My partner’s name is L’Orange Vesches; she’s a French woman living in Denmark with me, and she has been doing MCC Ministry from 1983 with me. So, we have been partners for over 24 years. And of course she’s wonderful and lovely and bright and everything wonderful you can think…Read More!

Oral History

My name is Mia Anderson and I’m from Copenhagen, Denmark.

You have a partner; would you like to include their name and an anniversary?

My partner’s name is L’Orange Vesches; she’s a French woman living in Denmark with me, and she has been doing MCC Ministry from 1983 with me. So, we have been partners for over 24 years. And of course she’s wonderful and lovely and bright and everything wonderful you can think.

Did you grow up in church?

I come from a non-church family, not a Christian family, but I had a friend of mine who went to Sunday school because she lived in a Christian family. And I went with her for Sunday school when I was 5 and I got Jesus as my friend. And so I attended Sunday school and junior group later. And I became a…from that age I started going to services every Sunday on my own, and even went to Christian summer camp. So I’m the Christian one in my family.

Exciting. And how did you first discover Metropolitan Community Church?

I was part of a gay/lesbian open church group in Copenhagen and we got in contact with—through that pastor who was there at the time in the 70’s and the beginning of the 80’s—we came in contact with MCC in London where the Reverend Elder Jean White was the pastor. So I visited her church, I think it must have been in 1980, and then there was a general conference in 1981 where I went to. It was the conference of Inclusive Language. And I went to that conference and because of that conference and because of both coming to a church like MCC Los Angeles and De Colores, which was a women’s community, MCC women’s church, where there were feminists—I thought, “I want this church, this is the place for me.” Because I was a very firm feminist and I couldn’t really find this freedom that I found in MCC.

That’s beautiful. And so how many years has it been?

The church that I was in was an open church group in Copenhagen and we joined as a group MCC in 1983. So we became a member of MCC in 1983.

Do you remember a sermon or a person—who preached that sermon that has influenced you the most? (And do you remember the name?)

Hmm…If I go back to that time in the beginning…I mean in ‘83, I was very impressed with Jeri Ann Harvey doing the dyke thing and her bible in the LA, sort of theater church, in Los Angeles. And then in the same city, a pastor like—I think her name was Jean Heart?—in De Colores doing this soft feminist thing. And I thought if this can live together—these two sermons and these two kinds of expressing Christianity—in the same church, that’s the kind of church I want to be in, that diversity.

And who influenced you the most?

I don’t kn…I can’t, I can’t mention one person but I think Troy Perry has meant a lot to me. There’s also been, yeah, Nancy Wilson has also been a big influence on me. And people like…Jeri Ann, who was a difference for me, sort of Evangelical, charismatic healing preachers, whereas I come from a very strict Lutheran tradition. I met a lot of good Baptists here who make me think about baptism. You know, it’s just…there’s just been so many people who have influenced my broadening of my own perspective of God and Christianity.

Absolutely. Now, you do attend a local MCC. Can you give us that name one more time?

My local church is Martin’s Lilia MCC which in English is Lilies of the Field MCC. And we have rethought our church now so we’re doing ministry that we call Project Holy Ground, which is sort of emerging, very open, free church.

And what do you like best about your church?

The freedom to explore, and that we try to make a free place for people to even consider having a higher power, to meet the Divine or something they might call God.

Wonderful. And what do you like best about the movement ministry and community of Metropolitan Community Churches?

I think that the combination of a very deep spirituality and social justice—that those two things actually go together. That you cannot have the action without the spirituality and the depth of that and your faith and you cannot have your faith and spirituality without acting and doing justice. I think that combination, I love.

That’s awesome. What was the moment you felt most proud to be a member of MCC?

I cannot define it. I think every time I hear someone tell a story where they tell about what a difference we as a movement have been. That’s…whether it’s social justice or someone finding God or someone being healed—every one of the stories I hear about people reconciling their lives or being healed or doing justice or standing up for right things—that’s when I’m proud. I can’t mention one thing. That would be silly I think because I mean, I’ve been here a long time, so there are so many moments of pride in being part of this movement.

