Sharing our cultures

It is Halloween and to share a bit of American culture Aimee and I decided to offer a pumpkin carving. We had two pumpkins and not many participants joined in the gruesome custom of carving the insides out of a poor defenseless pumpkin, but the few that did stay had a lot of fun and enjoyed this strange part of American culture.

Halloween was not a holiday that we celebrated in my family after I was about 10, but Aimee and her family have the tradition of pumpkin carving every year and therefore, we decided to offer it as a cultural experience. We will be having cultural nights throughout our time here, but the U.S.A. is in a group with the the one man from Haiti and the one woman from Australia. We were all sort of put into the left over group because we only have time for four cultural evenings (Africa, Europe, Asia, and the rest) so Aimee and I thought we would offer this as a small bit, albeit not the best part, of American culture. Personally I’d like to have chips and caso with fajitas topped off with a bit of line dancing, but I think that would be a cultural evening for Aimee as well. All in all it was a lot of fun and the people that participated enjoyed it and were glad that we shared a bit of our crazy American customs with them.

Female Ecumenical Bonding

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A week or so ago we had our first gathering at Elizabeth Reiser’s house.  Because we have no female on the faculty (we’re hoping that will change with the newly hired faculty) Elisabeth kindly offered her home to us so that we might gather as women and get to know each other.  It was a lovely evening of conversation, tea, wine, and chocolate, of course.

Tonight we decided to do something less formal and had an ecumenical “girls” night of face masks, painting of nails and other various “girly” things.  It was a lot of fun and we had some interesting conversations.

Naomi from Nigeria just joined us this week.  She missed the  2 week orientation and therefore is unsure about how things work and what she needs to do.  Naomi, Aimee (from the U.S.), and I went to Nyon today in order to help Naomi get the things she needed.  She missed the group trip to Geneva that gave us all a somewhat guided tour of the bus/train system, so we showed her where the shops were and how to navigate the system.  She and I will be heading to Geneva tomorrow to attend the Lutheran church and hear the female minister from Brazil.

When asked flat out if she is a pastor, Naomi said no, but upon deeper inspection we found out that although she is not ordained, she is considered a non-ordained minister in her denomination.  She preaches and teaches, but she is not allowed to perform marriage ceremonies nor is she allowed to serve communion.  We asked her if she would like to be ordained and she said yes, but that it is not possible at this time.  She said that it is a struggle in her denomination at this time, but that she is being given more and more recognition as time passes.  She turns 46 tomorrow and has been what we in the DOC would consider a minister for several years.  She is working in the system to change the hearts and minds of those around her and is making progress.  In the beginning she was only allowed to teach women’s groups.  Now she preaches on a regular basis along with her teaching.  She is an amazing woman and I have much to learn from her.  I pray that I will have the patience and understanding to learn from Naomi and all the other fascinating people that surround me.

Academic Program

Well I am very excited because we have finally been given more detailed information on the academic program and will be beginning next week. These last 2 weeks have been long and at times daunting, but they have been very informative.

We are given a choice between 4 modules/classes (social ethics, Biblical hermeneutics, ecumenical theology, and missiology and evangelism.) My first choice is to take social ethics, one of the main reasons being that Dr. Korad Reiser (the former general secretary of the WCC) is teaching it. My second choice was not such a clear choice. I originally wanted to take the theology class, but there is no professor at this point.

On Monday and Tuesday of next week, the students will be participating in the choosing process in that we will listen to the 3 candidates for the theology position and then give our feedback on who we find to be the best candidate. Our opinions, along with other opinions from representatives from various organizations will be taken into consideration when choosing the professor. There are actually two positions open, but only the theology positions effects this year. The social ethics position is also being filled because Konrad will only be here for this year (lucky us!)

In the end I chose the missiology and evangelism class as my second choice and theology as my third choice because we don’t know how the theology class will be structured and I think it will be inconsistent because if one of the candidates that lives outside of Switzerland is chosen, then that person must go home and pack their things and wait for a work permit before they can begin teaching. That means that another teacher will begin the class and the newly hired teacher will finish it. I’d rather not deal with that if I don’t have to.

As for my reasoning for choosing the missiology class over Biblical hermeneutics, I have a feeling the Biblical class will be a repeat of Intro. to HB and NT and therefor I decided to choose missiology and evangelism. Also missiology is taught by Andre Karamaga from Rwanda who leads the Africa desk at the WCC. He is mentioned in this artcle about this article on World Mission and Evangelism: http://www.presbyterian.org.nz/3617.0.html

We will not find out for sure what modules we will be taking until Monday, but I think I have a good chance of getting my top two.

As for other interesting things that have been going on…we went to Geneva on Wednesday to tour the WCC and the University of Geneva. There are pictures from the WCC below as well as a picture of our class in front of the Reformation Wall. It was nice to get away from Bossey for a day and we were able to sign out of dinner at Bossey and have dinner in Geneva. I had dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant in the old town with Nora, our Lutheran vicar from Germany, Kirsie, a blue angel from Finland, (yes her name is one letter different from mine which causes confusion especially since we have rooms right next to each other,) Avril from the United Church in Australia, as well as Linda and Anna both from the Church of England in the UK. It was a nice day out, but it was also expensive so I’ll not be doing that very often. I think I’ll stick to 8 franc panninis from the street vendor the next trip I make to Geneva.

ecumenism

Friday Oct. 6, 2006

As we left our morning session on the Reformed churches and were heading to lunch, Gerald from Hatti made the observation that what was said on Tuesday was true, what was said on Wednesday was true, what was said on Thursday was true, and what was said today was true. I would have to say that that’s an ecumenical statement if there is one. The fundamental qualities of our faiths are one church one body in Christ, yet we remain divided and it’s ironic that in this place where I am worlds apart from my neighbor, I find that we are not so different and it is our differences that make the community rich and full. It seems that in the states we judge one another by denomination and make assumptions about each other before we’ve even begun to know one another. Here in this diverse place, we know so little about one another, there is nothing to judge, little to assume and we are all new in ecumenism.

