Navigating Love and Fear | Loving The Stranger Among Us With: Johan Heinrichs and Wendi Park

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:00:00

This is Journey with care. We're in our series loving the Stranger Among US. Hey, before we get into our conversation, Wendy, why don't you tell us a little bit about our sponsor Phil?

Wendi Park [: 00:01:32

Welcome, Johan, on this side of the microphone.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:01:35

Well, we're rarely on together. I think maybe our first intro episode talking about the podcast.

Wendi Park [: 00:01:41

I'm just grateful that we get to do this together.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:01:43

Should be fun. So normally I'm editing your episodes and trying to direct your conversations via post production. So I'm pretty excited that I can be in front of you and help direct this conversation a little bit more right off the hop. Save me some editing time.

Wendi Park [: 00:01:59

I'm just grateful that you're on the hot seat now, too. So welcome to my side, and I'm very grateful. But you were on recently, a few episodes back, and I was on with my parents. You were on with your parents? We had kind of a bring your parents to work day, we said, where we interviewed. That was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed your interview with your parents.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:02:20

That wasn't even planned out for us to do that. I think you had your parents interviewed and mine were scheduled right after. We didn't actually plan that ahead of time.

Wendi Park [: 00:02:28

And I guess we've got to say we've got some awesome parents. There's been some really good feedback on their episodes and their life experience, so I hope people are tuning into those.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:02:40

Well, let me just mention that our sponsor Phil actually emailed me and he said the episode with my parents has been his favorite episode so far. You want to check that one out.

Wendi Park [: 00:02:51

And I've had some feedback for some recipes that people are wanting from my mom, and so they're waiting actually, it's coming hot off the press today. Those books, those cookbooks, inspiring hospitality that we have been donated, gifted these books and we're giving them away to new donors. So that's exciting too. And people are waiting for those recipes.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:03:16

I'm waiting for them. I've tried some of your mom's recipes and some of your dad's recipes and my goodness, it's definitely worth donating to Care Impact to get, that for sure.

Wendi Park [: 00:03:25

Yeah, it's definitely not going to disappoint and I'm just excited to get those out there. And last episode we had our guest, Rahati Nagasar. That was a fun conversation, a different conversation about belonging, kicking off our new series, loving the Stranger Among US. And I'm hoping that you and I can continue that conversation. There's some things we'd like to unpack before we invite other guests into the subsequent series. The episodes that are coming on, hospitality, I guess, to start off, what is the big deal? What would you say the big deal is about hospitality with strangers? What does that look like for you?

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:04:05

It's funny. I wouldn't say I'm actually the most hospitable person. Like, if you look at that passage, love God with all your heart, soul and mind. I'm getting into Bible here. Ready?

Wendi Park [: 00:04:15

But dive in.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:04:16

If you look into that passage, Jesus said the next one is just like it love your neighbor as yourself. When the Pharisee asked, what is the greatest commandment? Jesus didn't hesitate to actually go above and beyond what the Pharisee actually asked. He said, love your God with all your heart, soul, mind. And that's like the first and greatest. But I'm going to add more to it. Like, I'm going to tell you something else that you're not even asking for. Love your neighbor as yourself. And then Luke Ten, he goes to ask who your neighbor is.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:04:44

And we all know about the Good Samaritan story. And that's where he goes into the Good Samaritan, where he talks about the stranger on the road, beaten and abused from a different ethnicity, in fact, an ethnicity that they didn't really have any conversation with or any connections with. And then he goes and helps him, and he goes above and beyond helping this stranger, bringing him into his home and offering this hospitality. So that's what I think of when I think of hospitality. And I'm learning to do this. I'm not very good at it. My wife's probably a lot better at it than I am. If you've listened to our enneagram series, I wasn't really on it, but that's not one of my strengths, hospitality.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:05:26

I think Kathy was our hospitable one, and she definitely is very good.

Wendi Park [: 00:05:33

The neighbor, the notion of neighbor, that's really good passage that you have highlighted here. We're really talking. Neighbor is equal to stranger it's a stranger. On the side of the road, it's a stranger. Even different ethnic groups, there's a barrier between them. But he was referring them as the neighbor when we're saying love your neighbor as yourself. And so often neighbor can be the one that we already know, that we already feel comfortable and have belonging with. But you look at the word stranger.

