St. John’s, Kissimmee, makes missions a priority
Posted April 7th, 2010
At St. John’s, Kissimmee, we followed Bishop Howe’s call for each parish in the dioceses to undertake short-term mission trips (see http://tinyurl.com/jwhpastoral and http://tinyurl.com/cf-strategic). Our cross-cultural mission trip in November was to the Dominican Republic. The report attached was for the group on the Evangelism team here at St. John's. This has been our sixth mission trip and we are proud to support the Bishop's efforts.
– The Rev. Christopher E. Brathwaite
Mission Trip 2009
This past year, the Evangelism Team has kept in focus the theme that Fr. Cecil Radcliff set for us at the annual leadership retreat in February 2009. “Tag, You’re it.” Team Leader, Claudette Anderson and I set in motion a plan that would be in line with his vision and teachings.
We set up and completed five team meetings, and a wrap-up session. The meetings covered speaking conversationally about God, types of evangelism, methods and models of evangelism, and evaluation.
At each of these meetings, four different persons had the opportunity to speak on one of four topics— Hope, Faith, Joy, and Peace. The team meetings created a safe place for the verbose and the not so verbose people to tell their story. The format of eating together and sharing helped to strengthen the bonds of friendship and is the catalyst to transform lives.
In February, an advance team traveled to a church in San Pedro de-Macoris, Dominican Republic and met with Sister Gabriel and Father Sandino, it was then we knew we ought to help with the work they had undertaken. Schedules were set and Claudette went to work to find us the best travel deal for our money.
We have now completed our 2009 Mission and Fellowship Trip. We thank God for safe travels and receptive hearts as we shared our goods and time with the children and families in the Dominican Republic. We are very grateful that Bishop Holguin was able to meet and spend some time with us, and thanked us for our generosity.
These trips are providing a means for us to see our neighbors near and far and interact with those who speak different languages. We are confident that what we have done will make for a happy and lasting relationship and for a stronger church family.
Jesus Said, ‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; 42and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.’ (Mt. 10:40-42).
We believe that we are all called to go…We do what Jesus calls us to do. Jesus tells us to go. We have to go. We are called to seek. We are called to find our community, we are called to find them and bring them.
How did we get to this point?
A few years ago, Jenny and I showed up at St. John’s and within 6 months, we had a group traveling to the Caribbean to a Cursillo event. At that time it was five of us, the next year there were six of us. Today we have grown to over 30 people who traveled to the Dominican Republic.
How did this happen? How did we move from five people on a cross-cultural mission trip to over 30 people in just six years?
We did it because you demonstrated that there is something good about going on these trips. We did it because we remained consistent that we will go somewhere each year. We did it because we understand that there are things we can accomplish by going out that we cannot accomplish by staying home. We did it because we asked God to make what we are doing a blessing to ourselves and others.
Jesus asks us to look after those who cannot help themselves and the only conversation we will have with Jesus at the day of judgment speaks poignantly to that fact. The Bible says, “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
My friends, this is what we are called to do. This is why we go to places like these. We may teach and we may learn, but at some point we must exercise what we have learnt. At some point we have to show that we are hearing and learning.
At some point we must be able to resonate with the voice of Jesus as he say to us, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
This is activity; this is living out what we learn from the teachings. There is no other place in scripture where I read of Jesus having a dialogue with us on the Day of Judgment.
“Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
When we looked in the eyes of the children and saw the love and the innocence that exude from each of them, one could not help but be humbled at what God had led us to do.
When we listen to Sister Gabriel and hear how she has done so much with so little, our hearts become strangely warmed at how blessed we are to be able to share in such a worthy cause. A clinic, a school, a church, a nursery, and plans for a playground and more classrooms for higher grade-students, I think we benefited more than we can imagine.
I am praying that this will not be a one-stop sharing on our part. I pray that God will inspire us to a more meaningful relationship with the family of loving people at San Pedro de-Macoris. I pray we will support the work that God has shown to Sister Gabriel, because it is not by accident that we went there, it is not by accident that there is a lasting presence of joy in the heart of each of us for being there. It was by Divine guidance that we went, we worked, and we enjoyed.
As we look to the future, I believe God has called us all to a new frontier of Mission and Ministry. We need now teach others what we know. We need to show and tell by empowering the whole community—not just a few—by giving voice to the children, the young and those who yearns for an experience with Jesus. We need to follow the example of Jesus.
Fr. Christopher E. Brathwaite is Minister of Evangelism at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kissimmee.
