A letter from Doug Tilton serving as regional liaison for Southern Africa, based in South Africa
December 2014 - Annual Ministry Update
Dear friends and partners in mission,
It hardly seems possible that another year has flown by! The past year has been replete with blessings and challenges, both personally and for the wonderful partners with whom I have the privilege to serve. You might be interested to have a glimpse, country by country, of some of the ways in which God has shaped our joint ministry in Southern Africa.
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Mr. Harris Sibeko of the Worcester Hope and Reconciliation Process shows members of the Peacemaking seminar a site where youth activists were gunned down by apartheid-era police
SOUTH AFRICA: Two weeks ago South Africa commemorated the first anniversary of the passing of former President Nelson Mandela. Both last year and this year I was travelling, so I missed the memorial services. I was particularly sorry not to have been in South Africa last year at such a historic juncture, but I appreciated being asked by Unbound, the PC(USA)’s Journal of Christian Social Justice, to reflect on Mandela’s life and legacy. Mandela continues to personify all that is best about South Africa—a commitment to justice, reconciliation and the dignity of all people—though subsequent leaders have struggled to fill his very large shoes!
For much of the past year I have been helping to plan and make arrangements for a South African Travel Study Seminar, hosted by the Peacemaking program of the PC(USA). The two-week seminar concluded on November 14. We had 12 Presbyterians from around the U.S.—Wyoming, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia—including three pastors and four candidates for ordination. We spent time in both Johannesburg and Cape Town, looking at South African society 20 years after the transition to democracy, assessing both the successes and continuing challenges. We were particularly inspired by the stories of reconciliation that we heard in Worcester, a town outside of Cape Town, where a broad cross section of residents has been working to address the psycho-social and socio-economic scars left by apartheid and racism. We met with leaders of the Uniting Presbyterian Church as well as different branches of the Dutch Reformed family of churches to talk about the impact of the Belhar Confession and the ways in which it is becoming a platform for reunification and witness to the integrity of the body of Christ in the world. At the same time we heard from a variety of community groups about the many challenges that remain on the agenda for a democratic South Africa, particularly related to health, education, land distribution, economic inequality, and the unfinished business of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
South Africa’s churches, which were so prominent in the later years of the anti-apartheid struggle, have been much quieter in the past two decades. A number of factors contributed to this change: some of the most gifted church leaders took advantage of new opportunities in the public sector after 1994, a variety of issues—poverty, unemployment, land, health, etc.—competed for churches’ attention once apartheid ceased to be a focus, and the resources available to the churches (many of which had come from international solidarity efforts) dissipated. In recent years churches have had limited capacity to engage questions of public policy, even at an ecumenical level. The Parliamentary Office of the South African Council of Churches—where I worked from 1998 to 2005—closed a few years ago, leaving most of the Council’s 27 member churches with little information about public policy debates. Since moving back to Cape Town from Johannesburg earlier this year, I have begun to have discussions with some church leaders about how we might revive the Church’s ability to bring a moral and prophetic voice to the public arena.
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Clara (l.) and Fabienne (c.), two of the women returned from Kuwait, tell their stories, accompanied by Pastor Helivao (r.)
MADAGASCAR: The past year has been a turbulent one for both church and society in Madagascar. In mid-December 2013 Madagascar held the second and final round of its first presidential election since 2006. The poll was intended to restore constitutional democracy following the military coup d’état in March 2009. A variety of international observer missions characterized the polls as credible, despite a number of technical flaws and—more disturbing—the failure of the interim government to implement fully a “roadmap” for peace that included a number of provisions designed to level the playing field in the run-up to elections (e.g., the unbanning of independent media outlets, the release of political prisoners, the return of exiles, etc.). The Malagasy Council of Churches (FFKM)—in which the PC(USA)’s partner, the 6 million–member Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar (FJKM), plays a leading role—has been working to rebuild political stability by fostering reconciliation among the country’s main political factions. The PC(USA) has accompanied this process and has written a number of letters to the U.S. State Department and to the FJKM over the past year to encourage support for political neutrality, respect for human rights, and backing for the FFKM reconciliation process, which is based on principles of repentance, confession, justice and forgiveness. In October former President Marc Ravalomanana, who had been in exile in South Africa since the 2009 coup, returned to Madagascar, adding a new level of complexity to the negotiations but also opening up new opportunities for face-to-face reconciliation. The process continues to make uneven progress, and the PC(USA) has issued several calls to prayer to support national reconciliation (most recently on November 16).
In May I traveled to Madagascar with the Director of PC(USA) World Mission, Dr. Hunter Farrell; the Africa Area Coordinator, Rev. Debbie Braaksma; World Mission Communications Specialist Kathy Melvin; and Christi Boyd, one of the PC(USA)’s two new Facilitators for Women’s and Children’s Interests in Africa. For Hunter, Kathy and Christi the visit was their first exposure to Madagascar and an opportunity to learn more about the ways that God is working through the partnership between the FJKM and the PC(USA). Madagascar is a very special country that illustrates well the ways that our partnerships realize the three Critical Global Initiatives of World Mission: addressing the root causes of poverty, training leaders for community transformation, and engaging in ministries of reconciliation. We had a chance to visit a classroom where the FJKM has been piloting new teaching methods pioneered by PC(USA) mission co-worker Jan Heckler. The church is currently exploring introducing these techniques in more than 700 FJKM schools around the island to improve educational outcomes. We got to meet with students and staff at Ivato Seminary to hear about the ways in which it has incorporated agricultural training into its curriculum with the help of the FJKM’s Development Department (SAF) and mission co-worker Dan Turk. The program not only enables new pastors to support themselves and their families, even in remote areas of the country, but it also equips them to share new agricultural techniques and crops with the communities they serve to promote better nutrition and health so that all may enjoy life in fullness. And Christi and I had an opportunity to spend some time with Rev. Helivao Poget, the head of the FJKM’s Chaplaincy to Marginalised People (SAFFIFAA), joining her on her nightly street ministry to the homeless and sex workers of the capital, Antananarivo. We also got to meet several of the scores of women that the PC(USA) and SAFFIFAA helped to repatriate to Madagascar from Kuwait earlier this year after Pastor Helivao learned that many Malagasy women had been trafficked to Kuwait and other Middle Eastern countries with the complicity of unscrupulous officials of the coup government. The women, desperate to support their families in the midst of Madagascar’s own economic collapse, had signed up for jobs as domestic workers in Kuwait, only to find themselves trapped in labor contracts that they could not get out of, even when they were subject to appalling abuse.