Wendi Park [: 00:06:00

The definition of stranger is someone you don't know, someone who doesn't belong in a specific place. There's a lack of belonging. And God is urging us to love our neighbor, that person we don't have belonging with. Do you remember a time where you needed that belonging, where you were that stranger and you received hospitality?

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:06:22

Well, actually, for me, I find it's hard to actually receive hospitality, and this is coming from someone that been in ministry for many years. I've had to raise my own support. So even receiving support as an act of hospitality has always been challenging. It's always been difficult. And I don't even know if I understand why it's so difficult. Maybe it's being vulnerable and actually having need of someone else. I think we're all kind of built to want to be self sustaining and to want to be in control of our lives. But the Lord wants us to give that up and he wants us to be able to rely on others, rely on other people.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:06:59

In the body of Christ, we are one body.

Wendi Park [: 00:07:02

Yeah, and I don't think you're alone in that, Johan. I think that is the Canadian dilemma often. Do we need to need others? Do we need to need God? Or is this culture of self sufficiency and independence and individualism sort of trumping all of those biblical values of reliance on each other, building that community? So I think there's many people, myself included. It's easier sometimes to give than to receive in many ways. I'll tell you, when I was in Palestine and Israel, I was a recipient of hospitality. And I was there at a time where there were no tour buses. And my heart goes out to the condition right now in Israel and Gaza, in the West Bank, some of the deep tensions that are there, and my heart goes out to them. But I received hospitality, radical hospitality there.

Wendi Park [: 00:07:56

That from a Muslim family in the West Bank. I didn't know them. I met them, but they welcomed me in as a stranger. They knew it wasn't a safe time. I was in a peace delegation team there, but I was not in a time of safety. There were snipers. There was a lot of military control. There was a lot of tension on both sides.

Wendi Park [: 00:08:17

It's complicated. I'm not picking sides here. But this family, this Muslim family welcomed me in as a foreign Christian stranger and gave me food, give me a place to sleep. And I'll also say I was also deeply impacted when I was a foreign student living abroad in Costa Rica, where people welcomed me in when I was living in Bolivia. The neighborhood welcomed me in, and I lived in a very impoverished neighborhood. And yet radical hospitality wasn't something on a monetary level. It was that piece of bread, it was that friendly smile, and it's just like they had my back. And so that has challenged me, in my understanding, because I've been that stranger, receiving that care in lots of times of need, and it is hard to be that vulnerable person.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:09:10

And I was going to say, those people that you've encountered in those countries, they're not offering hospitality because they have a lot because they have an abundance. And I think that's one of the traps that we have in North America, is, like, hospitality is not all financial, but quite often we have to be financially secure before we're going to we.

Wendi Park [: 00:09:27

Give in our excess, right?

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:09:29

Yeah, we give in abundance, but we get a lot better at learning to receive when we can give not out of just abundance, but just out of obedience. I think if we can give at a place where we're not actually able to give a ton, it breaks those barriers of hierarchy, saying, hey, I'm better than you. I'm at a place of self sufficiency where I can actually give to someone rather than receive. But if you don't have much to give at all, and then you give it, there's something that happens that breaks down barriers there, I believe. I mean, Jesus talked about that too, with the widow, giving all that she had, right? And he said, Truly, she has given more than all of you.

Wendi Park [: 00:10:04

And that takes faith. Hospitality is an act of faith as well. It's not giving in the excess of, I have a free evening, so why not help? Or, I have this money burning a hole in my pocket, so why wouldn't I give it? It's actually there's a need right in front of me, my neighbor, that stranger that I don't have belonging with yet. They need something. Or it's not even just a need of, like, I need food. It's just like everyone needs to belong. So we can presuppose that everyone around us is in need of belonging. It's giving even when we don't have excess, it's giving sacrificially.

