Building a Bridge of Trust

In her book ‘Forming Intentional Disciples’, Sherry Weddell wrote about the five stages of coming to know Jesus. The theory is that when people come to know Christ and commit their lives to Him, it is not usually something that happens in an instant, but involves a journey.

The journey begins with initial trust which is when a person is able to trust or has a positive association with Jesus, the Church, a Christian believer, or something identifiably Christian. A bridge of trust is needed. Initial trust can help a person move to the stage of spiritual curiosity, which can lead to spiritual openness, followed by spiritual seeking, and finally intentional discipleship.

In many ways, knowing this helps us feel free to walk with any person at the stage they are at, and allow the Holy Spirit to use us to help them move towards the next stage. God sends different people at different stages of a person’s journey. Sometimes we come in at the beginning, and sometimes at the end.

So the job of a Christian is never to proselytize, but lovingly be Christ to those of other faiths. However, we often fail at this very simple task.

Last year my team along with some local Catholic youth organized a two day summer club for students of a school. On the first day, halfway through the day, the father of one of the students came by the school to pick his daughter up. He was a Muslim. “I have to go to work, so I won’t be able to pick her up in the evening.” He seemed reluctant to take her away, and his daughter looked really woebegone at having to miss the rest of the day’s activities.

I was tired, and distracted by having to coordinate the summer club, and was half inclined to just say ‘Fine, take her and go.’ But something stopped me.

“Where do you live?” I asked him.

The place he named was further than any of the volunteers lived. I hesitated. But then the Holy Spirit gave me a little nudge, and I pushed my tiredness away. What were all my words about the love of Jesus worth if I wasn’t willing to go the extra mile (literally)?

I told him, “I can bring her home.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, his brow lightening perceptibly.

“Yes, I have a vehicle, I can bring her, no problem.”

His daughter took active part in all the activities for the rest of the day, and at the end of the day, after we cleared up, I dropped her home. The next day her dad came to pick her up in the evening at the end of the summer club. He shook my hand warmly and thanked me. He hung around, and then started talking to another one of our volunteers.

“This summer club is different from other programmes I’ve sent my daughter to,” he said. “Others don’t care about our children. Once they kept them standing in the sun all day, and didn’t even give them water. But you people are different. I can see that you actually care about the children. We don’t always trust our daughters to anyone. But I would send her to anything you organize."

He gave us his number and told us, “If you are ever in my area and need some help, please call me. I will be happy to help you in any way possible.” In a world where so much mistrust exists between the followers of different religions, there usually isn’t even a place to begin a relationship. But on that day, a bridge of trust was built.

What a Girl Wants

This is a story from my time in the Philippines in 2011.

Six years ago I was sitting in a parish hall in the Philippines on a hot, muggy morning. I had been there for a few months, having moved there as a Catholic volunteer. I was in a very bad mood. We had a bunch of girls living with us in our apartment for three weeks. Sleeping on the floor + over-friendly mouse in the house + random giant cockroaches + overheated bedroom + giggly girls who stayed up too late talking = 1 extremely grumpy Sue. Not to mention, the person who had told us to be there for the weekend conference hadn’t mentioned that it was to be completely in Visaya (the local language)... which still sounded like gibberish to us!

As I sat there feeling resentful and homesick, I began to sketch on a blank sheet of paper. I kept feeling irrationally guilty because I felt like I was back in school ignoring the teacher, and if I just focussed hard enough, I would somehow absorb the meaning of all the long speeches. This is the picture I drew that day.

All my homesickness rose to the surface. I wanted home, comfort, family, familiarity. I wanted MY little nieces, not the babies from other people’s families. I wanted to be there as my little goddaughter began to walk and talk and grow fond of people. I wanted the ease and rhythm of hanging out with my people—dancing with my cousin at our regular jive parties. I wanted someone to look after me and hug me and love me. I wanted to get OUT of my rut and do something crazy... stand on my head. And that day I desperately imagined a clean bed, not just a mattress or a thin mat, with fresh cool sheets, in a quiet room and most importantly with NO MICE OR COCKROACHES in the vicinity!

I wanted, wanted, wanted! I was past the honeymoon stage of my volunteer life, and I was NOT satisfied. I retreated to the dream world of my imagination, where everything was better, and I wouldn’t have to deal with the present moment.

The next morning I went to the Lord in prayer. I’m thankful that both the community I grew up with and the organization I was serving with insisted on daily personal prayer. I opened my bible to read the Mass readings of that day... and started laughing.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Very funny, Lord!

So what was he saying? I DID want. I wanted everything else but Him. C.S. Lewis once wrote “All that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—(is) the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

I think He was reminding me of the truth—He was enough. He wanted me to redirect my longing to Him, and He would satisfy me. My daydreams and imagination would never satisfy that hunger.

Sometime later I wrote in my journal, “I’ve wasted so much of my life living in illusions—books, movies, sleeping, dreaming, and fantasizing about weddings and babies. What was I doing with the precious present I had been given? Wasted it dreaming about the future. Here (in volunteer life) I am blessed because we have such a few escapes from reality—no TV, no movies, hardly any books, no Internet at home... ... Reality is the Lord. And reality is not hiding behind family or friends or books or movies or dreams. Reality is learning how to love. Reality is seeing the people around me through the eyes of God and loving them with His love. Reality is accepting suffering out of love, and not trying to avoid it. Reality is seeing all the ways the Lord is constantly trying to love me, and accepting them joyfully.”

If the Lord really is my Shepherd, I shall NOT want. It is only in the circumstances of the present moment that I can choose to meet Him, and be loved and satisfied by Him. But that means giving up the daydreams and embracing the reality of the ‘now’. Mother Teresa said, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not yet here. We have only today. Let us begin.”