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A friend in mission is a friend indeed

 
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3:00 P.M. EST Feb. 16, 2011



Harriett Jane Olson, top executive of the Women's Division of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, talks with a young girl at the day care center of the Women's Division-supported Lessie Bates Davis Neighborhood House in East St. Louis, Ill. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey.
Harriett Jane Olson, top executive of the Women's Division of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, talks with a young girl at the day care center of the Women's Division-supported Lessie Bates Davis Neighborhood House in East
St. Louis, Ill. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey. View in Photo Gallery

A hundred years ago, leaders of Protestant mission organizations met in Scotland under the watchword, “evangelize the world in this generation.” V.S. Azariah, an Indian Tamil speaker engaged in mission with India’s Telugu speakers, brought a perspective from a country viewed by the delegates as a mission “territory.”

He offered praise for the commitment of people who had been sent as missionaries and for those who had supported them. Yet he made a stirring plea for a change in attitude saying, “You have given your goods to feed the poor. … We also ask for friends.”

Send us friends.

In the years since, mission organizations, congregations and humanitarian organizations have struggled in this area. It is so tempting to take what we “know” and apply it to what we think another person needs.

Perhaps you have heard it said that if your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything as if it were a nail. Of course, this doesn’t work particularly well.

In addition, problem-solution approaches isolate us from relationship with individuals being served and tend to position them as an object rather than a person — a person with a name, a face and made in the image of God.

Not long ago, on a chilly, gray Saturday afternoon, I was part of a small group of women gathered around a kitchen table at Emma Norton Services, in St. Paul, Minn. We shared stories in a familiar routine — many different paths had brought us to Emma’s place.

Whether the arrival came after living in a car, losing a home to Katrina or suffering domestic abuse, each story illustrated falling down and climbing back up. Each one of us had looked for hope and help in some good places and some bad, making decisions every day to make this “chance” work for us and for our children.



Emma Norton Services residents enjoy a meal together. Located in Minnesota, Emma Norton Services partners with women, children and families who are homeless and have chemical dependency or mental health issues. A web-only photo courtesy of Emma Norton Services.
Emma Norton Services residents enjoy a meal together.
Located in Minnesota, Emma Norton Services partners with women, children and families who are homeless and have chemical dependency or mental health issues. A web-only
photo courtesy of Emma Norton Services.

Emma Norton Services, which is supported by United Methodist Women, provides a safe place for the women as well as a range of support services. However, these women are the key actors in their own lives; they’re the ones who persevere and who decide what kind of support fits their needs.

Those who serve at Emma Norton reinforce the residents’ own commitments with physical, spiritual, emotional and practical support, but the work is shared — it’s mutual. As I offered some of my own story that afternoon, I had no illusions about my ability to “fix” the vulnerabilities that surrounded these women or their families.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we stop giving what we have. We advocate for funding needed services, jobs training and more. We develop a network of personal support and prayer.

But, the basis for our work is mutuality — working with each person, rather than around him or her (or even worse, “for their own good”). We are family, sitting around the circle together in a mutual quest for wholeness, safety and health — perhaps to be friends sent to one another.

United Methodist Women members and other members of The United Methodist Church will be responding to the gospel call to service through the Change the World Weekend on May 14-15. We recognize that mission is not only about contribution but also about companionship, not so much where we are but who we are in that place, not the mere completion of a project but a side-by-side journey of faith.

I invite you to envision yourselves as friends sent to be in relationship with those in need. I think you’ll be glad you did.

*Olson is the top executive of Women’s Division of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.

News media contact: Heather Hahn, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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