Absolutely so that’s a wonderful thing. You’re at General Conference now; how many other ones have you been able to attend?

Let’s see, I was in ‘81 and ‘83 and then I went twice in the ‘90s, at the beginning of the ‘90s when I got ordained, then I’ve been to—I was in Ottawa and then I was this time. So I think I must have been to 6 or 7 conferences.

And what do you like best about General Conference?

I think with being so many at a time; that, that when you come from a very, very small congregation that the feeling of how big this is. Meeting so many different people and peoples and diversities and really realizing how big this is—that it’s bigger than even my box, that I tend to think is very big; but it’s even bigger than my big box. That’s really what I like.

What do you remember about the Inclusive Language Project? I know you talked about that a little earlier.

That is what convinced me of becoming a member of this church. And that was when I decided that I wanted MCC in Denmark because I was one of the people who really fought for this group going into MCC. And what I remember from the process of Inclusive Language was firstly, I agreed with the inclusive language coming from being a feminist. I thought it was a wonderful idea. But the way MCC handled disagreement.

So I sat through all the business sessions in ‘81 even though I didn’t have a vote, I was just observing. And people were out there trying to make this decision which was hard for a lot of people. And the way Troy Perry did that business setting. So every time everything got too heated and people were very, very upset, he said, “Okay, stop; time out. Let’s pray.” And then everyone prayed and then you were able to continue and continue and continue. Things that were not easy for people because not everyone had grasped the full potential of inclusive language—were not there yet, and at the same time working together and respecting the diversity.

It was voted upon and it was a yes. And I thought, “Oh! A democratic church where you can disagree and agree to agree and make room for each other, even though it’s a hard thing. You don’t sort of put it aside and don’t take the discussions or the… You know, you actually go into it and work with it and end somewhere.” And of course I agreed with that decision as well. So, I was like yeah!

And what do you remember about the ordination of women and people of color?

I’ve been to a couple of ordination services when it was also done at conferences instead of at people’s home churches, and my own which was in Phoenix actually. And that was great. I mean, I had Troy lay hands on me and the feeling of being…having that done and the diversity of the clergy that it was so, you know men and women and different races and languages and cultures…yeah.

And I was overwhelmed because for my personal journey it took me many years to reach the point where I actually reached the point where I actually got ordained. So it was also from when I started at MCC to getting ordained it took 10 years…Because of a lot of things that were not so important there, I think, but…
I can’t say–I’ve always felt it was a pity that there were not more people of different races here; that we are not that inclusive somehow, but that’s perhaps the culture up ‘til now we have been sort of a not all of it but partly we’ve been a white middle…what do you call that?…mainstream protestant church in many ways. But I see a lot of evidence of that changing and that we have…we are rethinking and getting more diversity than we used to have, I think. I choose to believe in it anyway! This is the way, this is the road we’re going down.

And what do you remember about the ministry movement for transgender people at MCC?

I remember my first transgendered person that I actually met and had known as a female and in going to male, and that was a colleague at the time, a clergy person. And, and it really broadened my understanding and my way of thinking, and I love it because it’s…the gift it gives to me is to reflect on, “OK, so what is actually gender?” You know, sort of the queer…OK, what is gender; what is this we’re talking about? You know, where is it, you know? And other interesting ideas. I am very happy to see now coming here how many, what I think might be transgendered people, there are. And that it’s out and so open and now people just send around the Fellowship e-mail telling OK, by the way, bye-bye, transition…brrr…know me by this name. And everyone says, “Oh yeah, oh great, wonderful!” And I think that’s…um-hmm.

What do you remember about the first children’s ministry in your MCC as well as the larger denomination?

