{"id":775,"date":"2018-05-24T11:10:52","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T16:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/?p=775"},"modified":"2018-05-24T11:10:52","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T16:10:52","slug":"sankofa-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/2018\/05\/24\/sankofa-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Sankofa Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Home assignment is full of meeting and spending time with people. We make new acquaintances and renew old ones. Home assignment is also full of opportunities to get to know, on a more personal and deeper level, people whom we may not have seen, yet are a part of our global human family and\/or our global Christian family. [Please see: Our Global Families: Christians Embracing Common Identity in a Changing World]<\/p>\n<p>This Home Assignment was our time for Sankofa. Sankofa is a West African word meaning \u201clooking backward to move forward.\u201d We just \u2018looked back\u2019 on our 60+ years of life as we experienced the ECC\u2019s interactive Sankofa Journey, one that helped us to recognize and to challenge our interpretation of our knowledge, and lack of knowledge, of the history concerning the hundreds of years of racial injustice to the present-day reality of racism and violent oppression toward people of color in the U.S. We spent three days with 26 new friends on this bus trip from Chicago to Birmingham, to Montgomery, to Selma, to Memphis, and back to Chicago, and were moved by the Holy Spirit to open our hearts in order to deepen and broaden our love toward, and for, others; to open our minds, our awareness and our understanding to recognize the truth; to open our eyes and be willing to truly see others; and to admit our biases and strongly held opinions so that they can be confronted, repented from, and removed.<\/p>\n<p>Sankofa was not just a \u201clooking back\u201d at our past and present history in the U.S. but was also a confirmation of God\u2019s call on our lives and ministry in Colombia to \u201cmove forward\u201d on our journey of walking alongside the Covenant of Colombia in addressing the past and present realities of social injustice, racial prejudice and the inequality of personal and corporate rights. Whether we are in Colombia or in the U.S., our resolve has been deepened through hearing God\u2019s heart for justice in the narratives of our new friends whom we met on the Sankofa Journey. We are determined and energized to press on and to move forward in responsibility to better address racial righteousness in the church, in the nations, and in our world.<\/p>\n<p>(please visit https:\/\/covchurch.org\/justice\/racial-righteousness\/sankofa\/)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-776\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/32740866_10155840373172862_7184529101275791360_n-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/32740866_10155840373172862_7184529101275791360_n-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/32740866_10155840373172862_7184529101275791360_n-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/32740866_10155840373172862_7184529101275791360_n-768x768.jpg 768w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/32740866_10155840373172862_7184529101275791360_n.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-777\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/IMG_5651-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/IMG_5651-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/IMG_5651-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/IMG_5651-768x768.jpg 768w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/IMG_5651-1024x1024.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-778\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/IMG_5672-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/IMG_5672-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/IMG_5672-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2018\/05\/IMG_5672.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander?moderation_action=report_form&object_type=post&object_id=775&width=250&height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home assignment is full of meeting and spending time with people. We make new acquaintances and renew old ones. Home assignment is also full of opportunities to get to know, on a more personal and deeper level, people whom we &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/2018\/05\/24\/sankofa-journey\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sankofa Journey - Walking Alongside Gary and Mary Lou Sander<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/sander\/2018\/05\/24\/sankofa-journey\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sankofa Journey - Walking Alongside Gary and Mary Lou Sander\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Home assignment is full of meeting and spending time with people. 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