I learned about snow and hot dogs and I also learned about a kind of holiday that we don’t have in my country, Colombia. On this holiday, people eat turkey with their family and give thanks for all the things they’ve received.

According to Wikipedia, Thanksgiving Day is “a harvest festival. Traditionally, it is a time to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude in general. It is a holiday celebrated primarily in Canada and the United States. While perhaps religious in origin, Thanksgiving is now primarily identified as a secular holiday.”

As a Christian boy, I could appreciate the Christian background of this holiday in every TV program that showed it. Today, Thanksgiving is a secular holiday. How did that valuable custom lose its meaning and identity? That is a question for the North American historians.

However, during my time visiting Mennonite Brethren churches in North America several years ago, I have found that many things – Christian things – could lose their identity. Like Indiana Jones in search of archaeological treasure, today we need to look for the “lost Mennonite identity.”

I found people with “Mennonite” last names, but without any knowledge about their Christian tradition. Mennonite Brethren churches have the Mennonite name in their bulletins but are without any Anabaptist perspective in their worship, preaching or leadership style. Some “Mennonites” go to war or do not live their Christian lives like Anabaptists. There are Mennonite churches that don’t support their valuable institutions such as seminaries, universities, mission and social development agencies, historical commissions, press and so on.

They carry the name without content, very much as the current secular Thanksgiving Day does.

Thanks be to God, there are some exceptions! Many persons and churches appreciate the value of our tradition and are looking for their theological roots. They have learned why the Anabaptist tradition is so important: not just to maintain a culture or history but for its content.

The issue has to do not just with traditions but with the theology behind those traditions. Who will be able to share our theological emphases with the body of Christ if we ignore them or if we imitate other parts of the body of Christ? As the apostle Paul says in 1 Cor. 12:17–18: “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.”

One day a year for the purpose of giving thanks to God would be a good custom to establish in Colombia—not for the custom itself but for the holiday’s content and theological background. A day to remember our commitment with those who live in poverty, a day for renewing our vows of following Jesus in his attitude of giving and blessing the poor, would be very good.

Thanksgiving Day could be a day for saying to the secular world that our lifestyle does not follow the commercial and consumerist culture that surrounds us. It could be a day for saying to ourselves that we live in the name of Jesus, that we look for justice, peace and equity – first in our global community but also in our needy world.

It could be a day for remembering some of our emphases as Mennonites such as the simple lifestyle as a way of gratitude and self-denial for the purpose of sharing the love of Christ with others. One day like that could be very relevant in our Western culture.

Mennonite Brethren in Colombia

My mother became a Christian when I was five years old. She then joined the Mennonite Brethren Church in Linz and started to take me to Sunday school. So I basically grew up in this church and have considered myself a Mennonite as far back as I remember. I should add, though, that I only consciously accepted Christ as my Lord and Saviour at 17, when I also got baptized and became a member of the church. This was more than 40 years ago.

 At that time the vast majority of Austrians were either Roman Catholic or Lutheran. Today Islam is the second largest religious affiliation in Austria, surpassing the Lutheran church in size. Everything else was considered a sect. Even today, most Austrians would put a Mennonite in the same category as a Mormon. When I was in high school I knew of only two students who were not Catholic or Lutheran—a son of Jehovah Witnesses and me, both members of a sect in the eyes of all the other students.

Although the situation has improved quite a bit since then, several challenges remain the same.

First, the average Austrian considers him or herself a Christian. This makes it nearly impossible for them to really become Christians. Only non-Christians can become Christians. As one American missionary in Austria once wrote in his prayer letter: Thank God that the first Christian has become a non-Christian! Once an Austrian realizes that he or she is not a Christian in the biblical sense, in spite of being a member of one of the state churches, the door is open to become one.

The second problem is a wrong understanding of who Christ is. A friend of mine once asked a student to describe the Jesus he did not believe in. When the student finished describing his Jesus, my friend could only agree; he did not believe in that Jesus either.

