Events

Some invisible hand

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When I got back from the “Pilgrimage of Peace” hosted by the Korean churches in the Seoul area, I downloaded the photographs from the weekend. Much to my surprise, on my camera were some pictures that I had not taken.

The pictures were of our busload of WCC Assembly participants singing for the Ansan Jeil Presbyterian Church, where we worshiped on Sunday morning. I had left my camera in the pew when we went up front to sing, and someone from the congregation sitting nearby must have picked it up and taken the pictures for me.

This Korean Christian sister or brother must have known I would love to have those pictures, and indeed I do! It was a wonderful, surprising, unexpected gift.

One of the speakers used the phrase “some invisible hand” in Tuesday’s plenary session. He was telling a story from the life of the indigenous people of Canada–but as I heard him say that phrase my mind went off on a tangent and I thought of my unknown picture taker.

And I thought, is that how God works? How often does God show up unexpectedly in our lives? Sometimes very quietly. Sometimes invisibly, until suddenly you see the results of God’s handiwork.

— Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford, director of News Services for the Church of the Brethren

Events

Overwhelmed

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“I’m overwhelmed by your presence here tonight,” said pastor Samhwan Kim, moderator of the Korea Host Committee for the WCC Assembly and pastor of Myungsung Presbyterian Church. He was speaking to ecumenical guests from around the world who helped fill his sanctuary Saturday evening in Seoul.

Overwhelmed and overwhelming. Exactly right to describe the weekend. Hundreds of WCC participants went on a two-day “Pilgrimage of Peace” organized by the Korea Host Committee and hosted by Korean Christians and their congregations.

Overwhelmed…by the gifts we received from the Korean churches, starting off with a warm pullover emblazoned with the WCC logo to make the high speed train trip from Busan to Seoul more comfortable.

Overwhelmed…by the bus trip to the observatory on Mt. Dora on the edge of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) where we prayed for peace under the auspices and eyes of the South Korean military, while looking over into North Korea.

Overwhelmed…by the sumptuous banquet provided by Pastor Kim’s church that night, and subsequent delicious meals to which other Korean hosts treated us.

Overwhelmed…by the Korean cultural program in Myungsung’s beautiful cathedral. The fan dance and jindo drum dance performed by the National Dance Company of Korea. A performance of traditional Korean story set to music by master singer Sooksun Ahn. The overture to a Verdi opera played by the KBS Symphony Orchestra directed by Seunghan Choi. Opera singers tenor Yoonseok Hahn and soprano Youngmi Kim and an octet performing “A Longing for Mt. Kumgang” among other Korean favorites. A dramatic rendition of the history of Christianity in Korea. The Myungsung combined church choir of 800 voices singing a hymn written by Pastor Kim. The Hallelujah Chorus bursting out at the end of the evening.

Overwhelmed…by the warm welcome from another large Presbyterian church some 40 kilometers away, who put up a busload of us at a hotel for the night and then welcomed us into worship this morning.

Overwhelmed…by the love shared at the Ansan Jeil Church. Senior pastor, reverend Ko Hoon, has over his decades there grown the congregation from a small church to a congregation of about 20,000 members, with some 10,000 people worshiping in 7 services each Sunday.

Overwhelmed…by the gift of hand made soap from the Ansan Jeil Church’s ministry which employs people living with disabilities.

Overwhelmed…by the amount of work and resources put into the WCC Assembly by the Korea Christians. The ecumenical officer of the Presbyterian Church in Korea, who accompanied our bus group, and who has personally worked on this event for more than a year, shared these numbers: 24 people in the Korean Host Committee, 300 Korean Christian volunteers working to support the assembly, 30 denominational staff are attending the whole of the WCC Assembly from the three main denominations in the host committee and the Korean National Council of Churches, with several other denominational staff attending two or three days each in order to get a taste of the event.

