The Crossings Community

words Faria da Costa was almost explaining the Non-violent Direct Action strategy of Martin Luther King. King's "direct action" meant coercive force, as in a boycott against economic oppressors. "Non-violence" signalled that the aim was to win, not destroy, the opponent.

That sounds almost like an ethic that properly distinguishes law and gospel. I never got the chance to check whether the Commander knew the Reformation roots of the work-ethic he'd just professed. He may just have gotten it straight from the New Testament.

ehs

E is for 'Elikson,

the way Karen Helikson's family name gets pronounced in Spanish on the streets of Cuzco, Peru. Karen is the only person listed for Peru in the ELCA's 1996 Global Mission Directory. She's been there about 10 years. Does she ever get lonely? Sometimes, but not for long. She's nourished by the ecumenical community she works with.

The language of her daily work isn't actually Spanish, but Quechua (pronounced "ketch-wa"). That's also the name of the people she serves as missionary health care worker in rural mountain villages out from big city Cuzco, itself once the capital of the Inca empire. Karen's a city girl from Eugene, Oregon, with a master's degree in community and school health and education. She first recognized this as her calling when she spent two years with the Peace Corps in Paraguay.

Crossings Community leaders in the Quechua village of Sierra Bella inaugurating phase one of a reservoir project. Karen Helikson is the one with the striped bag.

What does Karen actually do in crossings ministry with the Quechua? She directs a team of wholistic health workers, many Catholics but also some conservative evangelical protestants, who go into the villages to help local committees with whatever work needs to be done. They teach them about nutrition and help them establish vegetable gardens. They help them build reservoirs and water delivery systems. To get needed income they teach them how to raise guinea pigs (yes, for eating). An economist

Karen Helikson

has recently joined the group to help them determine actual costs so they can set proper prices for their produce. And especially with the women, her team works hard to raise their battered self-esteem.

"The whole purpose of our ministry here," says Karen, "is to enact God's love for all of us with the Quechua people. We don't just give, we receive too. We work with the people for the abundant life in Christ that God desires for all of us."

It's one of the ten poorest provinces in Peru, but Karen says the people are rich in religious and cultural resources. They have a sense of God in every aspect of their lives, seeing no separation between sacred and secular. And they love to celebrate. "I learn so much from them," she concludes.

The Women's Committee of Qollotaro village preparing the seed bed for their gardening project. Crossings

Karen's daily crossings look like table tennis, both serving and receiving. What goes back and forth is the Gospel. Karen and the Quechua are ping-pong Pentecost in Peru.

Marie Schroeder

I is for IAMS, the International Association for Mission Studies,

and its Ninth Conference in Buenos Aires right after Easter this year. That was the event that put Marie and me in South America.

Pioneer Lutheran missions professor, William Danker, "converted me" [as he likes to say] to missiology when we were Seminex colleagues twenty years ago. And what, you may be asking, is missiology? It's the "-logy" of missions. It's a newer kid on the block of the seminary curriculum. Practitioners of missiology examine the church's past mission history and current mission practice.

"Examine?" you ask. "What are they looking for?" For adequate answers to Crossings' own kind of questions. Is mission happening at all? When it is happening, is it grounded in the Gospel? Is it tracking

THE CROSSINGS COMMUNITY - P.O. Box 7011 - Saint Louis, Missouri 63006-7011 - (314) 576-7357 or 961-1874

(Page 1) <-- CROSSING OVER --> (Page 3)