Thanksgiving Memories

Experiencing the holidays in mission isn’t always easy – missing family and friends and the traditions we grew up with can initially be overwhelming.  However, the holiday celebrations in mission can also be the source of our fondest memories – they were for me.

While we didn’t have turkeys, we did have chickens, and I managed to make most of the other trimmings – mashed potatoes, dressing, and even pumpkin pie – from fresh pumpkin.  Numerous people came to the feast – Irish, British, Italians, and on occasion, other Americans.

One year, I had about a dozen people coming to celebrate.  Eva, a volunteer from England, said she had passed an American volunteer she did not know on her way to my house.  She felt bad because this was an American holiday, but she didn’t think it was her place to extend an invitation since there were so many people coming already.  We immediately sent someone to find this volunteer and invite her to the party.

Mary was that volunteer.  She had been in country, in the capital, for several months and this was her first Thanksgiving away from home.  She said she had woke up that morning feeling a bit sad to be so far away from home, with no hope of celebrating Thanksgiving, and prayed the rosary for her family.  Now, here she was, not only celebrating Thanksgiving, but eating pumpkin pie.  Her enthusiasm and thankfulness was infectious.  We became fast friends.

Now, 20 years later, Mary and I always send each other a message on Thanksgiving – remembering it as the best one we ever celebrated.  The British volunteers, when they went home the following summer, said they were so disappointed that they would miss Thanksgiving that year.

I give thanks for all of our LMH in the field – and pray that they find a way to celebrate in one form or the other and make new and lasting memories – not only for themselves but for others.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Who Is Our Family?

I recently returned from a trip to Cameroon to visit our LMH. I had an interesting conversation on the trip to the airport with Sr. Clothilde and Godwin, the driver, who accompanied me on the 8 hour journey.

On the way we stopped by a parish for breakfast. Sister was telling the parish priest about a situation regarding her sister. When we were back on the road, Sister mentioned this conversation and I asked if the woman she was speaking about was her Sister (religious community) or her sister (biological sister). It turns out she was neither.

Both Sr. Clothilde and Godwin explained that who they call sister, brother and even mother or father, is not limited to blood relations (or even legal relation as in in-laws). They explained that people you grow up with, who live in the same village, who have known you and your family for a long time, etc. are considered family. They do not use the terms cousin, aunt, uncle, or family friend when referring to these people because to do so is to somehow diminish the relationship. Even mother and father are not limited to their biological parents – but to aunts, uncles, or people who have known them all of their life. Godwin told me about a man who is now a priest that he grew up with (no blood relationship) that he refers to as his brother, as does the priest to him.

I realized that the passages in the Bible where Jesus refers to someone as his brother or sister (we seem to clarify this as “cousin”) must make much more sense to Cameroonians than it does to Americans, whose family lines are drawn more distinctly. I also remembered the Scripture passage where Jesus asks who is my mother, who is my brother? He wasn’t diminishing his relationship to his biological mother or relatives, but expanding that definition.

This conversation has stayed with me over the past few weeks. As Christians, who is our family? Who are we “responsible” for? Who are we called to serve and who are we called to assist? Does our responsibility for others end at our immediate family, our parish, our country? Or are we called to expand our sense of family to those we do not know, but who are linked to us by faith or by our humanity?

Next week I am traveling to Tanzania to visit our LMH, Justin & Lauren Linck. Can I, with the help of Jesus, expand my understanding of family?

Your prayers are appreciated.

One of the many roads in Cameroon