Creating Together
International Resource Summit 2026 – Philippines
Amanda, a friend from French Polynesia, placed her notebook in my hand and asked if I could create her something. “A drawing, painting, maybe write something if you want.”
This was to be her memento from the time we spent together, with 70 others from 23 countries, at the International Resource Summit held in the Philippines in February this year. One little request, and I had panic in my heart.
It wasn’t the first time I had had panic in my heart that week.
☐ Travelling to a new place, this time the Philippines, alone. (No panic)
☐ Eating different food that I had never tried before and wasn’t really sure what it was. (No panic)
☐ Travelling in a Jeepney (and a trike). (OK, maybe there was a little panic here, especially as we had squeezed 22 of us in and some were sitting on the floor.)
☐ Meeting/remeeting 70+ Community of Christ creative people from 23 different countries, communicating in three different languages. (No panic)
☐ Visiting markets, CORD* sites, mountain-top villages, mayoral offices, small towns and congregations. (No panic)
☐ Constantly being followed by a police escort. (Mild panic, until it was explained that it was a sign of respect for the work CORD and the church have done in local communities.)
☐ Sitting for hours and hours in a bus, even when bonding over the sharing of ‘most embarrassing’ life moments. (Oddly still no panic)
☐ Many conversations with those present from the Council of Twelve, Presiding Bishopric, and First Presidency. (No panic)
☐ Constantly having to carry toilet paper, and then septic systems that don’t allow for the flushing of that toilet paper. (No panic)
However,
☑ Being asked to write a song. (High panic)
☑ Being handed charcoal, watercolour paints, coloured pencils and being asked to create images capturing the hope, gratitude and resilience of a CORD program or the sacredness or degradation of creation. (High panic)
☑ Capturing and submitting poems, stories, prayers, musings, scriptural reflections and responses with short, pressure-filled creation time to zero time for editing, three drafts, rewrites and overthinking. (High panic)
☑ Publicly sharing a story on how Australians are like wombats, when I signed up to read it without having even finished the piece, knowing it would make me cry, hard. (High panic)
☑ Having to create and lead a ‘child-related’ creative spiritual practice that goes ‘no longer than 5 minutes’. (High panic)
☑ Being asked to willingly collaborate with others. (High panic)
That week, there had been so much panic in my heart. Love, joy, friendship, patience, trust, excitement, awe, pride, anticipation, cheekiness, gratitude, willingness and peace, too.
As Amanda handed me her journal, as well as panic, I was humbled and honoured. I had been invited to this event to help create resources, having spent many years writing worship helps, Daily Bread articles, Prayers for Peace, children's lessons (classes), and reunion resource materials for the global church.
My creativity isn’t in visual arts, theatre, music and rarely beautiful prose. It is in giving children something to focus on as they engage with scriptures. It is games that ensure everyone is doing something at all times (it gives less time for the younger kids to get bored and wander off, or the older kids to cause trouble). It is in problem-solving and recycling materials a hundred different times.
I have creativity, but I wasn’t a creative, an artist. The difference I had learnt a long time ago in the concept of dance. There is a huge difference between someone who is a dancer, versus someone who dances. Amanda was calling me an artist. Wanting me to contribute to this collective work.
Knowing how much uncertainty prior to the event and anticipated panic I was going to feel, I had already given myself a ‘talking to’ and was going to approach all things with an openness and generosity to allow the Spirit space to move. To allow others to inspire and to pay attention to what was occurring in and around me. To create in the sense of joy for creation, not for results.
What I created wasn’t fantastic; the concept was solid, and in someone else’s hands it could have been really beautiful. Looking around that room, how could you not be inspired?
There were women (men too) serving the church in such a range of ways, some employed, many volunteers, with diverse skills, cultures, languages and traditions. Many were wearing flowers printed into the fabrics of their clothes. I simply collected some of these blossoms, from all around the room and thus the world, to make a bouquet. And isn’t a bouquet one of the simplest metaphors for unity in diversity?
The Resource Summit had a goal of making resources. They had to justify bringing together, for the very first time ever, a true representation of the international nature of Community of Christ, including nations that haven’t been able to get visas for the USA. To see, hear and create, from and for, the diverse expressions of discipleship, ministry and communities that help us live out Christ’s mission all over the world. To better understand the needs, realities and joys of our siblings as they grapple with a changing world and our, collectively and individually, expression in it.
May you also find ways to share and express your discipleship, in its many different forms (even when it may cause a little panic) with all those you encounter.
Kass Unger
*CORD is the social development arm of Community of Christ in the Philippines. Its missional focus is to Abolish Poverty, End Suffering, Pursue Peace and Care for Creation. While done in connection with Community of Christ, its work is for the uplifting of all.
Wombat
by Kass Unger
I recently heard it said,
“Australians are the people you want,
on the worst day of your life.”
In the fires, floods, storms and droughts.
We know how to rally.
We come together as community.
In the days following the Bondi shooting,
more than 20,000 waited in lines.
Giving the blood from their veins to help.
Deep in the Australia bush,
woodlands, heathlands, mountains of numerous states of Australia.
(Let’s be honest, they are not all that picky.
But they like it a little cooler.)
But deep in the lands of Australia lives the hero of the Australian bush.
With a rather rotund, furry shape,
and the density of a dump truck.
They are most famous for their mysterious square poop.
But they are very specially named,… “common wombat”.
The Common wombat,
the “bull dozer of the bush”
creates a vast network of underground tunnels
for it to take shelter and slumber the day away,
in the cool below the earth.
The common wombat doesn’t have friends.
In fact it doesn’t really like others.
Even going as far as using their rumps to block the entrance of their
burrows to keep others out.
And yet they are being hailed as heros.
They would rather not.
Like all Australians, they have a cocky humility.
They don’t think they are doing anything special at all.
In a nation that is commonly ripped apart by fires,
these cool, safe tunnels that the wombats scratch into the earth
are the refuge for Antechinus (marsupial mice), echidnas, goannas,
birds and even some wallabies.
When they can’t run or fly away,
these animals only survive the harsh heat and flames,
by going below the earth.
Even after the imminent danger has passed,
they continue to reside in these temporary accommodations
until it is safe for them in the world again.
On the worst days, safety can be found.