I wanna see you be brave!

One of my co-workers explaining the schedule on International Women's Day

Who are we meant to serve? This question resounds in my heart as I hear the readings today and reflect back on the past 3.5 years of my life. When I left my home to travel to Cambodia in January 2014, a 57 hour adventure that is a tale for another time, I didn't know what I would be doing in Cambodia. I didn't know anyone in Cambodia. I, honestly, knew very little about Cambodia. I just felt a strong pull to go. One of the most common misconceptions about my work has been that I was there to work with Catholics or work to convert more Catholics. 
 
For context, Cambodia is about 97% Buddhist and most folks are happy to remain as such. For that reason, I think the first reading really struck me.  It says, "Observe what is right, do what is just; for my salvation is about to come, my justice, about to be revealed...for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." 

God's call, when I went to Cambodia, was just that: strive to do what is right and just for all people. It was not for me to decide who would be the beneficiary of my love or to set out some kind of requirement. All I could do was be a good example, live a life that demonstrated what I believe it means to be a good Catholic and if others chose to follow, maybe they would choose to live their lives in a similar way. 

Credit: C. Dittmeier

One of my co-workers in particular comes to mind when I think about the effect we can have on those around us, usually without even knowing. My personal approach to work is to do whatever needs to be done and to try to meet needs I see arise but my passion is to help others to reach their full potential in whatever passion they choose to follow.  For much of my time at my ministry, I thought this one co-worker was an undervalued asset in our organization. She had worked in various roles and excelled at any project she was given but was confined within the hierarchy of the society that said her job title was not that of great power. However, whenever it came to speaking out for the rights of our Deaf staff or ensuring they were included in decisions, she would step up to the plate, even if it meant compromising her own relationships with other hearing staff members.


I didn't realize how much she had been watching me for the entire time I had been working there until about the last year of my ministry.  The moment for me that stands out was when we had an incident with another staff member and she came to me asking how best to handle the situation. She was visibly shaking at the prospect of having to discuss this with the higher-ups in our organization and we talked through her well-formulated plan.

At one point, I asked her if she wanted me to get involved and, although it would have made her life much easier in that moment, she looked me square in the eye and without any quiver in her voice said, "No. I need to be brave. You will not be here in the future and I need to practice being brave now while you are here to support me."
 
For me, this moment is one of the most profound of my experience in Cambodia. Had you asked me, "What is it that you do in Cambodia? Or, who do you serve?" I would have rattled off my normal elevator pitch, "I manage communications for the Deaf Development Programme, which has six different projects striving to ensure deaf Cambodians are accepted, respected and included as equals in all aspects of Cambodian Society. I specifically handle social media, the website, volunteers and visitors. I serve the Deaf Community" But, in that moment with my colleague, I realized that was not the only group I was meant to serve. 
 
Like Jesus in the gospel today, encountering the woman of great faith who showed him his ministry was for more than just a select few, I realized that I was not just the communications manager, I was building the capacity of our staff not only through direct actions likes trainings but also as they observed how I lived my ministry. 

Credit: C. Dittmeier

 
I think the actions of Jesus and the message of the first reading are a great reminder for all of us. We are not the ones who decide who is worthy or who should be helped. All we can do is live each day of our lives in a way that helps others to live through their own faith, to shine with their own light, to be brave. We can either help rub off some of their rough edges and polish them or we can tarnish their natural glow.

 Who are you meant to serve?


This is an adaption of a 'church talk' presented in Allentown, PA on behalf of Maryknoll Lay Missioners, the thoughts and perspectives expressed are those of Karen Bortvedt.
 

Walking on Water

I am a fearful person. I'm scared of spiders, snakes, heights, anything moving fast, large animals, anything unpredictable. I sit with my back to walls if at all possible. The first time I flew on a plane, I left a farewell letter to my friends and family in case I didn't make it back. It was a flight from Oregon to California... You get the picture, things scare me. 

My very best scared face...

When I signed-up to be a Maryknoll Lay Missioner, I definitely had to put some of my fears behind me and step out of the boat just as Peter did in the gospel today. What if something happened at home? How would I communicate not yet knowing the language? Would I be able to do something that was actually useful? What if I didn't like the food? And, the tarantulas, oh the tarantulas.


We had all kinds of training about being the hands and feet of Christ to those where we served, but, for me, it was far more often I who looked up and saw the hand of Christ reaching out in the form of one of my Cambodian friends and colleagues. They are the ones with the great faith constantly telling me, it will be ok or muy muy (which means one by one). Some of them had lived through genocide, all had lived through war, not having food was a reality they had experienced yet they had built a resiliency that was astounding and a faith that could move mountains.


One of my colleagues in particularly comes to mind when I think about great faith. Sandra was a person of little significance in Cambodian Society. She is a deaf woman with very limited formal education. She had grown up with the odds against her. Her father passed away when she was young, because of that her mother could no longer support all of the children and ended up surrendering them to an orphanage so she knew they would not die of starvation and would be safe, not living on the streets. Sandra also had become deaf in a childhood accident so she had no way to attend school, because no one knew sign language and she couldn't hear the teacher. Sandra eventually got connected with a deaf school, though dropped out because the instruction was so poor. After being separated from her mother for years, they were reunited. She also got connected to the Deaf Development Programme where I worked. And, now she supports many of her siblings and her mother. Needless to say, Sandra didn't have it easy but she was the most fearless individual I think I have ever met.


