. I personally seek out the stories and wisdom of people who have different lived experiences from mine in order to gain a broader perspective.

When I served as the coordinator for Mission and Events on the national leadership team of AB GIRLS, I was engaged in a model of inclusive leadership. I was an adult leader amongst teenage girls. While, in theory, I could have been the main leader, in reality I was just as much a learner. I would often listen to the girls’ stories about school, relationships, technology, and life in general. They provided me with wisdom and insight, and empowered me to work with youth in my community. I don’t think I would have felt comfortable doing so had I not had their experience to teach me.

I could not imagine a world where everyone thought the same, and where I would be the only one in the midst of dirt. We are all meant to be unique pieces in God’s garden of human diversity. We are much stronger, wiser, and powerful in our togetherness and diversity than we are apart.

Rev. Angel L. Sullivan serves as national president of American Baptist Women’s Ministries.

Becoming Beloved Community–Building Relationships

by Sandra Hasenauer

American Baptist Women’s Ministries as a national organization has been engaged in an initiative named “Becoming Beloved Community.” This initiative, an outcome of previous work done through the Transformed by the Spirit work of American Baptist Churches USA, was developed to help us explore God’s vision for our ministries in the midst of today’s realities. In the early stages of the initiative, there was a comprehensive series of interviews, surveys, and follow-up surveys with hundreds of American Baptist women (and a few men too!) led by the Rev. Dr. Trinette McCray of McCray Consulting, to discern key themes, concerns, and celebrations about the organization. The result was four strategic themes that undergird the ongoing work of the national board of AB Women’s Ministries. This is the first of a series of four blog posts on “Becoming Beloved Community” that will address those four themes.

Relationships are critical.

As my dad used to joke, “Who’d-a thunk it?”

As we’ve explored God’s calling to American Baptist Women’s Ministries over these last several years, prayerfully seeking guidance for where we should focus our efforts to be most effective in God’s ministry, we kept hearing the words “building relationships” over and over again. At first, to be candid, I thought, “aren’t we already doing that?” And I suppose, at some level, we can certainly say we are. I feel privileged to be working in an organization in which I actually really look forward to board and team meetings because we have so much fun in the midst of all the work we’re doing!

And yet, I am also reminded of conversations I had with Rev. Valerie Andrews, when she was serving as our national events coordinator. She made the point during one discussion that we American Baptist women are very good at coming together around tasks, but maybe not so much about coming together just for relationship. Yes, I felt convicted. How often did I call someone only because I had a work-related issue or question for them, rather than just calling to check in on how they were doing, or simply to say hello? (And, as I often joke, I know I’m a unique child of God, but I’m not that unique. If I’m experiencing something, it’s quite likely a lot of you reading this could be nodding your heads in agreement!) Valerie went on to emphasize that our ministries need to be about “People, not Programs,” and I wrote that in caps because it became a rallying cry. During event planning team meetings, eventually someone on the team would remind the rest of us, “People, not Programs!” and we’d re-focus on the need to emphasize opportunities for relationship-building throughout our event.

At one level, building relationships in our ministry is critical to helping our ministries stay relevant to the women and girls God wants us to reach. If we don’t actually know the woman or the girl, we don’t know what needs they have or how God wants us to walk alongside them. Having effective ministry means ministering with who that person really is, not what we assume about that person based on their age, educational level, family relationships, job, and so forth. We’ve been trained to think of successful ministry in terms of volume–the more people you have showing up at your events, the more successful your ministry is. And yet Jesus’ own ministry showed that the one-on-one is just as important, if not more so, in terms of transforming someone’s life for Christ. Therefore, we’re being called to stop and ask ourselves: Are we focusing on reaching out and getting to know individual women and girls as the primary way we’re in ministry, or are we focusing on programs and meetings and hoping women and girls show up so we can be in ministry with them once they walk through the door?

