"From Zanzibar to Minneapolis: It’s All Mission."
Chris Reano
Sunday, August 24th, 2003

Good Morning and thank you for this opportunity, yet again, to be here with you. Some of you may remember my standing here in March of 1994, 24 hours before leaving for Uganda to work for three years as a lay missionary. Then, upon my return, I stood before you in July of 1997 and told exotic tales of life in Uganda, and attempted to make sense of where my spiritual and life journey had me at that point in time. A year ago, I was back up here, then for a blessing and “sending” as I prepared to embark on yet another East African escapade, to the island of Zanzibar, which is in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of, and part of, Tanzania. And here I am again, catching you all up on this latest chapter.

As I prepared for this time together, I reread my two former talks at St. Joan’s and was hit, ironically, with a sense of gratitude. These opportunities to stand before and with you publicly, and to put my story “out there,” are a tremendous personal and reflective challenge. They force me to go beyond two definite comfort zones; one that of busyness and doing over quiet times of reflection and synthesis of life experience; and the other that of preferring sharing those innermost reflections with a close knit, safe group of friends over standing before all thousand whatever of you and then having what I say be available over the WorldWideWeb! Yet it’s great to be home, and it’s great to be up here, and thank you again, for sharing this life and my journey with me.

I am here today to continue the story, and catch you all up on where I am internally and externally, on the subject and definition of mission and missionary. In addition, I am, technically, here on behalf of the Diocese of Zanzibar, through the facilitation of the St. Paul/Minneapolis Archdiocesan office for Missions. This is our community’s official “Mission Sunday” and today’s collection will benefit the Women in Development programs of the Diocese of Zanzibar, for whom I had the opportunity to serve and work for approximately six months last year.

Each time I have been up here, I have incorporated the “Starfish Story,” which today you heard as the first reading, because this has remained a consistent choice for a definition of mission for me. My theme, story, personal challenge is this: Whether in Zanzibar or south Minneapolis, am I living my life as a response to and reflection of Jesus’ example in the gospels, or, more simply put, picking up the starfish regardless of where I am geographically?

A year ago, I set off for Zanzibar, and I’d be there still, had world events not transpired the way they have in the past year or so, and it had remained a more safe and reasonable choice to be a single American Christian woman living alone and working for women’s development on behalf of the Catholic Church in a predominantly Muslim society.

But let’s go back a little first, before we move forward to the what’s next. Well over a year ago, through what I then was referring to as “divine networking” I was put in contact with the Catholic Bishop of the diocese of Zanzibar, and was ultimately invited to come work in their diocesan office of Women in Development. As I had twice visited Zanzibar as a tourist during my three years in Uganda, I was familiar with the area, and had in fact fantasized and dreamt of returning to this exotic, island paradise one day to live and work.

Everything lined up as necessary in the universe to facilitate my pursuing my life of service and “picking up the starfish” in an idyllic island paradise. Once again, as I’d done in the past, I sold most of my belongings and packed my bags for the next adventure. I arrived in Zanzibar and began the process of slowing down to the leisurely pace of island life nearly on the Equator, learning and using Swahili, and becoming familiar with the work of the Women in Development office.

This office and work existed before my arrival and will go on long after my departure. I served in this office with a Tanzanian Sister as partner, companion, co-facilitator and support person in a task that seemed nearly hopeless. As Zanzibar is approximately 98% Muslim, the social, cultural, and religious norms of Islam permeate all facets of society. The role and contribution of women in this culture is seriously neglected. Most have had no formal education, and all are facing insurmountable odds as women in a society where repression and extreme economic poverty are the norm. Their voices are rarely heard.

Yet, the women I came to know in my brief tenure were survivors and fighters. They knew instinctively that in most cases it was up to them to figure out how their children were going to be sufficiently sheltered, fed, clothed, schooled, and cared for.

Subsequently, they were motivated to learn, work together, and face often-frightening resistance to their increased potential in the society. The Women in Development office in the Diocese of Zanzibar gives women the skills and education to discover and unleash their self worth and dignity, connects them with the support of other women, and provides small business loans to help them create and sustain income-generating projects. Because the women realize the importance of participating in the building of their families and communities they are motivated to take the risk of crossing otherwise impenetrable inter-religious barriers. Working together the women of Zanzibar have begun small-scale projects like gardens, flour milling, tailoring, and selling goods at small kiosks in their villages. The work is slow, and the roadblocks many. But the will and determination of the women I came to know will foster and create a more just community, one project, one family, at a time.

