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I look at that photo now and realize that Winnie’s eyes weren’t sad. They were wise; they had seen more than a 33-year-old woman should. They had witnessed unimaginable, unspeakable things and persevered.

In South Africa, I sought a faith connection beyond my comprehension. God revealed this in Winnie. How often had I missed out on such blessings because I usually push too hard? In the past, I would have bowled over someone like Winnie—chatting and entertaining her into liking me. But a soul like Winnie’s resists such behavior; such people live in quieter moments.

The homecoming
I learned from this trip that a band of sisters bent on building global community can reach out to each other even across the boundary of death: Our dear Winnie died in April. Her death shocked and saddened me for obvious reasons—she was young, strong, and seemed unstoppable. Yet she fell ill and could not recover.

	The seminar is part of the Women of the ELCA Global Education program Women Building Global Community, which brings together young women ages 21-35 from ELCA companion synods in the Midwest that have relationships with churches in South Africa, Namibia, and Malawi, and developing relationships in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

Winnie inspired more than 1,000 to attend her funeral. That doesn’t surprise her sisters from her South Africa adventure: A woman of great laughter, keen intelligence, dignity, devotion, and love such as Winnie would be widely celebrated in her home-going.

In South Africa, I learned to strive to be a better Christian, woman, fighter, and peacemaker. I learned to try harder. I learned not to give up. I learned to make a difference. When I got home, I wrote a statement for my local newspaper about the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa: If one among us is affected, we all are—the world has AIDS.

Before, I would have been scared. I would have told myself it wouldn’t make a difference. But I now realize that to make such a statement is to change the world. I learned this from Winnie and my sisters.

Karris Golden is a freelance writer from Waterloo, Iowa, where she lives with her husband and daughter.
 

I’m much more comfortable behind a camera or wielding a notebook. When reporting for The Lutheran takes me abroad, I feel the expectation to come home with big, life-changing stories. But in reality, it’s the small encounters have been the most holy.

I went to Ramallah on the West Bank in 2003, where a Palestinian student at the Lutheran School of Hope asked me to go back to the United States and petition then-President George W. Bush to visit Ramallah. This was during the second intifada, an uprising among Palestinian Arabs of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, but hopes were high that the administration’s Road Map to Peace initiative would end the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

I came home and told her story to everyone I told about the trip, and included it in my article for The Lutheran. Was that consistent with the ethics of my vocation? Yes. Was it enough for her? Probably not.

Also during that visit, I was among a group of Lutherans from the United States who were escorted by a Jewish Israeli college student into a Palestinian refugee camp. We met a Muslim family who told us about their home being bulldozed. The family insisted that they’d never participated in violence against Israel. They showed us photos of heavy equipment tearing into their home. They were in the process of building a new house near the rubble of the old one. The new house was a concrete shell without furniture, window coverings, or any other comforts. But our hostess went inside and returned with 10 delicate glasses filled with sweet, hot tea, each garnished with sprig of fresh sage.

Wrapped with care
In 2006, shortly after the end of the war between Hezbollah and Israel, I spent a week with Agnes Wakim Dagher, director of the Contact and Resource Center, an ELCA Global Mission partner in southern Jordan. The Contact and Resource Center provides services for people with disabilities in Lebanon—everything from driving lessons to job training and placement.

The center was working to help people with disabilities who had fled their homes during the fighting. In the town of Yaroun, several of us—Dagher, her daughter, her husband, the local priest, and I—visited Imm Michele, an older woman whose two adult children were blind. Dagher delivered a gift of dried yogurt in a bag printed with the telephone number of the Contact and Resource Center, so Imm Michele would know who to call if her children needed assistance. It was a small gift, but wrapped in the concern of the community.

The sand on my shoes
In 2004 I found myself in Barcelona for the Parliament of the World’s Religions. My budget for meals during the week-long event was tight, so I was delighted to learn that a free vegetarian lunch would be provided each day by the Sikh community, which was celebrating the 400th anniversary of the revelation of its scriptures.

Each day, I was one of 3,000 people who stood in line, removed our shoes, and sat on the floor to enjoy homemade curries, dal, rice, yogurt, pasta, and french fries—all ladled out of industrial-size buckets. Each day, I sat next to someone representing a different religious tradition: Buddhist, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, Jain, Muslim, Sikh. Each day, I was nourished by good food and amazing hospitality. While I ate, the sand on my shoes was dusted off by volunteers. I asked Sutinder Singh Jabbal from Nairobi, Kenya, why he was dusting my shoes. He showed me his towel. “We do not simply throw these cloths away. We pray over them and occasionally wipe them across our foreheads. The dust on your shoes represents your journey to us and the opportunity you’ve given us to serve you,” he said. I left with an understanding of hospitality I’d never before considered.

In Matthew 10:14, Jesus instructs his disciples to shake the sand from their feet if they and the gospel are unwelcome. Sutinder Singh Jabbal helped me imagine the Bible story from another perspective: If we are welcomed by others, and if we extend God’s welcome to others, every particle of sand on our journeys is sacred.

Amber Leberman manages The Lutheran magazine’s three Web sites and art-directs The Little Lutheran and The Little Christian. She has reported for The Lutheran from Israel and the West Bank, Egypt, Lebanon, Spain, and Papua New Guinea.
 

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