Overwhelmed…by the requests for prayer. “We need your prayers for the peace of the Korean Peninsula,” said the PCK ecumenical officer. The weekend Pilgrimage of Peace made it clear that Korean Christians deal continually with the political and military division of the Korean peninsula.

Overwhelmed…by the stories other Christians are sharing from the many places around the world where persecution, violence, terrorism, war, and other dangers threaten.

God of life, lead us to justice and peace.
Amen.

–Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford is director of News Services for the Church of the Brethren

Events

Weekend in Seoul

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I leave early tomorrow morning for Seoul, one of hundreds of participants in the WCC Assembly who will be speeding up to the capital city of South Korea on a bullet train for a visit to the DMZ, the Peace Park, and on Sunday morning to Korean congregations from a variety of Christian traditions. It should be an exciting weekend!

The invitation brochure from the Presbyterian Church in Korea advises participants that the ministers among us may be invited to preach, so be prepared.

As an ordained minister, I wonder if I will be asked. Would a Korean congregation want to hear from a Church of the Brethren woman? And there will be many more senior ministers there, not to mention bishops and archbishops. So I expect not.

However, just in case I am mentally framing a little something I could say using a text from Philippians that has become my scriptural touchstone during this ecumenical experience. The questions I’d love to discuss with Korean Christians and indeed with Christians from every nation, stem from this verse in 1:27.

What could happen in our world if American Christians and Korean Christians, not to mention Christians in other countries, would stand firm together in the Spirit?

In what new ways would our suffering world be comforted and cared for, if Christians across all national boundaries strove side by side?

How could we attain one mind, the mind of Christ, despite our many differences in the worldwide church?

And where does the faith of the gospel lead us in this 21st century?

–Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford is attending the WCC 10th Assembly as director of News Services for the Church of the Brethren

Events

The DobiDos DB-1000

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Under the category of “intercultural opportunities I haven’t taken advantage of…yet”: hot spicy kimchi, the popular Korean dish of pickled garlicky vegetables, usually cabbage. And the DobiDos DB-1000.

My nobler self wants to connect with a culture that is new to me, while I am here in the Republic of Korea for the World Council of Churches Assembly. I find, however, that sometimes my desire for openness has been overwhelmed by caution.

I haven’t yet tasted spicy kimchi, even though it has been served as a side dish with several meals. I think my fear is a result of hearing people describe it as “an acquired taste.” This is completely irrational, because all of the Korean dishes I have eaten here have been delicious, without exception.

Am I depriving myself of something I would really enjoy?

In the same vein, at lunch the other day with the Brethren group, Samuel Dali from EYN endured ribbing for refusing to taste the octopus. Fortunately I wasn’t on the end of the table that was served the dish with fish in it because I don’t do octopus either. I successfully avoided eating octopus throughout a college semester abroad in Greece, and am not ready to give up my anti-octopus stance. No offense to octopi, of course.

On the other end of things, so to speak, I am afraid of the toilet in my hotel bathroom–the DobiDos DB-1000. I had heard mechanized toilets are popular in Asia but I’ve never seen one before. One gathers it fulfills all hygiene functions up to, and maybe including, scrubbing your back for you.

It has a console full of buttons and dials. They are all identified in Korean. Four of the largest buttons feature icons intended to help out international guests like me, but I can’t figure them out. One looks like waves. Another looks like a fountain–I’m not planning to push that one because I don’t really want a fountain erupting in the middle of my bathroom. The most mysterious looks like a man rising out of the sea. If the toilet ever does erupt I plan to push the one that looks like a stop button.

Fortunately I found the simple flush lever hidden behind the console, which was a relief.

My husband routinely pushes every button and pulls every lever when he encounters a new gadget, and he would have figured out the toilet in five minutes. So I ought to be able to.

After all I’ve been spending my days doing much more difficult things, like getting to know Christians from many different countries, communicating past language barriers with others who share a common commitment to building relationships, witnessing the ecumenical family trying to figure out how the churches can address hard issues that affect the whole world.

