Neighbors are people who share space and physical context. We recognize their faces as they walk by; we swap chit chat and maybe even know them by name. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, our neighbors checked in on each other and howled every evening alongside neighborhood pets, just to somehow feel connected through the isolation of quarantine. It was during that difficult season that I knelt down in prayer with hands opened heavenward and asked God the next step in intentionally loving our neighbors.
For years, God was cultivating in me His heart for people from every nation and language group (Rev 7:9), which had led my family to intentionally live in diaspora communities. Inspired by John 1:14, that the Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood, my prayer was to reflect the heart of Jesus as I followed His lead in the art of neighboring in diverse communities.
These are some of the lessons I’ve been learning along the way:
· Intentionally put ourselves in spaces where we can engage people across cultural, linguistic, religious & socioeconomic barriers.
My family positioned ourselves in a meatpacking town where people from a variety of refugee backgrounds work and resettle. Equipped with a map and good walking shoes, the next step was to identify who people were, where they lived, and how we could be the neighbors Jesus was inviting us to be. I prayed regularly for neighbors and nations from hard-to-reach corners of the earth as I walked my neighborhood.
As quarantine life began, I scrambled to help our three children navigate their online schools and reconfigured academic expectations as they closed out their 2020 school year. In the fall, when schools cautiously reopened in strategic cohort groups, I was on alert to pick them up if one of their cohorts got sent home for a potential COVID-19 exposure. This unprecedented season called for persistence in open-handed prayers amidst new perplexities. As global pandemics go, our neighbors and their families were facing similar struggles.
· Practice a regular rhythm of prayer. Pay attention to the people God puts on our hearts AND on our paths.
Jesus often prayed that His disciples would have ears to hear, because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven open up when we’re looking and listening (Mt 13:9,-11). I wanted to see my neighborhood as Jesus saw it. I was searching for divine secrets around each turn. As I walked around the corner each afternoon to meet my middle schooler, I noticed the same lanky, eager African girl who walked our route to pick up her younger siblings from the elementary school. When I smiled, she smiled even bigger. When I waved, she zealously waved back. She wasn’t from any of the people groups that I had been praying for. But her smile compelled me, and I didn’t want to miss the treasure of getting to know this human that God had so thoughtfully placed on my path. I began to pray open-handedly for her and her family and the variables of her life that I knew nothing about.
· Come curious. Listen patiently with a posture of learning. Hold our neighbor’s vulnerabilities as treasured.
Marguerite*—the eager teen with the big smile—lived in my neighborhood and we soon became friends. Over time I learned that she was the fifth of ten children and that her family came to resettle in the United States from a refugee camp in Rwanda. Her mom and older brother supported the family as frontline laborers at the meatpacking plant—which was a great income for many families but made managing academics for 8 school-aged children difficult during quarantine.
My neighbor’s family needed the same things we needed as we all navigated learning during a pandemic. They needed technology help. They needed trusted neighbors on their emergency contact list at school. They needed rides when cohort groups got sent home. With regular rhythms of prayer, I understood that God had just invited me into one of the most treasured neighbor relationships I could have imagined.
- Be generous to give AND receive invitations. Marvel in mutuality of what others have to offer as we cultivate connections.
Though Marguerite came from a nation that my heart wasn’t yet tied to, God had put her on my path. I soon discovered that she was connected with many others in our refugee community from different nations: Somali, Congolese, Tigrinya, Rohingya, and Karen. Through a beautiful friendship with one open-hearted teen, God had expanded the corners of my heart.
As I got to know teens from many places around the world—and their families—I began to joyfully expect invitations—for Eritrean coffee, for Central African fufu, for help enrolling a little one in preschool. It’s what neighbors do.
Once we receive invitations with the joy in which God so generously offers them, we begin to open up to His daily adventures around the neighborhood. The ordinary becomes divinely extraordinary. As we share community space and context, we also share many other human things—fears and aspirations for ourselves and our families. What my kids needed in every stage of life, my neighbors also needed. We were learning as we went—about Physics homework, bank accounts, and driving practice. God’s family is mutually inclusive, and together we tinkered in the art of neighboring.
· Reflect and delight in the secrets of God’s kingdom— and the humans He has invited us to love.
Though we weren’t trying to run a program, our little collective of neighbors and nations blossomed into an academic tutoring group for teens. We went from neighbors to family. My open hands were full. We learned to listen to each other—to share dreams and vulnerable spaces—to treasure the Divine Image we are all uniquely fashioned from. Four years later, those freshmen out of quarantine are heading into their senior year of high school. They are rising up as leaders in their ethnolinguistic spheres. Marguerite now invites other newcomers with big smiles into our collective.
To other openhanded adventurers, I extend an invitation in the art of neighboring:
Be on the lookout for divine invitations. Cultivate God’s heart for the nations near you. There are so many treasures to seek and secrets to discover. Don’t stop looking and listening to what Jesus is doing in the neighborhood. Be curious and open to the glorious gift of human connection across cultural divides… one neighbor at a time.
*Marguerite is a pseudonym
Georgia and her husband have been serving with SIL Global in diverse immigrant and refugee communities for 25 years. They work with global Scripture Engagement strategies so that local language communities can flourish. She currently serves as a Language & Culture Learning Specialist with the Global Diaspora Team and in her neighborhood.