Roman Catholic Austrians in particular often know only a helpless Jesus – either in the arms of his mother or hanging on the cross. As Mennonites, we believe in a different Jesus. Yes, he hung on a cross for a few hours, but he did not remain there. He is risen and is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

This brings me to the biggest challenge of being a Mennonite in Austria or a member of any evangelical denominations. The Jesus that people commonly think of has nothing to do with everyday life. Jesus has to do with religion, and religion only has to do with certain days or even hours. As witnesses of Jesus, we not only have to explain the difference between Jesus and religion with winsome words, we also have to demonstrate Christ’s lordship in every aspect of our day-to-day work and personal lives.

Over the last few decades, it has become more acceptable, even in Austria, to believe differently than the majority. The effects of postmodernism have reached Austria as well. So it is okay for someone to believe in Jesus if it helps to live a happier life, but he or she should not insist that Jesus is the only way to God.

So, it is not as difficult as it once was to confess Jesus as Lord. Now the challenge is to confess him as the only Lord.

Wolfgang Binder is an elder in the Mennonite Brethren church in Wels. He and his wife, Erna, joined Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1974 and worked in the Philippines for four years. Now he is the director of Wycliffe in Central and Eastern Europe and of Wycliffe Austria as well. He has a masters degree in global Christian studies from Providence Theological Seminary in Manitoba.

In the early days of Anabaptism, Austria was a hotbed of both evangelistic activity and strong state persecution, particularly in 1527–1528. The intense persecution soon led to migration to Moravia or Bavaria. Though an Anabaptist beheading is recorded as late as 1605, by the end of the 16th century, Anabaptism had disappeared as a living force from Austria. World War II created opportunity for Mennonite Central Committee to do relief work in Austria, and the Mennonite Brethren mission agency sent workers to refugee camps. Linz became the first church centre, and the mission work expanded to other cities, including a related work in Vienna, called Tulpengasse. A joint Bible school of evangelical churches in Austria was established in Ampfelwang in 1983—GAMEO

I became a believer of Jesus Christ in 1979 by reading the Word of God. King David’s words in 2 Samuel 18:33, “If only I had died instead of you,” spoken of the death of Absalom, his rebellious son, provided illumination for me. It was my conversion. My sins were forgiven, and I knew the love of my eternal Father who died for me in Christ Jesus to give me eternal life. Now I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I have transferred from darkness to light.

In April 1984, while I was farming, the Lord called me for full-time ministry through Isaiah 6:8: “‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’” Since then, I have been learning what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

The Bible says a disciple should grow into the maturity of Christ Jesus (Eph. 4:15) and grow to be like the teacher (Luke 6:40).

While people look at external things, God looks at our hearts (1 Sam. 16:7). Jesus was pleasing to God even before he did any miracles, healing or teaching. Because God is holy, his followers should be holy (Lev. 19:2). A disciple’s internal life is more important than the external ministry. In the Old Testament adultery is sin, but in the New Testament Jesus said even to look with lustful eyes is sin (Matt. 5:28). My desire is that throughout my life I would please God with my total being.

A disciple should display the nature of Christ the Master as the fruit displays the nature of a tree. “In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had,” says Paul in Philippians 2:5. Jesus demonstrates servant leadership by washing his disciples’ feet and laying down his life for others. As his disciples, we need to think, speak and act like Jesus in our relationships with one another, ready to act as a servant and, if necessary, to lay down our lives for others.

Receiving Christ is a free gift but following him is costly. A disciple needs to deny him or herself, to die to self, as Jesus called his disciples. “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” (Matt. 16:24-25).

A disciple needs to be ready to pay the price. In India, a low caste person who accepts Christ will lose financial benefits. A person from a high caste will face sociological persecutions, like expulsion from the family. But the greatest promise of God is that whoever loses because of his name, will receive it back manifold.

“‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus said to them, ‘no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18:29-30).