I have resolved to push one button–maybe on my last day here so if I flood the bathroom I won’t have to feel embarrassed in front of the hotel staff for long. And I will take a small taste of hot kimchi too. After all, I might really like it.

Octopus will have to wait.

–Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford, director of News Services for the Church of the Brethren

Events

It feels like Philippians

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Today the World Council of Churches 10th Assembly felt a lot like Philippians. I’ve been joining in the challenge from Annual Conference moderator Nancy Sollenberger Heishman to study Philippians before the Church of the Brethren’s next Conference.

I confess I haven’t gotten to memorizing the letter yet, I always have the excuse that I’m too busy–which of course is no excuse at all! But today during worship, as the benediction was given, I found Philippians running through my head.

A colleague at work has asked me to explain why it is important for a Brethren delegation to be at the WCC meeting, she wanted to pass it along to folks who question the value of ecumenical involvements.

Here’s an answer, straight out of scripture:

“Only live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel…. Make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (Philippians 1:27 and 2:2).

This morning during opening worship I found myself beside Linda, a young woman from Kenya, who is a delegate from the Anglican church in her country. For both of us, it is our first experience of a WCC Assembly, and we both confessed to nervousness as well as excitement.

Yesterday in the bus to our hotel, I found myself beside a woman from the United Church of Canada, who serves as a staff member of her denomination as I do for mine. We had some time to talk about our work.

In the afternoon business session, I found myself beside a Korean woman who is a guest at the Assembly from a local church congregation in central Busan. She spoke little English but we managed to help each other out nevertheless. I helped her find translation equipment, and she repaid the favor with a fresh tangerine and a cookie out of her bag of snacks.

At lunch today I found myself beside Jan Thompson, a member of our Brethren delegation. We found a quiet table in the exhibit hall (quiet being relative in an assembly of some 5,000 people all speaking different languages) and had a chance to share our experiences of the morning and compare notes.

At the end of the evening business, I found myself beside an eastern European woman, who is also writing about the assembly for one of her church’s publications. Her husband is a delegate, and I had a chance to meet him as well. She shared some friendly frustration at the need to listen to reports that were given verbally as well as handed out on paper, and I nodded in complete understanding. I had been frustrated at that too.

How can we Christians stand firm, and strive side by side, if we don’t make the effort to get out and meet and talk with each other and get to know each other? It is only by getting together–whether in our congregation, or our district, or our Annual Conference, or even a huge ecumenical meeting–that we can work on being in full accord, having the same mind, having the same love.

Being the body of Christ.

–Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

Events

Sleepless in Seoul

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It is very quiet in Seoul’s Incheon Airport at 2 in the morning. I know because I have been laying awake, listening to the quiet while trying to persuade a body that is still in central time US that I desperately need sleep after the long flight over the Pacific.

The thing my body and mind both are having a hard time with is the math of this time shift. By flying so far west, I have gained a day. I flew out of Chicago Sunday morning at about 7, and arrived here in Seoul, Republic of South Korea, on Monday at about 3 in the afternoon. This means a trip that took some 17 hours, with less than an hour on the ground in San Francisco between one plane and the next, has put me some 14 hours ahead of myself, so to speak.

Incheon has a transit hotel within the airport, especially for travelers who have a long enough layover between flights to book a room for 12 hours and get some sleep. Our next flight to Busan, the city on the south coast where the World Council of Churches Assembly will be held, doesn’t leave until 7:20 a.m.

When they said the hotel was in the airport they really meant it: my small room has a window overlooking a large arrival hall where passengers check in and go through security. Right now the only person out there is an early arrival from the cleaning crew. Or maybe she’s working late–time being relative at the moment.

Yesterday’s 11-plus hour flight from San Francisco to Seoul was long enough for the inflight entertainment to run three full length movies plus a concert movie and a couple of TV shows. However most of the people who packed the 747 jet liner seemed more interested in sleep.

