I already find myself feeling distant from our days of biking, from the “official” days of BMAsia. Then again, I’m still in China, still traveling with a bike box, still wearing the same pair of shorts I’ve packed all the way from Phnom Penh. As my last several days here in Chengdu, China wind to a close, I’m consumed with all sorts of thoughts — a mish-mash of reflections, lingering observations, growing questions and appreciations, and, of course, looking ahead, anticipating adjustments, new seasons in life.

What comes immediately next (in fact I even fly there directly from Asia before going home) is Mennonite Church Canada’s annual assembly in Abbotsford, British Colombia. I’ll be there as a delegate for my conference, as part of the listening committee, and involved in a variety of young adult activities. I’m also part of a workshop, which is consuming a good deal of my last hours here on foreign soil. We are presenting under the heading, “Church and Culture: Finding Our Way In An Age Of Disorientation,” and we are attempting to talk about our post-modern context, exploring hopeful ways in which we do church, grow intentional community, be peace-cultivators in a way that is relevant and Anabaptist, re-orienting amidst all of our fragmented-ness. Among other things, I’ll be sharing about BMAsia under these auspices, and so I’m led to reflect. My thoughts are diverse and rambling in many ways, and I can’t really begin to articulate much of it yet (I should really be writing this reflection in several weeks, or months, or both), but here is one question I was left with as I prepared for our workshop:

“…and here I sit writing this, planning this, by a fetid river, rushing through a booming, bustling Chinese city… I’m in so many ways worlds away from all of this: all of this church stuff, all of the stuff of home, wherever that may be… so have I further disoriented, fractured, fragmented my already messy, transitory life and it’s accompanying set of diverse yet overlapping communities? or is there space for this sort of travel, exchange, cross-cultural learning? and what is that learning? and what’s it worth? and who does it benefit?”

I’d be glad to hear your thoughts, because I think it is by sharing my questions — bringing my reflections home and letting them infuse conversations with my peers, colour the life of my communities — that this experience, that this BikeMovement Asia, is made further meaningful, relevant, worthwhile, relevant. Let’s continue “cultivating relevant community through conversation” and “realizing global community through intercultural engagement.”

Nicole Bauman

26 June 2007

Posted by Nicole Bauman

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