Jesus spoke of a reward for his faithful imitators in Matthew 10:42, saying “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is known to be my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly be rewarded.”

If our goal is to be like Jesus, the internal prize we receive here on this earth is peace and joy in our own life, in the family and in the ministry. God’s plan from the beginning was that everyone should be fruitful and be multiply. Jesus said to go and make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:18–20). God challenges us to multiply, with stories where growth doubles (Matt. 25:22), increases 30, 60, 100 times (Mark 4:20) and becomes as numerous as “stars of the sky” (Gen. 15:5).

We read in the Gospels that both roots without fruits (Luke 13:6–9) and fruits without roots (Matt. 7:22) are in vain and not acceptable by God. So a disciple’s ultimate goal is to have heart and mind pleasing to God (internal) and to multiply like the stars of the sky (external).

India is the seventh largest country in the world and the second most populous, with more than 1 billion inhabitants. The first Mennonite Brethren missionaries went to India in 1890, and the church there has flourished into one of the largest national Mennonite Brethren conferences in the world, reporting 93,992 members. The Indian church has operated under indigenous leadership since the establishment of a governing council in 1958.—www.gameo.org

When it comes to missions, what comes to mind for most people is the evangelism of aboriginal peoples, followers of other religions or sects and people living in remote areas. But for a person like me, who was born and always lived in a metropolis like São Paulo, Brazil, God had another call – to be pastor in this jungle of stones, to do urban missions.

Involvement in urban missions drives home the lesson that God left us work to be done in this immense capital city, which includes people of diverse tribes, from all races and religions. It is the work of followers of Christ to reach those who were rejected by the system, a system imposed by the prince of this world and society in general.

We were convicted by the Lord when we realized there are many in our own city who are condemned to hell because they are forgotten, discriminated against and rejected—not only by the powers of the city, but even by evangelicals who, caught up in other important work, forget about those who are nearby. We have to look at these marginalized as Jesus did, without prejudice or judgement. Much more than that, we need to love and have compassion for the excluded because these people are also the target of Christ’s love.

What emerged was the Coffee at Dawn Project (Projeto CAMA – CAfé da MAdrugada), a group of 12 people from various churches whose aim is to treat the sex workers of São Paulo as Jesus—loving them as Jesus did and caring for them as though they were Jesus himself. The ministry is very hard and is a job to be developed over the long term because the transformation of lives requires much time.

At the beginning, we went out at 11 p.m. and returned around two or three in the morning. After realizing that by this time the number of sex workers on the streets would decline significantly, we started to leave at 9 p.m., returning at midnight.

As the name suggests, we always bring along a snack and coffee. On some occasions, such as Valentine’s Day, we bring chocolate truffles because chocolate is associated with romance and with couples. The food is really just a pretext for developing relationships with people.

Before leaving we spend time praying in our community. We ask God for protection because many of these people work armed, carrying knives and other sharp objects. Also, many have a pimp or madam who acts as a security guard.

We pray for the right people with whom we can develop a good conversation. We pray for the salvation of the sex workers, many whom we know by name. We pray for each other, crying to God that each urban missionary who is part of Coffee at Dawn can be a blessing to everyone they meet.

In these 15 months of work, no soul has been converted. However many victories have already been achieved by the grace of the Lord. In August 2007, we had the opportunity to use a pizzeria to spend an evening with three girls from our program as well as a transvestite. Some of the sex workers have opened their homes so we can visit them. There are also others who have participated in prayer meetings at our church.

Many of these people say they’d like to leave the life of prostitution but do not because they don’t have a profession. We dream of offering vocational courses and treatments or therapy so they can return to society and live in dignity rather than being viewed as and treated as fringe elements. Unfortunately, we lack financial resources.

These people, whom God loves so much, can be found in large and small cities. Urban missions can be done in your own country, in the capital city, in your hometown, in your neighbourhood, maybe right next door. People everywhere desperately need the love of God which he calls us to demonstrate!