BREAKING DOWN THE WALLS!--Between YA Nationals and Family-Born YAs!
Maria #237
DO 2951
8/94
By Maria
(From T. YA, 6/94:)
Dearest Mama Maria,
1. I love you dearly and am so thankful for your love and care for each of your children around the world. I have wanted to write to you concerning a few questions that have been quite soul-searching for me personally and some that I have been burdened about lately.
2. First, I wanted to ask you about something that has been on my heart concerning Family-born young people and nationals. (In this case I am referring to those who have joined in recent years and are around the same age, or a little older than our young people.) Mama, why is it that some of our Family-born young people have such a difficulty getting close to our nationals? Why is it that in almost each situation that I have seen, our Family-born youth show no signs of bringing them into their circle of fellowship?
3. Some teens and YAs just don't mingle with the nationals. I have even heard some teens belittling nationals because they come from poorer countries and are not Western. (Mama: Very sad!--All are precious in His sight!) I have wondered what it is about our Family teens and YAs that makes such a gap between them and the YA nationals.
4. Something that came to mind when I was thinking and praying about it is that some of the teens think that the nationals are kind of "fuddy-duddy" or "too spiritual," because they are always happy and praising the Lord and talking about witnessing and winning souls and the Word! (Mama: God bless them!) Whereas many of the subjects that our teens have been more interested in talking about have been things like movies, music, girl/boy friends, games, etc. I wonder if it would be worth explaining to our young people why the YA nationals are so "flipped out" about Jesus and the Word and talk about nothing else--because that is what they are in the Family for! They left all those other things behind when they joined, and they are very happy about it.
5. I feel it's sad that there isn't more partnership amongst our young people who have the training, the Word and know the standard, and the nationals who have the fire to win souls and are so thankful for the Family. I think both sides could learn many lessons from each other. (Mama: Amen!--A winning combination!)
6. Another thing I wanted to ask you about is concerning ministries versus witnessing. In talking to teens, YAs and others, I have noticed that there are lots of young people in the Family who feel that they are not an "outreacher," but that they are a musician, secretary or handyman, etc. I thought a little about this, and something that came to me is that witnessing is not just a ministry! Shouldn't it be everyone's goal and everyone's burden as disciples? (Mama: Amen!)
7. I have always felt that witnessing was our job no matter what talents we may or may not have. In every Letter I have read on the subject, Dad is very clear about witnessing being everyone's job. I feel that ministries have their place and we all need to feel fulfilled in what we do at home, when we aren't out witnessing, yet I don't feel that witnessing is a ministry that you can decide to do or not to do. (Mama: Right!)
Your daughter T. (YA)
Mama's Reply to T., 8/94:
8. Thank you, dear girl, for a beautifully expressed letter! And because you have brought up some problems that are worth highlighting and that I believe we've all been concerned about, I decided to share your letter with the Family. You've said it so well that I don't have much to add except to say that we are totally in agreement with you.
9. T., I took the liberty of sending a copy of your letter to another of our Family-raised young people, who was also in Eastern Europe for some time. I asked him to send me his observations on the subject of our YA nationals and our Family-born YAs. You will see that he points out that there may be some very logical reasons why our Family-born-and-raised YAs don't integrate easily with our YA nationals. I wanted to include his observations in order to give our Family-born teens and YAs the benefit of the doubt and not come down too hard on them for their behavior. However, in spite of some pretty logical reasons, the most important thing is love, and we pray that when our young people realize that this is a problem, they will want to ask the Lord to help them to overcome these barriers and divisions so that they can break down any such walls that divide them, enabling them to work in greater unity and love.
10. We hope that upon reading your letter and this, my response, our dear Family-born-and-raised young people will reflect upon this problem and pray about it and try to do their best to rectify it. It's much easier to build up walls than to break them down, but love demands that we reach out and that we put ourselves in another's place, and that we walk a mile in their shoes. To receive God's abundant blessing, we have to abundantly give; to receive His abundant love, we have to abundantly love others. Love is the most important thing, and no matter what else we have, or no matter what else we accomplish, without love it's nothing. No matter what good reasons we might have, none of them can be good enough.
