CWME and Tanzanian Evening

-

This is not what I planned to blog but... I was in a large group of GETI participants yesterday afternoon that had 30 minutes to plan an hour and a half interpretive presentation for the whole conference tonight. It was very frustrating yet revealing. It worked out to all the Europeans and Americans sitting around the table with everyone else around the periphery. The conversation mostly stayed around the table. There was no leadership and too many abstract  ideas. We quickly realized we weren't going to complete the task in the time. Emotions were high and agreement, low. Finally someone organically stepped up as the "stage manager", giving some cohesion to the ideas. Then, we had too many Americans and Europeans participating so they started to ask for only Asians and Africans. In some of these cultures, speaking up and out is not the norm. I wanted to participate but I was eventually edged out because I'm white (although I was replaced by a german). There is also a danger in asking certain people groups to give voice to their entire region. They didn't even really have time to respond. Also by pressuring or scripting, I am not sure we are giving voice to the message that we really wanted to promote, while we have this audience's captive attention. Our presentation is tonight...

We also started the world conferemce on mission and evangelism yesterday with nearly a thousand people. I'll say more about this later. We ended yesterday with a Tanzanian evening of music and info about the country. The singing and dancing was fun!!

Today is the half way point. I left the states last friday and I return next friday. I can tell we are all getting tired...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A place to belong

-
Image
I volunteered to be one of the bible study round table facilitators for the conference. The materials come prepared but today, I facilitated conversation with an archbishop, a bishop, and a theology professor at my table. Eek!  Today was youth day at CWME! A group from GETI provided noon worship. The spoke their native languages and presented mustard seeds of hope. Another GETI group led youth sokoni - sokoni is a kiswahili term for a community marketplace to exchange commodomities and products. At the mission conference, it's a marketplace of ideas, stories, and activities as a prospective from the margins. It values prophetic mission thinking and practice. The youth theme is faith, hope and love with categories of on the streets (unique places of the Church today), in the fire (nurturing warmth and ravaging heat), under the shells (security, belonging, protection, home), up with the kites (inspiration and renewal) .  And my group led the evening program. I helped introduce by say
Read more

Trees of Life

-
Image
One of the interesting things about my program is that not only are we immersed in Tanzanian language and culture, but there are also 40 other countries represented too. At any time, you'll hear multiple languages spoken, and see different customs and attire. I am now friends with people from places that I knew nothing about. Today we learned about sustainability and justice. Students of GETI 2018 planted trees as part of a Service Learning day in our study program. The trees mark a symbol of unity, and of working together for a greener planet, and a sustainable future. Our little guy "sprout" was planted in a swamp though. While planting these 12 trees may not be a big deal for the planet as a whole, this event helps make us aware that we are caretakers of the world that God has given us. We also had three more lectures on mission and evangelism. My favorite was a feminist interpretation of the Women at the Well. Then we went on an exposure visit to the dioses. We vis
Read more