Forty-five years ago, as a young woman fresh out of college, I went to Angola
on a short-term missionary assignment for The Methodist Church. My life was
changed.Forty-five years ago, as a young woman fresh out of college, I went to Angola
on a short-term missionary assignment for The Methodist Church. My life was
changed.
Raised on a cotton farm in Texas, I spent summers walking up and down the long rows of cotton, hoe in hand, in the days before genetically-altered seeds eliminated the weeds that were my enemy beneath the blazing sun. At harvest time, before mechanized farming sent strippers into the fields with giant fingers to suction the bolls of cotton into John Deere equipment, I learned how to lean over or crawl down the rows with the other laborers who hand- pulled those bolls into trailing denim sacks strapped around our shoulders.
I had never been farther away from home than my Texas college town, 200 miles away. That first career assignment after college to Luanda, Angola, by way of Lisbon to learn Portuguese--the language required for my work and to qualify for a visa into Portuguese territory in Africa--was a long way from home, in more ways than one.
All these years later, I was recently asked to prepare a worship / plenary for United Methodist Women’s summer schools of Christian mission based on one of the churchwide mission studies to be introduced in the year 2000: Children of Africa.
The African-American facilitator for our group who met in Nashville to brainstorm what they wanted as a worship experience was strong on the idea that we should reject emotional and stereotypical ideas of African children. These have been represented on TV screens, in newspaper and magazine articles and other media by the camera’s anonymous glimpses of suffering African children ravaged by disease and starvation.
When I was asked to talk to the group about my experience in Africa and my credentials for writing the assigned worship, I compared my time in Angola to baptism: "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever." There is a mystique about the people and the land of Africa, and setting foot on the continent changed me --- a young white woman from the cotton fields of Texas --- forever.
There is no way I can be unemotional when writing about Africa.
Much of my work in Luanda, capital of the West African country of Angola, was
with children: Day care for children whose mothers trudged miles beyond the city
limits each day to garden their little plot of land to grow their families'
essential food of manioca. (And, yes, I saw women scratch out cotton crops with
crude labor-intensive tools that made my cotton-farming experience seem like a
Sunday picnic.) Small classes for children whose amazement about Crayolas
brightened the dim mud huts where they gathered, kneeling in front of crude
benches they used as desks. Glorious moments with music and the children and my
recent awareness and confession that the missionary community should have been
listening to African musical expressions of faith rather than patronizingly
providing translations of Western hymns.
What has happened to those children? Years of war to achieve independence from Portugal were followed by civil conflicts fueled on both sides by the drive to power through control of Angola's rich oil and diamond resources. Prominent African church leaders and pastors lost their lives. Deolinda, a young African woman about my age, who was my spiritual mentor during my three years in her beloved Angola, was martyred. Bright young Angolans educated by missionary schools were elevated to prominent positions in the new government. While the church was devastated by civil war, it rose from the ashes to become a strong leavening agent for village and urban leadership throughout the region.
Of course, my limited experience in Angola only nibbles at the vastness of diverse life on the continent and the wider question of what has happened to all of Africa's children. To help the worship participants understand the issues, I told the stories through a fictional version of an African woman and her children who had traveled (even in rainy season when the roads are not passable) throughout the continent on either a mythical Hertz magic carpet or possibly by camel.
They came back telling stories of land mine devastation, especially for children who forget--when they play games or go to pick up firewood or walk to a nearby stream for water--that their parents have warned them about land mines. They're too little to read the danger signs posted in the area. Suddenly they are injured or dead.
O God, we pray for those who have lost their limbs. Their sight. Their hope. In your mercy, help us to be instruments of healing. In the midst of war and loss, dwell as hope among us, your children, as we reach out to the suffering of the world. We say we love one another. Help us not to rest until we have shown your love to these little ones who so need care and hope. Amen.
The reports continued about land mines sometimes planted around the schools, of the serious blow to education when available money went to pay for military needs instead of paying the teachers.
God, remembering Jesus' concern for the children, we pray for so many in Africa whose stories touch us to respond. Even in the horrendous conditions under which many families live, African families love their children, and provide for them in conditions that seem unimaginable to us. The children are a gift to all of us, 0 Lord, wonderfully made, as the Psalmist declared. Their very lives are seeds of hope. Amen.
Other stories lamented the terrible effects of AIDS all over Africa. Kids grow up without even knowing their parents. Sometimes older kids have to take on the job of caring for their younger brothers and sisters. And as it happens the world over, grandmothers are called upon to do care giving. Their resources are very limited, so it places a heavy burden on them and on the whole community.
We pray for African children who have been orphaned by AIDS. For the grandmothers. For children who are infected by the disease. For villages that struggle without medical care. For cities where health services are meager or don't exist at all for any but the rich. Touch our hearts to reach out and help. Amen.
Then there are the child soldiers, recruited and trained to fight. Thirteen year-old boys carrying AK47 assault rifles. In so many parts of Africa, desperation, poverty, fear, hunger and the need for protection are some of the reasons that children turn into soldiers. For the same reason, children are sometimes sold by parents desperate for money. So you see kids selling stuff --- boiled eggs, bananas, peanuts --- to survive. Many of them are girls. Many live on the streets.
Was that what Jesus meant when he asked that the children be brought to him? That we hear these stories, and more, about what is happening to children around the world, and get involved through our own churches or by supporting care-giving agencies that see hope through the children?
From urban streets to remote villages, in places where land mines are strewn as demonic symbols of what happens when life gives way to violence; in countries where children are called on to fight, are too poor to be educated, are orphaned by AIDS, too sick to find the meager medical help available, it is our task to plant seeds of hope.
Marcia Gleckler writes from Baltimore MD. She also devotes time and energy to caring for the earth. See her article on the video, "This Ancient Love."
Photo of children by Margie Nea.
Other articles by Marcia Gleckler