Images of the global church
Jeremy Hess of JeremyHess Photography volunteered his time to travel to Thailand and Cambodia, February 16 through March 6, to photograph churches connected with Eastern Mennonite Missions. For this trip, Jeremy was supported by Jonathan Charles of Charles Studios, who had traveled to the same area ten years ago.
Jonathan has taken several photography trips for Eastern Mennonite Missions in the past, and he had also planned to take this trip to Asia. However, when he learned of Jeremy's interest in missions photography, he offered to financially support Jeremy to travel instead. Jonathan says, "I've enjoyed my trips with EMM – who wouldn’t! A chance to travel, a chance to see the world, some adventure," but this time, Jonathan wanted to support a younger photographer with mission vision. Both Jonathan and Jeremy are members of Habecker Mennonite Church (Lancaster, Pa.).
In a presentation that Jeremy gave in church, he described with pleasure the health of the churches in Thailand. Jeremy noted that believers in Thailand don’t have a church building, because the members are from separate villages; instead, they meet in house churches in the different villages once each week. “Then once a month," Jeremy says, "they come together to a center, in trucks and tractors piled high with people and equipment.”
Because they are from different villages, he says, “A couple of years ago, they didn’t even know each other. But they have started molding together as a unified body. It was amazing to see how they all came together and used different gifts. A blind man played the drums – and you could see how they took him under their wing and set him up with the drums. It was great to see how they all worked together.”
Jeremy appreciated the way that “EMM workers have taken themselves out of leadership in Thailand, and become a resource for the church leaders. Now the church is all indigenously led by the believers there.”
When Jonathan Charles visited these same churches in Thailand ten years ago, they were newly planted. He says, “They were breathing their first breaths of air, so to speak – so now Jeremy has a far different report than I had."
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After the monthly gathering for worship in Palanchai, Thailand, the group shares a meal.
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Jonathan continues, “When you travel to these places, you suddenly understand that these are real people, with all kinds of struggles – even for survival in some places. I remember being in Kenya with Clair Good [EMM representative to Africa], and two different tribes were at war with each other. The Luo people tend to be agricultural and the Maasai tend to be herders, and they would come into conflict with each other. Through the miracle of the church, they came to live at peace with each other. I have a picture of a Maasai woman washing the feet of a Luo woman.
“That’s beautiful when that happens. Looking at our church through the lens of Christ’s mission purifies our understanding of God, and it gives focus to our relationships with each other. We begin to respect our differences – like the analytical mind of the European people, the exuberance of the Latin people, the faith and spontaneity of the African people, and the formal politeness of the Asian people.
“People come to faith from such different backgrounds, and it adds to the whole scent of the Lord’s bouquet. When you get a chance to travel, it really drives those convictions home. When we hear that the people in Kenya are suffering from famine right now – the cattle are coming into the streets of Nairobi because they can’t find green grass – we know these are our brothers and sisters who are affected. And we respond to them as a church body because they belong to us.
“I remember as I traveled in Africa, being welcomed by the huge church body there. I was amazed by the size of the hospital in Shirati; I hiked up a mountain to a reservoir built by church people that pipes in water to villages ten miles away; I attended a church conference of over 100 pastors, saw Bible schools – and wondered, how did this all happen? Through the gift of the church.
“A denominational mission board pushes the 'body-connectedness' of the church. We are all brothers and sisters, worldwide. We give offerings supporting each other, we read stories of each other through church papers, we belong to each other. I also appreciate the generations of experience behind the mission board, and the accountability.
Jonathan sums up, “Someday our eyes will be opened, and we will meet those people who have been touched: like when you responded sacrificially when the tsunami wave hit thirteen months ago, or when you sacrificed significantly for the people of New Orleans.”
Eastern Mennonite Missions is indeed thankful for the many people who have served the church. EMM is now facing a significant need for workers, particularly in Somalia and Djibouti. If you have interest in serving God’s mission cross-culturally, go to long-term mission opportunities.
-Kenton Glick
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