Don: I'm delighted to have a good partner in ministry here today, John Yoder, the founder of Immigrant Ministry Connections. He has started a new ministry called Hyphenated Corps and I’m excited to have him share about it.
John: In any western nation (not just America), there are three groups that typically define a country ethnically, and a fourth group in the middle that often gets overlooked. First, there's the native born Majority Group in America, us white folks. Second, there are minority groups, African Americans, Native Americans, and third, there are first-generation immigrants from all over the world, churches that are Chinese, Russian, Liberian and more. But in between them is another group that doesn't fit any of those three buckets neatly. They are called “1.5 generation,” which is second or third generation immigrant. By definition these are people born in the US, UK or Canada to foreign born parents. Their mom and dad worship in Swahili or another language. The children may not even understand it, or they don't resonate with the sermon or the illustrations that are used.
These 1.5 generation people are asked irritating questions every day, like, “Where are you from?” They're from Los Angeles or Chicago or rural Iowa. But that doesn't satisfy people, so they ask, “No, where are you really from? Because you couldn't be from here.” Or their parents or grandparents ask them, “Why don't you speak better Spanish (or Swahili or Korean or whatever the mother tongue is)?” People ask, “How do you spell that funny name again, or “Are you one of those illegals?” These second generation people were born in the United States every bit a legal American as I am. But people still ask if they're illegals.
We want to encourage those of mixed cultural heritage to let Jesus transform that frustration, which we call “hyphenation,” that anxiety that comes from cultural in betweenness, into a multicultural super-power. To do that, just this month, we've launched the hyphenated community. You can check it out at hyphenatedgen.org. Everything on our website is free. Our presenters are young people, 20s and 30s, born in the US, UK and Canada, including men and women whose parents are from Latino, African, Asian and Slavic backgrounds.
Our primary focus is on 2nd generation immigrants, but this content is very relevant to people who are of mixed race who are in a mixed marriage, facing questions like: Which church do you go to: the Latino Church, the American Church or third culture? Where do the kids go to church? What about missionary kids who are citizens of one country and grew up in another culture? What all of those groups have in common is a sense of hyphenation. They're never fully fitting in one culture or another.
So, we have free resources for small group facilitators in text and video formats. Our goal is to give the microphone to young hyphenated people who love the Lord with all their heart and give them the ability to encourage others, to share Christ with them, to disciple them.
Don: Well, this is just fascinating, John, and I'm so grateful for what you're doing, and thank you for sharing this with our friends.
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