At another level, many of the difficulties we’re seeing in our society right now could be alleviated if there were more relationship-building going on in our neighborhoods. As human beings, it’s easier and faster to build metaphorical walls than bridges. This has been true of humans since humanity began, really. Our natural tendency is to “stick to our own kind,” people we think we know already and, more importantly, people whose behavior we think we can predict because they think and act pretty much like we do. However, that tendency is also what gives rise to fear. When you don’t know someone, it’s easy to imagine the worst about them. We paint the stranger with the same brush as the person we saw on TV that looked an awful lot like them. We dismiss someone as “ignorant,” “clueless,” “stupid,” or worse, because we disagree with their politics rather than trying to understand why they may believe what they believe–what hurts and fears have they experienced that led them to the decisions they make? As American Baptist women, we’re part of one of the most diverse Protestant denominations in the United States. How can we take what we experience in our faith communities and allow it to teach us how to help others learn to build relationships?

And so, becoming beloved community all begins with building relationships. Relationships are critical. It’s that simple.

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Rev. Sandra DeMott Hasenauer is associate executive director of American Baptist Women’s Ministries.

One Day in Myanmar (Kachin IDP Camps)

By Gail Aita

This is the second of two posts by Gail about her sojourn in Myanmar (Burma) in early 2017. Click here for the first post.

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After spending four weeks at Myanmar Institute of Theology teaching, my husband Paul and I traveled to Kachin State and then to the Chin Hills. Both were adventures in and of themselves. We were greeted at the airport in Myitkyina by both Ja Ing and Ja Nu, two wonderful Kachin women who came to the American Baptist Women’s Ministries’ Conference in Washington, D.C. in 2016. We were then treated to a very fine dinner out with the women representing the Women’s Development Department of Kachin Baptist Convention.

The day started out with a visit to an IDP camp in Myitkyina, Kachin State. It was heart-breaking and uplifting at the same time: Heart-breaking to see the faces of the men, women, and children who have lost all worldly belongings: yet, uplifting because their spirits are filled with God’s love and His grace. Just look at those faces……and remember to pray for their safety, their health and their welfare.

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We listened to their stories, sang with them and prayed with them.

We visited three IDP (IDP = internally displaced persons) camps that Saturday.

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This was the smallest camp we visited. Their electric bill was 70,000 kyats/month (roughly $50 US at the current exchange rate) and they had to collect 2,000 kyats ($1.50) from each family which was, more often than not, difficult to do.

At the last camp, Waing Maw, which is the largest in the greater Myitkyina area, we were told to sit in the back of the van because we had to cross a bridge with a border check and westerners were not supposed to be going to that camp. While we were there, workers were putting up tents donated by the UN because they had just received 350 new refugees, many of whom were “double displaced persons” because the camps they had been in were also destroyed by the Burmese military in the fighting. There were well over 3,000 people at this camp.

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One of the ministries that I have been involved with at home has been teaching some of the Kachin women in the greater Seattle area how to sew, in particular “pillowcase dresses” and “self-binding baby blankets”. I have had help from a number of other American Baptist women in the area.  For two months prior to our leaving for Myanmar, the Kachin women have come to my home and have made 40+ dresses and 15 baby blankets. I also had some dresses made by women from other churches in the area. I had the privilege of being able to deliver those dresses and blankets to the folks in the camps. It was a gift of love from the Kachin women in Kent to those in the camps, and I was blessed to be the delivery person!

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Saturday was a long day filled with mixed feelings: despair and hope, tears of pain and tears of joy, but always an awareness of God’s love and God’s grace. Please continue to pray for the plight Kachin people and for peace in Myanmar.

Gail Aita serves as coordinator of the Western Section for American Baptist Women’s Ministries.

For earlier posts about the Kachin IDP camps, click here and here.

The Journey Begins Again

By Gail Aita

January-March, 2017

One of the reasons Paul and I wanted so much to return to Myanmar this year was to have some sense of closure. We have been going to Myanmar as voluntary missionaries and serving as Special Assistants to Southeast Asia and Japan since 2000. This was our ninth time going to serve and for eight of those trips we have taught at Myanmar Institute of Theology (M.I.T.) as well as the Pwo Karen Seminary in Yangon. We have both turned 70 this past year and have begun to slow down a little. In 2015-2016 Paul had five hospital visits dealing with kidney stones and complications from the surgeries. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time praying that we would be able to once again return to Myanmar, but knew from the outset that it may be our last long-term stay. (However, after having been there, we found ourselves often being asked to come back to teach and saying “If God wants us to return, He will give us the strength to do so!”)

