For almost a year, Mashawn Youngblood and Tamika Maclin have worked on expanding their nonprofit Jesus and Tea Ministries by gathering family and friends every other month for conversation, friendship and spiritual guidance.
But for Thursday’s teatime, the co-founders and friends wanted to do something different.
Instead of meeting at Youngblood or Maclin’s houses, around 20 members traveled to the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills. Tea and desserts were served in a conference room filled with portraits of Michigan Holocaust survivors on the walls, most of them snapshots of happy, older couples during a celebratory event, thousands of miles away from the horrors they endured earlier in their lives.
As members of the ministry settled in their seats and nibbled on cookies and cupcakes, they listened intently to the center’s Director of Education, Ruth Bergman, as she shared the story of her mother, whose family survived the Holocaust with the help of her grandfather’s secretary Maria. Bergman’s family hid in Maria’s house in a small town in Slovakia called Nitra.
“When my grandfather said, ‘I need you to rent a house and we need to hide in there and go to this town where nobody knows you,’ she did it,” Bergman said. “She was a single mother. She worked for my grandfather for a long time and she saved their lives.”
Bergman later added that even though Maria was seen as just a secretary, her act of kindness towards her family made a big impact.
“You don’t have to have a lot of power in order to make a difference,” she said. “And I think we need to remember that because so many times, you read the newspaper and you feel helpless and you feel like there’s nothing I can do. And the fact of the matter is, there’s a lot that we can do.”
The ministry’s visit coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day Monday, marking the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by Soviet troops, which occurred Jan. 27, 1945. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation.
While members of Jesus and Tea practice Christianity, Youngblood and Maclin were interested in learning more about different religions like Judaism, as well as the history of the genocide during World War II that killed at least six million Jews and millions of others. In addition to a visit to the Holocaust Center, Thursday’s outing also included a visit to the nearby Adat Shalom Synagogue.
“The Holy Spirit is showing us that we are all one,” Maclin told BridgeDetroit about the visit. “The things that Jewish people went through in the Holocaust and some of the things that African Americans went through, it’s unbelievable because we have the same kind of story.”
Finding their calling
Youngblood and Maclin have been best friends for more than 25 years, first meeting in 1999 when they worked together at a Bath and Body Works. The two then decided they wanted to start their own business, but none of their ventures panned out, Maclin said. But when they came up with the idea for a ministry nonprofit last year, plans quickly went into motion, Youngblood said.
Since last March, the two alternate between hosting tea parties at Youngblood’s house in Harper Woods and Maclin’s place in Detroit. There are currently six core members, Youngblood said, but as many as 25 people have attended the meetings since it’s also open to family and friends. While the meetings usually have an agenda, Youngblood said the discussions can go in a completely different direction, depending on where the Holy Spirit takes them.
“It’s not about trying to convert anybody or making people feel pressured into doing something, but it’s all about just learning and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead you and guide you into whatever direction that he will have you to go,” Youngblood said. “We thank God for it.”
Being a part of the ministry has also given Youngblood and Maclin time to spread the gospel and do their own research into Christianity and living a lifestyle they believe God wants them to follow, Maclin said. This includes learning more about religious celebrations, including Passover, a Jewish holiday that marks the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt and their ultimate exodus to freedom.
“Passover was the first thing that we learned and after we started reading and studying and learning the word of God, we’re like, ‘Wow, there are so many holy days out here that we’re supposed to observe as believers,’” Maclin said. “When we got introduced to the Holocaust Center, it was just amazing because they opened up their doors so that we can learn about the Holy Days and we can learn about the etiquette. It was just an amazing thing.”
Ministry member Winetta Williams met Rick Schaffner, manager of outreach and teacher education at the Holocaust Center, at an event at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in October, Youngblood and Maclin said. Schaffner then connected with the ministry co-founders and began planning their visits to the museum and synagogue.
“There’s so much division going on in the world right now and it’s just an amazing thing to have these two religious groups come together and learn from one another,” Youngblood said.
Connecting with the past
Bergman, the center’s education director, told BridgeDetroit a majority of the museum’s 35,000 visitors are similar to members of the Jesus and Tea Ministry; they’re non-Jewish and may not know much about the Holocaust. She said the Holocaust Center receives visits from various groups; students, teachers, police officers and civic organizations.
Bergman said she’s glad the museum can give people a bigger picture of what happened not only during the Holocaust but life for Jewish people before and after World War II.
“We often hear, ‘Well, the Nazis did this and then the Nazis did that and the Jews become the vehicle for teaching about Nazi aggression and hateful policies without really understanding who the victims were and the life that they had before the war – their culture and their families – to really get to know them beyond them being victims,” she said.
Bergman said one of the most rewarding things about teaching the Holocaust is when someone can connect it with their family history. While visiting Mott Community College in Flint, a woman talked about her family leaving Ireland for the United States during the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-1800s.
“The details of the stories are different, but suffering, as well as resilience and strength and continuing one’s heritage; those are things that we have in common,” Bergman said. And when people make those connections and see that common humanity, that’s why we’re here.”
Maclin’s son, LeVern Maclin, said he was interested in visiting the Holocaust Center and Adat Shalom to learn more about Jewish culture. The 23-year-old is an active member of the ministry, often being a part of his mother’s tea parties and bible studies.
One of the things that surprised LeVern Maclin was the Jewish community’s commitment to their faith, even when going through difficult times like the Holocaust.
“Regardless of all the difficult challenges that Jews have been through, they never gave up,” he said. “(They) never lost hope and stayed true to their faith.”