J2M thoughts

At the cluster retreat on Tuesday and reminiscing last night with Sam & Angela the topic of the Journey to Mosaic came up (if you don't know what I'm talking about check out www.pswc.org and click on the bus or click here). It made me realize that there are a lot of misconceptions about the trip. And that people get excited about it when they find out what it's really like.

Some Asian Americans think it's pointless to rehearse again the inequities of the past. But the trip isn't about downloading data points. It's about processing the data and finding hope for the future. Maybe it's just typically Asian to think that nobody cares and that nothing will get done and so we should just eat the bitterness and work harder at proving ourselves. But that's not the biblical approach. If one member of the body hurts, we all hurt (1 Cor. 12:25). And we must both bear each other's burdens and carry our own load (Gal. 6:1-2). Which is to say that Asian Americans have hurts in our past, but so do African Americans and Hispanics and Native Americans and even people in the white majority. So we must all confess and forgive. That's the process by which we will find healing (James 5:16).

That's what makes the Journey so unique. It's an opportunity to really hear each other's stories, to vent in a safe environment, to be challenged with new information, to do whatever it takes so that the Holy Spirit can give us all a greater desire to proclaim and live out the Gospel of God's desire to reconcile the world to himself.

So consider going on the Journey, even if you consider yourself an expert in American and/or California history. It's not just about the past, it's for the future. And for the Kingdom.