Teresa Curran spent 2005 on The Council for World Mission’s Training in Mission Programme (TIM). Eleven young people from around the world came together in South Africa and India for theological training and practical placements. Teresa worked in a kindergarten in Cape Town, a fishing village in Tamilnadu and an Interfaith Institute in Hyderabad. She is enrolled in a Graduate Diploma of Teaching (Secondary) in 2007.
“In the space and time that I’ve had to think and reflect on my mission trip last year, one particular scene keeps jumping into my head. About this time last year I was standing on a mountain in Chennai, Southern India. It had been raining for a week; not cool refreshing rain but the humid steamy rain of the tropics. There was none of the camaraderie that had characterised other trips. We were exhausted, bad-tempered, one of the team had Delhi belly and I had lost my voice. I had spent the night wide awake, wondering if it was really worth the bother.
Doubts, of course, are nothing new and I’d come to the right place, for this was no ordinary mountain; legend has it that St Thomas died there. It’s home to a small Portuguese church built in 1523, complete with relics of the martyr himself.
TIM had shattered some of my best-loved illusions and had left me grappling for answers as to my purpose both on the team and in my life. Overwhelming poverty and suffering left more questions than answers. But I’ve decided that questions are great. Since when is it wrong to admit that we don’t understand everything? Since when is it wrong to ask God to clarify something? Read the account of Job, or the Psalms. Both are fi lled with uncertainties, complaints, and questions of God. Thomas is just one in a long line of faithful people who have raised their voices to ask the hard questions.
Faith takes work, because it puts us in uncomfortable places and begs us to ask tough questions and that’s okay. The experiences of 2005 may have hurt, but my goodness, they have made me strong! I didn’t realise that at the time.
We can love each other; we can preach acceptance, but we need to live it. We can be responsible with what we have had entrusted to us by God. We can respond to people in need; we can be worthy of God’s trust. Others will come to faith, not by what we say, but by the way we live God’s love. That is mission!
I began by speaking of doubts, here is what I know…
I do not believe that God wills hunger for the planet’s children
I do not believe that God won’t accept questions and doubts
I do not believe that God wishes us to accept everything without debate
I do not believe that God denies people liberty and freedom
I do not believe that God approves of what people have done to religion
I do not believe that God speaks only through words
I do not believe that only scholars can understand God
I do not believe that God is limited by human description
I do believe God loves us
I believe what I can see and feel and hear and also what I cannot touch but know deep within
I believe, God help my unbelief.”