All in the Seasons: Covenanted Community
Brad Coath
The life in the garden is all but spent. The last tomatoes hang on the withered, brown vine as it waits to be cleared away. The few remaining leaves on the fruit trees are about to fall away leaving the branches bare. Elsewhere, seed struggles to emerge safely from the soil as insects and rodents threaten. The summer warmth has waned and where once new life was bursting forth, growth has almost ground to a halt. It will be some months before the garden produces enough to sustain us again.
Tending a garden calls us into a deeper connection with the land upon which we live. It invites us to live into the seasons and rhythms of life in both times when the soil lies dormant and in times when it produces abundance. It shapes in us a patience which recognises that the convenient immediacy of the world around us is a mirage; a patience which embraces each of the different seasons, knowing that the life of the garden is expressed not only in the times of lush green leaves and plentiful fruit, but in all the seasons.
All of us pass through different seasons on our own journeys: times of abundance and times of scarcity, times of contentment and times of restlessness, times of rest and times of struggle, times of joy and times of pain. This, of course, is true for those of us who are a part of UNOH’s community, whether in Thailand, Australia, or Aotearoa New Zealand. There are times of abundance, when the ground produces more fruit than we can handle, and times of dormancy, when the ground is seemingly lifeless; times when we feel like we can go full steam ahead, and times when we have to strip everything back and reimagine completely new ways of doing things.
In all of those times, though, there are common threads. At its heart, UNOH members share a commitment to Incarnational Presence, Covenant Community, Voluntary Simplicity, and Kingdom Participation – what we call UNOH’s Praxis. But just as my garden beds look very different in winter than they do in summer, so might these things look different in different seasons of our lives. At times, we might lean into one thing more than another, but they are still there, calling us and shaping us.
Over this next season, Elise and Jon Fletcher and their children will be entering a time of change, as they navigate some challenging family circumstances which will require Elise, Elliot, and Bow to spend significant time back in the UK, caring for Elise’s Mum, while Jon and Sam remain in Thailand, with a few short visits to the UK to reconnect. This will no doubt be a stretching time, and it will look very different to what they’ve known, but we believe wholeheartedly that they’ll continue to find ways to live out UNOH’s Praxis during this season. Indeed, they already are.
Thank you for standing with us through the different seasons of life and ministry. May we know God’s presence in each of these times, and have eyes to see fruit that will come, even as the last summer tomato falls from the dry, brown vine.
There will be significant extra costs for the Fletchers, please click here to support them.
A Girl Called Stinky
Derek Porter
“From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. These things should not be so, my brothers and sisters.”
James 3:10, NET
Her gaping smile beams across the table as we color together; though it’s hidden by a mask, I can still see its glory in her eyes. She’s tough. She has to be, as the only girl in a posse of preschool punks.
Unabashed, she chooses the princess coloring sheet while the rest of her cohort opt for monster trucks. All the while she ignores the jabs from her peers, each like a paper-cut, beginning with “Hey Stinky…”
That’s what they call this precious one: “Stinky.” But lest you think this moniker a machination of mean little boys to mock their friend…this is what the whole neighborhood calls her!
Her real name is *May.
Apparently, May’s misguided mother christened her with this nickname in reference to an aversion to bathing as a toddler, which has clung to her like the very stench of its origin.
Between colors, I ask May: “Do you like being called Stinky?”
She shakes her head warily.
“What would you rather be called?”
“May.”
I interrupt the boys for a moment to announce, “From now on, at Pi Day’s (Derek’s) house, we will call May by her real name, not Stinky.”
The boys protest: “But Pi Day, her own mom calls her that!”
I draw their attention to the large, hand-painted poster of The Golden Rule on our playroom wall. “Do you remember what our first rule is? Would you like it if everyone called you ‘Stinky’ or ‘Idiot’ or ‘Buffalo’, even if your mom said it was ok?”
You could see their brains ticking over with this new perspective. And to their credit, I only had to prompt them once during the rest of the afternoon…though I suspect it won’t be the last time.
*Note: May is a pseudonym to protect her identity & the image used is stock photography used under the Creative Commons License.
Feel the Feelings
Colleen Coath
For someone who identifies as a highly sensitive person, this current season of life hits every sense and nerve in my body. I sit here writing with the presence of a horrible stench of a dead rodent in our roof, hoping and praying the pest controller will arrive soon. The cold Melbourne weather hits my bones when I venture outside. The sounds of people out and about, sirens wailing, cars speeding by on our street. These sounds we have had to get used to again now we are out of COVID lockdown. And then, there are all the emotions. So many feelings related to being back face to face with others. Reconnecting with others after such a long time apart certainly brings up many different feelings and emotions. Sharing conversations, laughter, opinions and food while being physically present with others makes me feel many things. It’s uncomfortable and overwhelming at times. And it’s great. I really do love reconnecting with others again.
I was one of those people who found coming out of lockdown challenging for a whole lot of reasons. Anyone else identify? One of the biggest emotions was fear. As we continue to live this new COVID normal lifestyle, the fear I feel is still bubbling away as I go about my work and daily routines. Although, now I find there are so many more additional feelings to deal with! Joy when seeing children playing together, relief when programs run according to plan, anger at injustice I see and the huge mix of emotions that arise when sharing a deep and meaningful connection with another human. Something I truly value.
Feelings are for feeling. God created our feelings! Glennon Doyle says ‘I thought that happy was for feeling and that pain was for fixing and numbing and deflecting and hiding and ignoring.’[1] I am learning to tune into all my feelings and emotions and let them be there, while moving towards my values and purpose. It’s not easy. Yet it is a path to growth and wholeness. Jesus walked a path full of feelings and emotions all through his life and he is the perfect example to follow.