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At M.I.T., the classes included not only English Literature and Poetry, as well as grammar, but also classes at the seminary concerning Ministry with Youth, Partnering Young Adults and the Elderly, Christian Education, and a class on Teaching Those with Special Needs and American Sign Language.  At the Pwo Karen Seminary, the students were most interested in learning English so we did a lot of role playing and singing.

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Unlike previous years, this year Paul and I had the opportunity to visit schools in the Kachin State and in the Chin Hills. We spent a little more than two weeks visiting and teaching at the Kachin Theological College and Seminary (KTCS) in Myitkyina and at the Chin Christian University (CCU) in Hakha.

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At each school, Paul and I both became reacquainted with those who were our former students. What a blessing it is to meet those former students who have gone on to become servants using their God given gifts to teach others.

And as a last note for now, I would like to share about a young teacher at KTCS by the name of Naw Din. Naw Din and his wife have three children of their own including a newborn baby just three weeks old. He and his wife have taken in twenty (yes, 20!) orphan children from the IDP camps. He does not run an orphanage. He and his wife have actually taken them into their home. They feed them, clothe them, send them to school, pray with them and, most of all, love them. They depend solely on the gifts from generous friends.  They are amazing.  I had the joy of spending a day with them, teaching them some English, some sign language, and some songs. We had such fun. I was truly blessed.

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Please pray for all the seminaries and colleges in Myanmar, that they will continue to teach God’s word and produce Christian leaders. Also pray for Naw Din and his loving wife and family as they share God’s love in the Kachin State.

**I would also like to mention that the opportunity to volunteer to teach at seminaries and colleges in Myanmar is a real possibility for anyone who is interested. You can contact International Ministries for more information.

Gail Aita serves as coordinator of the Western Section for American Baptist Women’s Ministries.

UN Sustainable Development Goals: Goal #5 Gender Equality

By Sandra Hasenauer

We’ve addressed United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in previous blog posts; this week we’re highlighting SDG #5: “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.”

The empowerment of women and girls is key to a multitude of issues such as peace-making, economic development, and health and nutrition. Although there have been improvements in the state of women and girls in many areas—girls’ access to education, rates of child marriage, fewer maternal deaths—there is still a long way to go. This is why the targets of SDG #5 begin with ending “all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere,” and continue on to address eliminating all forms of violence, ending harmful practices such as child marriages and female genital mutilation, recognizing the value of unpaid care and domestic work, ensuring full political participation and participation in decision-making at all levels, ensuring access to health care, addressing rights to land ownership and property as well as other economic resources, enabling use of technology, and developing legislation to ensure gender equality.

Although practices such as child marriages and women’s right to vote can feel “over there” to us living in the United States, we cannot get complacent about our own situations. The 2015 reports of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research indicate that “the status of women in the area of poverty and opportunity has worsened in the majority of states (29) in the last decade.” 43% of single mothers live in poverty compared to less than 24% of single fathers. In another section of the report, it points out that Millennial women (aged 25-34) are more likely than men of the same age range to have bachelor’s degrees or higher, but at the same time are much more likely than their male counterparts to live in poverty. Violence against women still includes alarmingly high statistics and to complicate matters, only 15 states and D.C. have employment rights laws for victims of domestic violence (the right to leave work to seek services and legal aid, for example, or protect victims from employment discrimination), and in most states, victims of domestic violence are not “eligible to receive unemployment benefits if they leave their jobs without ‘good cause,’” such as needing to escape a violent partner. The good news here is that as of July 2014, 32 states and D.C. have now defined ‘good cause’ in such a way that it can include family violence.

           American Baptist Women’s Ministries has a history of empowering women and girls from the very moment of our inception as an organization. We continue that engagement today as we read news headlines and attend to our communities and see where women and girls are…and are not…being encouraged and empowered. How can we help every women have the opportunity to support her family? How can we help women and children to feel safe in their own homes? How can we help girls feel safe in their schools and secure in their futures?

God calls us to this day, to this hour: “to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and mantel of praise instead of a faint spirit,” (Isaiah 61:3, NRSV).

