Melanie Jiankopolos YASC missionary to the Philippines
Mon, 26 Jul 2010

Love is Never SayangSermon by Melanie Jianakoplos, July 18, 2010 YASC missionary Philippines 2009-2010Read more about Melanie at her blog http://melaniespineapplediaries.blogspot.comI promised myself that I wouldn’t start out every sermon for the next 5 years with… “When I was in the Philippines…” So…Gawis i agew you.Gawis nailak kasin daka you.Gawis ay Apo Dios.Melanie with Peter Ng ( Asia desk officer Episcopal Church Center Staff) People all across the world speak to each other in different languages, both verbal and non-verbal. From a young age we learn how to communicate through voice and motion. I spent the past year living among the Igorot, a people who’s native language is vastly different than mine. When I arrived, I was tied up in confusion, not knowing what these words meant. Melanie's laundry/bathroom "suite" at her home in the Mountain Province of Northern Luzon in the Philippines For the first few weeks at church when they would say, “Apo Dios” I kept hearing apple juice. Finally, I asked, why are they always saying apple juice? Laughing hysterically during the offertory hymn, my auntie replied, “Not apple juice. Apo Dois. It means Holy Lord.”It is when I choose to listen to the words unspoken, that I heard so much. Underneath it all is a language that can only be expressed and understood if we listen to what is not being said. In the gospel lesson this morning, Jesus is welcomed into the home of Martha. The hostess with the mostess that she is becomes distracted by many tasks. While she is busy preparing food and working briskly to keep the home in order, her sister, Mary, sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to what he is saying. That’s it, Mary just sits and listens. Well, Martha, obviously annoyed at her sister’s lack of self-motivation, goes to Jesus and asks, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all of the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” BUT the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”Can we count the number of things that worry and distract us? We hurry through life, trying to be everywhere at once. We try to be everything to everyone. But what God is asking of us, is to sit and listen. There is only One thing that we need, and that One thing is God. If you would have told me last year that I was going to sit with a group of women at a store-front for countless hours in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon talking about life and family, nature and God. I probably wouldn’t have believed you. That seems like such a luxury. I must admit, this practice would be hard to fit into the culture that we have formed as Americans, but in taking time to listen, we grow as the people of God. The Rev. John Staunton, an Episcopal priest from the United States, was the first foreigner to come to the Mountain Province of the Philippines. It was 1890. He came to tell the Igorot about God. What he found, to his delight, was that they already knew God. The people there had been practicing Animism since before they could remember.In Animism God is called Kabunyan. The main focus of Animism is that God is in every living thing. So there is only one God, but there are many forms of God. Everything is connected.If we want to go the root of what God is…we look to the Nicene Creed… “We believe in One God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.”Humans have many names for God. Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Creator, Kabunyan, Lord. The fact is, our names for God, do not define God. Humans do not define God. Surely, God surpasses our human understanding. But we WANT to understand God. So we create ritual, traditions, religion. We create ways for us to understand that which we cannot explain. The liturgy that we use helps us go back to the most fundamental image of what God is. We pray, “Father Almighty, Lord of Heaven and Earth, your mighty works reveal your wisdom and love. You created us in your image. You gave us the whole world to care for, so that in obedience to you, our Creator, we might rule and serve all your creatures. In your mercy, when we disobeyed and turned from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death. You provided a means of salvation for us. Again and again, through the prophets, the law, the saints, and angels, you taught us to hope for salvation. In the fullness of time, you sent your only Son to be our Savior. Incarnate of Mary, the Virgin, he became one of us, yet without sin. He proclaimed the good news of salvation, and taught us how to know you, the true God.”If God is the Creator, The Almighty, The source of life in every living thing, then who was Jesus?The second lesson today reveals that “Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible…for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”When Rev. John Staunton taught the Igorot about Jesus, it was easy for them to accept Jesus as the image of the invisible God. Jesus was loving and peaceful. He healed the sick and ministered to the needy. They would say, “We’ve always known that God was like that. We just never met a man that was like that.” What a beautiful thing, they thought. There was actually a living man on earth 2,000 years ago that was the perfect image of God. Who wouldn’t want to be like that, they thought. And thus, the Episcopal Church in the Philippines was formed and growing rapidly. Today, 98% of people of The Mountain Province are Episcopalians. As devout as they are, most Igorots also still practice Animism. Christianity and Animism are both ways of understanding God. They are not mutually exclusive. God is not exclusive! God is for everyone. God is the One Thing that we all need. Jesus knew that. That is why I follow Jesus. God is love, and anything done through love, out of love, is Godly! I learned a great lesson from the Igorot that I would like to pass on to all of you. Sadly, when The Episcopal Missionaries came into the region, they did not only bring with them the word of God. They also brought trash! Literally. Before the 1900’s the Igorot had never used processed products. They never used machines or non-biodegradable objects. While the missionaries saw these things as progress, the Igorot saw them as sin. They had always known that things which hurt the environment were against God. That is why, even today, many of the elders in these communities refrain from using machinery, chemicals, and processed products. They would rather live a simple life knowing that they are respecting and caring for God’s creation, than to feel like they were harming it by using plastics and equipment that hurt the environment. They understand that we are called to be faithful stewards of God’s creation. After all, The Lord’s Prayer does not say, “For MINE is the kingdom. It says, “For THINE is the kingdom.” These elders have worked in the rice fields everyday of their life. Some of them have never been to school. And while they may not know botany, they know the soil. And though they may not know the term “global warming”, they will look you straight in the eye and say, “The seasons are changing, the typhoons are worse than before, the climate is different.”They operate under the principle of life that is, “When you don’t have what you want, want what you have.” They have an ever present concept of conservation. Even from a bunch of old drinking straws (hold up handbag), they find ways to recycle plastics that would otherwise be buried. They are very careful not to waste things. The Igorot have a common word that is always on their lips. It is “Sayang.” In Kankanaey, Sayang means “Wasted”. It can be used in several ways. Like, you didn’t eat all of your food…Sayang. Or, you fell asleep during class…Sayang. The Igorot do not waste anything. If a pot of rice were to spill they would get down on their hands and knees and collect every grain, for they say. The rice will cry, leaving it on the ground is Sayang. Instead of thinking that we need everything, let us all be conscious of the One Thing that we need. God. God is Love, and love is never wasted. Love is never Sayang. Amen.