Wendi Park [: 00:10:41

But that takes a lot of obedience, and that takes a lot of faith. It doesn't take a lot of faith, actually, come to think of it, because God is our provider. We know that. And yet we act as if he won't provide time to get our laundry done if we welcome that person in. Or we act as if we won't have a way to put gas in our tank if we give sacrificially to a family that needs reunification. God is about reunification. God is about renewal. So when he puts us in those places, he also is our provider.

Wendi Park [: 00:11:11

And we can often do with a lot less than we think we need.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:11:15

And he says to love our neighbors as ourselves. And it's not all about monetary, like you said. You know those people that are begging for money on street corners when you're driving down the street and you're stopped at a red light? A conversation that I've had with a friend that actually knows a lot of these people. They say if you can't give anything, like if you don't have change, many people don't have change anymore. A lot of what these people want that are on these corners are to be seen. They want acknowledgment that they exist. They don't necessarily need your change all the time. So I know it's hard to do at a red light.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:11:51

So my wife makes a great effort at this. When she encounters the poor on the street outside a store, she tries to engage in conversation so that they feel seen, so that they feel like they belong, not necessarily just wanting a handout.

Wendi Park [: 00:12:08

Yeah. And I think that's where Jesus got it right. It wasn't like he was the food bank, soup kitchen all the time. There was always needs, and in fact, the poor will always be among us. But he saw people. He saw them in their distress. He gave eye contact. He recognized people where they were at.

Wendi Park [: 00:12:26

And sometimes and oftentimes, that acknowledgment of where people are at is meeting those physical needs. Because it's not just like, I wish you well and be on your way. Oh, I see you, and I see that you're hungry, so let me go out of my way to make sure that you are helped. But the most important is what you're saying that we see people and respond out of that not just like, okay, there's poverty, so therefore a bowl of soup is what I do. It's seeing the individual. And I love how care portal is seeing the individual is helping people see the individual because those are individual needs. And even the social workers are helping identify with the family or with that youth aging out of care. What is this need? What is a sense of belonging that I need? And people are able to respond to it.

Wendi Park [: 00:13:15

Like in Matthew 25 35 is one of my favorite verses to reflect on here is for I was hungry and you fed me. This is Jesus talking. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger. There's that word, and you invited me into your home. Now, let's really think about that. We can often cliche this verse, but how many of us, particularly I was a stranger and you invited me into your home. How many of us in Canada would have stranger danger if somebody was at our door? And Jesus is like, when you do this in my name, you are doing it to like, Would you do that? Would you invite a perfect stranger into your home?

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:13:58

But when we were growing up. We were always told, never talk to strangers. So programmed not to do what Jesus.

Wendi Park [: 00:14:05

Said, although my parents were a terrible example of that because they talked to everybody, invited them in.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:14:11

And if you listen to the episode of my parents, they've invited over 50 strangers to live with us, and they didn't know who they're bringing in. We've encountered trouble with bringing in strangers. But you know what? I'm not much worse for wear because of it.

Wendi Park [: 00:14:29

Yeah. And stranger danger. There's a sense of the unknown and fear creeps in and the what ifs. And I have to say it could be also a lack of control, because if we invite a stranger in, we can't control necessarily the outcomes, and we sort of go down these paths of what ifs. Jesus isn't giving a what if verse here. He's saying, Just do it now. Would there be within reason? I think so. We don't want to invite trouble.

Wendi Park [: 00:14:59

I think fear can also play an important role that we sometimes give it a bad rap. Sometimes fear says, oh, don't touch the fire or run out of the house if there's a fire. I think some of that is good.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:15:12

It's self preservation. Some fear.

Wendi Park [: 00:15:13

That's self preservation. If a tiger is coming at you, don't just fear not and stop running. You want to get help. You want to get protection. But let's face it, in the grocery aisle or people in our neighborhoods, they're not jaguars. They're not coming at us with weapons. We're not in a war afflicted zone. Could we be agents of change? What can we do with that? Stranger danger? When I was living in Bolivia, in an urban neighborhood, it was an area that even the police didn't go into.

