Anniversaries

Anniversaries are times to recall and appreciate history and relationships. It is a time to review where we have been and where we are going. Mission is an enterprise of going out of the doors of our churches and witnessing to the love of God through Jesus Christ among those we come into contact with. Sometimes that mission takes us next door. Sometimes that mission takes us to distant lands. Sometimes God calls us to places where another religion may be in the majority. In the case of the Middle East, mission was to the birthplace of Christianity itself. The Christians,

Anniversaries are times to recall and appreciate history and relationships. It is a time to review where we have been and where we are going. Mission is an enterprise of going out of the doors of our churches and witnessing to the love of God through Jesus Christ among those we come into contact with. Sometimes that mission takes us next door. Sometimes that mission takes us to distant lands. Sometimes God calls us to places where another religion may be in the majority. In the case of the Middle East, mission was to the birthplace of Christianity itself. The Christians,Muslims and Jews of the Middle East today are people living in uncertain times. All face uncertainty for different reasons and at times because of one another. Interfaith dialogue is most real when one lives and works with people of another faith. They Lived Their Faith is a book written in 1961 by Fred Field Goodsell. Dr Goodsell served with the American Board with the Near East Mission as well as serving as the Executive of the Mission Board in the USA. His book is a collection of stories of those who served the church all over the world. Among many of the stories of service and evangelism, one story caught my eye. It is entitled “Christian-Muslim Relations” and describes an aspect of the work of John Merrill, who worked in education in Turkey and Syria from 1898 to 1937. One can imagine all of the horrors he must have seen in the early years of his service. As the Armenians he worked with in Gaziantep were either killed or deported, he moved Central Turkey College from Gaziantep to Aleppo Syria. According to Dr Goodsell, Dr Merrill was keenly interested in the relationship between Christians and Muslims. Dr Goodsell describes Dr Merrill’s reflections as such, ‘On almost every page the spirit of understanding, discriminating appreciation and appraisal which, when and if it prevails, will bring new life and peace among the members of these two great communities.” (p 155)  We who work with the Common Global Ministries Board in Turkey today would like to think that we are following in the tradition of one of our predecessors who believed in the potential for peace among great communities of the world.

Alison Stendahl
 
Alison Stendahl serves as a missionary with the Near East Mission, Istanbul, Turkey.  She is Academic Dean of and a math teacher at Uskudar American Academy in Istanbul Turkey.