Three weeks and counting...

Plans are coming into place for our June partnership pilgrimage to Mbandaka. We have all been inoculated against yellow fever and various other tropical disease that our Indiana immune systems are not prepared to handle. We have our passports with travel visas stamped and signed and ready to go. Guest houses and transportation are reserved.  We are gathering both gifts and supplies for our partners and doing whatever else we can think of to prepare our physical selves for this journey.

Will we ever be able to prepare our spiritual selves? Though raising/saving the funds needed to travel to Congo may seem most difficult, I think the spiritual, mental, emotional readiness is much harder. Are we prepared to step away from life at home for a couple of weeks? Are we prepared to open ourselves to the gifts offered? Are we prepared to be vulnerable? Are we prepared to see from a new perspective... see ourselves, see others, see God?

Ready or not, here we come. We pray for strength for the journey and thanksgiving for the opportunity.
 

The Background Story...

 The 2014 Pilgrimage to Mbandaka will send the third group of travelers from the Christian Church in Indiana to visit partners in the Mbandaka District of the Community of Disciples of Christ in Congo (CDCC) in June 2014. In addition to pilgrimages to Mbandaka in 2008 and 2011, Indiana has received our partners from Congo in 2009 and 2012.

The partnership between the Mbandaka District of the CDCC, the Indiana Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and Global Ministries began formally in May of 2008 when denominational and regional leadership from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Christian Church in Indiana traveled to Mbandaka and signed the first partnership agreement with leaders of the church in Congo. The pairing of Mbandaka and Indiana was made with the leadership of Global Ministries and Reverend Sandra Gourdet, Global Ministries Africa Executive.

 
The 2014 Pilgrimage includes primarily a mixture of young adults, a seminarian, and recently ordained pastors. Pilgrimages like this are not typical “mission trips.” The group may visit projects under construction but we do not go to do physical labor. We will likely visit one of the Disciples hospitals providing much needed care to people in the area, though we do not go as doctors and nurses.  We will see schools and meet children, but we do not go as teachers. Our Congolese brothers and sisters are better equipped for these jobs. However, we do have a mission… to build, to heal, to learn – but we will be building relationships together, healing a broken world and our own broken worlds, learning about each other and our faith. We accompany each other on this journey. It is an opportunity to forge new relationships between peers within the churches and a chance to deepen the partnership. The journey provides an opportunity to share our stories and our lives, to know each other better and, in turn, to know ourselves, our faith, our world, and to experience the glory of God through another’s eyes.

In the years since the partnership began, many joys and concerns have been shared across the miles between the church in Congo and the church in Indiana. We have accompanied each other through baby blessings and ordinations, through storms and difficult times, through laughter and tears, through music shared in churches across Mbandaka and Indiana. We recognize each other as brothers and sisters and celebrate family dinner as we come together in the breaking of bread and the sharing of communion.