Wendi Park [: 00:15:45

So it gives you a little bit of idea that we were kind of like justice, each to their own, except for there was such a community mindset, and these were urbanized indigenous people that were coming from all different nations, so to speak, tribes and nations coming into the city. And I was working with youth there. And one of the things that I noticed that my biggest security, my biggest safety net wasn't keeping to myself. It was actually getting to know my neighbors. They were my security system. Because there was such a community mindset, we were protecting each other. So I had my neighbors watching over me. I felt very safe there, even though there was crime and there was a lot of high poverty leading to crime.

Wendi Park [: 00:16:25

However, I felt safety in knowing my neighbor. And I think that's maybe a concept that we don't necessarily have here. We'd buy just a more secure security system for our house but never get to know our neighbors. But we were there to watch out for each other. And I think that is a concept that could help in that stranger danger that we actually know each other rather than fear each other.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:16:49

So I'm not an expert in this area, but I did take the trauma care master class and they talk about fear and some of the fear responses. You know a lot more about this than I do because I only took the course once and you've been kind of living in it. Maybe you can talk to us a little bit more about fear responses.

Wendi Park [: 00:17:06

Yeah, I'd love to. And I think there's things here for everybody whether you've gone through trauma or not. Our brain is a beautiful organ that I think sometimes we don't give it enough thought in our Christian context of why we have fear and is it even fear, I think underlying a lot within the Christian world. Fear prevents us from loving the stranger. Fear prevents us from going the extra mile and from doing some radical things in our community. And so let's look at the fear. Fear often comes from this little amygdala in the stem of our brain. And we often talk about fight flight freeze responses, but I actually have a few other things.

Wendi Park [: 00:17:49

So I was thinking maybe we could go through those things. So there's five different areas of responses that are actually fear responses to loving the stranger among us and maybe we can identify with some more than others. Like the fight response to fear may not be like us coming out with gloves and I might even be a pacifist that fights. But a fight response might be a defensiveness or you can't tell me what to do or I don't do those kind of things. There might be a defensiveness kind of an oppositional knee jerk reaction to difference. Maybe they come from a different background or religion or maybe they're queer all kinds of things that look different to us. Our fight response is a defensiveness of on guard and don't you dare.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:18:42

That seems to be one of the most prevalent right now. If you go on social media.

Wendi Park [: 00:18:46

Yes, on social media. That's an excellent example of a fight response. Like I have to stand my ground. And it's more on the offense than just sheltering ourselves because the flight response is that we kind of cocoon. We just like maybe if I just like I'm just going to retreat. OOH, that feels like a little bit of tension. OOH, I see a little difference over there and I don't know what to say. We're going to flight.

Wendi Park [: 00:19:12

That's a fear response. We got to call it what it is. Like retracting and staying within your cocoon, staying within your bubble, finding only the people that you feel belonging with. That is a fear response. Then there's the freeze response where we're like deer in the headlights. Oh, no, we're just going to stare at it. We're going to stare at that person that looks different than us. We're going to stare at that person on the street begging for money.

Wendi Park [: 00:19:36

We're going to kind of freeze and not do anything I've had pastors say, you mean child welfare in my neighborhood, they're wanting to work with us and to help restore families and help youth aging out of care and that we could be a care. I'm going to pray about it. That's a freeze response. We already know what the Bible says about loving our neighbor. We already know that we are to care for those in need and here's opportunities. And I'm not saying that they have to jump on it right away, but that instant I got to pray about it is a freeze response. Maybe they are praying about it and I hope so. But we can spiritualize some of our which actually is fear in the fight, flight and freeze.

Wendi Park [: 00:20:19

Then there's the fawn response. Now this one can be tricky to understand that this is a fear response. It's that tokenizing. It's like, oh, yes, parading people as if they are objects of affection more as our project than as our mutual friend, as an equal, as a shared power, mutuality in relationships. I think of how we love different cultural representations, but we're really talking about the tip of the iceberg, of the food, the dress. Oh, I love your hair. And not necessarily the racial tensions that they are having to live in day in and day out or having that mutuality.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:21:01

Yeah, we've had this conversation even as care impact on the podcast, journey with Care, having the reconciliation piece to our podcast, even that first full season, it's like we don't want to tokenize people. We don't want to just say, hey, we support them. So here's their message, let's put it in front of everybody. That's something that we've actually had to talk through and wrestle with, saying hey, we don't want this just to be something that we put on the poster. This is something that we really want to transform us on the inside so that our message is genuine, so that we can see genuine transformation and genuine reconciliation. So that's one example I could think of.