(For other posts in this series, click on “Sustainable Development Goals” in the category list to the right.)

Rev. Sandra Hasenauer is associate executive director of AB Women’s Ministries.

Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges–Post #2

By Rev. Mary Beth Mankin

This is the second of two posts on Debi’s Journey, “Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges.” The Georigan word debi means “sisters.”

Rev. Nikita McAlister with a new Muslim friend who is wearing the stole of American Baptist Women in Ministry

While on Debi’s Journey, a spiritual sisters’ adventure in the Republic of Georgia in August, we became acquainted with several women from Georgia and we caught glimpses into their lives—their hopes, dreams, and their struggles. Our group of eight women from the U.S. included four who had been to Georgia before, so we new ones had some experienced guides for this continuing series of friendship building.

As part of our cross-cultural, interfaith experience of “Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges,” our primary hosts were Georgian Baptists from the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia. We were also hosted by Muslim families who have become friends of the Baptists in Georgia, through the compassionate support of Baptists when the Muslims were victims of unlawful discrimination.

In Georgia, religious freedom is provided in the constitution, but where 89% of the population affiliate with the some form of Orthodox Christianity, the Georgian Orthodox Church (at 83.9%) enjoys a privileged status in terms of legal and tax matters and property disputes. There have been numerous incidents of harassment and persecution of minority religious groups and interference with their worship activities. Muslims and Baptists, as well as other Protestant groups, have faced opposition to building houses of worship as they wish.

During our time in Batumi where we were hosted by the Georgia Muslim Union, we met Gvantsa, a young lawyer who does research on human rights, including women’s and religious rights. Describing the situation of many women in Georgia, she noted that women are victims of discrimination in their everyday lives because of religious and cultural traditions: a man is the head of a family or business and is seen to have authority over women. Although the Georgian constitution grants equality to women, the cultural norms seem to have a greater effect on what actually happens.

Gvantsa told us that domestic violence and sexual harassment are significant problems, but women tend to believe that they deserve what they get or that a man has the right to control them. One of 11 women report such problems, but since women are shamed by their family or community if they take an abuse or rape case to court, most will not bring charges. Other challenges were noted: early marriages with insufficient income generate frustration and anger; an unemployed husband may be resentful if his wife is employed and try to show his power over her; and, typically, religious leaders tell women to stay with their husbands, even when there is abuse. Divorce has a bad reputation, and women are unlikely to divorce.

Unemployment is a challenge for young adults in Georgia. One educated, unmarried woman we met finds it difficult to get a job that will support her. In our air travel to Georgia, I met three young adults who had left Georgia to find work elsewhere.

The government is working to improve the conditions for women. There are five shelters for victims of domestic violence in the country. To protect minors, there is a law preventing marriage before the age of 18, even with parental permission, if the court does not grant permission. Sexual harassment in the workplace is now a criminal offense, and the government can help a woman sue a boss who is found guilty. Family law cases are private.

Rev. Dr. Patricia Hernandez, Director of American Baptist Women in Ministry

As I reflect, I realize that many challenges women face seem to be universal. As followers of Jesus, who treated women with respect and dignity, we are called to help women throughout the world gain equal rights for religion, education, health care, employment, and protection from harm. May we, too, find ways to break the barriers of fear and misunderstanding between religions and ethnic groups, and build bridges of friendship and understanding—of education and action for justice and peace. Our hurting world is crying out for us to make the grace and love of God’s kingdom present and alive wherever we go!

American Baptist Women’s Ministries (ABWM) and American Baptist Women in Ministry (ABWIM) have been invited by the Georgian Muslims Union and the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia to bring another group of American women to Georgia in November 2017. Watch www.abwministries.org for more information!

Interested in learning more about Baptist Muslim Dialogue? Save the dates for AB Women’s Ministries virtual mission encounter “See Me As I Am,” May 8-12, 2017. Visit www.abwministries.org/vme for more information as it becomes available.

Rev. Mary Beth Mankin is a retired pastor, living in Boulder, Colorado. She recently completed her term as president of American Baptist Women’s Ministries of Colorado.

 

Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges–Debi’s Journey to the Republic of Georgia

By Rev. Elizabeth Congdon

This is the first of two blog posts on Debi’s Journey. The Georigan word debi means “sisters.”

“Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.” Galatians 6:1b, 2, 3 (The Message)

Participants in Debi’s Journey in the Peace Cathedral

A Ministry of Reconciliation. The Menorah in front of the cross at the Peace Cathedral is distinctive. It was a gift to remember that Jesus was Jewish and to celebrate our Jewish roots, we were told. Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili described the years of interfaith work that the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia has pursued. For years the church has worked to find common ground in mutuality and humility and increase tolerance and understanding between those of other faiths, especially among Jews, Muslims and Christians. He described the work as wanting to help Jews be better Jews, Muslims be better Muslims, and Christians be better Christians. During our short stay in the Republic of Georgia, we too lived out the call to a ministry of reconciliation referenced in 2 Corinthians 5:18b. We were building bridges between American and Georgians, between Baptists and Muslims.

A Ministry of Healthcare. Time with the Georgian Baptist Saint Nino Sisters—deaconesses who are health professionals—gave us opportunity to learn of their ministry among the poor, old, disabled, and refugees in the community.  These deaconesses serve people in need, whether they are Georgian Orthodox (dominant in Georgia), Muslims, Baptists, or other faith traditions. The Saint Nino Sisters visit in homes and bring care, medicine, and companionship. They make medical appointments for those in need. They serve in the church. They are such dedicated nurses, doctors, social workers, physical therapists, mental health workers, and aides. It is amazing that these Saint Nino sisters assisted by 80 volunteers currently serve over 440 people in 30 stations throughout Georgia. They bear one another’s burdens.

Standing with Those Who Are Persecuted.  “I kept hearing that the Americans are coming,” Peace Corps volunteer Stanley Bizub told us when we arrived in the mountain village of Chela. He stepped inside the village mosque to listen with us to stories told by the imam and members about the

At Chela mosque

time when the mosque’s towering minaret had been torn down by the solders, verified as “public officials” in a 2013 Report of the Public Defender of Georgia on the Situation of Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms in Georgia.  On 26 August, 2013, Georgia’s Revenue Service dismantled the minaret without legal basis, alleging that the minaret had been imported from Turkey with incorrect categorization of imported goods at the customs service. With the minaret removed, further persecution ensued. A group of Orthodox Church members blocked the road to the house of prayer, the mosque, making it impossible for the Muslims to gather there for prayer. When the Muslim community protested the damage, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had brutally treated those who confronted them. We stayed in the home of a Muslim man who had been beaten during the protest. Prior to that, Public Defender’s Report  cited evidence that the “protests of the Orthodox majority was against the religious building of the minority and were followed by the manipulation with legal procedures by the public officials in order to cause the situation favored by the Orthodox majority.”

As we sat in the mosque absorbing this information, the Imam told us, “We have chosen peace.”  They did not respond with violence. They began a long legal process to once again place a minaret at their mosque; it stands today as a testament that this is indeed a mosque.  I remembered that just days before we had learned that although the number of Muslims is significant among the 20% of the non-Orthodox population in Georgia, no Muslims hold public office locally or in state government. Most are entrepreneurs.  Georgia’s constitution assures religious freedom; however, persecution against the Muslims continues.  The words of 1 John 4:21 spoke to me.  “The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.” I John 4:21 (The Message).  I felt like I was standing on holy ground in solidarity with my Muslim sisters and brothers.

Participants in Debi’s Journey

Different Together. We were breaking barriers and building bridges with our diverse group of eight women. Lay, clergy, Muslim, Baptist, black, and white, we were the visiting Americans. People of color are an anomaly in the Republic of Georgia. Georgians would ask to take pictures with our African American sisters. Virginia Holmstrom, Executive Director of American Baptist Women’s Ministries, and Rev. Dr. Patricia Hernandez, National Director of American Baptist Women in Ministry (ABWIM), co-led the group of Americans coming from New Jersey, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Colorado, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Kansas, which included Connie Eigenmann, Esmat Mahmoud and Reverends Sarah Hicks, Mary Beth Mankin, Nikita McCalister, and Elizabeth Congdon.