In between attempts at sleep I did have an opportunity to talk with some of the people seated near me. The woman across the aisle was immediately friendly and smiled at me when I found my seat, asking where I was from. She spoke great English with a strong Korean accent, and was reading a book in English titled “Following Christ.” I hoped she might be going to the WCC Assembly too, but she quickly explained that a Mormon friend had lent her the book, and she repeated several times that she was interested in the Mormon faith. After the long flight as we were filing out of the plane, she wished me well in Busan with another of her wide smiles.

The men sitting on the other side of me were part of a group of 23 Korean businesspeople who had spent eight days in the United States. From their description, it sounded like a business trip mixed in with a lot of sightseeing. In those eight days they had managed to go to Niagara Falls, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and even got in two days at the Grand Canyon after the government shut down ended and the national parks reopened.

I had been studying materials for the WCC Assembly, and Timmy (I couldn’t pronounce his name so he fell back on his nickname) asked about the conference. I explained a bit about the World Council of Churches, how many people are expected, what church I come from. He borrowed one of the print outs of a PowerPoint on the WCC Assembly that I had been looking at, and read it intently. His friend sitting next to him immediately looked up the WCC on the web, using his smart phone.

Then Timmy told me that he also is a Christian. He is an elder in a church in a city some ways north of Busan. He and his friend both seemed excited that many Christians from many different countries around the world are coming to their country.

That’s about all I learned about my seat mates. My knowledge of Korean is nonexistent, and though one of them spoke a lot of English, when we hit a word or phrase that we couldn’t push over the language barrier the conversation would lapse. And everyone would go back to the more important business of trying to get some sleep.

The friendliness and welcome I have already received from South Koreans encourages me–even in the middle of a sleepless night.

Events

A personal connection

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My 11-year-old son is a Pokemon fan, and by extension a fan of all things Japanese–which sometimes gets confused with all things Asian. When I told him I’d be traveling to the World Council of Churches (WCC) 10th Assembly, taking place in the city of Busan in the Republic of South Korea, he asked me to bring back “some cool Pokemon things” for him–not realizing how different the countries of Asia are from each other and Pokemon may not be a thing in South Korea at all.

I tried to give him, so far as I know it, a brief history of the Korean Peninsula. I mentioned the Korean War and the fact that his grandfather, my dad, had been a conscientious objector during that era of the military draft. The church called my father to Nigeria to do his alternative service as a 1-W. He liked Nigeria so much that he ended going back as a mission worker, and spent years and years there. He took my mom back to Nigeria with him, and so my brother and I were born and raised in Nigeria.

Then it hit me: the Korean peninsula is an important place for me and my family. The unexpected turn in my father’s life that took him to Nigeria actually originated in Korea–although his faithful response to the evils of war and his determination to stick to his convictions for peace had a lot to do with where our family ended up.

I have never been to Korea, or even to Asia before. On this trip I will check it off my bucket list of continents (Australia alone remains). I had been thinking of this assembly as primarily an ecumenical event and the opportunity to be in South Korea as a bonus to the experience.

Now I realize I need to pay more attention. Korea is important to me. It has been instrumental in shaping who I am as a person of Christian faith and pacifist convictions.

Could this translate, I wonder, from the micro or personal level to the macro–worldwide church–level? Perhaps after this 10th assembly of the worldwide Christian movement, the Korean peninsula will have become instrumental in directing the church in new ways as a community of conviction and faith. We need to pay attention!

As I make my way to the World Council of Churches Assembly, I pray the prayer that the WCC has provided participants to use in preparation:

A prayer on the way

On the way to Busan, may we humbly walk with you, God of life.
On the way to Busan, guide us as we gather, pray, and deliberate as disciples of Christ.
On the way to Busan, lead us in the way of justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

Youth Peace Travel Team

Youth Peace Travel Team at Camp Mardela

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Camp Mardela Quilt 2
Camp Mardela
July 14 -20, 2013

Unexpected. This word describes many of the experiences we’ve had on the Youth Peace Travel Team and the ways God works. Our week at Mardela wasn’t any different.