Orientation

Today is the second day of orientation. Yesterday was a basic overview of the grounds, rules, and program as well as a bit of history about Bossey. We filled out the forms to apply for a resident visa and took a very quick trip into Celigny to take the required pictures for the visa. I swear I have taken more passport type pictures for this learning experience than I did in grade school. It’s amazing to me how many official photos are needed and I wonder if there is as much red tape to sift through as a foreigner wishing to study in the US…I would imagine so.

In the afternoon session we had introductions and met some of the professors. The professor teaching the module on mission and evangelism has not yet arrived and the professor of ecumenical theology has not been chosen. The students are going to be involved in the choosing process. There are 3 candidates and we will hear them all and then there will be a committee (sounds like the church no?) that will decided who will be chosen to teach. I’m excited to be a part of the process, especially since the theology module is one I hope to take, and look forward to hearing from all of them.

Today was another long day and I feel like I’m back in J-term Hebrew with Rick. Trying to understand everyone is a daunting task for me as a native English speaker so I can’t imagine how hard it must be for those who just finished the 3 month intensive English session.

We began the day with African worship led by the students from Africa. I am learning some new hymns and hope that I will know them well enough at the end of my time here so that I might bring them back and share them. Each day during orientation we begin with worship from a represented region and then close with a represented tradition. Today was Anglican and the General Secretary of the Council of European churches, Colin Williams, lead the afternoon session on the Anglican tradition. We have 2 female students from the Church of England along with a student from the Anglican church in Kenya, Congo, and Ghana. These 5 spoke a bit about the Anglican church in their countries as well as led the evening worship service. I would have to say that the most moving part of worship is saying the Lord’s Pray surrounded by a multitude of languages. To hear my own voice mingling with the choir of praise is an experience for which I have no words.  Yesterday in the opening session, the director of Bossey spoke to us about the challenges of ecumenical dialogue.  One of the challenges lies in the different methods of theological discourse.  One approach is the apophatic approach which relies on experience and finds it hard to define God, while the other approach is cataphatic where people use positive language to define God.  My experience in the chapel with the Lord’s Prayer was an apophatic experience.

The pictures below are of myself and a fellow student by the name of Jeanbonheur Kongolo.  He’s the Anglican from Kenya and Amy Gopp asked me to say hello to him so I thought I’d add the picture so she and others could see one of my fellow students.  The second picture is a picture of the room where are sessions are being held.  There are microphones in front of every person and when we wish to speak we press the button and I feel as if I’m in a WCC or UN meeting.

It is cold, rainy, and windy here today and I hope that the sun will pop out again before winter sets in, but if not I have the warmth of the people and spirit of God working through this place to provide a ray of warm light through the winter.

Beginnings

9-27-06
After a long flight over from the states, I made it to Switzerland and took the train from Zurich to Geneva where I was to stay with Gail and Mac Messenger (Myrna Raney’s brother and sister-in-law.) Upon my arrival in Geneva, Gail and I somehow missed each other and I ended up wandering around the train station, with what felt like 5 tons of baggage, trying to get my bearings and find a way of contacting Gail. Finally about 2.5 hrs. later I found my way to the proper bus stop and Gail was waiting for me to help with my bags. By this time I was exhausted from being up for over 24 hrs, with very brief bouts of sleep on the plane, but I knew I needed to stay up to get over the jet lag, so I had a bite to eat and Gail and I headed out to the market. It was a nice walk and I ended the evening with dinner and conversation before crashing and sleeping until 11:30 the next morning.

9-28-06 – 9-29-06
After a good nights rest, I was up and ready to see some of the sights. Gail took me around Geneva and we visited the church where Calvin preached as well as the San Pierre Cathedral and the Wall of the Reformation. We climbed about 100 steps up the tower of the Cathedral and were rewarded by a spectacular view of Geneva. We could see the entire city including the Jet d’ea for which Geneva is known. The pictures included are from that day. We stopped for panninis from a street vendor and sat on some steps by the lake and enjoyed one of the last days of nice weather before the rain set in. The evening was relaxed and Gail prepared a wonderful healthy meal as always. The next day Gail and I went for an invigorating hike in a forest near the town of Jussy and the rest of the day was spent enjoying the sunshine and relaxing.

9-30-06 – 10-1-06
This was the day I was to arrive at Bossey and after a minor miscommunication I was able to make my way to Bossey and settle into my room. The students stay in Petite Bossey which is a short walk away from the Chateau where classes, meals, and worship services are held. Arrivals were scheduled for 9/30 and 10/1 so it is just after 1 pm here and most everyone has arrived. We are slowly getting to know each other and will begin a rigorous 2 week orientation tomorrow at 8:30 am.

Tomorrow is the general overview and the following days are each themed by a different Christian tradition so that we might all have a basic understanding of those traditions not our own. This will last until October 15th and we start classes that following Monday the 16th. I am very much looking forward to what experiences I will encounter on my ecumenical journey at Bossey and my goal is to keep this blog updated so that you all will be able to walk with me on that journey.