Koinonia (1e)

1. DONG HANH-CLC FORMATION WORKSHOP FOR COORDINATORS
(Read the Vietnamese version)

It all began with a conversation on the phone a year ago.

Labor Day weekend 2009, I received a long distance phone call. Caught by surprise, it was Mong Hang, with her enthusiastic voice, calling me on the way home after Hop Mat Vung (HMV) Trung Tay weekend. “Hao oi, we need to organize a formation weekend for the group coordinators, lots of people insisted about this need this past weekend.

A formation weekend for coordinators, has it always been one of our dreams, the people in the Formation Team (Ban Huan Luyen)? For me, I have always been sensitive in a special way towards our brothers and sisters in whom the community has trusted to fulfill this role. I always believe in the values of this role, since it can influence a lot of people, despite hearing some time: “Anyone can do it…” I have always been drawn to and compassionate with the ones fulfilling the role of the coordinator, since for most of them, it has been a sad experience… The main reason is that there was no preparation or formation for this role. Majority of these leaders say yes out of love knowing it can be a burden. Then fear starts to invade us when we ask ourselves the question: “What we should do??” and when we were facing the needs of our group members and the difficulties of the group. One of the burdens is loneliness, having no one to share emotions and responsibilities with. We need to support our coordinators, in not just what to do, but also in living out fully this experience of mission and service.

As a member of Dong Hanh Formation Team, I recognized this need and have always thought we needed formation for our group coordinators. The earlier the better. In the past, some of us in Dong Hanh have attended formation training for group guides organized by CLC. However, if I am correct, after the formation, there was no follow up and the coordinators still had to rely on themselves…

Back to my conversation with Mong Hang, at the beginning, we started to imagine the when, the where, the who, the topics, etc… but as the conversation grew deeper, I suddenly felt something out of place about this solution… It was not something completely new, but some tensions, some impasses that I felt inside for a while…

Deep within me, some of those perplexed, “stuck” feelings that I have had were related to the fact that, as member of the Formation Team, I truly don’t know how to “form” our group coordinators. I am personally not prepared to do this. The least I could do is reading up on some materials, then relate to my own experience in order to share with others my understanding. But I don’t feel peaceful with this method. The bottom line is all I read and learned are from other’s experiences. And all I shared are limited from my experience, in my own life situation. How can all of these help our brothers and sisters? If it does, it would be very limited. Saying this, I do not mean that I don’t believe in the usefulness of the formation programs for Dong Hanh Way of Life, or other trainings on necessary skills to coordinate a group. Those are definitely useful since the knowledge, techniques and skills are from lots of people’s experiences. However, no one can guarantee that those skills and techniques can lead our coordinators to an inspiring experience, to the fullness of life. The reason is those workshops or trainings cannot give us the dream, the desire, the inspiration, like Father Pedro Arrupe has put it: “… it will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude…”

Deep down in my heart if I can choose, I dream this inspiration, this fullness of life for our coordinators, more than the techniques, the skills, the knowledge that they can learn form the training, formation workshops…

From this, a new question emerged within me: “If formation is a real need of our coordinators, is a formation workshop the best solution to respond to this need?”

Trương Thành Hào