Catching up on post #2

Day 3

Conversations with Annemie Bosch

The other night at dinner I (Sarah) had the amazingly wonderful opportunity to sit near Annemie Bosch, a South African and the widow of noted theologian David Bosch. Annemie is an amazing woman who is full of compelling stories. She got involved in the anti-apartheid movement as a young woman, which is quite rare and courageous for a white South African, and worked her whole life to see justice restored in her land. She kept me entertained throughout dinner with stories of “Uncle Desmond” (yes…as in Archbishop Tutu!) who is a good friend, and the mood of the country on that day in April 1994 when South Africa had their first free elections. She wasn’t able to articulate her emotions about how she felt the day of the elections without getting deeply emotional. I kept thinking how incredible that was, to invest your life in toppling a system that gives you preference but which you understand to be ultimately unjust. Quite an remarkable example of love.

The Latin American Context

This evening we heard from three representatives of La Red Del Camino, an organization that works with churches, mostly in Latin America, and comes alongside them while they practice incarnational living. Their work sounds fascinating, and if you have a heart for the Latin American community in particular, you should check them out! I feel like the best I can do is share with you a few quotes that I wrote down, since they said it far better than I can.

“It is easy to fall into the trap of entertaining ourselves talking about this kind of theology and the principles that come along with it. But to really find a church community living it out is extremely rare. Actually living it out is much more difficult than talking about it. It takes more time and is often a painful process.”

“When we talk about reconciliation we must be sure not get caught up talking about it at a macro level. The local church must be a reconciled community. The mystery of the Gospel is that there is no Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free.”

“Our authority to be the prophetic voice in the world is that we are living the alternative.”

“When the disciples and John the Baptist came to Jesus and asked him if he was the Messiah, he didn’t take out his messiah ID card and say, ‘Look at this, of course I am’. He said, come and see. Look at my life. When people come and ask us, ‘Are you the church?’, we can say, come and see.”