Strangers: God’s Kind of People

Good news for those who worry about the safety of your missionaries!  The military was sent into Padua last month to round up “undocumented” immigrants and improve public safety.  We saw them patrolling the park where we have enjoyed many peaceful brown bag lunches.  The soldiers wearing fatigues, carrying guns, and their German Shepherds seemed very out of place!

But, the message in the media is clear:  Stranieri  (the word is used for “immigrant” but comes from a root meaning “strange”) are a threat to Italians’ safety.  In what many see as a political move to create a climate of fear and convince people that Italy needs protection from foreigners, soldiers have taken to the streets of Padua.  

Marvelous, the little straniero, only captures hearts!  

Jim and I often laugh at our conversation with an Asian ex-pat shortly after moving here.  She warned us not to go to the shopping center in Padua, where we were shopping on the average of once a week.  “There are lots of immigrants around there,” she said.  “They carry guns and knives, and they will rob you.”  But, wait!  We are foreigners, too!

An American who has lived here for several years advised us to choose one ski hill over another.  “You don’t see many foreigners there; you know, Italians.  Almost everybody you hear is speaking English.”  But, aren’t we the foreigners here?  

Just when I was feeling proud of my humility and my obviously superior sensitivity to diversity, I had an eye-opening experience.  I found myself in the hallway of our language school in the middle of a group of Arab-Israeli young men.  I had already had many positive interchanges in class and in the hallway with some of these folks.  Intrigued that Jim and I, old enough to be their parents, had just moved to Italy and were learning Italian, they treated us with much respect.  

But, on this day, 9 or 10 guys, the majority of whom I did not know, crowded in the hallway speaking loudly and singing in Arabic, showing each other pictures on their cell phones, and taking turns listening to their latest music downloads.  As I stood in the middle of them waiting for the machine to dispense my coffee, I became overwhelmed.  I could not understand their words and they seemed to be crowding in around me.  I felt the urge to push against them and run away to a place where there would be someone else more like me.  

Thankfully, I quickly realized how silly I was being, and embarrassed within myself, I took my coffee and made my way through the group down the hall.  “What was that about?” I asked myself.  “I think of some of those guys as friends.  Why was I suddenly frightened of them?”  

The answer I came up with was that there must be some animal survival instinct that tells us to get out of a situation where we are the only one of “our kind.”   Preservation of the species or something like that… Safety trainers say that if you doubt the safety of a situation you should avoid it or get out of it.  But, my fear in the hallway that day was totally unfounded.  There was no danger.  

In order to override my instinct, I am determined to broaden my understanding of who is “my kind.”  Those young men in the hallway have goals to go to university and study medicine.  They are my kind.  The West African man, who stops me on the sidewalk and asks me to buy sponges and tissues I could buy in a store for a lower price, wants to buy some food and send some money home to Africa.  He is my kind.  The Northern African woman and the little girl who gently raise the baby carriage onto the bus and then check to be sure the baby wasn’t roused from sleep are my kind.  The Eastern European woman who cleans houses to support her family and gets paid under the table is my kind.  All those people who are afraid they will get stopped by the army and be asked for their residency documents—they are my kind, whether they look like me or not and whether they talk like me or not.

What about the Italians who are afraid of people different from themselves and buy into the idea that the strangers who live on their street, stand beside them at the bus stop, sit beside them on the train, and wait in line with them at the supermarket are not “their kind?”  These people, the ones who know fear, are my kind, too.  

This fall, International Ministries (IM) of American Baptist Churches collects the World Mission Offering (WMO) to support the work of International Ministries’ missionaries like us.  The theme this year, “Surprised by God’s People,” reminds us that, because God created all people, all people are “God’s kind.”  We are at our best when we recognize God in all people.  While we could put no claim on God, God has claimed us and sent us out to minister to all of “God’s Kind.”  

Your missionaries in Italy,

Debbie Kelsey (along with Jim, Luke and Ben)

Choose your way to give to the World Mission Offering!
1.    Give through your local ABC church.  If you wish, you can designate the gift “for the ongoing support of the Kelseys-Italy” or for the support of other IM missionaries or causes.  
2.    Make a gift online to support the Kelseys:  www.internationalministries.org.
3.    Mail a contribution to:  International Ministries, PO Box 851, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851 marked “For the Ongoing Support of the Kelseys-Italy.”