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October 16, 2020 45 mins

Pastor Michael Walker has been follower of Christ for 47 years and served in ministry since 1986. He is a black American male, married to his college sweetheart, they're a biracial couple happily married for over 30 years. He has served as a youth pastor, missionary in Africa for 11 years, the Director of Love Botswana Bible School, and as Director of Word to Africa Mission school in Botswana, Outreach Director for Love Botswana Outreach Mission and a Church planter. He has been an Associate Pastor in multiple churches and Senior Pastor in two churches, one of which was an all-white Southern Baptist Church. He congruently served as a Chaplain for a Sheriff’s department for five years. Currently he is serving as the Corporate Chaplain for CRISTA Ministries and is Board Certified Pastor Counselor. He and his wife Heather have five children: Three are grown and two still at home. He considers his most significant achievement to that all of our children are following Christ.

Maggie has known Mike since 2001 when he baptized her in the Puget Sound, and in matching wet suits!

Checking in with how life has shifted since COVID in his family life and with work – Mike doesn’t miss the commute and he enjoys more time with this family. He hates not being able to see people’s faces or give hugs. 

Maggie asks Mike, having lived in several countries in Africa (Uganda, Botswana and South Africa), how has he seen race engaged differently or the same as in the States?

Mike recalls the renaming of streets in South Africa from Afrikaner names to Zulu names. He named this as showing progress and change in the atmosphere, and it was done so much faster than in America.

He noticed that when people found that he was from America, he was treated with more respect and honor. Mike saw that even missionaries there held bias and it made him realize that some Christ-followers also walk in bias and bigotry like anyone else, and it invited him to turn inward and ask what biases he is holding?

Regarding his experiences here in America he says, “You really don’t understand what my life ha been about because you haven’t had to walk in my skin.”

Mike was 7 years old when he first experienced racism. Living in a neighborhood with mostly white families and only one other black family, he remembers them coming over and their families agreeing to “Watch each other’s backs” in the neighborhood after their little girl was beaten with a hose by a white-bodied neighbor. 

As an adult both he and his wife have faced racism together. Mike recalls driving in Virginia with his wife when another car started honking at him and telling him to pull over. When he did he was cussed out and called derogatory names just because he was married to a white-bodied woman. The man tried to run him off the road. 

Some of Heather’s family said they would disown her if she married Mike. So from the very beginning she has had to experience these things with him. And even though her skin is white she is treated as if it is black because she is married to a black man. 

Danielle named the continual collective trauma we are in and even bearing witness to Mike’s story now, it doesn’t feel like things have gotten better.

Mike recalls how back in 2016 he mentioned Colin Kapernick’s name in the church he was pasturing at the time, which was all white, and his congregation was enraged he even mentioned him from the pulpit. 

For him, George Floyd epitomized what has been going on in our country for years. People were literally crying out for the police to stop, pleading for mercy and asking for someone to step-in. This has been the experience of people with Black and Brown bodies in America. 

Mike believes we are seeing a new Civil War in America. He feels grief and anger. 

There is a sacrifice to be a polarizing figure.  But he knows he has to be a part of the solution. When he tries to make people aware, the color of his skin effects their ability to accept what he says. He wants to help people see what is still plaguing our country, if he says certain words or phrases he immediately gets shut down. We [as a country] are still in a raw place of denial of racism. 

As a church, Mike believes, we need to not be afraid to be involved in becoming a part of the solution. He knows that there is a personal cost to this work.

He describes the parable of the Good Story of Good Samaritan in Luke 12 [It’s actually Luke 10:25-37]:

The priest was unwilling to engage because it would make him “unclean” and therefore unable to participate in worship at the temple. To help the man he would have also put his own life in jeopardy to help this man because it was a dangerous part of the road. It was going to cost him also time, money and energy to get involved. When the two religious men “counted t

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