One of the most inspiring visits we made was to a cluster of community associations about two hours drive south of the capital that SAF had helped to organize and train. The communities had revived and modernized the traditional silk weaving industry in the area and were also beginning to plant fruit trees for improved nutrition and marketable produce. (You can read more about the Mahatsinjo community in a letter I wrote recently.) Following our visit, SAF applied to the Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP) for funds to help finance a new gravity-fed water system for the area, and I am pleased to report that PHP decided to help support that life-changing initiative.
ZIMBABWE: Last year’s presidential elections in Zimbabwe resulted in another victory for long-running President Robert Mugabe, bringing to a close five years of uneasy coalition government. In some ways this has meant more political and social stability, but it has also cleared the way for aggressive implementation of the 2007 Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Act, which requires that Zimbabwean nationals own at least 51 percent of local businesses. This has reportedly triggered the closure of more firms, contributing to further unemployment and deepening economic woes.
Our Uniting Presbyterian Church partners in Zimbabwe have spent this year engaged in a comprehensive program of strategic planning and reorganization that is culminating in a number of changes, some of which were agreed to at a presbytery meeting that I attended in Harare earlier this month. I continue to accompany Denver Presbytery’s partnership with the Presbytery of Zimbabwe (POZ); Denver is engaged in an extensive exchange program with Zimbabwe and also helps to support the Presbyterian schools and clinics in Zimbabwe. I have also been working with the Outreach Foundation and the POZ to explore new, more sustainable strategies to provide care for orphans and vulnerable children in Harare because the POZ’s existing facility, Lovemore Home, has limited capacity and comparatively high operating costs.
The PC(USA) also partners with the Harare Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) in Zimbabwe. The Harare Synod is the smallest of five CCAP synods in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. We give thanks that in the past year the five CCAP synods have resolved a number of contentious issues that had caused tensions among them, enabling them to reestablish General Assembly structures that can facilitate coordinated ministries across all five synods. The Harare Synod has recently established a high school at its lay training centre south of Harare to serve the children of farmworkers who have been displaced by farm seizures over the past decade. The PC(USA) is exploring ways of supporting the educational efforts of all of the CCAP synods at the General Assembly level, and this would mean support and encouragement for the Harare Synod schools as well.
LESOTHO: Lesotho has also been through a challenging period of late as the prime minister, elected by a coalition of minority parties, suspended parliament—reportedly to avoid a vote of confidence that he feared he would lose. Growing tensions within the public sector culminated in what appeared to be an attempted military coup d’état at the end of August. The Basotho king, the South African government, and the churches all waded into the fray, which eventually resulted in a plan for new national elections in February 2015 and a working arrangement to reopen parliament in the meantime. The moderator of our partner church in Lesotho, the Lesotho Evangelical Church in Southern Africa (LECSA), played an important role in the negotiations. Presbyterian World Mission walked alongside LECSA, writing and calling to express solidarity and offering to engage with U.S. officials to promote peace in Lesotho.
LECSA has also undergone a recent change of leadership as the Executive appointed a new Executive Secretary (chief administrative officer), Rev. Nelson Khethang Posholi, in April. Rev. Posholi will continue the church’s recent efforts to promote greater financial transparency and accountability in LECSA. The PC(USA) hopes to recruit a long-term mission volunteer with accounting expertise to help LECSA to strengthen its financial systems. Please pray for Rev. Posholi and LECSA as they struggle to provide prophetic witness and ministry in the midst of social and political turmoil.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: I returned to South Africa in February 2014, following my interpretation assignment in the U.S.A., just long enough to find a new home in the Cape Town area. Schedule changes made late in 2013 meant that I had to return to the U.S.A. in March and April to take part in the Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Washington, D.C., and to attend biennial training for Regional Liaisons in Louisville. Throughout the year I have worked on a number of other issues in my capacity as World Mission’s Africa advocacy consultant, particularly as a resource person to the Congo Mission Network (helping to develop the overture on the DR Congo that was adopted by the 221st General Assembly of the PC(USA) in June) and in urging the U.S. State Department to address human rights concerns in Sudan and South Sudan. I continue to be responsible for the supervision of a number of mission personnel in Africa—not only three co-workers in Southern Africa but also four outside the region who have trans-regional responsibilities.
As ever, one of the greatest blessings I have experienced during this year has been the prayers and support I have received from Presbyterian congregations around the U.S.A. I am so grateful for the ways in which we are able to partner in the mission and ministry to which God calls us, and I ask that you continue with your prayers, correspondence and financial support in the year to come. Thank you for all that you do to demonstrate God’s love to the world, not only in your own community, but also in the wider world by walking alongside me, other PC(USA) mission personnel, and our global partners as part of a larger witness.
May the hope of Advent and the joy of Christmas abide with you throughout the coming year,
Doug
The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 162
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