11. Likewise, no matter what other jobs we have, as you point out so well, they are nothing without our main job of witnessing. Again, witnessing is giving love--God's love--to others. And if we fail at sharing His love--if we feel it is beneath us and not "part of our ministry"--we stray far from God's will and His Word.
From F., 8/94:
Dear Mama,
12. I would like to confirm the point T. brings out about our Family-born YAs not mingling much with the YA nationals. I have witnessed this myself.
13. The problem seemed to be more when we had groups of YAs or YA nationals in a Home, rather than just one or maybe two YAs on their own in a Home. In the Homes where we had groups of YAs, the Family-born YAs would tend to spend time fellowshipping with each other rather than the YA nationals. The YA nationals would also tend to bunch up together.
14. I would say that the tendency to fellowship with those from your own nationality or background, or who speak your language--that is, the YA nationals with other YA nationals, Family-born YAs with other Family-born YAs--was just as strong on the part of the YA nationals as on the part of the Family-born YAs. From my observations, it seemed that one of the main reasons the YA nationals fellowshipped together was not because they felt totally excluded by the Family-born-and-raised YAs, but because it was their natural tendency to do so. And some of the YA nationals may relate more to the Family adults than they do to the Family young people, because they shared similar experiences before joining the Family.
15. In general, the tendency of the Family-born-and-raised YAs who I was around (who were mature and dedicated folks) to associate more with each other was not out of dislike or contempt for the YA nationals, but rather a natural bent to spend time with those they could communicate with easily and deeply, who share the same background and experiences, etc. However, if our young people aren't doing so well, there could be a tendency to look down on the YA nationals for being "overly spiritual."
16. Whatever the case, the fault does lie with us in that, as older brethren and bellwethers to the young nationals, it was our responsibility to take the first step and bring the YA nationals closer. In other words, in my opinion the problem was selfishness, because it does take more effort and outgoing care and concern to try to get close to the YA nationals compared to other Family-born YAs with whom you may "click" quite easily.
17. At the same time, an attitude of our Family-born-and-raised YAs that does need to change, and something I was guilty of myself, is that closely fellowshipping with the YA nationals means giving up their "teen-talk" conversations, which can tend to revolve around past experiences in the Family, boy-girl talk, music, movies, etc. When with YA nationals you can't really discuss these things, which is good, and you need to pull up your socks in lifting up the Word and witnessing more. This is what our Family-born-and-raised YAs should be doing, but unfortunately many are not willing to make the sacrifice that it takes to do so.
18. The bottom line seems to be this: Although some of the factors contributing to a segregation of sorts may be due to so-called "natural tendencies," our Family-born YAs should be encouraged to reach out more, forsake their selfishness, and launch out into greater dedication by pouring into the YA nationals more, befriending them more, and even marrying them, so they can teach the YA nationals what they know, as well as learn from the YA nationals. And as T. brought out, there is a lot that the YAs can learn from the nationals, such as greater dedication to the Lord, greater thankfulness for the Word, and greater enthusiasm to witness.
19. The point that T. brought out about the ministry of witnessing is something that I've thought a lot about. I believe that at least part of the problem is that with the concept of "ministry training" for our teens, maybe we forgot that witnessing was a ministry too, which our teens can specialize in and get training in as much as any other ministry. (Mama: Right!--See the Christian Vocational College course on Witnessing ["Leadership, Outreach and Counseling"]. Or just look in the CAT Book under "Witnessing." Make witnessing a priority.) The Bible says that "first are apostles," so the "witnessers" should be the top level, and that is what Dad has brought out in the Letters. (Mama: Right!)
20. I love you and am privileged to be a part of the Family. Hallelujah! God bless you! Love, F. (Thanks for your good Spirit-led observations. Love, Mama.)
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