Often times, when I was worried about something that was probably trivial, Sandra would be the one saying, "Oh, here is how we will solve that problem." And, she didn't just reach out and help me to walk on rough waters. A huge part of her daily work was to travel to more remote parts of Cambodia looking for deaf people who had never had the opportunity to attend school. Many of the families we encountered didn't even know the possibilities for their child. They felt that individual's full potential was to plant rice and tend the cows – maybe if they were lucky they could arrange to marry them off but it was unlikely.

One of our amazing outreach workers

When we met many of these deaf individuals, they would hide in fear or try to get away from the attention but Sandra would literally reach out an arm to them. She would use gestures to indicate that she too was deaf. She would try to get them to come sit with her and look through photos of the work we were doing. For many, you would see the connection on their face as they began to understand Sandra was another person who engaged with the world through her eyes not her ears. Many of these individuals would go on to attend basic education with us, receive job training, and start to earn their own livelihood.


For me, Sandra is a real life version of the hands of Christ reaching out to those who are brave enough to step out of the boat. She has no doubt changed dozens of lives for the better with her fortitude, my life included. For all of us, I think we can choose to be the comforting hand to those around us, to serve those both near and far and help them to have the faith they need to perform outstanding feats. We must all reflect, daily, who we will be in this gospel story.  Are we being called to step out of that boat that is our comfort zone?  Or, are we being called to reach out our arms to someone else struggling to walk on water?

This is an adaption of a 'church talk' presented in Shillington, PA on behalf of Maryknoll Lay Missioners, the thoughts and perspectives expressed are those of Karen Bortvedt.

Transformations

Deaf Development Programme Tour Guides

As she starts to tell her story, she is visibly shaking. Her signing hands quiver and the words come in bursts. She shares about how she became deaf after choking on a guava leaf as a toddler. She then jumps to a past job she had. Just as quickly she moves on to another thought, completely out of any kind of chronological order. And, then signs, I am finished. Nervously swaying back and forth and looking directly at me for some kind of permission that she can sit down, her cheeks flushed and head slightly bowing down revealing how uncomfortable she is with this whole experience.

Myra was one of the women I worked with while living in Cambodia and her story came to my mind while listening to the gospel reading today about the transfiguration [Mt 17:1-9]. We all find ourselves transformed at different points in our life and just as with Jesus, we have to go down, off the mountain where that experience happened and return to every day life. If you keep reading in Matthew, immediately after this experience, Jesus is back in his life of ministry. He is healing a child and those he encounters, outside the two that went up to the mountain with him, know nothing about the transfiguration. They continue to see him as the same person but an irreversible change has occurred.

As I return from living overseas, I can relate to what that experience is like of returning to the world changed, though many around me see me as the same person. For the past 3.5 years, I lived, worked, played, and shared in the Cambodian Community, specifically the Cambodian Deaf community. People like Myra, changed my life.

Myra was one of the cleaners at the organization where I worked.Within Cambodian society, which is very hierarchical, she was an unimportant person. As a deaf woman, with a low level job, she was not supposed to be in front of a room of people. One of my roles while in Cambodia was to receive any guests that came to our project and explain to them the work we did to help deaf Cambodians to be accepted, respected and included as equals in society.

"Respect" - one of the goals in the Deaf Development Programme's mission statement

In Cambodian society, I was the educated one who could talk with other foreigners to share this story. For me, this was an uncomfortable role. Why should I tell that story when we had 20 staff members who were deaf Cambodians and had lived that reality? Because of my discomfort, I started a tour group with any deaf staff members who were interested to welcome visitors. This is their story and they have the voice to share it, even if they themselves didn't yet know how or believe it at the time. I met with them to help improve their public speaking skills and provide them with the 'numbers' they would need be our tour guides.

I insisted that the cleaners be a part of the tour guide team, if for no other reason than they had the most flexible schedules. This was not a fully altruistic action, we had visitors popping up all the time and sometime interrupting my other work. If there was a team of people that could share the responsibility of tours, I suddenly had more time to focus on other things. Plus, it meant this structure would continue after I left. Myra definitely had started to own that identity that she was not someone who should be in front of the room, even to tell her own story. A story that only she could truly tell. That became the new objective. Confidence.


As we continued our practices, Myra was one of the staff members I saw grow the most. Others would encourage her, provide support if she forgot a detail of our programs, and, possibly more importantly, the visitors from other countries, with more education, lighter skin, more 'power' who came to learn about our project were transfixed by her tale and the many challenges she had overcome. By the time I left Cambodia, about two years after I started this tour group, Myra was often the first to volunteer when groups were coming. She was always eager to tell her own story and connect, even with people who did not use the same sign language as she did.

Deaf Tour Guides introduce themselves to visitors

Transformations like this, for me, are what mission work is all about. I saw a woman who barely lived to adulthood embrace her own personal power and stand up to share her experience. She would confidently tell those who came how her father attempted to smother her after she lost her hearing because he thought she would just be a burden. Yet, she survives and strives for a better life for herself and her own daughter.


I have been incredibly blessed to meet many, many Myras in my time in Cambodia. I have gone through this amazing change seeing the resiliency of the human person and now return to the United States a different person, but the ministry does not stop there.

I think the transfiguration can be a calling to each of us. We all have moments, or witness the moments of others, or if lucky help bring about moments for others where we truly see that we are blessed and beloved children of God. While we all can't move overseas, or even live among the most isolated in our own country. We all have time, treasure, and talent we can share. What will we do when we come off that mountain?


This is an adaption of a 'church talk' presented in Pewamo, Michigan on behalf of Maryknoll Lay Missioners, the thoughts and perspectives expressed are those of Karen Bortvedt.