Hi everyone! Today is the last day of Zach’s faith journey. Thanks again to Zach for sharing some of the beautiful moments and the bumps that have happened in his life. He has a genuine and sincere love for God and people, is knowledgeable, and humble. It has been a joy to give you all a glimpse of all that God is doing in and through him. Enjoy!
The Center for Youth Integration welcomed Roma children between the ages of five to fifteen. The children were provided a hot meal and sweets daily. Every other day they were given access to a shower and a new set of clothes to wear. The center was also staffed with a psychologist, a nurse, special education teachers, and even a lawyer to help with legal battles.
The kids had to go to school to receive full access to all the benefits of the center. If they did not go, the only thing they were provided was a warm hot meal because oftentimes it was the only meal they had that day. The intention was not to punish their livelihood, but rather to drive home the point that education was very important. Every day when the kids walked though the door, the first question we asked was, “How was school today? What did you learn?” We reiterated how it was vital to go to school.
The center also owned a café bar in the community. Youth of working age were able to train there to become a waiter or waitress. Ultimately, the goal was to open new opportunities by giving them their first job to put on their resume. It was how they hoped to help them break out of the cycle of poverty. I was impressed with how thorough and well thought out the system for education and training was at the center; however, when I first arrived, I felt I had very little to offer.
Initially, people I encountered had misguided beliefs about me because I was an American. They assumed that I was a millionaire and asked me for money. When I told them that I did not have money, they lost interest. Most of the Roma people I helped were Muslim or Serbian Orthodox, so there was little to no connection based on Christianity. My education and bachelor’s degree meant nothing to them. I could not even verbally communicate with others due to the language barrier when I first arrived. I thought, “Okay, this is really awkward. Why am I here?” I came to help and serve but I could not discern how that would happen.
That was when I realized that a ministry of presence was powerful. My main job at the center was to interact with the kids. I also served food, processed donations, and whatever else was needed. People were not used to someone that looked like me being at that place. They noticed my consistent presence. Soon everyone wanted English lessons, so I began doing introductory classes. I discovered that simply showing up was profound.
I was put in a position of being a doer of the Word rather than speaking about it. Since I was unable to communicate well in their language, I could not rely on my prior education, insights about God, and knowledge to proclaim the gospel. I could only be present and demonstrate things through my actions. It was through my time in Serbia that I was shown that we could still lead and, in a way, proclaim the gospel without saying a word.
Of course, we can tell people of their need for Jesus, but we can also be the person that starts picking up all the toys that the kids left out so someone else does not have to. In my experience, that caused people to turn their heads and ask, “Why are you doing that?” It was part of the message of showing people love through tangible acts.
That ministry of presence had an impact. There were kids who would not give me the time of day during the first few weeks that I showed up. When it was time for me to leave, those same kids were some of my best friends. They would walk through the door, see me, and shout my name with enthusiasm. I had not told them anything special, I had just shown up day after day. They started to see that I was someone they could trust. That was very humbling.
Despite all the beauty of what God was doing in this place, my time abroad almost derailed me from my calling to ministry.
During my time in Serbia, we had an opportunity to gather with American pastors as well as my peers in the Young Adults Global Ministry program (YAGM). Several times the pastors told me, “Zach, you have to work on your whiteness and your maleness.” As I heard harmful ideas around identity and social justice, I began to wonder if I should even go into ministry. I thought, “Maybe the church doesn’t need another white, male pastor. Who am I to step into leadership?”
As we were coming up to advent, my YAGM peers and the American pastors did a weeklong retreat. Everyone gathered from our various placements (e.g. Serbia, Hungary etc) and met in a small town in Hungary. Though there were beautiful moments of lighting candles, singing songs, and reading poetry, it was unusual because we did not open scripture.
During that time, we were asked to read a book called, Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US, by Lenny Duncan. He was a black preacher in the ELCA who was writing to the whitest denomination, which was also the ELCA. In his book, Lenny Duncan presented what was almost a stream of consciousness, litany of issues that he believed was wrong with the ELCA. He made claims that the entire liturgy and way of being in the ELCA had been baptized and overwhelmed by white supremacy and nationalism. It was this idea that we were, in some way, baptizing people into whiteness and white supremacy. He spoke about how we had to get rid of all our pictures of a white Jesus. That I did not have any problem with since Jesus was not white, but that was only the beginning.
Another concept from the book that was being told to us was that there was a need to remove all mention of light and dark from our liturgy. I was shocked. Literally, from the Genesis 1 until Revelation, light and dark are a part of scripture. In John 8:12, Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jesus himself was placing a distinction on those two things.
I am all for putting the gospel into deeds of mercy, justice, and thwarting unjust power structures. However, when we begin eliminating the Word of God to conform it to our form of social justice, we essentially make our work the gospel. As a result, we are no longer gospel focused. The gospel is that Jesus came to save us from sin, save us from ourselves, to redeem a broken creation, and we work from that place of restoration and wholeness.
That notion of removing light and dark from our liturgy was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was untrue to get rid of those words in scripture. The Lord was shedding light on the fact that I could no longer be a part of the ELCA. I was now open to a new denomination and wherever the Lord was leading me.
By January, I realized that I had been misdirected about not being suitable for ministry due to my race and gender. Although I still wondered if I could do divinity school, at the last moment, I pushed past my doubts. While I was still in Serbia, I pulled an all nighter to finish my application for a Master of Divinity program. I submitted it at 5:58AM, which was 11:58 PM in North Carolina. I had only 2 minutes to spare before the system permanently closed for applications that year. In the end, I was accepted into the program and received a scholarship! Finally, the Lord won over it all.
Looking back, I think what strikes me is that God is faithful. There’s nowhere that I go that is outside of God. There is such great rest and grace in that. There is no need to fear or be tempted to anxiety. At my baptism, He was there. At my first communion, He was there. It goes on and on.
I think it can be somewhat aggravating when I look forward and feel uncertain because when I look back, I see utter faithfulness on God’s part. At times when I’m looking ahead I may think, “Oh no! How’s this going to go?” But each time I look back I see God in all those moments. It is then that I remember that I have lost the right to be worried about the provision of God. He was always everywhere I went.
God is steadfast and above all else He is faithful.
. . .
Bonus content for paid subscribers below the subscribe/ share buttons 😊.