For several months the settling in continued, the Swahili came slightly more easily, and I began to develop a rhythm and “everyday life.” For a moment or two I may have even imagined that I’d “arrived.” Then, in mid January I began to regularly receive warnings from the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam about a serious and credible threat toward Westerners, particularly in Zanzibar and coastal Tanzania. Several western Embassies issued travel advisories about this usually desirable tourist destination, and the tourism trade, which is one of Tanzania’s, and particularly Zanzibar’s, biggest industries, began to go downhill quickly and dramatically.

Warnings and advisories such as these present an “us and them,” fear-based dynamic and perpetuate just the thing I was attempting to live my life to break down. I struggled with the decision to remain or return to the relative security of my home country. After discussions with involved persons both in Zanzibar and the U.S., it was mutually decided that it would be best for me to return to the U.S. and do a “wait and see” from here.

Since then the Bishop of Zanzibar has both written and phoned to recommend that I not return to my work there, stating that this just isn’t a good time for the diocese to have Western volunteers with them. In addition to myself there were two young men serving two-year terms with the Jesuit Volunteers. They, too, left their commitments prematurely and unexpectedly, at the recommendation of their organization and the Bishop. I found myself living out, rather disappointedly, my favorite one-liner; “If you want to make God laugh, just tell him/her your plans.”

And so, here I am, reinventing my life, yet again. The next chapter of the journey has me living and working here for the time being. Tomorrow I begin a new school year as a teacher serving students with Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome in the Edina Public Schools. Edina, by the way, is, I’m fairly certain, geographically and pretty much by all other measures, about as far from Zanzibar as anyplace could be. But that’s a topic for a whole other talk!

So now, I am challenged to ask myself, how are this chapter and the Zanzibar one really different, or maybe more importantly, the same; and what’s this all got to do with mission? And that takes us back to the Starfish story, and making a difference to “this one,” whomever and whatever “this one” is.

Many of us grew up in a church where mission was about saving pagans and was exclusively the work of ordained religious who went out to “the missions.” It was defined by geography and presented us with an “us and them” mentality. It identified with an institutional, hierarchical, western church and was often less than respectful to the persons and cultures the missionaries went to. Today, because of the results of past mistakes, and because we live in a world wrought with massive religious and social change, the missions and the role of the missionary have come under close scrutiny are open to new definitions. Only when former categories have been challenged can new insights bear fruit. Not until old boundaries are destroyed can new relationships be created: “they” becomes “us,” exclusiveness can move toward inclusiveness, opposites can embrace and new programs and ideologies can be discovered and created.

As I see it, in true and authentic church, we are all missionaries, or sent out, by virtue of the graces of our baptism, by which we become disciples committed to the welfare of all humankind. In this true and authentic church, the arenas of missionary activity are as extensive as the world itself since no place is beyond God’s love in Christ. We, then, are called to respond to the example of Jesus in the gospels in our own way, but respond we must.

As we look to the gospel accounts, we can discern how and when Jesus was “missionary.” Every time he comes up against his personal human boundaries, prejudices, comforts, or expectations, and transcends or penetrates those boundaries, Jesus is in mission: being propelled, moved, sent, in the service of the Realm of God. His mission is not defined by geographical criteria but by his existential response. And that response leads, both personally and in terms of his plans, to his conversion and transformation.

Picking up the starfish in our lives, going outside of our comfort zones in the name of the gospel and the Realm of God, leads each of us to transformation, and therefore defines us as missionary. Mission has a centrifugal momentum, calling us to true availability to others and genuine readiness to compromise our comfort and to modify our manner of life – calling us to transformation.

The transformation that happens when we move to the margins and authentically encounter the “other” is born of relationship. True relationships are based on reciprocal giving and receiving, that is to say, sharing.

Jesus, our example, is pushed and pulled through boundaries and magnetized by the margins. He goes where he does not particularly want to go but knows he must; he does not presume dogmatically to tell people what they need, but actually asks them; he allows his agenda to be modified according to the needs of the people. Whether we are encountering others and entering into their worlds in Zanzibar or Minnesota, it is important to meet them where they’re at, not where we think they should be.

My challenge, and the one I invite you to share in with me is this: Where are the margins and who are the “others” in my life? Am I transformed by my moving out of my comfort zone and to the margins with an open heart and mind toward the “other”? Am I truly available to and ready to pick up the starfish in my own community and make a difference to “this one?” Personally, to survive, I have to believe that transformation of my missionary spirit and life is as present through the grace of God in Edina as it is in Zanzibar. And I’ll just have to accept there just aren’t as many great beaches.

Thank you!