GORDON IN LYNN CHAPEL
March 31, 2008
Micah 6:6-8 (NIV)
6 With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
Real stories from Lynn
Amanda:
This is my story.
Throughout my time at Gordon, I wanted to get involved with Gordon in Lynn but never really did
anything about it. Finally, my senior year, I started volunteering twice a week at the New American
Center. At this after-school program, we helped middle and high school students- who didn’t speak
English!- with their homework. If you think this sounds easy, it’s not. It became one of the best
challenges I’ve faced so far …and I quickly fell in love with the kids I worked with.
By the time Spring Semester rolled around, I was looking for a place to complete my youth ministries
practicum. I knew that I wanted a non-traditional, church or camp setting, and this seemed like the
perfect fit. The Center is around the corner from Barton Hall, and I only needed to be on campus two
days a week. I applied to Barton Hall, packed up all my stuff, and left the main campus. This was, by far,
the best decision for me at that point in my life.
I love Gordon College- if I could do college over, I would have picked this place again. At the same time,
by senior year, I felt as though I needed to be challenged in a different way. I know that I can live among
people who are pretty much the same as me. Dorm life isn’t always easy, but it’s not too challenging,
either. (It could just be the awesome ResLife staff here!) So, thinking through what I needed to change
in my life in order to grow more, I realized it wasn’t going to be by staying within my comfort zone here
on campus.
Moving to Lynn is somewhat akin to moving to another country: a different restaurant on every corner,
a different language on every block, a different face every day. As I fell more and more in love with
Lynn, I fell more and more in love with the students at the New American Center.
These students are among the most amazing people I have ever met. In their young lives, they have
been forced out of their countries and lived in camps as refugees in another country. Most of them
lived in refugee camps- which are NOT pretty places- for about ten years. Then they were uprooted
from the only life they’d really known, and sent to another continent, where there was no one to speak
their language, to understand their music, or to listen to their stories.
And here they are, right up the road from us, living in Lynn, Massachusetts. Every moment that I spend
with these kids, a new lesson is learned. Though they do not articulate it in their everyday lives, these
kids know more about justice, mercy, and humility than most adults I have met.
Sam:
This is my story.
I was born in Germany and my Korean parents raised me speaking mostly German. I never thought this
was strange, because everybody else around me was talking German. Until I was about sixteen, I didn´t
know how to express myself in Korean beyond a simple “yes”, “no” and greetings. I actually avoided
being with Korean-Korean people, who would talk non-stop, with loud interjections of shouting, nod
their heads as greetings, and talk about food.
Coming to the U.S. as an exchange student in high school, I had a shocking experience. Suddenly, I was
no longer seen as German, but rather as a small, confused-looking Korean kid with a funny, heavy
accent.
Since that experience, I started to learn Korean. At home with my parents we began to communicate
exclusively in Korean. By using Korean I connected to my parents, and later my grandparents, great
uncles, great aunts, uncles, aunts and cousins on a much more intimate level than without Korean.
Truly, language is a powerful tool that connects us to our fellow people in meaningful and
transformative ways; this is what I’m learning with Gordon in Lynn.
Dellynne:
This is my story.
When I came to Gordon I thought I was perfect, accepting a slightly broken heart. I went to Old
Testament, came back to the room to mope over a guy, I went to CCC, came back to cry over a guy. The
cycle was unvarying, even if only for a few weeks.
One day, in the midst of self-created pain and misery, I remembered kids. Hadn’t that been the thing
that made high school so wonderful? Kids. There’s nothing so … intoxicating as hanging out with a
bunch of people who are even more dramatic than me.
I needed kids.
Kids would help me forget about adults. I found myself spending more and more time at the Boy’s and
Girl’s Club in Lynn…But it was all about me. As long as I was quote, un-quote serving kids at the Club,
that boy who broke my heart, didn’t matter… because I was still a good person.
I was hanging out with Minelli, who truly had a broken heart, for the sake of healing my false pain. I
acted like I, who spent most of my time wallowing, had something to give… and that these perfectly
joyful, though a little crazy, girls didn’t have anything to offer me.
Pride drove me the thirty minutes down to the club, walked me through the doors, and made me sit still,
“die to myself,” and listen to Minelli’s or Jasmine’s struggles. Eventually, listening took its toll. Eventually
I found I had little I could give these girls but a listening ear, but they poured out to me the love and
trust that was stolen from me. Even my pride was shattered.
Sam:
At the Community Minority Cultural Center (or CMCC) in Lynn language is the theme of our interactions.
Most of the people who come to the CMCC are recent immigrants from places like the Dominican
Republic, Peru, Ukraine, Guatemala and Haiti. We greet the Spanish-speakers with Buenos Días, the
Haitians with Comment allez-vous, the Ukrainians with Dobroe Utro to express appreciation for their
cultural background and open the doors for intercultural exchanges and friendships.
There are some unique characters.
For instance, Nancy has come from Peru recently with her teenage daughter. The daughter started out
learning at the CMCC, but then quickly moved on and is now working in a mall near Lynn. Nancy has
been in the level 1 course quite a while, but was telling me with a sense of pride that her daughter had
so quickly adapted to the American way of life.
