RADICAL SERVANTHOOD:

DISCOVERING ACTIVISM IN A WORLD FOCUSED ON AWARENESS

 By Tricia Demmers

    There is a road called Livingston Road and it looks like any other road, it stretches on for a few miles before it connects to Indian Head Highway. On Livingston Road there is a church. It is called the Worship Center.

     The Worship Center is across from a forest and the sun is just rising. It’s light is breaking through the trees brightening up the town.

     In the Worship Center there is a non-profit organization called JESUSpolitik. This organization resides in the town Bryans Road Maryland, a half hour out of the city of Washington D.C.

Bryans Road Maryland has a population of just over four thousand. The Lund family owns much of the land at the main intersection of Bryans Road which contains a shopping mall with two supermarkets, a small movie complex and other smaller businesses.

There is a unique trailer park housing complex that looks empty and alone, almost forgotten.

     The church is white and its entrance has glass doors that beckon to those who walk by to look in. It has a simple beauty in its windows and its color, and yet its simple beauty emanates purity.

     Melissa Davis and Delainna Batoon are sitting together; Davis puts her red purse alongside the wall and slowly leans back. Batoon leans forward, places her elbows on the table, and rests her head on her hands.

     “When I graduated from Messiah, I wanted to go out into the world and change things in third-world countries. But God was calling me to my home, and I thought Bryans Road Maryland…” Melissa Davis raises her eye-brow and her eyes grow wide, “…come on.”

     Davis pauses and closing her eyes she folds her hands together, “But if I can’t be faithful and serve God here, than how can I expect to be faithful and serve Him in a third-world country?”

James 2:14-17 says, “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

“I feel like James 2:14-17, is the basis of the organization,” says Davis and Delainna Batoon nods her head in agreement.

Melissa Davis: Striving to fill a need for Activism

When Davis was a little girl in grade four, she started a Bible study during recess. She says that this carried on throughout grade five also, and that it grew so large that at one point teachers attempted to forbid the students from coming.

Now, she says, her fervor to show Christ has grown into her creation of JESUSpolitik.

 “JESUSpolitik is a grass roots movement; people like that term, grass roots. But at the same time those roots serve no purpose if they don’t grow,” says Melissa Davis, president of JESUSpolitik. She smiles and her face glows.

     Davis says they are radicals. Every day they wake up and evangelize, they take food to the poor, they help people. They strive to lay everything down to do the work of Jesus Christ. She says, “Jesus was a radical, and He calls us to have a radical, loving faith.”

She wears a white collared polo, and around her neck there is an old wooden necklace with a cross that has the word LIFE engraved in it.  

     “Awareness without action, just like faith without words, is dead,” Davis says and holds her hands in the air, “And it will make you feel dead too. It is unjust to fill a person’s spirit with information and images of attacks against human rights and dignity without providing a means of acting against those attacks.”

Davis attended Messiah College where she led the International Justice Mission chapter, the Invisible Children chapter, worked in the Agape Center offices as the Agency Coordinator for Service Trips and also volunteered regularly with Bethesda Mission’s soup kitchen.

     In 2005, Davis traveled to Thailand to work with one of the International Justice Mission’s aftercare agencies for victims of human rights abuse such as prostitution at the New Life Center.

     She lived in a Karen hill tribe village in the Musakee jungle for a month. After leaving the tribe she learned about the persecution these people faced as Christians and noncitizens.

     “This affected me in so many ways, that I feel like I can’t even explain,” Davis says and her voice cracks.

     She returned from Thailand with a sense of urgency, and doubled up her classes and graduated with a bachelor in psychology and a minor in human rights pre-law.

Davis graduated from Messiah College when she was twenty years old, says Davis, and it was then that she thought that social activism needed to be more active than it was becoming… and that was the basis of JESUSpolitik.

Delainna Batoon: Answering a Call

She and Batoon are now sitting in a booth that was donated to their church by Taco Bell which is now in the teen’s room. It is bright orange and green.

The walls are brightly colored with orange, green, red, blue, pink and yellow and match the vibrant colors of the Taco Bell booth. On the walls there are silhouettes of palm trees and bull-rushes painted on.

Batoon is the Executive Director of JESUSpolitik. She is originally from Bitburgh, Germany where she lived for ten years.

     Batoon wears a blue JESUSpolitik sweater, over a tie-dyed Maputo T-shirt, both of which are featured on the organization’s website.

Batoon now lives in the Washington D.C. area where she has remained for fifteen years. She graduated from Towson University in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in music education.

     While at Towson University Batoon became heavily involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, where she sang regularly on worship teams and lead Bible study.

     “When Melissa, came to me and asked me to be a part of her idea,” Batoon touches her necklace and continues, “I felt God pulling me toward the cause that she wanted to fill.”

Batoon says she believes in reaching people holistically, not just ministering to their body, but the soul as well.

What is JESUSpolitik?

“There are so many ways in which the world is hurting, JESUSpolitik wants to reach that hurt one project at a time, slowly but surely,” Davis says in a slow voice.

JESUSpolitik started as a way to unite human rights organizations and missions groups to concerned students, church groups and individuals who want to help.

Now it has grown to aid college and university students in finding ways to be active about situations in both third world countries and their own country.

“We’ve only been an organization for a little over a year, we’re still really young,” Davis says.

     The name of the organization is not empty, as there are meanings behind it.

     The capitalized JESUS keeps the organization focused: JESUSpolitik is not moved empty religion, money, or political agenda, and they are moved by compassion.