Our feelings can provide guidance and it is important to acknowledge them. As we all venture into this current season of life, I hope that we can tune into our feelings and listen to them. They might just be the gentle voice of the Spirit reminding us of what God’s shalom looks like. And if what we’re seeing is not God’s shalom, then maybe we need to do something about it. Feel the feelings, and move forward with courage toward the wholeness that we—and the world we live in—were created to reflect.
[1] Doyle, Glennon, Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living (London: Vermillion, 2020), 50.
Change-Makers
Dave Tims
“We are living at a point in history when the need and desire for change is profound. Our current trajectory is no longer sustainable. We cannot ignore the compelling environmental and social challenges that vex today’s world because they will undermine us all. We cannot dismiss the fractures in our own communities, or the fissures between those of us fortunate to live in comfort and the massive number of our fellow human beings who live under the crush of poverty around the world. It is a pivotal time. We need to be change-makers – and very capable ones at that.“[1]
Becoming ‘change-makers’ is one of the essential and profound grassroots tasks of UNOH. Acceptance of the status quo is not an option. We dream of seeing the church and our neighbours become key players of re-imagining how we can organise our lives. Lives that reflect a radical lifestyle like that of the early church in Acts, where disciples determined to live simply and willingly share their lives with the poor. Jim Reiher says, “the principle behind the story of Acts 2:41-47 and 4:32-37 …is that we radically look after those in need, even if it costs us personally.”[2] The pursuing of wealth loses its spark when we live in close proximity to the poor.
COVID forced us all to rethink our priorities and revealed the importance of connection and relationships. We had to learn to adapt to the ‘new normal’ and change the way we lived in our neighbourhood.
It has forced us to refocus upon the sincere words of our Prime Minister,
“Be kind, stay safe, stay local.” “I have vivid memories of the first day of ‘lockdown’ – the quiet street, the birdsong”[3]
For us, the quiet replaced the noise of the police helicopters hovering above. The parks were empty as I walked the dog, and silent of children’s laughter or the annoying dirt bikes screaming through.
“Time passed and we adapted to the upheaval of our regular daily activities (work, social, recreational and cultural) and developed new routines as our ‘bubble’ negotiated working from home. We were in touch with our friends [and neighbours] to share coping strategies, set up contact lists [and Facebook pages], and checked on our older relatives and friends to ensure they would be able to access essential supplies during ‘lockdown’.”[4]
The experience of COVID reinforced UNOH’s deep value of staying connected to the grassroots, working with neighbours for transformational change, through the living Jesus, from the bottom up. A recent working partnership with the Ministry of Health found us labeled as ‘hyper-local’ when we refused to take our successful model of neighbourhood engagement into another neighbourhood that was ‘unknown’ to us. This term ‘hyper-local,’ relates to those who focus on matters concerning a small community or geographical area.[5] Our approach is not a project that can be ‘copied, uplifted and then imported’ into a new neighbourhood. The key to our success is relationships with each other. This takes years of work, leadership development and the concept of citizenship – ‘being responsible for our own neighbourhood well being’. This model can’t be ‘cookie-cut’ and reproduced without the foundation of neighbourhood building.
We are constantly faced with the challenge of change. Learning to be flexible, people-focused, rather than project-focused. This requires us to adapt around who people are and what they bring. It does not allow projects to dictate what can and can’t be done. We are not brilliant at this, but we try. Our park contract that involves the picking up of rubbish from all our parks and changing rubbish bags, would normally be given to someone with a driver’s license, but no one was available to do this job except Franco, who wanted more hours of work. We were able to think creatively, and provided a mountain bike with a trailer attached so he could ride to all of our parks to complete the work. Franco got more hours of work and we fulfilled our contract – problem solved. Another project involved creatively working with Manurewa Local Board (City Council) on plans to increase the tree coverage in our neighbourhood and city.
Change can also be painful. It’s hard saying good-bye to neighbours who have been central to many expressions of community love over years. We have shared many times of laughter, tears, heartache and dreams together. However, as one season finishes, we find ourselves standing by a new door with a choice – do we open and walk through, or do we stay? The door may offer the possibilities of a new season, with new friendships, and a new journey. We walk “backwards into the future” through that door. “Ka mua, ka muri” is a Māori proverb that expresses the idea that we look to the past to inform the future.
[1] Frances Westley, Michael Quinn Patton, and Brenda Zimmerman, Getting to Maybe: How the World Is Changed (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2007).
[2] Jim Reiher, The Book of Acts: A Social Justice Devotional Commentary, 2014, 32.
[3] Robyn Munford, “Reflections from Aotearoa New Zealand: Stay Home, Stay Safe, Stay Strong and Be Kind,” Qualitative Social Work 20.1–2 (2021): 110–15, https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325020973203.
[4] Munford, “Reflections from Aotearoa New Zealand.”
[5] “Word on the Street,” January 2022, http://unoh.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Word-on-the-Street-2022.pdf.
UNOH Podcast Update
UNOH have decided to withdraw The Underside podcast from Spotify due to Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s investment of €100 million in AI weaponry.
Along with Martin Luther King Jr. we believe that “we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal.” Our task as followers of Jesus to participate in God’s work of Shalom is, we believe, inconsistent with giving tacit support to further militarising the world we live in. Such militarisation disproportionately affects the poor and marginalised with whom Jesus stands.
You can still listen to The Underside podcast on Google podcasts, Apple Podcasts, or on the UNOH website.
The Underside Episodes:
1. Four Commitments of UNOH
2. Nurturing Reciprocal Relationships
3. Radical Discipleship
4. Living on the Margins
5. Developing Empowering Partnerships
6. Committed to the ‘Hood
7. Restorative Justice
8. Sustaining Rhythms
9. Radical Hospitality
10. Voluntary Simplicity