A letter from Jane Holslag in Lithuania
November 2014 - A Year of Farewells
GRACE TO YOU AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!
These words of greeting, encouragement and blessing come from the New Testament and so are words Christians from all traditions around the globe recognize. For some of us in North America they could seem a bit stiff or overly formal. Yes, Paul might so open his letters, but really, do people talk like that anymore?! YES indeed! In my ministry and travel over the last 24 years, they are among some of the most often repeated words I’ve heard in visits with German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian Christians. Surely they are what we say to each other as Christians, but are they not also words we bring to those “outsiders” whose paths cross ours each day—our neighbors or colleagues, our children's friends, the grocery store clerk, the beggar, even the bothersome dinnertime phone solicitor? In deed and word, in tone of voice, with a smile or an open and listening attitude, you and I ARE a reminder or, better yet, the announcement to the "other" of God’s gracious work of love offered and peace given, day by day.
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Ursula—a dear friend and archive boss
As I reflect back on 2014, a year of farewells and closure, discernment and transition, it is clearer now than ever that my call to service in central and eastern Europe for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been affirmed again and again to and through this apostolic greeting. It sums up what started in the '80s, in visitation trips of reconciliation, encouragement to Christians in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). It punctuated the '90s when I entered PC(USA) mission service, as “Coordinator for Ecumenical Outreach”—eight adventuresome years of learning from and listening to Christians in many former Warsaw Pact countries. From the late '90s until just last December, this greeting, a clear statement of God’s gift, humbled me to realize that I was actually learning more than I could have possibly taught as a Theology and Bible instructor at LCC International University! My mentors and teachers were students and colleagues from all over the former Soviet Union, western Europe, and the United States (many of you!). Each of these chapters of mission and ministry has been cradled in and nurtured by the grace and peace I’ve received and in turn have somehow been enabled, to pass on…or so I’ve been told.
Wrapping up my Interpretation Assignment in June, I realized that I had again and again not just said “thank you” but was being simultaneously showered by God’s ongoing generosity and love. This manifest itself primarily in worship and conversation with many of you—“my” faithful support congregations. In my final journey of this kind, there were the usual meals together, presentations about the context and work, times of intense sharing and questioning, and ever again mutual moments of deep recognition and peace. All of this happened in a three-month journey under the umbrella of koinonia, that community in Jesus we’ve been given—a living place of encounter in grace and peace (cf. dissertation :-) ).
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Nine years later!
Many of you have asked what my next steps will entail. I have repeatedly postponed writing, hoping by now to have an answer. I don’t yet have anything solid to report. My hopes are to remain here in Berlin until I finish compiling an archive of materials used for the dissertation. I’ll not be working alone on this project, for my dear friend Ursula, whom I met here in 1980, a librarian/archivist, is the boss of the team! With her technical and professional knowledge, we hope to have it wrapped up sometime next spring. I plan to find a more permanent apartment here in Berlin, praying that my current legal residence can be extended, a process more complicated since 9/11. These months I’ve also been praying to know what might shape a form of part-time service for this stay, however long or short. Early in 2013 the mounting Syrian war and the desperate plight of those refugees became genuinely overwhelming for me. No surprise—they are only the tip of the iceberg, for refugees worldwide number now in the tens of millions. I have been praying to know if I might be called to do something. Recently I learned that 400 refugees will soon be housed in Köpenick, my neighborhood in Berlin, and the call for volunteers is already out. Hmmm? At some point, sooner rather than later though, I will begin planning more seriously for my return to the U.S.A., but in the meantime, it seems there are yet a few things here to do!
When I first began thinking about mission service and a shift from pastoral ministry in the '80s, the PC(USA) Global Mission Unit (now World Mission) was the best place to start the conversation—that was June 1989, five months before the November 9 opening of the Berlin Wall. That incredible event turned our world on its head! This week, 25 years later, Germans and Berliners especially are remembering and celebrating. You—dear friends, congregations, people from all corners of my life—shall be with me in that remembrance and celebration! I am so grateful to have lived these 25 years in mission and ministry in this region.
However, that day, as incredible as it was, still doesn’t compare to what our world has been given….GRACE AND PEACE FROM GOD OUR FATHER AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!
With those words I say again thank you and farewell.
In His love,
Jane Holslag
Reverend Dr. Jane Holslag
c/o Schlosskirche Koepenick
Freiheit 14
12555 Berlin / Germany
TEL 49 30 5228 4170
Mobile +49 179 577 9687
jholslag@lcc.lt OR
jane.holslag@gmail.com
P.S. Grateful beyond words for your prayer and financial support, lo these years… I would like to add, if you haven’t already planned how you might continue to support PC(USA) mission efforts and personnel, I welcome you to visit the webpage https://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/world-mission/ and take the next step! God is using his followers all over the world, and it is a team effort with brothers and sisters in Christ in all corners. You have been an essential part of my team, and I pray you will continue responding to our Lord’s call and invitation to be reminders and announcements to our world ever in need of this grace and peace.
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 313
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