Wendi Park [: 00:21:37

Yeah, that's a great example because we want it to go deeper. We want it to go beyond just like, hey look, we're diverse, right? So fawning can be a lot of virtue signaling and not going deeper when we don't understand something. And sometimes when I'm working cross culturally or in diversity, it's not just agreeing with everything because yeah, we're so desperate to be approved by others. It's actually asking those deeper questions or being able to have challenging, mutually challenging conversations in a respectful, humble way and going deeper in the relationship so that we can really care. But fawning is a fear response. And lastly, I've added something in honor of our friend who's been on this podcast a couple of times, dr. Michael Rennick. frumping.

Wendi Park [: 00:22:24

We've added frumping to this fear response. What is frumping? So frumping is that more disgruntled approach. It's kind of like your arms are crossed and it is a fear response where we in low German, I'm going to throw some low German to all my mennonite crowd there. It's being Brumps. It's being grumpy about something. It's sort of like in a huff. Just like, I'm not dealing with this. There's a little bit of a passive aggressive hostility built up there that I'm just going to block things and I'm going to just sit on things and I'm not going to do a whole lot.

Wendi Park [: 00:22:59

I'm just going to sink back in my chair. That's frumping. And that is a fear response. And often out of fear, it's because we don't know what to do with this new information. We don't know what to do with this new situation, this new person in my life, I didn't ask for it. And so I'm like I'm just going to like does that make sense?

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:23:19

Yeah, I think so. I have teenagers in the house.

Wendi Park [: 00:23:24

Need we say more? Yes. That is a great example. So we can see here from these five responses, we can all identify, I think with all five of them, some more than others are our default position. When there's something new, it's not a jaguar, it's not somebody after us. There's nothing like endangering our life. But we go into this fear response when really we need to go into a loving response. The Bible, we talked about some of the scripture and the scripture is chocked full of loving your neighbor and that stranger among us. We are to love our neighbors.

Wendi Park [: 00:24:01

And so how do we fight back? And I think if we could look at the neurology of this, what we want to use is our prefrontal cortex. I know we're going into brain science here, but it's like the frontal lobe right in the front behind our forehead. That part of the brain can reason. That part of the brain is creative, it problem solves. It allows us to relate and connect with others. But interesting fact is that if our amygdala is flapping, if that is in high alert, like we're in fear response, we actually cannot access that part of the brain we cannot relate well. We cannot love our neighbors as ourself. If we are in a fear response.

Wendi Park [: 00:24:43

They cannot cooperate together. It's fight, flight, freeze from fawn. Or we can access this beautiful part of our brain that allows us to love our neighbor as ourself. And so there's some practicalities to what this can look like when you think.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:25:02

Of these fear responses automatically. What comes to my head is, I think, that verse in Two Timothy where it says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self discipline. So it almost feels like this is kind of what we're talking about in terms of loving the stranger and fearing our stranger. He hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but of love. So what does the love side of things look like? You talked about what it means to fear the stranger, to fear our neighbor. But what does it mean to love our neighbor?

Wendi Park [: 00:25:34

Yeah. And we have to remember here that love is not something we have to contrive, that we just got to dig deeper and like, gosh, Johan and I'm going to love people. God is love. God is love and he is the source of all love. And we look at attachment theory in trauma care and look at that disconnect between a caregiver and a child, for example. And there's a brokenness that has happened or separation that has happened either in a traumatic event or over a chronic lifestyle with this parent child, for example. And in all of humanity, there has been a separation, a brokenness in relationship with each other and with God and with creation. There's just a lot of relational poverty that we are sitting with.

Wendi Park [: 00:26:26

And what we want to see is that earned secure attachment, that we repair those relationships. And God is wanting to repair his relationship with us. So this is some really good news in here that we don't have to sit with fear, but perfect love casts out all fear. And so if we're going to pursue love, we're going to pursue God and we're going to pursue that earned secure attachment with God. Because when we're securely attached with our abba Father and we repair that and we work with Him to repair that, we will be able to do more. We will grow in our capacity to love. Because it's like that channel. Like if we cut off the flow of love and we're trying to do it on our own, we're never going to have enough for our stranger, even our family.

