Mission as Cross Cultural Journey l

The open road is a strong personal symbol of my missionary and spiritual life. As one progresses through the pages of the Bible, there is an increasingly universalistic atmosphere until you reach St. Paul, who calls on us constantly to overcome barriers of all kinds: of language or nationality, of sex or social condition... so to feel we are members of a New People in which there is no distinction between man and woman, between Greek and Jew... between slave and free man ~ since all are called to be everything in Christ (cf.Col.3:11).

Holy Scripture is full of people on the road. God intervenes in the Story of Salvation by telling the person He has chosen to set out on a journey ~ "Leave your country and set off..." God told Abraham. Thus begins the long pilgrimage of a man who leaves the security of what he has and what he knows to go to an unknown land, to people of a different race, religion and culture. This inspires me not to "hold on" to things, to perceived securities in what I am comfortable in ~ to step out of my comfort zone ~ and into Life!