Mission

Veronica and Malcolm White

Church Mission Society

This is the letter that Malcolm and Veronica wrote on leaving Jordan :

Dear friends,

At around 3.26pm on Sunday June 10, we touched down at Heathrow Airport. The journey from Amman in Jordan to London only takes about 51/4 hours, but the moment of touchdown concluded a longer journey of over six years since first leaving Britain for Jordan on a cold wintry evening in February 2001. During these years we have all had to learn to live with the realities of terrorism - from the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001, to attacks in London and Amman during 2005, and now in London and Glasgow the previous month. There is also a greater sense of tension across the Middle East now than when we first set foot there. However, there have been many other - perhaps less obvious - features that have shaped our lives during this time, and so this final CMS Link Letter will try to highlight some of them.

But before we do that, we would tike to express our profound thanks to all those who have supported us. We owe a great debt of thanks to our family of course, but also to members of the 10 churches that have been part of the CMS Link Parish scheme and to a number of individuals whose interest, encouragement and endeavour have been invaluable. Some of you may remember that each of the 10 parishes chose a 'fruit of the Spirit' (from Galatians 5:22) by which you might remember us, and it has been a considerable source of strength for us - especially when times were stressful.

Here is a reminder of those choices:

Mention must also be made, of course, to those at CMS who have been there for us since 2000 when we started the process of cross-cultural learning through a six month spell at Crowther Hall in Birmingham. It was at Crowther where we came to value the experience of George Kovoor, its principal, and Dr Ida Glaser whose knowledge of Islam helped us enormously. Following our move to Jordan, Pamela Harrison, followed by Barbara Shaw and then Tanas AI Qassis, offered their experiences of the Middle East to us, while Jean Thompson, followed by Alex Bache and Philip Bingham, were sensitive to our more personal needs. We thank them all most deeply.

As to those features that have left their strongest impact on us over these past years, we have chosen the following headings (though there are many more, we suspect!).

Almost the first thing we did on arrival in Jordan was to contact Mona Salti who became our first Arabic teacher, and our encounter with that extraordinary language would last until the very last day! We stumbled over its strange sounds, endlessly mispronouncing even the words that we thought we knew, and daily frustrating others - and ourselves - at the limited conversations we could accomplish. However, when all is said and done, there was a real joy in being immersed, even just slightly, in a language that is so distinctively different to one's own - and surviving! It suggests that only when we give up significant rights, like the right to be understood in our own language, can we experience this new kind of rich belonging. A good example of this richness of community can be found in the new ESAC prayer book, which although created for an English-speaking congregation includes some material in Arabic. After all, we are probably all going to have to learn a new language in heaven!

Moving to a new country means that everyone around you is new, and even if most can use the English language moderately well, hardly anyone will understand your background and experience - ensuring that you will understand very little, initially, of others around you. We lived with Americans, Sri Lankans, Canadians, Nigerians, Filipinos and Africans, all of whom spoke English fluently. However, understanding takes more than a common language and when you add Chinese, Eritrean, Egyptian, Iraqi, Sudanese and Syrian people to the mix, the task of communication becomes a big priority! But, somehow, that's what the English-language congregation wrestled with and through love, humour and compassion, managed to achieve an extraordinary sense of common identity that we know will be difficult to find again - but we're looking!

One of the most senior and respected members of the Arab Anglican Church in Jordan is Dr. Sami Khoury. He is the founder of the Palestine Hospital in Amman, but is a Jerusalem Christian by birth. He wrote in his autobiography: 'I am a Christian by birth but I am Islamic by culture' and pointed out how deeply rooted our surrounding culture is. Nowhere is this more so than around the Mediterranean shores and amongst the Arab peoples. This is perhaps most clearly seen in the high value given to honour amongst all Arabs, and foreigners disregarding such behaviour are often surprised - and sometimes hurt - as a consequence. Honour issues come into play

when greeting and visiting others, often to ask for a favour but who will then expect you to say `yes' when they ask one back of you. It determines who comes to your home and when, how you address people and what you may and may not do. With culture playing such a large part in keeping society together, you can imagine the tensions that arise when globalisation and westernisation threaten to change local culture. It plays its part in politics, too, as an Iraqi friend said to us once: `If you need oil in the West, why don't you come and ask? We will let you have it. When you demand and deceive us, you dishonour us and that must be resisted.'