In breaking barriers and building bridges amongst one another as well as with Georgians, we met many people from different lands. For example, at a restaurant in Mtskheta, Georgia, we got acquainted with Akbar Moghaddazi, a Rumi scholar, visiting from Iran with his family. At the mosque in Batumi, we met a father and his five daughters visiting from Saudi Arabia on holiday in Georgia. We crossed paths with them again on the iconic Peace Bridge in downtown Tbilisi; this time, it felt like a chance meeting with old friends.

It is difficult to recap the variety of our experiences. We enjoyed generous hospitality at the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia’s Beteli Centre in Tbilisi and homestays with Muslim families while guests of the Georgian Muslims Union and the Georgian Muslim Women’s Union.  We were curious tourists in Batumi on the Black Sea, and in the capital city of Tbilisi, and especially as we meandered along the narrow, curving, climbing cobblestoned streets of Old Tbilisi. Visiting mosques and visiting the Mtskheta-Mtianeti Orthodox Cathedral during worship were unique experiences. Communicating with Georgians with the assistance of our delightful interpreters was unforgettable. Being in the Caucasus Mountains was breathtaking. The Batumi ferris wheel and numerous cable car rides afforded us amazing vistas. Visits to Gonio Fortress, Batumi botanical gardens, Zarzma Monastery, museums and other interesting sites afforded us opportunities to learn more of the history and people.

American Baptist Women’s Ministries (ABWM) and American Baptist Women in Ministry (ABWIM) have been invited by the Georgian Muslims Union and the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia to bring another group of American women to Georgia in November 2017. Watch www.abwministries.org for more information!

Interested in learning more about Baptist Muslim Dialogue? Save the dates for AB Women’s Ministries virtual mission encounter “See Me As I Am,” May 8-12, 2017. Visit www.abwministries.org/vme for more information as it becomes available.

Rev. Elizabeth Congdon is a retired American Baptist pastor and active in interfaith dialogue.

A Summer to Connect

By Merletta Roberts
In early summer my husband and I were on our way to an evening event when we stopped at a fast food restaurant to get a bite to eat. As we were starting to leave, a young man in a long robe and with what seemed to be a concerned look on his face hesitantly approached us and asked, “Do you believe all Muslims are like those who recently bombed Paris and London?” We shared with him our belief that not all people are alike, no matter what their faith; that we do not believe all Muslims are terrorists. I watched as a big tear rolled down his cheek and his face seemed to relax. Together we smiled and went our separate ways. In that brief exchange something powerful happened. We went through all the layers of assumptions and we connected; connected as human beings each caring for the other

In mid-July in the Washington D.C. area, I attended the national American Baptist Women’s Ministries board meeting followed by the national conference for women and girls, “3D” (“Dwelling, Discovering, Discipling”), and after- events. The after-event I chose was Connecting Faithful Women: Experiencing Baptist-Muslim Dialogue. This event was co-facilitated by Virginia Holmstrom, executive director of American Baptist Women’s Ministries, and Rafia Sayeed, the founding chairperson of Bridging the Gap, Connecting the Faithful.

Twelve American Baptist women and five Muslim women met for two and a half days to explore what it means to be Muslim and Baptist, sharing our faith stories and getting to know each other. Rafia shared her story of developing “Bridging the Gap, Connecting the Faithful” out of her desire to do something constructive after 9-11. Her belief is that when people really get to know each other, they begin to see each other and relate differently.

As women of faith we shared our stories, our struggles, our joys, our concerns, and our celebrations. Interfaith understanding was certainly at work. The more we shared the more the group seemed to move closer together, talk more softly, and connect in a deeper way. As we respected each one’s uniqueness we found it easier to hear each other and to share more.

When we visited a Muslim Community Center we were warmly welcomed. It was clear that the Center’s focus is on the whole person at all ages. We were privileged to witness their afternoon prayers and to experience the strong connection they have with the surrounding communities.

As we said our goodbyes and shared email addresses and so forth, I realized a strong connection had occurred; that in a relatively short time together we had moved from “us” and “them” to “we.” We had plowed through the layers of assumptions and were real with each other. Wow! Again I realized that in our connecting, we cared for each other as human beings.

Merletta Roberts is president of the American Baptist Women’s Ministries of the Pacific Northwest.