wfn.org | Commentary: Yupiks teach us to get in the boat

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 2, 2001  News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-34-71BP {252}

NOTE:  This commentary may be used with UMNS story #251.  A
head-and-shoulders photo of Buckley is available. 

A UMNS Commentary
By Ray Buckley*

Some history-altering events happen quietly.  They occur without fanfare,
until suddenly we're aware that something has happened.

Like Seuss-esque descriptions of Christmas in Whoville, we stand amazed that
something has happened without much noise, without trappings. We are almost
embarrassed. It doesn't fit the model. And then we hear the singing.

The story is simple. Yupik native people on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska,
separated from their Yupik relations in Siberia during the Cold War, began
to make the trip across the Bering Strait in boats. International law made
it possible for American and Russian Yupiks to cross the borders without
visas. As the exchanges increased, so did the intentional sharing of
personal lives and personal faith.

Yupik People, or "Real People," still exist as hunting and gathering
societies. They continue subsistence living on the land, islands, and sea of
north-northwest Alaska and eastern Siberia. Their lives continue to revolve
around the fish, caribou, polar bear, seal, walrus and whale.

In the past, St. Lawrence Islanders had traded seal oil and walrus for
caribou products with their Siberian cousins in the Chukotka region. In a
society that promoted sharing as a cultural foundation, it was normal that
the Gospel would be shared as naturally as a meal or the rewards of a hunt.
But there was also a determination. There was risk and danger.  There was
suspicion on the part of the Chukotka government, and neglect by many
agencies and state organizations in the United States.

There were pressing needs. As economic conditions in Russia became severe,
life in Siberian Yupik villages became difficult. Food was scarce, and many
families were forced to eat their dogs.

In Anchorage, Alaska, Della Waghiyi, a beautiful, United Methodist Yupik
elder, heard the reports from Chukotka. Della (whose husband, John, had been
one of the first St. Lawrence Islanders to cross to Siberia by boat, after
the Cold War) wept when she heard the news. Unable to eat, she contacted the
Rev. Jim Campbell, a non-Native United Methodist pastor, and together with
members of the Moravian Church, the ministry to Chukotka expanded.  From the
heart of one woman, to a small congregation, to a small missionary
conference, God brought about a series of events that caught the attention
of the world.

The quiet miracle is that most of the people directly involved in this story
are Yupik. The faces crossing the Bering Strait are Yupik faces. They are
American Yupik and Siberian Yupik. They would not think of themselves as
missionaries as much as family. And family doesn't allow family to go
without.

What has emerged quietly and strongly is something we have not yet seen in
the history of missions among native people. It is the emergence of a new
church.  Native voices, speaking through native culture, becoming the Body
of Christ in a native society. In this process, neither the richness of
Yupik culture nor the Gospel has been compromised.

There has been wisdom in the history of the Yupik Christians, who have not
seen the leaving behind of those things inconsistent with the faith as
synonymous with Yupik culture. Rather, they have believed that the work of
God in their lives would produce a people of faith, and God has chosen to
strengthen them as a people who hunt walrus, seal, and caribou, and at whose
singing, the angels fold their wings.

Despite international conflict and forced separation, the Yupik have held
tenaciously to their connectedness and their responsibility for each other.
And that is shaping the emerging Yupik church.

Yupik culture in Siberia is being preserved both as self-awareness, and as
means for economic development.  The concept of communal sharing has
expanded beyond the Yupik community to all people in need.  The traditional
values reflected in the relationship of people to creation as a whole, and
responsible subsistence living, are impacting environmental policies. The
Gospel is being preached, the hungry fed, the naked clothed and justice
sought.

The church will be different, but it will be valid. It will be valid,
because the provisional work of Christ is also for Yupik. And the provisions
of Christ are for those who speak Yupik, choose a subsistence lifestyle and
maintain a connected society.

Often, native ministry emulates the larger church. We develop a bureaucracy,
in the belief that ministry must first be regulated and funded. We must have
jurisdictional ministries to prove that the church supports us. We wait for
the apologies or the election of a native bishop. We wait, sometimes
quietly, sometimes not, for the credibility that comes with the recognition
of the church.

The danger is that we don't often believe ourselves, what we are asking the
church to believe. We're not quite sure that in this time, in this place,
that the voices of native people have something to refresh the Body of
Christ. We are not quite sure, native or non-native, that God can do
anything with just our obedience.

God is waiting for us to get in the boat.

When Della Waghiyi sings in Yupik, it is like the soft clicking sounds of
knitting needles.  The sounds are rounded and smooth with glottal
inflections. There is a glow on her face.  She is a person who seems
intimate with her Creator. But there is also another sound.  It is the sound
of the loaves and fishes, in Yupik baskets, being broken once again, to feed
as many as are hungry.

# # #

*Buckley is director of the Native American Office of Communications, a unit
of United Methodist Communications in Nashville, Tenn.
Commentaries provided by United Methodist News Service do not necessarily
represent the opinions or policies of UMNS or the United Methodist Church.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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