Wendi Park [: 00:27:14

We can run short of love. But if we can be attached, connected to God the Father, who is love, it's unlimited, we will be able to do more radical things than we ever thought was possible. And I've identified five love responses that is possible. When we are tapped into the love of the Father, one, we're going to be better risk takers. We're going to take a chance on people because we're going to see them as made in the image of God, that they are worthy of love. Not our love, because we have something to give, but our God the Father has given us love so we can love others. So we're going to take some risks on people. We're going to take some risks when God calls us into another country or into a new neighborhood or into a situation that we feel is over our head.

Wendi Park [: 00:28:01

Johan, have you been in a situation where you've taken on something or you've taken a chance on somebody that feels like you don't have enough to give?

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:28:09

I can think of one example off the top of my head. There was one gal that we brought into our home several years ago. She struggled with mental health. And depression and suicidal thoughts. Actually, I told a little bit of this story on the mental health episode with Daniel Whitehead that we had and it was hard, like spending nights at the hospital. We had to read through books and listen to podcasts to better understand this person that we are bringing into her home who's very fearful of other people and even fearful of sitting at a table with her family. Like, how do we invite her in? How do we invite her to our table to have conversations and engage with us? This was a couple of years struggle to learn how to do this. And ultimately she took her own life.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:29:04

So that was a challenging thing. And it's challenging when you pour yourself out to people and love them and then the repayment is that so how do you deal with that? Maybe that's part of the fear thing is you open yourself up and all of a sudden there's hurt that comes in. Maybe that's part of the fear and why we're scared to open ourselves up to loving the stranger and loving our neighbors.

Wendi Park [: 00:29:27

Well, thank you for sharing that because it isn't just all rosy and just warm fuzzies. Love is gritty. When God loves us, it is gritty. He takes us as we are, and yeah, he takes a risk on us too. And it's not easy. It's inviting us into the discomfort of maybe racial tensions or mental health concerns or things we don't feel comfortable, but God is inviting us. But I can see through your life and I'm so sorry for the loss that you've experienced and for this young life that ended too soon and was given just a really hard life. But I can see how it is bearing fruit in your life.

Wendi Park [: 00:30:13

It has impacted you, made you a more loving person. And I think that brings me to the second love response, is unconditional compassion. When God's love flows through us, it's not conditional on the outcomes we love anyway. It's not conditional on if they're getting better or if this person comes out of poverty or we have a success story. We care anyway, like they are Jesus. We give them water, we give them food, we visit them in prison. Unconditional of the outcome. They are not our projects, wouldn't you say?

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:30:53

Yeah. I mean, the conditional part, I guess, would be not opening yourself up because of the fear of hurt. So unconditional means, you know what? No matter what your response is going to be, we're going to open ourselves up to compassion.

Wendi Park [: 00:31:06

Yeah. And I think it's natural for us to not feel open about it, not wanting to open ourselves up to hurt. But there's some deeper inner work that we can do as everyday people look at our own past. What are the things that are triggered because I'm stepping into this relationship or I'm feeling confronted by this situation? What is it within my past? That is preventing me from loving? What are some repairs that I need from my history? Maybe with my parents or maybe in my community or maybe I was bullied in a certain what. What are some of those repairs that Jesus wants to do in my life so that I can have love because we can't take other people to places we haven't been ourselves. I think that's a Karen Purvis quote from a trust based relational intervention. But we need to be able to go in and find that inner healing so that we can also be unconditional for the lives of others and have more compassion. When we deal with our own self, we realize we're all in need of repair.

Wendi Park [: 00:32:05

We're all just doing this journey. Some have been given a better life than others and handed more, but we all have that sense of needing each other and needing God. Another love response is uncomfortable generosity. We briefed on it earlier in giving, not just in our excess, but giving generously even when it's uncomfortable. There's been times where I'm like, oh, no, I just want an evening to myself. And yet ding dong at the door. Or, oh, there's a need for a bedroom in our home. And God has called us to open up to another child.

