A letter from David Walter
October 16, 2009
They laughed!
Children await the General Assembly parade.
Those of you that know me know that I like to laugh, and I also like to make others laugh. I do believe that often laughter is the best medicine. Sometimes though, as I recently discovered, laughter can be a bitter pill to swallow.
At the August 2009 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu, the delegates laughed when I wasn’t trying to be funny, and that made me sad.
In my remarks to the assembly I said, “When I came to Vanuatu I didn’t know how to be a missionary and you taught me.” I also mentioned several other valuable life-lessons that I had learned from my ni-Vanuatu friends during my time there. And they laughed!
That I am frustrated and saddened by that laughter would be an understatement. What I said was true. In my time in Vanuatu and across the Pacific I have learned much more than I taught. I believe there is a book titled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I could say the same thing about Vanuatu. From the ni-Vanuatu I really did learn how to be a missionary. I learned how to love and show that love. I learned patience (often painfully) as well as tolerance and forbearance. I experienced the wonder of living in community where the needs and concerns of all come first. Yet, my friends also taught me that the welfare of the whole is not possible without the tender care for each and every person within that community.
I learned not to assume what they need from me, but to listen and respond to their needs.
I also learned to forgive and be forgiven. Humility, a talent that does not rest easily on me, is essential to reconciliation and peace. By example, my friends have shown me the true value of the determination to have peace.
Perhaps it’s because for nearly 200 years they have been beaten down by the colonists who took over their country and made them feel less than human, but it seems that there is a general feeling of inadequacy. It also may be that they can’t imagine that someone from the most powerful country in the world, one that can build things faster than anyone else (and also blow things up faster than anyone), could possibly learn something from people from an economically underdeveloped nation.
We, as Presbyterians, attempt to practice mission in partnership. Yet the reaction of my friends in Vanuatu tells us how difficult that is when one partner has so many more resources than the other. Even in this time of limited resources, we in the United States have so much more than most of our partners, and that affects everything. Among other things, it makes it very hard for our partners to refuse when we propose something to them. I once said to the then head of the church, Pastor Fiama Rakau, that it would be a wonderful day when they could say “no” to us.
But despite the unevenness of our partnership from an economic standpoint, our partners are more than spiritually equal. In fact, we really do have much to learn from our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. I would even venture to say that we have much to learn from others, no matter their faith.
I hope I get better at learning and also better at acknowledging what I’ve learned by letting people know that they are treasured and valuable. But whether they know it or not, I am wiser and more humble than when I went there a long time ago.
Thank you to all my friends, wherever and whoever you are, for teaching me so very much.
Yours,
David Walter
The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 98