Um…I think it was in ‘83 when I saw a woman here at a General Conference having a lot of kids that she had adopted and every one of them had special needs. They were either HIV positive or autistic or …they had all different kind of special needs. And I thought, “Wow!” to choose to have a…sort of your family of choice to take in all of these children. And I see even more people now that are either their own or adopted that is just sort of from a previous marriage, and it makes us…it makes me proud of us as a people, you know, that we actually have this.

And also it makes me sad because in my own country, since I am registered married to a woman, I have not been allowed. I was registered in ‘89 with her and because we were registered and not single lesbians we were not allowed, it was against the law to adopt children, and so we never got children ourselves. So it makes me happy to see other people succeeding in adopting and having children and bringing them here to our church, which I think is wonderful.

Which is something I think MCC has lead the way for in a lot of ways. And what do you remember about the MCC ministry during the pandemic of AIDS? And how has that affected you and your ministries, as being part of MCC?

Well, it was like…it was devastating. Just in my little district at the time lost a couple of colleagues. In my own congregation, we only have 1 HIV positive person and he almost died. He just, he just managed to get the medicines, and the miracle of him…of not losing him, I mean. So going from seeing people dropping around me in the district and the gay community where I live, and then the medicines coming in and some of them actually being able to survive. And today, he who I thought I was just on the edge of dying, my best friend, and he came back to life. And now he’s studying the science of religions and becoming an expert in Islam and, you know sort of have a future and that kind of miracle. And I can see people here who I thought they are also going to die and they are the few survivors of so many, many who died when you were at District Conferences or General Conferences and then they were not there the next time you came and you heard about their last struggle and then them dying. But I’m happy to know they’re with God.

Absolutely, going home. It is a hard thing but it’s definitely strengthened us and brought us to where we are.

Yes, it sort of ended a lot of nonsense around the battle between the two sexes, for instance.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

I’d like to share my gratitude that I, who could not, did not want to follow through becoming, I was planning originally to becoming a minister within the Lutheran state church in Denmark, and then I found out I was a lesbian. But more importantly I found out I was a feminist. And I didn’t want to join a patriarchy institution. And that I, who had no place to have a ministry, actually found this church where I could become a clergy person and do what I was called to do. And I am very, very grateful for that, and I’m very grateful for this ultimately leading me to finding my partner in ‘83 and that we have been here ever since.

Do you have any thoughts or tell us a little bit of history about the restructuring from districts to regions and how that as someone who is, we did this to enhance our global missions and someone like you from Denmark, has that had an impact? What did you notice?

Yeah, I hated it. [laughter] It was very bad for us. Because we actually had a district that functioned, where we had structure, we had good practices around cultures and languages, how we did our conferences, the many languages we had in them. We had a very good standard of practices around being multilingual and cultural. We had a very good district committee.

And then they came in with a new structure, which I opposed but I couldn’t go vote against it. And we were devastated for a while. It did not function; we were scattered out. We had worse conferences with less language. We still have. We are not up to the same level of inclusiveness that we had before the new structure. So it has not been a benefit, to tell you the truth.

I’m hopeful now because I think that the Elders are moving forward in addressing a lot of this stuff, this discontent. I’m very happy with our new Elder, Glenna Shepherd, who has…who are listening and who are putting in new structures and new systems by where we can get up to the standards that we had before—because there are people within our region who are willing to do the work even though they’re not paid for it.

So I think we are getting back to a more healthy and better place again, but there are still a lot of unresolved business within our region and people who are dissatisfied and things that need to be handled. But I’m sure—she’s new at her job—but I’m sure she’ll take care of it as she goes along. So I’m very hopeful because now we’re getting, you know, a core team and stuff getting in there and she can use all the expertise we have from former old times. But I…

In a sense… transition has been very difficult but now I can see it’s actually changing to the better where we can begin use this transition and this new structure in a very constructive and positive way. I can see things happening; that makes me happy, you know. Like selling headquarters and all the things I was against…so I can see the things that I, you know, over the years I thought about are coming into plays again or in play again. So, I’m very hopeful now. But had a couple years there where I was not a happy bunny. But now I’m very hopeful again, yeah.

Thank you so much for your time.

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