Wendi Park [: 00:32:41

And it's just like it really didn't fit into my plan. And I have to look to Abba father and say, god, is this what you want of me right now? And yes, that sacrifices some of our plans and what we were going to do. But love compels us to give uncomfortably till we get comfortable with it. Right when we realize that everything we have is God's, that's the best stage to be in. We want to get to that place where we really realize we are not tight fisted to the things in our bank accounts, on our schedules and stuff that we're so tight fisted that we can't give it. If God invites us into these situations, we're called to love radically and uncomfortably and fight against that selfishness.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:33:26

And if you don't become uncomfortable in your generosity, you're missing out on some amazing provision stories.

Wendi Park [: 00:33:34

Oh my goodness, yes.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:33:35

If you don't open yourself up to that, you're not going to get those stories. I hear people say, oh, I don't have those faith stories. Well, that's because you haven't opened yourself up to being uncomfortable with your generosity. So you got to do that in order to get those stories.

Wendi Park [: 00:33:47

You can't highlight that enough. Because there have been times where God has challenged us in this and put us to the test, even in little things. And then it grows into bigger things, and then bigger things where we have given, and I kid you not, strangers coming to the door with the exact amount of money that we needed that we gave out. And we were like, God, you're going to have to provide this or even this house that we're living in is a miracle story. We shouldn't be in it. But God called us to expand our family, and we're like, we're going to have to move. And we were already stacking kids, and God like, oh, my goodness, don't miss out on the love of God. Because when we give radically, god lavishes it out, and it doesn't mean that we just hold it now.

Wendi Park [: 00:34:29

Now we've got this. Now we've got it. He's going to keep giving us opportunities to expand because his love knows no bounds. His generosity knows no bounds. So if we can become tap into that generosity, my goodness, do we tap into the big flow? And the fourth love response that I want to highlight here is apology in action. Let's face it, when we are loving, sometimes we take risks. And sometimes you know what, Johan? I make mistakes. I say things I shouldn't have said, or I approach it in a way that I was just not educated in.

Wendi Park [: 00:35:03

And of course, being uncomfortable urges me to learn. It puts me into that growth mindset. But there's times where I make mistakes or I have lived systemically in ways that are oppressive to others. I just didn't realize the privilege that I live in and how I operate could really oppress other people right in front of me. And I have to be willing to apologize, but not only say, I'm sorry, change a course of action.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:35:32

That's the very definition of repentance.

Wendi Park [: 00:35:34

Exactly. That's what I was thinking.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:35:36

Saying sorry, apologizing, and then turning around completely doing the opposite of what you were just doing.

Wendi Park [: 00:35:42

Yeah, I know. In my family, as I parent very diverse children, there's times where I will say the wrong things that will trigger trauma responses, and I don't mean it. I honestly want what's best for my children, as a mom would. But there's things that I might say at a table or even raise my voice without even shouting, like, hey, can you pass the pepper? Or grab if I say it in a tone that triggers I own that. And I'm like, oh, that didn't go well. I'm observing what the people around me, how their responses are, and I'm like, I'm so sorry. And so I'm learning to season my conversation, not in trepidation, not in a fear response where I'm on eggshells and trying to fawn around my children, but in a more informed, compassionate way. And so then I've had to do some correction that is repentance.

Wendi Park [: 00:36:36

It's not just like, oh, Jesus, I'm sorry for my sins and help me be kinder to people. Reparation also happens in person with each other. That's where we build community. And that's just a simple example. But I have to start to be willing to change. To be willing to change is a loving response. It's not about not making mistakes, because if we haven't made mistakes again, it's like we haven't tried hard enough. We haven't put ourselves and got uncomfortable enough.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:37:02

You haven't done the risk taking.

Wendi Park [: 00:37:04

It's the risk taking. Exactly. It all flows to each other, right? And finally, the fifth one is humble presence. I don't know about you, but in marriage, for example, a loving response for my husband Harold is not to come up with a solution to what I'm talking about. I just want to talk about. I want him to be present with me.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:37:25

And most men want to come up with solutions. We want to be the problem solvers.

