Report by Shirley Wang, Conference Rapporteur
I recently ended a developing friendship, and I am ready to defend my decision if you ever ask why. However, a thought recently struck me: did I ever love this person as a friend in the first place? Did I ever genuinely receive this person as who they were?
I wouldn’t have thought about it this much if I had not experienced a profound growth in my understanding of friendship at the 29th USCCA International Conference.
At a panel session themed “Friendship as Ministry,” Kathleen O’Brien, Yujia (Sam) Zhai, and Greta Frei all provided powerful examples of what it means to love as a friend.
In her friendship ministry with Chinese students at UC-Berkeley, Kathleen was deeply convinced that ministry is founded on friendship and trust. Therefore, she did not approach her mission by sending fliers or preaching Christianity in the open. Instead, she looked at Chinese students as friends, and she saw their deep desire to connect with American culture. Kathleen and her partner Phoebe started a cultural exchange program to connect the Chinese and the American students. This sparked deeper conversations and more trusting relationships.
Kathleen listened in her ministry. It is something so simple yet easily forgotten. Sam Zhai, who converted to Catholicism, received similar outreach.
Sam is a deeply spiritual and philosophical person who researches the theology of Covenant and ponders much about friendship. Sam revealed that friendship is different from fellowship because the latter is about collaboration, but the former is about “encountering each other as authentically as possible.” I understood this to mean that friendship has no tie to any agenda other than two people receiving and loving each other as exactly who they are.
Sam shared how he experienced friendship as a student at UCLA, where he encountered the faith. One day, his campus minister asked to take him to lunch, just “wanting to get to know him.” Sam reflected that the simple gesture helped him to experience “being elected.”
We as Christians often say we are elected by God, but we rarely think about what this means. Sam’s experience of feeling elected reflects God’s friendship with us: the Lord desires to build a relationship with us, not because of our external qualities, but because God wants to love us. Therefore, when we build genuine friendships with one another, we are reflecting the love of Jesus.
Greta Frei gave a wonderful example of what this friendship looks like. Greta is working to build a database of Chinese Christian faith history, to which more than a hundred Chinese students (Christians and non-Christians) are contributing. One student, who is Catholic but is going through a period of uncertainty in her faith, asked Greta if she still wanted her to be part of the project if she were to leave the faith. Greta answered: “You can be Catholic, Protestant, Atheist… We are still friends.” As someone who lost friendships after a faith conversion, I was moved close to tears by how Greta showed love to this student.
Today, let’s reflect on what it means to encounter one another. Let’s ask if we are listening and being authentic in our relationships, both on a small-scale interpersonal level and on a larger cultural or political level.
And, my friend, if you find reluctance in your heart—like I did—to have genuine friendship with someone, remember that our Hope is the ever-loving Christ. He will always first encounter and love us.
Shirley Wang recently graduated from Augustana University and is a volunteer with the US-China Catholic Association.
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