AAPI Month Spotlight: Evelyn Beckwith
1. How has your experience as someone of Asian/Pacific Islander (API) origin shaped your relationship with God?
I think in the ways that community, food and hospitality have always been so important in my Korean American culture, community, food and practicing hospitality also happen to be the ways I engage with my relationship with Jesus the most. I love the passage in John 21 when Jesus appears to the disciples after a fishing trip gone wrong. The disciples just witnessed Jesus be crucified and their scared for what will happen next. They are in hiding. They are isolated. And yet when Jesus appears to them for a third time he meets them with tenderness. He does this in the community of his disciples. He practices hospitality by inviting them to have breakfast with him. He feeds them bread and fish. This is the Messiah - the savior who comes to meet and redeem us in community, through hospitality, over food. What good news this is.
2. Have there been moments in your faith journey where your culture has conflicted with your beliefs?
Growing up as 2.5 generation Korean American, my family always wanted the best for me. My parents had always told me that my family immigrated here so that we could make a better life for ourselves. And though that came with caring intentions, that meant the "better life" was defined by their expectations for financial stability. So, when I felt God's call to go into vocational ministry, my parents had concerns over how that could possibly be God's calling for me when it didn't seem like that calling would provide stability. Being obedient to God's call for my life seemed to conflict with what my parents wanted for me. In the end, I knew that following God and His call for my life was worth any earthly cost - even the cost of the support from my parents who I love. So despite their initial concern, I continued to pursue this call into vocational ministry. And through pursuing the Lord's call, my parents eventually came around and now support me to this day.
3. Have you ever struggled with feelings of shame or guilt related to your racial identity or cultural background? If so, how have you processed those feelings? How does your faith speak to that?
Haha YES 100%. Especially growing up in a neighborhood where I was the only one that looked like me, I felt super insecure about my racial and ethnic identity. Why did I have to spend my saturdays going to Korean school when all the other kids played outside? Why did I have to get made fun of the food I brought to school? Why do other kids keep squinting at me, my eyes don't even look like that? It wasn't until college where I started to unpack the shame and guilt that I was holding as well as the internalized racism I had experienced. And the people who helped me to process those things were a few other friends of color from my campus ministry. Not only did I start to feel seen in my ethnic identity by people in my community, but as I processed the shame and guilt, I realized how much God sees me in my ethnic identity! And the way He created me in His image and to be Korean American was no mistake.
4. Are there any cultural practices or values that have helped you see or understand God more deeply?
Communal lament. Even though sometimes it feels harder and harder to believe God is with our people (API communities) due to the rise of anti-Asian hate, I am brought back to God's tenderness and mercy and "with-us"ness when I am in spaces of communities lamenting to the Lord together. It is through the guttural lament, the resonance of tears and heartache, and yet the providence of community that I can be pointed back to the hope of Christ in the midst of suffering.
5. Is there anything you wish the church knew about the API experience?
Don't dismiss the powers of our stories and testimonies. Storytelling is a HUGE way many AAPI communities continue to communicate and be reminded of the larger story of God through our stories and the stories of our ancestors. Oftentimes, people just don't think to ask us.
Also include our people in the stories of faith heroes (especially as we pass down stories to younger generations). Growing up, I never heard of many famous API theologians, missionaries, evangelists or Christian authors that people would reference or look up to. But God is doing an incredible work in the lives of faithful API saints too!!