Wendi Park [: 00:37:30

Yeah. And how often is it when we think of loving the stranger among us, we're like, OK, what's the issue? What can we pathologize? Is it mental health? Is it food? Is it security? What is the tangibles that we can do? And while we should love in a tangible way, so often it's about seeing the person being present and just listening, being with, sitting with the despair, sitting with the discomfort, sitting with people in their grief and having that humble presence.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:38:01

Kind of like what Jesus was looking for in the garden right at the end of his life. He just wanted friends around him. He wanted people to be present in his grief, in his most difficult time. Okay, so we had the five fear responses, the five love responses, and in my head, I'm like, we can keep talking about each of these things for so long, which is why we want to actually do podcast meetups. So if that's something that interests our listeners, we want to encourage people to get together in a coffee shop, let us know about it, because we want to be able to advertise it. But let's get these conversations going just like Wendy and I were talking here. It's making us think, it's making us question. And we want our listeners to do the same thing, to ask questions of each other and learn from each other.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:38:49

So we encourage you to do that. And we'll actually be doing a podcast meetup at the end of the series. And as far as the end of the series, Wendy, what else can we expect to hear in the coming weeks in terms of loving the stranger among us?

Wendi Park [: 00:39:03

Well, I'm excited that we do have a lineup of different people that I get to have the privilege of hosting here on the podcast. And we're going to be listening to people and their experiences of being a stranger here in Canada. And so you're going to hear some pretty significant personal stories. We're going to be hearing from an Indigenous person talking about being an estranged Indigenous here in the nation of Canada and what it means to be Indigenous and to feel estranged. We're also going to be talking to a settled stranger, a settler, what it means to be settling in a land that is not our ancestry, and how do we navigate that as a person in power and how do we share that power. So there's going to be some interesting dynamics there that we're going to go into. And then also the visible stranger, those that are visible minorities, those that do not look like the rest in a homogeneous group. We're going to talk to somebody with that background and also the invisible stranger, somebody that you may not even know, feels estranged, does not feel belonging even within our own church, congregation or community.

Wendi Park [: 00:40:13

They may look like you or I, but we don't even know what keeps them feeling like they do not belong.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:40:20

Sounds fantastic. I'm so looking forward to those conversations. We're going to wrap up this episode. But before we do that, Wendy, do you have one takeaway that you can take from this episode or that you'd want our listeners to walk away with from this conversation?

Wendi Park [: 00:40:34

Yes. I'd like to challenge each one of us to look at our responses to others. Not the people we already feel belonging, but the people in the grocery aisle, the people in our neighborhoods, people that we wouldn't normally associate with. Pay attention to your fear or your love responses to all of it. And because I think awareness leads us into growth, awareness leads us into repentance. To know, does it align with what scripture says? Does it align with the love of God? Is the love of God flowing through me in that situation? Or is it love that is urging me to action? I wouldn't say beat yourself up if you identify too much with a fear, give yourself some grace. God is a gracious God, but be aware of those things and invite God into those spaces. Say, God, I have those fears, but help me to love in this situation.

Wendi Park [: 00:41:26

Help me to be obedient, not to feel the love like the warm fuzzies. Oh, my goodness, I know exactly what to do in the situation. But Lord, I'm going to trust you. I'm going to trust you with that hello. I'm going to trust you with that eye contact. I'm going to trust you with giving unconditionally and loving unconditionally in this circumstance, even if I don't feel it. But God, I'm going to take that risk and I'm going to trust that you have what it takes in this situation. So that's my challenge for each one of us.

Wendi Park [: 00:41:55

Pay attention to your fear responses and what God is asking you to respond in love.

Johan Heinrichs [: 00:42:01

And we know that if you're listening to this podcast, that you are already on the journey to loving your neighbor better. Because that's what this is all about, learning to love each other better. We're helping strangers become good neighbors. That's what we're talking about. And hey, thank you, listeners. One way to care for each other is by awareness, like Wendy said. So sharing this podcast means a lot to us. Thank you for those that have shared it with your friends and family and neighbors.