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Friends United
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Quaker Life
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| Between Friends | Contents |
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By Katie Terrell Wonsik, Editor In August 2002 I moved to Berea, Ohio, to begin my undergraduate work at Baldwin Wallace College. My mother drove with me to Berea the same weekend that my father was moving my brother to college in Daytona Beach, Florida. Christina moved into the dorm room next to mine. She was eight inches taller than me, with long blonde hair and a calling to study music therapy. We stood together watching our parents as they cried and waved from the parking lot, thinking about the quiet homes that awaited them. Our mutual embarrassment bonded us for life. I soon learned that Christina grew up in a Christian household and had strong moral convictions. We had much in common, which led us to try out for the gospel choir, attend weekly meetings of Campus Crusade for Christ and spend our summers with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. Christina ended up dropping her music therapy studies and majored in Religion, studying under well-known Friend, Alan Kolp. She joined him at an unprogrammed meeting in nearby Cleveland and me at the local evangelical Friends church. Our spiritual experiences were rich, but I’ll never forget one afternoon when Christina told me she wished she had a more powerful testimony to share. Everywhere around us it seemed God was saving people from addictions, worldly lives, sexual abuse, mental illness, physical infirmities, the list went on and on. And here we were a couple of young women who had been raised in white, middle class, Christian homes; lived in a “wellness” dorm (no drinking or smoking and certainly no drugs); participated in philanthropy opportunities at the local hospital; spent Spring Break in church with the gospel choir in Atlanta, Georgia; and had parents who were still married to each other. Our easy, comfortable lives seemed far less transformative than those of the individuals we heard speak at Campus Crusade meetings or those we read about in the Bible. Over time I have come to appreciate the unique qualities of spiritual journeys, both easy and hard. In this issue you will read about Tim Hussey’s journey to Ramallah where he discovered much about his family legacy (pp. 16-19). You will read about the love of Jesus that opened Emily Stewart to experience the Divine in unexpected ways (pp. 21-22) and the 20 years it took Evelyn Jadin to encounter the Living Christ (p. 46). Howard Macy offers tips for our journeys (pp. 13-15) and Eloise Hockett and Lon Fendall (pp. 23-26) challenge us to listen to the voice of God that spoke to Moses and asked, “What is that in your hand?” At the recent gathering of young adult Friends (YAFs) in Wichita, Kansas, it was common to hear YAFs ask one another, “How did you get here?” And it was refreshing to hear Friends call up deep responses. Instead of responding, “By bus from Texas” or “In a car with other YAFs from New York”, Friends spoke of their spiritual journeys — how they came to be Friends, why they were interested in intervisitation across the diversity of Quakerism, where they have been wrong in their presumptions about “other” Friends. And it was equally refreshing to witness YAFs being tender with one another, to challenge themselves to be open to different experiences and speak Truth when they felt uncomfortable or unwelcome. I pray that you will also be tender and open while seeing that of God in every one and speaking your Truth. I pray that when your journey is easy and when it is hard, you will know that you are not alone. |
13 Journeying with God 16 Homecoming for a Ramallah Missionary Namesake 21 Divine Perception 23 Peace Curriculum for Friends High Schools
in Kenya 25 A Kenyan Perspective on Peace _______________________________ 5 Sacred Moments 8 News from Friends United Meeting 20 Scripture for Living 27 Inspirations 28 Ask Tom 329 News 31 Reviews 35 Passages 44 Classifieds 46 Perspectives
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