Angela is an immigrant from the Ukraine, who has a Jewish heritage. She speaks Hebrew and Russian.
She also knows how to dance in an Arabian style.
All of them are adults and most of them have families of their own. We help them in their English
learning on a very basic level. But besides teaching them English, my friends at the CMCC have taught
me some important things. For instance, I’ve learned from them the importance of sharing and
appreciating one´s culture. One time we celebrated the baby shower of Ixel with delicious food from the
Dominican Republic, Russian folk music played on an accordion and the students danced to random
music on the radio.
I would like to share this passion for language with you. Whether you will empower English language
learners, mentally challenged people or even someday your own children by teaching them how to use
language in a valuable and fulfilling way or whether you will learn the language or dialect of another
culture…
When we make efforts to communicate in whatever language with our neighbors, we are able to
connect to our world and cherish its diversity and further Christ’s healing of division and ethnic injustice.
Amanda:
Most of our students, when they arrive in the United States, cannot speak English or read- some not
even in their first language. They don’t know how to behave according to the rules of this society. Yet, I
cannot count how many times I have seen our students helping each other out with school work,
sticking up for each other, or correcting each other… These kids know the full meaning of mercy.
Last June, a group of new students arrived in Lynn from Burma. These new students immediately joined
our program, which was great, except that some of the other students felt a little territorial. Imagine
having a place that felt like a second home to you suddenly filled with strange people, who speak a
different language, and don’t know how to behave according to American customs…It’s kind of
intimidating! Add this to the typical trials of junior high girls- you can imagine the results. It was a long
summer. The girls were bickering every day; the guys had a few fist fights but mostly ignored each
other. By the end of the summer, few people were talking to each other across racial boundaries, and it
was the week before the annual camping trip! The counselors and I were apprehensive about the trip:
should we decide not to take some students? Do we force them to live and work together, and hope for
the best? In the end, that’s basically what we decided to do. And, of course, God is good. By the end of
the weekend, the students were playing with each other, sharing stories, and even teaching each other
to swim.
School started the next week, and on the first day, one of the girls who had been so adamantly against
liking the newcomers came to sit next to me at the program after school. “How was school?” I asked
my standard question each day. “It was good. Today, you know those girls? I saw them in the hallway,
they were crying. So I took them to the bathroom, and washed their face, and showed them to class.”
“That was really nice of you- I’m so proud of you. I know you didn’t like them for a while.” “Yeah, but
today, I see them crying, and I realized they were like me. I used to cry, too, when I first came. I was so
sad. I don’t want them to be sad.” What a great example of mercy- to see someone’s pain, and want to
take away that pain, despite your feelings for that person.
I came into this job after graduating from Gordon, realizing that I would be teaching these kids English,
math, how to be Americans, cultural norms, among other things. But really, what I have learned is that
it has been they who teach me. From them, I have gained patience, understanding, and learned how to
love. Every day, these students teach me how to act justly, how to love mercy, and how to walk humbly.
Dellynne:
False Christian service had been driving me: find someone you can look down on and condescend to
help them, that’s what Christians are supposed to do. While I realized my pride with serving the girls in
Lynn, what about my self-righteous judgment towards Gordon kids?.
Gordon kids, we are a special breed. As each semester continues and I make that thirty minute drive, my
questions overwhelm me: What does it mean to love (as mostly white, privileged students)? What does
it mean to serve the orphaned and the sick? What is my call? How do I witness to the white kids from
Martha’s Vineyard, while feeling at home with Nancy, the refugee from Cote D’Ivoire?
Each thirty minute drive to Lynn tosses my world upside down. I am torn between my friend from
Hamilton and my (friends) on the shoe-shaped Lynn Commons. I still haven’t tackled my selfrighteousness, but it always takes me to my need for Christ. My desperate need for the man who gave
us all a claim on something in common: we are all sinners in need of Grace.
So, I finally found it. The thing that connects Wenham to Lynn… not handouts, not charity, it’s an
overwhelming need that we ALL share.
We need Christ. I find Him in Wenham when we repent. I find Him in Lynn in Tonyia’s pride that so
closely resembles my own. I find Him on the Cross, ready to pick up a foolish 18 year old, dry her tears,
and introduce her to thousands of questions more important than will anyone ever love me again?
I have a thousand questions and a deep need… but, the journey of awareness has begun.
These are our stories.
FINAL LITURGY
Lord, we confess our role in injustice and wrong-doing both here on campus and around the world,
where people are exploited and misunderstood because there is no effort to learn the language of
others and truly listen to their dreams of a better world.
All: Lord, help us to act justly.
Lord, we confess our role in the needless conflicts that take place both here and around the world;
conflicts over race, class, religion, gender, natural resources…Conflicts that arise from a lack of mercy
and compassion.
All: Lord, help us to love mercy.
Lord, we confess our pride whether it is our self-righteousness to change the world and take on causes
through our own efforts or else our cynicism and despair that we can never make a difference.
All: Lord, help us to walk humbly with you.
And now, let us go in peace in the knowledge and love of God to act justly, to love mercy and to walk
humbly with our God.
All: Amen.
FINAL SCREEN
(black with white text; Ben Harper playing in background)
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