Volunteer Missionary Movement (VMM-USA) | home
We recognize that we need each other. We are a community-based
movement that stresses and encourages the value of praying together,
working together, and sharing our Christian journey. We believe that
it is through our shared and reflected experience in family and
community that we will truly grow together deepening our spirituality
and making a difference in our World.
Spirit and Lifestyle
In the preface of his autobiography, David Suzuki wrote:
Although all people on Earth, as members of one species, share the
same anatomy of the brain, the same chemistry of neurons, and similar
sense organs, each of us "perceives" the world in a very personal
way. We experience it through perceptual filters that are shaped by
our individual genes and experiences, by our gender, ethnic group,
religious background, socioeconomic status, and so on.
We see things differently. This makes working together interesting
and at times very challenging. In September 1995, I was finishing
three years with Witness for Peace in Nicaragua. Our "team" of long-
term volunteers lived and worked together. I felt "alone" at this
time of departure. All the volunteers with whom I had started were
gone as well as those who had joined me in the second year. We had
just had a busy summer of delegations. My three companions had faced
a number of personal problems that made our life together difficult
in the last months. I reluctantly went on my last "retreat" where we
reviewed the year and planned the next.
We were on the last day, on the last item on the agenda: What do we
hope to achieve with delegations? What is their importance in our
mission? At last, something about which I felt deeply. I talked
about what the delegates had taught me, the exchanges with the
families who received them in their home. Delegations were the reason
WFP was founded. The first one to speak after I finished said:
"We're not here to give people life-changing experiences!"
It was like a slap on the face. The conversation continued but I was
unaware of it. Then I started crying. I couldn't help it. Sharon, our
coordinator, suggested we close the meeting. Sharon went to phone her
family in Managua; the others went to the beach. I walked across the
boulevard and sat on a bench on the median, my "desert." And I cried
and cried. I was leaving and I had no legacy to leave behind.
An hour later, Sharon crossed over and asked: "Will you be okay?"
"Yes." I never did explain. She knew.
This excerpt from Spirit and Lifestyle is one of the most important
for me. Wherever we are, wherever our communities are, we need to
become aware of our "perceptual filters." Only then will "we
recognize that we need each other." Only then will we "truly grow
together deepening our spirituality and making a difference in our
World."
This week let us remember in our prayers the VMs that are returning,
those that are continuing on, and those that are starting and let us
pray for each of the communities to which we belong.
Cecily
