"You want to understand power, start finding places where disunity abounds in the world and that's where God wants you to create reconciliation." Pastor Ryan Fasani, July 13, 2014
I want to give a quick look into some of the work I (Eric) have been doing this past year. As Missionary-Pastors, we are committed to reaching the lost with the Good News and discipling those interested in the transforming work of God. But we must first ask, especially as ones who are new to this place, how to identify the lost in the context of their "lostness"; which is to say we must learn the components and layers of culture and communities that are broken and lost. So this first year, I've been spending a lot of time doing research/relational/experienced based learning.
1). Meeting with Angie
I set up meetings throughout the week/month to talk and listen with anyone in the community willing to share and teach me about Kona. Most have never sat with a pastor who is interested in the social/relational/personal health of those outside their own congregation. But all have been kind and mention the lack of support from the christian faith community. Ironically, the Micronesian and Hispanic community carry high percentages of Christians to begin with and organize around church activity. The church gives minority groups a sense of worth and belonging and an instant connection in a time of uncertain transition. This is one of the reasons the church must take its minority communities seriously; because there is a general 'browning' of Christianity in the West.
I heard about Angie from another friend (Jasmine) at the West Hawaii Community Health Center. I've met with Jasmine several times on various groups working toward outreach and education within the Marshallese community. Usually this is how it works: I meet with a person who hears my interests and points me to another person within that community (one gatekeeper leads me to another). Jasmine introduced me to Angie, a woman who put together a Hispanic community health assessment over the past year. We met this past week to talk story.
She is a 5th generation Puerto Rican on the Big Island. Her family had immigrated to Honoka'a back when the sugar plantations were still operable. But she didn't learn Spanish until much later in school. As she put it, "The language barrier made us stick out too much, so we dropped Spanish but kept the food and music." She is the go-to person in the Hispanic community for any social need, health need, or immigration need. She spends her off time filling out INS paperwork for those trying to navigate the muddled immigration system. The closest Consulate is actually in California; there are no immigration lawyers on the island, and the travel to Oahu for any serious medical conditions works against undocumented people.
If you were to look around Kona, you would recognize signs mostly in English, some in Hawaiian. But at the health clinic they are in English, Spanish, and Hawaiian. Angie says 75% of the 2500 Hispanics on the West Coast work on either the coffee farms, macnut farms, or papaya farms. The clinic sees many Hispanic patients during the off picking season with skin rashes, respiratory issues, and eye problems from the pesticides used on the farm. They don't come when the symptoms first arise because they work (and live) on the farm. When asked about any worker's advocacy group, she simply chuckled and shook her head. The Hispanic community is dispersed from Waimea all the way down past South Kona. There is no advocacy group, ethnic organization, union, or social support. They remain present, but socially invisible.
A recent study highlighting the challenges and prospects for Mexicans in Hawaii shows the relative feeling of being unjustly targeted. Angie spoke of frequent deportations, the police acting as a type psuedo-ICE agent, giving bogus traffic tickets in order to check identification and paperwork. Ironically, in Hawaii as a whole the face of undocumented immigrants isn't Hispanic, but Filipino who comprise about 40% of the undocumented peoples. Only 10% of residing Mexicans (or 4,000 of 38,700) are undocumented. But when looking at those deported between 2007-2008, 50% were Mexican. This gives the community a particular feeling of being targeted, the perception of inferiority, and a general sense of exclusion. ("Newcomers to the Aloha State: Challenges and Prospects for Mexicans in Hawai'i," Batalova, Das Gupta, & Haglund, Migration Policy Institute, 2013).
2a). Theological Reflection
I believe that if a community is to be healthy, it must account for the full health of all its participants; rich and poor, brown and white, citizen and non-citizen, soil and vegetation, etc. Furthermore, I believe that God longs for justice and righteousness, a restoration of right relationships between people and communities so that the abundant life of the Kingdom of God can be experienced. Throughout scripture, God continues to call a particular people (Israel and the Church) to be the type of community that remembers the poor, marginalized, and oppressed who are often described as widows, orphans, and foreigners. On a personal note, I have long felt a call to give myself to the work of peace and reconciliation between divided communities, a call that fit in my work alongside the homeless community in Nashville and is now finding its legs here in Kona.
Since arriving, I've spent a fair amount of my time getting to know the invisible people and places, the spaces that aren't covered in West Hawaii Today, finding the gatekeepers to communities that struggle affording rent, food, or housing and who aren't paid a decent wage or afforded the same access to health care and social services. In short, I've been intentionally seeking and learning about the communities that don't benefit from full inclusion in society at large. It comes as no surprise, but these communities are recent immigrant groups to the Big Island (Filipino, Micronesian, Hispanic) and have historically struggled with cultural assimilation, social belonging, and economic growth.
2b). A Word on Immigration and Scripture
With the recent influx of child migration at the Southern border of the US, a situation the UN suggests should be treated like a refugee population, I realize the heated nature of immigrant discussions country-wide. I've read news reports and articles on both sides of the aisle that talk of immigration from socioeconomic perspectives, political perspectives, cultural views, and flat-out racist views. We have a tendency to forget the complicated history of immigration within the United States, our own histories of our own migrant families who are not native to this place, the economic and political factors that force migration, and the milieu of cultural identities represented in the moniker 'Hispanic.' But beyond all of this, as Christians, we can't allow political, cultural, ethnic, economic, or national security factors determine how we interact with and respond to the influx of immigrants (documented or undocumented) into our communities. Our allegiance is to Christ Jesus as Lord, who has brought near those who are far away and has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility between 'us' and 'them' (Ephesians 2). The Image of God marked on each person ought to be the resounding tone uttered from our words and posture. We are to become a church without borders.
3). Moving Forward
As a missionary, I recognize the important role the church plays in the social makeup of a place. For many immigrants, the church is the first place to find a common bond, to belong with others, find meaningful relationships, and through those relationships figure out where specific needs can be met. As far as evangelism, church planting is recognized as one of the most effective ways of reaching unchurched people groups. But when I listen to the needs of these groups, the lack of organization, the stereotypes and animosity flung at and between groups, and the immediacy of food and shelter, I want to plug the gap. I want to throw my individual ability and work ethic to find solutions to these problems- to become an advocate in solidarity with these marginalized peoples.
But I've done that alone and found myself isolated, drowning, and exhausted. Furthermore, 'plugging the gaps' didn't change the culture or system that created the problems. When I think about the particular stories of the various immigrant communities, I know that any reconciliation must be communal reconciliation. My question moving forward relates to how a community gathered around the Crucified and Risen Lord can begin the work of transformational development in this place. In other words, how can we take 'us' and 'them' and become one people with one Lord, one faith, one baptism without covering over particular cultural identities?
I firmly believe that the church can be the kind of faithful community that builds spiritual, social, and economic health in a way that transforms our neighborhoods. In Kona, it just might be a turning toward our newest members to see the change that God desires in this place.
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