A letter from Janet Guyer in South Africa
November 2013
Dear Friends,
Part 1
(This letter will be coming to you in two parts, this, the first part is more a matter of an announcement. The second brings you up to date on my comings and goings, like a usual letter.)
Transitions, I think, are much like pregnancy and childbirth. This is only a guess because although I have going through transitions many times, childbirth I know of only secondhand. Waiting for the action seems to take forever. There is the period in which it is a secret that you keep to yourself. Then you start to tell a couple people who really need to know. As time goes on, the circle widens until there is no hiding the situation. Then finally, after all the waiting, and sometimes waiting in very ponderous situations, it is show time, the baby arrives, and you wake up to find yourself in a new situation.
You will have guessed that I am in a time of transition. In fact that “baby” should arrive any time now but it is not yet here. It all started sometime during the summer of 2012. I learned that with the restructuring of the World Missions office, the position of HIV and AIDS Consultant was being ended.
Even before learning of these changes I had been thinking more and more about how I could incorporate working with women and children, looking at issues of their wellbeing and development, into my work. We know that the wellbeing of the family in developing countries is directly related to the education of the mother. The strength of the future rests on the education and the wellbeing of the young today. Yet…there are still many gaps that need to be addressed.
Another piece in the restructuring was the development of a new position, that of Facilitator for Women’s and Children’s Interests. I was invited to apply for this and was pleased to be appointed to focus on four or five English-speaking countries here in Africa. I moved into this position in early July but am still in a period of transition and orientation. As Isaiah tells us in Is. 55:9, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Yet again God worked out a plan that I could never have imagined but one I am thoroughly looking forward to. Instead of working a focus on women and children into my HIV and AIDS work, HIV has now become one part of my Facilitator for Women’s and Children’s Interests work.
Along with the new position comes a move to live in Lilongwe, Malawi. This is where the “birthing” is not yet complete as I am still in South Africa, although I already have a house in Lilongwe, Malawi, waiting for me. It also seems to be the most challenging part of this whole transition. Please pray with me that the move will go smoothly and quickly.
So what does the job entail? First and foremost it will involve meeting and listening to the people in the denominations with which I will be working, to hear what their perceptions are of the critical interests of women and children. This includes both what seems to be working well and what challenges they face. This will be a time when the key leadership for women and children will get to know me and I will get to know them. From there we can decide together how best we can move forward—together—to make the Kingdom of God more of a reality in the lives of God’s children here in Africa.
One of the things I know I will be starting with, and which is already under way, is the Tumekutana Women’s Conference to be held in Ghana in October 2014. The theme will be Freedom in Christ: From Slavery to Empowerment, using the verse from Luke 13:12, Woman, you have been set free from your ailments, as our focus.
You may be wondering about my thoughts on leaving the Regional HIV and AIDS Consultant position. At first it was a shock to hear that the position was being closed down, but now I can see God’s hand in it. The AIDS work will not disappear. One of the major changes that I have seen in the past 10 year is that where only three churches had AIDS coordinators in 2002, now all but one or two have individuals in that position and in those churches without AIDS coordinators HIV has been intentionally integrated into another department of the church. This is progress but there is still so much to be done. It is not yet time to become complacent!
Also, I will not be leaving HIV and AIDS completely as it continues to be a significant issue for women and children in this region. I will continue, on a much smaller scale, to be involved with the Compassionate Churches Campaign, which is addressing stigma from a congregational perspective.
The Footprints Training of Trainers program that the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in South Africa has been working on is continuing. At present the training is going on in the next-to-the-last presbytery, without me ;-), and by the end of this year or early next year it will come to an end as all the presbyteries will have received the training. What an amazing journey that program has been. I could write for pages on how it has deepened the awareness of the entire church and its leadership to the issues of HIV and AIDS, strengthened the committees that are affected by HIV, especially the Health Committees, and sparked the beginning of projects in each presbytery to care for those who need a hand, whether it be developing food gardens, strengthening child care programs, or having special worship services of remembrance and encouragement.
When describing this new position to friends and colleagues in various African countries, the response has been unanimously warm and welcoming. Various directors of women’s departments or women’s programs with whom I have talked have expressed not only interest but excitement about the changes at hand. I know that I am looking forward to spending quality time with both people I know and people I don’t to learn about the situation for women and children in their areas and to see what we, as the PC(USA), can do to walk with them.
I want to thank those of you who have given your support to my work, which I trust and believe is God’s work, over the past years. Whether it was through notes of encouragement, prayers, financial support or in other ways that only you know, all are important and appreciated. Thank you.
I remember the first newsletter I wrote when I went to Thailand as a mission co-worker 23 years ago in which I reflected on Robert Frost’s idea of two roads diverging in a wood in the poem “The Road Less Traveled.” Here again we are passing a fork in the road and praying that God will continue to lead the way. I would like to invite you to continue on this journey together to see where God’s thoughts and ways, which are so much higher than ours, are leading.
Janet
Regional HIV and AIDS Consultant for Southern Africa
The 2013 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 123
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