Missionary returns to post-quake Haiti
Tue, 13 Apr 2010

Progress made, much to be done, Holding saysBy Mary Frances Schjonberg[Episcopal News Service] Mallory Holding's friends who met her at the Port-au-Prince airport on Maundy Thursday could tell by the lilt in her voice that she was glad to be back in Haiti nearly three months after the magnitude-7 earthquake of Jan. 12 cut short what was supposed to have been her year of service in the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti."They even noticed in my voice that I sounded happier," Holding said April 12 during an interview with ENS.Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_121444_ENG_HTM.htm

Sun, 11 Apr 2010

This blog is from Johanna and Ranjit Matthews, missionaries in the Diocese of Central Tanganyika, Tanzania To read this complete blog entry and follow their journey go to www.joranjtanzania.blogspot.comOf God, Rap Music and Tongues A few Mondays ago, Johanna and I were on our evening walk, and yet lost in the beautiful Tanzanian sky. As we meander a dirt path, in the distance we hear a cry, of “hello Mathews,” and after some confusion, we discerned the call was from Michael, a friend of ours from the college. He was doing some farming with two of his children and we intersected at a small pond. His kids are adorable, but I have a hard time writing their Swahili names. Good excuse??!!Michael, (a lot easier), is quite a gregarious, outgoing guy, with a great smile. I immediately took to him, and in this particular instance we started talking and he wanted to show Johanna and me a Church structure that has been in the process of finishing for the past 30 years!!! Money of course is the big reason why it hasn’t happened. The lack of it.As we were walking away from the site, we started talking about African spirituality and he said something that has really stayed with us. He said, “people in the West want to know who God is, people here in Africa want to know what God can do.” He had surmised his thoughts from his trips abroad, and the statement was quite provocative. Instead of interrupting and maybe arguing, I just had to let it sit. I thought, in many ways that is so true; he went on to say, “we want a God who can provide us with crops, otherwise our people will starve.” His statement was so real and it cut to the chase of what faith means here in Tanzania. The reality of faith not being an appendage, but something so absolutely important to ones survival. We are still sitting with it.On Friday afternoon, we had lunch with the students and since we were late, we only got a little ugali (a staple Tanzanian food item) and beans. For the rest of the afternoon, I didn’t have any other food…and it made me irritable. The previous day, one of my students missed my class which was uncharacteristic of him. That same night he came to our house and told me that he had to miss class, because his family didn’t have food and he needed to get to town and send it to them, in his village. The reality of food security is sometimes so stark. It made me think of what Michael said, and it jarred me as someone who has so much privilege as a missionary.....

Sun, 11 Apr 2010

Please join the people of Sudan in praying for peaceful elections, and peace at the time of the results announcement. The election will be April 11-13; people will gather all over Juba to pray for peace.From Robin Denney.. Missionary in the Sudanhttp://robbin-mission.blogspot.com

Robin Denney's Holy Week Blog from Sudan
Mon, 29 Mar 2010

Robin Denney is a missionary based in Juba, Sudan. She will be posting a blog every day during Holy Week; you can follow her blogs at http://robin-mission.blogspot.com/... This is her Blog entry for Holy Monday I wish you all a blessed Holy Week! I’m going to try to post a reflection each day this week. This week, we reflect on the way of the cross, as we prepare ourselves for a triumphant Easter. We are an Easter people, forever transformed by Jesus’ triumph over sin and suffering and death. And the way of the cross quantifies that triumph. All over the world today there are people living in hopelessness, oppression, fear, hunger, disease, depression, exploitation, abuse, neglect, pain, and addiction. Jesus is with them, and he is with us no matter what we face. He has already trod where we are going, he has already suffered what we will suffer. And he has redefined our lives. We are not citizens of this world but citizens of heaven. We have been given eternal life. But the story does not end there. We are called out into the world to be the hands and heart of Jesus. To touch the untouchable, love the unlovable, to cross the barriers in our society and in our hearts that divide us from each other. We are called to love- no matter what! And it is the “no matter what” that defines the power of love. On Palm Sunday, we processed into the cathedral waving neem branches we had plucked from the trees around the cathedral (not many palms around). The branches also proved useful for shooing flies during the service, and fanning ourselves since the power was off. Mama Janet, who was preaching, reminded us to open the gates of our hearts to welcome Jesus in, waving our branches and shouting "Hosanna!" And she told us, once he is welcomed, we should make him a place there so that he might stay forever. We do not need to rely on our own strength. Jesus is with us, the Spirit is in us.