     The lower case politik indicates the communal sense of the word politic. According to their website JESUSpolitik represents a worldwide community of mission groups, human rights organizations and individuals.

     As Batoon shifts in her seat, Davis stretches her legs out to rest them on the opposite seat of the booth.

     JESUSpolitik is activism simplified. The organization’s website encourages its readers to actually do something rather than “just buying a gum-rubber bracelet and donating five bucks,” Davis says and rolls her eyes.

“We do all the research here in America, about the need that is ‘apparent’,” Davis says and uses her two fingers to make the quote signal. “Once it’s legitimate, there is a lot of paper work that goes in to actually fulfilling the need.”

     “We provide the leg-work for the students who want to help out. JESUSpolitik is not going to just tell them about the need, but will actually equip them with the means to act to fill it,” Davis also says.

 “We strive to do everything we can with the integrity, dedication and seriousness that comes with having the Lord’s name attached to it… and that’s how it should be,” Batoon says.

Davis says with fervor, “Downloadable right off the site are posters, pamphlets, powerpoints, people don’t have to invest their time starting from scratch and burn up so much energy on ‘raising awareness’ that they are too tired to act when it comes time to do so.”

There is also a forum for activism ideas for students to benefit from, use and contribute to on the site.

On the Messiah College campus students gathered together to sell baked goods to support the on-going Maputo project in Mozambique.

 “JESUSpolitik empowers people to use the resources, skills and talents that they already have as a way of making a difference. It makes activism simpler than it has been in a while,” says Davis.

Change and Hope in Maputo

     The “Maputo project” is led by two local Mozambicans, Mugara and Raquel, and JESUSpolitik representative Dave.   According to the pamphlet put out by JESUSpolitik, childhood doesn’t last long in Mozambique. In 2002, it was estimated that 31.9% of all children ages 10 to 14 years in Mozambique are already working.

     The pamphlet also mentions that Mozambique has become the source country for child trafficking. A growing number of street kids are being forced into prostitution, bonded labor and drug dealing as a means of survival.

     “Most first-year college students are eighteen years old, and their just beginning their lives while more than half of Mozambique is under eighteen years old,” says Davis and she raises her eyebrows.

     But rather than just telling people about the problem, Davis says, JESUSpolitik gives them the means to try and fix the problem.

     “There is another aspect that will take place in Maputo,” Davis says with excitement, “Ten Thousand Homes (TTH) is an organization based about 3 hours north of where we’re working in Maputo, Mozambique.”

     Davis says that JESUSpolitik has talked with TTH about partnering up to build a safe house staffed by local Mozambicans for kids to live in. Now, JESUSpolitik is laying out the groundwork to begin that effort.

In May, says Davis, TTH representatives will be meeting up with JESUSpolitik representatives to look at the details.

“We work through local missionaries in our outreach to Mozambique,” says Batoon leaning forward, “We would like to staff the safe house that we hope to build with local Mozambicans as well, because they already know the language, the culture and they have the trust of the people.”

Local missionaries are the key to longevity in international projects “…we don’t want to just send in a few Americans, do a lot of great stuff, and then leave a huge vacuum in our absence,” says Davis.

Davis puts her hair behind her ear and says, “We’re looking for change that lasts. Change like that must come from people reaching their own people. We just equip them in doing that.”

The kids in Mozambique who are being reached through the Maputo Project live on the street, says Davis, and face starvation, extreme poverty, AIDS, and police brutality every day.

The Maputo Project reaches out to boys as young as eight who are often trafficked as drug couriers, says Batoon, the project also reaches girls who have turned to prostitution to survive.

Local Mozambicans who work with JESUSpolitik were able to acquire a small house. It will be used to bring in girls and teach them alternative means of survival.

There are two sewing machines in the house and the girls can learn to sew and embroider clothing and design dolls. This way, they can sell clothing and toys as means of surviving, instead of being forced to sell their bodies.

“This does not happen without support and encouragement from people who believe in our cause,” says Batoon.

 This summer bands from across the country will be holding benefit concerts this summer to raise much needed funds to provide dry staple foods, such as rice, cornmeal and beans, as well as clothing to the kids that the Maputo Project reaches.

For the first time the children are experiencing hope in Jesus Christ, says Davis, they realize that they have worth, they are not invisible, there is a God that cares about them and they can have a new life.

“They don’t hear a message of hope anywhere else,” Davis says.

JESUSpolitik in America

 This fall, JESUSpolitik will launch their local project called “Underground JESUS”. This gives those who want to be involved the means to address a need in their community start up and reach out where they are at. “Of course, it will be more than that, but you’ll have to wait and see. Keep your eyes open!” Davis grins.

Also in the fall, JESUSpolitik will also be releasing its documentary on the Maputo Project. “People are more inclined to act when they can see the face behind the statistic, the person behind the persona,” says Davis.  

A Challenge

 “Serving is about using the talents that God has already given you, and doing the most that you can with them to reach people. Work with what you’ve got, to the best of your ability, with your integrity, that’s what God expects of us,” says Davis.

“Many people live, die and sacrifice radically for gods whom they believe to be true. They lay their lives down with fervor that you almost never see here for Christ. Laying our lives down,” Davis says ‘our’ loudly with emphasis, “living as a radical servant for Christ and putting our faith into action, should be normal.”

“We intend to be radical servants and reach the world through one project at a time,” Batoon says and the two women look at each other nodding their heads.

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