como ser una misionera

Saludos de México! Our group of 10 has arrived safely and enjoyed our first full day here in el distrito federal. We all look like a flock of tall, (mostly) blonde lost ducklings following after Lindsay and Omar, our country coordinators. You could say we’re a tad conspicuous.

We are staying at a convent for the first 4 days of our in country orientation. We have had the privilege to engage las hermanas in lots of conversation about their lives, our lives, and the unlikely intersections between them. In one of theses conversations Hermana Margarita was explaining to our dinner table some of the specific valores/values of the Las Hermanas Guadalupanas. She told us that they believe in radical hospitality and in seeing “la cara de dios en cada huesped” “the face of God in each guest.” They also strive to listen “con los oidos de su corazon” “with the ears of their heart” to every guest and every person they encounter. They serve and love their neighbors indiscriminately, a value at the core of the YAGM program.

In conversations with these beautiful hermanas, I feel that I finally should be fully honest (mostly with myself) regarding my official title this year. I am a missionary-a word that provokes a strongly negative and visceral reaction. By taking on that title I am saddled with a history of oppressive evangelism, especially in Latin America, that leaves me grief-stricken and disgusted with the actions of an institution I love. When explaining my work this year I carefully danced around the “m-word” emphasizing the fact that I’ll be living in a host community, working in a secular NGO, focusing on relationship building etc. But, in the past few days it’s a term with which I’ve begun to come to peace.

           

I’m a missionary. I’m a tutor. I’m a servant. I’m una hija (daughter). I’m dependent. I’m vulnerable. I’m a student. I’m not here to help or fix or change or instruct. To do so would assume that I-as a US American, Christian 22 year old hold the monopoly on progress, virtue, faith. I’m here to live in community.  I’m here to seek out and listen to the many stories that make up this beautifully complex and diverse country, without imposing my own. I’m here to listen “con los oidos de mi corazón” and see “la cara de Dios en cada persona.” That is the mission to which I have been called. The mission to accompany without judgment, to serve without expectation of reciprocation, to love without distinction, and to live without the markers of material success as validation.

Peace be the journey,

Alyssa