A Letter from Sherron George in Brazil
Advent 2010
Transition from Four Decades of Mission Service to Retirement
Dear friends,
I humbly paraphrase Paul’s words of farewell to the Ephesian elders recorded in Acts 20 in this, my last newsletter as a PC(USA) mission worker.
“You yourselves know how I lived among [Brazilians] the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Brazil” on September 1, 1972. After studying Portuguese, I moved to Dourados, near Paraguay, to begin my lifelong experience of immersion and learning from Brazilians about church and culture. During my seven years in Dourados, “I did not shrink from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the message to [14 small congregations] and teaching [in Sunday School] and from house to house [where I received gracious hospitality].” Valdice Naves joined me as my Brazilian co-worker and has assisted me in working with cultural sensitivity ever since. She is like a sister and her family is my Brazilian family. In the last year there I taught in the Bible Institute at the Caiuá Indian Mission and wrote my first text: The Evangelistic Church.
Doing much preaching and pastoral counseling, I realized I needed more studies, so I began the decade of the ’80s at Columbia Theological Seminary. After two years I returned to the big city of Manaus in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. There I continued my ministry in eight Presbyterian churches and was invited to teach in the Bible Institute for Lay Workers, which later became a seminary. I was working on my D.Min. dissertation and learning from the dialogical approach of the great Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. There I wrote with my students my second text: The Teaching Church.
Meeting of IPI national mission workers with TOF and PC(USA) in Recife - L to R (heads): Pezini (TOF), Max, Valdice, Jonas (IPI mission coordinator), Sherron, Assir Pereira (IPI moderator), Claudio, Paulo Damião (IPI moderator), Casso.
After finishing seminary and being ordained, I was invited by the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPIB) to teach Christian Education and Missiology in their seminary in Londrina in south Brazil. I went to a new level of cultural immersion, learning from my students and colleagues the social, economical and political context of Latin American theology. With my students, I produced my third text: The Missionary Church.
When the Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPB) invited me to teach in their seminary in Campinas, I began the ’90s as the first ordained woman in a denomination that does not ordain women. I started a graduate program in Christian Education. Learning with my students, we did an adaptation of The Teaching Church at a much deeper theological and pedagogical level. It was translated into Spanish by the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI).
Thinking I was ending my mission service in the Global South, I returned to the United States and spent the second half of the ’90s as professor of mission and evangelism at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. What I learned with the international and Hispanic students led me to write Meeting Your Neighbor: Multiculturalism in Luke and Acts (PDS 72305-00-001). I loved teaching at Austin, but my heart was in Brazil.
My first assignment when I returned to Brazil in 2001 was as the PC(USA)’s theological education consultant for Latin America. Learning Spanish became my new challenge. I visited PC(USA) ecumenical partner seminaries in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica and Cuba. During this decade I have been blessed by learning with the ecumenical body of Christ. I soon moved into the position of PC(USA) liaison for South America, serving as a “global connector” with partner churches, mission personnel, World Mission staff and Presbyterian mission participants from the United States. I wrote Called as Partners in Christ’s Service (Geneva Press: 2004) to reflect theologically on partnership. It was translated into Portuguese and Spanish. The last meeting I attended as liaison was with the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil and the Outreach Foundation in Recife.
“And now, as a captive to the Spirit, I am on my way to [retirement at 62 on Dec. 31 in Curitiba, Brazil], not knowing…”
A part of my missiology is that mission endeavors have beginnings and endings; that we need to know when to stop and pass our work on to others. My latest book was Better Together: the Future of Presbyterian Mission (Geneva Press: 2010). It is about holistic living and holistic mission. I want to live the fullness of life that God gives us in body, mind and spirit in mystical communion with church, society and the Earth. I long to read whatever I want: Brazilian and world literature, missiology, etc. To listen to music, watch movies and care for my body, my home and for creation. To leisurely write and travel. To follow Brazilian novelas and soccer. To read Scriptures in the Sunday mass in the local Catholic parish and expand my involvement, maybe including monastic experiences. To “finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus” serving the reign of God with playful freedom.
Retirement dreams:
- Spend June-August 2011 in the United States relaxing and reconnecting with pop culture.
- Publish Better Together in Portuguese.
- Continue a Portuguese/Spanish publications series with CLAI and Editora Sinodal.
- Contribute to the “Mission Study Bible” project in Portuguese/Spanish/English (I already wrote missiological notes on Luke and Acts).
- Teach a course at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey near Geneva.
- Lecture at the Waldensian Seminary in Rome.
- Attend the WCC Assembly in 2013.
I want to express my sincere thanksgiving to you who have accompanied, prayed for and financially supported me during all my years of mission service.
Grace and peace,
Sherron George
The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 274