During our week, there were surprise blessings, such as Heather and Jacob surprising me with an “Appreciate Amanda Day” and a random dance party in the kitchen. There were also unexpected jobs, such as the day I had to help the kitchen staff chase a squirrel out of the dining hall with brooms, boxes, and air horns (don’t worry, the squirrel eventually returned to his tree safely!).

We also saw God work in unexpected ways. There were times when the campers didn’t seem to be listening. But then, during our biblical peacemaking session, they surprised us with enthusiastic participation in skits and songs. When campers shared what they had learned at camp at the Thursday night campfire, I was overjoyed when a majority of campers shared something they had learned at peace sessions.

We could also see God in the spirit of the campers. They enjoyed God’s creation while fishing and swimming. They showed the creating spirit God gives us by drawing and making bracelets. And they were joyful when we taught songs to them that we had learned at other camps.

There were ups and downs this week, but God blessed us and the campers. I think we all learned that we can expect the unexpected and God always has a plan for us.

Youth Peace Travel Team

YPTT at Camp Ithiel

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July 7 – 15, 2013

A reflection on Camp Ithiel from Heather

Camp Ithiel.

Just another way of saying “God is with us.”

A little bit of harmony in the midst of city life.

A small group of Jr. Highers came to camp and tried to leave behind things from home as they discovered what it means to follow Jesus. We were part of a family at Camp Ithiel. We played “9 square in the air” and sang about how God makes beautiful things. We saw snake friends and marveled at the grey color that the lake turned when the rain fell.

We wondered,

Does an alligator really live in there, and when had we seen a brighter double rainbow?

Campers and staff learned about peace and being connected with one another.

Camp Ithiel.

Youth Peace Travel Team

The 2013 Youth Peace Travel Team visits Camp Bethel!

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June 30 – July 5, 2013

“The Church isn’t the building, it’s the people.” Each camp we’ve visited has its own landmarks and specific charm, for sure, but the previous statement can certainly be applied to church camps. Our experience at Camp Bethel was augmented by the presence of an enthusiastic staff who put one hundred and ten percent into everything they did. If campers lacked energy or enthusiasm for an activity, their counselors were there to pick up the slack and refresh the campers’ spark. Even kitchen staff got in on the fun, creatively passing out ice cream bars via “Sheriff Twin Pop” and having everyone eat one of the dinners with unusual utensils (ladles, ice cream scoops, tongs…). A meal time which ended without a time for singing, jumping, and clapping did not exist at any point this week.
This group of campers participated and stayed attentive throughout our Peace Sessions every morning. They added a part of a massive “peace quilt” at the end of every session throughout the week to reflect that session’s theme (Conflict Transformation, Creation Peace, Biblical Peacemaking, Bullying, and Just Peace). Morning watches, vespers, and skit night all utilized the staff, counselors, and campers abilities to speak, act, sing, and reflect. Did we mention it poured rain every single day of camp this week? It took a lot of energy sometimes to make up for the weather and we’d like shout out to Katie and Maureen who did phenomenally as they organized and led the camp!

On another note, the 2013 YPTT crew has essentially transformed part of its downtime into a theological book club and here are some of the things we’ve been reading:

A Quaker Book of Wisdom – Robert Lawrence Smith
Biblical Peacemaking – Dale Brown
Velvet Elvis – Rob Bell
Jesus for President – Shane Claibourne
How Coffee Saved My Life: And Other Stories of Stumbling to Grace – Ellie Roscher
The Book of Psalms – Robert Alter
Love Wins – Rob Bell
The Middle Man – Dorothy Brandt Davis and Sara Elizabeth Davis
Enemy Pie – Derek Munson
Alexander Mack: A Man Who Rippled the Waters – Myrna Grove