Although you can sense how important honour is, it is just a small part of Middle Eastern culture, How fascinating therefore, to spend six years in such a culture, from which both Old and New Testaments emerged! In a society where honour still dictates who sits at table with the host, how interesting to look at the institution of the Last Supper as the sacramental sign of the community of the Kingdom of God... how refreshing to read the Gospels and the Epistles with an awareness of the cultural background in which they were written... how instructive to stand on the hills of ancient Edom, at the place of Jesus' baptism or at the place of Moses' death and let the landscape breathe life into familiar words of scripture. Some of the most moving moments of our time in Amman took place in homes with groups looking at familiar scriptures and seeing them in a whole new light.

Jesus said to his disciples before he died that he counted them now as friends (John 15:15), and this text had never meant much to us before we moved away from our familiar world. The gift of friendship is so precious, and though so simple - in many ways - it is often the doorway through which new life is offered to us. Friendship across the cultural barriers is especially to be treasured and amongst friendships we value in this way must surely include Ann from Scotland, Miriam from Iraq, Yousef and Manal from Egypt, Lorna from Malaysia, Chris from England, Hanna from Jordan, Sivu from South Africa, Samir from Palestine, and the Wu family from China. Then there was Rami who was always ready to help, Sayeed, Omar, Mahmoud, George, Mohammad, Abu Yousef, Abu Aymon and Awni who all befriended us within the immediate vicinity of our home, and the countless others - young and old - who were part of the ESAC community.

A long time ago a missionary to Africa said to us something very simple, but also profound. He said: 'Sometimes we think we can only be doing God's will when we are doing something we don't like. But this misunderstands God's nature - often it is God's purpose to give us the opportunity to do precisely what we most deeply long to do.' In our experience, this was the case as something within us was deeply fulfilled by living in the Middle East after 25 years in parish life in England, although perhaps more so with Malcolm to be honest! The call to live in the Middle East could have been stillborn, silenced, or stunted, but there is a real satisfaction that comes from having travelled the road, and now to have reached the destination - however unworthily.

Jordan is 85 per cent desert, and this may give the idea that for much of the time life is like the landscape - fairly monotonous and unchanging - but this would give totally the wrong view of the sheer scope of opportunity that awaits appropriate Christian service within Jordan. Our tasks have included teaching in local schools, working with NGOs, supporting new projects for the disabled, sitting with those from every walk of life and standing alongside people finding ways to a new life_r encouraging vocations and creative gifts of drama, music and learning. Yes, there is something unchangeable about Arab culture but there is also an enormous variety of opportunity within this part of the Arab world as it faces almost insurmountable challenges over its resources, politics and structures. And being part of this for six years we are forever grateful, and can only pray that these highlights will encourage others to take a step into an ongoing Christian mission that continues to be shaped by the words of the Great Commission: `Go therefore into all the world, and make disciples amongst all peoples' (Matthew 28:19).

The future for Jordan surely lies in managing the tension between deep tradition and rapid change and King Abdullah II of Jordan has often urged Jordanians to learn to `think the unthinkable' but in a way this upholds Jordanian values of toleration, respect and peace. It seems to us, though, that this can only be met through a transformation of the human heart and mind as deep as any we have seen before. So, please continue to pray for such transformations in the years ahead.

With our very best wishes,

Malcolm and Veronica

Church Mission Society, PO Box 1799, Oxford OX4 9BN

Tel. 0845 620 1799 E-mail: linkmaterials@cms-uk.org www.cms-uk.org

General Secretary - The Rev Canon Tim Dakin Registered Charity Number 220297