Friday evening with the Chinese Christian Church, Albany, NY

I love stained glass windows! This church's were gorgeous.

We were privileged to spend yesterday evening with a group of people from the Chinese Christian Church in Albany, New York. They had invited us to join them for their Friday fellowship time and share a presentation about our work with music in Papua New Guinea. Joyce began the presentation by talking about her years growing up in the Albany area, and then she briefly explained the motivation for Christian missions throughout the world. I shared what typically happens during a songwriting workshop I lead in a Papua New Guinea village church. These workshops always begin with a time of Bible study, looking through the Bible to find out what God might have to say to all of us about music and worship. Workshop participants reflect on what kind of character God expects of us, even before we start thinking about composing new songs. We also consider how all throughout the Old Testament, God's people sing songs that tell about what they've seen God do for them, and about who God is. After these reflection times, we think together about musical styles in the area. What kinds of music would people like to work with? Often, people want to try something new--working with a traditional style of music that has never been used for Christian worship before, or creating a new hybrid of new and old styles. Many of the songs that are created during these workshops are musically interesting and lyrically excellent. I played examples of such songs, Joyce played a couple of hymn arrangements on cello, accompanied by the church's pianist, Sophia. Then we ended by challenging people to consider what they will do to be a part of what God is doing in the world.

During the question time after the presentation, one person asked, “How did you know that you wanted to join Wycliffe and use your skills overseas?” That's a great question. For me, I always wanted to do something meaningful with my life. The thought of building a career in a company in America, giving my best energy to a job that doesn't capture my heart, my imagination, my creativity, was never attractive to me. When Joyce and I were newly married, our dream was of adventure, not of comfort in our home country. When we discovered that Wycliffe, an organization that we respected highly, could use our professional skills—ethnomusicology and high school teaching—in any part of the world, it was a quick decision to pursue those options and see where we might go. The work that Wycliffe does—Bible translation, linguistics, literacy, discipleship, training, education, arts and music work—is work that we were enthusiastic about. As we learned more about the organization, we were impressed with the quality of people who were Wycliffe members.

For me, deeply immersed in graduate studies at that time, I wanted assurance that Wycliffe's academic standards were high. I was reading a lot of anthropological and ethnomusicological literature that tends to assume that Christian missions is at least suspect, if not overtly harmful to local communities. I was raised hearing missionary stories and having great respect for missionaries, so I needed to know that it's possible to do missions work while maintaining academic integrity. Not everyone in Wycliffe is concerned primarily with participation in the international research community, but those who do have that interest are some of the best scholars I've ever known. Wycliffe values research skills and supports professional development for its members and partners. But we also wanted to know that Wycliffe cares about the whole person, wherever Wycliffe members work. And we've seen that as well. In our years in Papua New Guinea, we've seen Wycliffe members helping people during times of trauma, taking injured or ill people to good medical care, ensuring education of children, and even helping out with basic living needs like food and clothing. These are people I want to work with. We joined Wycliffe in 2000 and went to Papua New Guinea in 2002, and we still have great respect for the organization and our fellow workers. 

       

We get re-energized as we share about our work and vision with others. We're grateful for the opportunity to get to know people from the Chinese Christian Church last night in Albany, and we look forward to continuing those friendships.