Conference participants praying for Po Kau Tang, a co-mission partner(Photo: © Adrian Watkins/CMS)In India, a recent gathering of remarkable people in mission showed the way forward for mission in Asia, says Helen Harwood
Imagine something for moment. It may, to be honest, sound a little dull. It’s a Church Mission Society conference. For people in mission from all over South Asia. In your mind’s eye, how many white faces do you see?
Well, earlier this year, about 40 such people gathered in Pune, India. You could see perhaps three white faces among them, and these were supporting CMS staff from the Oxford office.
One of my jobs as East Asia Team Administrator has been typing up the true life mission stories that came from this conference. I was intrigued by the amazing stories I read and I asked Adrian Watkins, CMS regional manager for South Asia, what was so special about this event.
“This was the first ever gathering just for people working with CMS in Asia who are from Asia,” he explained. “It therefore had much more of an Asian than British or Western character and identity.”
The participants arrived full of anticipation and many had travelled hundreds of miles by land and air. It was encouraging, sitting at my desk in Oxford, to hear the stories from all those who attended.
There was Stephen Edison, working on peace building and conflict transformation with United Mission to Nepal in the strong Maoist region of the far west of Nepal. Or the powerful testimony (including a resurrection from the dead) of Brother S, sharing good news among unreached people groups in an isolated Himalayan land.
There were many more: Suman and Reena from Nepal preparing to start work among the street and slum dwellers of Mumbai and to be involved in outreach in the red light areas of the city.
Po Kau Tang, a woman from Hong Kong working with CMS partners in Nepal to provide leadership training in the fast growing church of that country.
Debbie from Mizoram, north-east India, working in outreach ministry among urban young people in Bangalore.
Laltha and Ngakhi working in a Church of North India school in Kashmir, one of the most politically sensitive areas of all South Asia, and an area where the number of Christians is tiny.
These together with many more such stories made for a gathering with a real buzz and vision for practical cutting edge mission in South Asia!
A difficult decision had been made not to invite the British CMS mission partners working in the region. This was partly due to the training character of the event, but, says Adrian, it was also “deliberately to encourage the emergence of a genuine Asia identity and to give the sometimes younger, new and sometimes more shy Asian participants the freedom and liberty of expression that otherwise they may not have had.”
Adrian feels that this kind of meeting gives us a chance to re-learn some vital principles for CMS work in mission. For example, the British still need to beware of imposing their own priorities, culture and ways of doing things on events such as these rather than letting Asian brothers and sisters shape the style, character and cultural ethos of the event.
I asked Adrian what lessons had been learnt for future work in the region.
He observed that we need to set in place systems for ongoing pastoral care and practical support for our Asian people in mission. “They are crossing cultures in mission and sometimes experience significant cultural adjustment challenges.
“Yet on the other hand the cultural and practical hurdles are less than for British mission partners and as a result the communication bridges for sharing Christ seem to be more.”
For CMS, ever-increasing collaboration in the region could also signal a new step forward. “Given the growth and current scale of our work in South Asia this is now the time to establish some kind of physical presence in the region,” said Adrian.
Indeed, on leaving the conference, Adrian felt he’d begun to glimpse something new that had hitherto been just a dream.
“It was not just another conference – there was a clear sense of celebration of the emergence of an identifiable ‘Asia CMS’.”