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