December 19, 2008
by Pauline Coffmann and Linda Huffman Jones

GHOST RANCH, NM – More than 80 "alumni" and their families gathered here recently for a reunion of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s "Junior Year Abroad" (JYA) program.

"I think it really made a difference, don't you?" 96-year-old Margaret Flory commented to Bruce Rigdon about the program she originated in 1953. JYA prompted about 500 Presbyterian college students to study and serve overseas for one year. Rigdon participated in Hong Kong as part of the first JYA group.

The JYA program lasted for two decades. It preceded the Peace Corps by about eight years and is thought to be the model for it. Flory, who lives in North Carolina, is still pondering ways to build bridges. In a recorded interview, she told the group that the "time has come to move east and west and build the house of peace."

The group gathered here was challenged by Hartford (CT) Seminary president and ethics professor Heidi Hadsell to consider the need for interfaith dialogue. Hadsell noted that her father, John Hadsell, a campus minister in Berkeley and former head of the Advanced Pastoral Studies Program at San Francisco Theological Seminary, took his family to the University of Ibadan in Nigeria when Heidi was 14 years old at Flory's behest.

Hadsell went to Nigeria because not only did Flory, who worked in the Student World Relations Office of the PC(USA), want college students to stretch their horizons, she wanted campus ministers to do so, as well. So she arranged for them to serve as campus ministers somewhere else in the world.

Hadsell recognized one of the JYA'ers at the Ghost Ranch gathering Å\ Linda Huffman Jones, who had been studying in Nigeria at the time her family was there. They agreed that the experience was one of "building bridges."

"We were cracked open and made amenable to learning with new eyes," Hadsell recalled.

Participants engaged in agenda-busting discussions about how living as a minority in another culture prepared them to understand the feelings and reality of those with religious and cultural differences in our society?

The challenges and nature of current times Å\ including the collapse of the economy, the deep erosion of civil rights, two protracted wars, diminished opportunities for children and grandchildren, environmental brokenness, and the challenges of pluralism require an ability to work globally, "across the boundaries of "otherness," the group agreed.

"The fundamental challenge today has everything to do with perspective and worldview – approaching issues with a set of chosen values," Hadsell said, "not necessarily those freely supplied by the secular culture."

Many JYA alumni are deeply involved in efforts that do just that.

-Richard Douglass (Ethiopia, ‘66-‘67), is engaged in developing a massive, high-tech program to address health care needs in villages in Ghana;

-Walt Owensby, (Beirut ‘54-‘55), who went on to do mission work in Latin America, shared his understanding of globalization and the new realities it brings;

-John Lorentz (Beirut ‘60-‘61) led a workshop on Iran and Central Asia. Vic Compher (Berlin ‘65-‘66) brought a presentation on interfaith dialogue;

-Bruce Rigdon discussed the Accra Declaration of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches which calls on churches around the world to work together on issues of justice and ecology;

-Pauline Coffman (Beirut ‘59-‘60) led a session on Israel/Palestine, with help from many (28 of the 54 JYA'ers present had studied in Lebanon at either the American University of Beirut or the Beirut College for Women, now Lebanese American University).

Hadsell called for the group to be "cosmopolitan Christians" who have a world-wide scope but remain grounded in our own particularity. She stressed the importance of integrating into one's perspective that of "the other," which is different from "we are all the same."

The Reformed tradition is helpful in that regard, with its keen awareness of the "otherness" of God and the partial and incomplete descriptions that we, as Christians, are able to offer; our pride in our history of reform that suggests our ability to change and to self-critique; and finally, the insistence on community – the practice of hospitality together while striving for discernment about the "kin-dom" of God.

The best Christians can offer to interfaith dialogue is to amplify the Christian concept of love and apply it, participants agreed. "Our children are showing us how to do that by dropping some of the polarized categories about others with which we grew up," one JYAer said.

What would a letter to participants' children and grandchildren say. Could it avoid being moralistic, but still contain our genuine yearnings for them? Could it convey the passion JYAers have for studying in another culture and how we learned more about ourselves than anything else?

Participants agreed they want their children and grandchildren to take risks. They want them to "live life large" and to care about the world. They want them to discern what is of lasting value and to live out of that.

Though not all JYAers voted for him, all agreed that Barack Obama's election as president raised hopes for America's young people. A bumper sticker on one participant's car seemed to epitomize the gathering: "OBAMANOS!" – let us get on with the joy of building bridges internationally and in our own communities.

Presbyterian News Service
Pauline Coffman was a JYA participant at Beirut College for Women 1959-60. Linda Huffman Jones studied in Nigeria 1964-65.