Caught in Between - May Newsletter

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

- John 10:10

There are days in South Africa when I often feel that I travel between two different universes, especially when I work at the crèche. In the morning I catch a kombi taxi, which shuttles domestic workers to and from the upper-middle class neighborhood where I live, to town. In town I catch another taxi out to the townships. The drivers that don’t recognize me often assume I’m a health professional going to the public hospital. What other business would a young, decently dressed white woman with a backpack have in the poorest, almost entirely black part of town? They are always surprised when I tell them I volunteer at a crèche. A taxi driver once asked incredulously, “You came all the way to South Africa to work at a crèche?” (To work with pre-school children is perhaps even less glamorous than working in hospital.)

How is it possible, that within the same city, shacks made of sticks, mud and corrugated metal can exist beside luxury homes with granite counter kitchens and swimming pools? A failing public health system with no medications or sterile gloves and world-class private health facilities? Dysfunctional township schools riddled with violence and prestigious prep schools? The gross inequality between the rich and poor is one of the defining characteristics of South African society. In fact, it has one of the widest disparities in wealth of any country in the world. Though a volunteer living on a modest stipend, by virtue of the color of my skin and a certain amount of social capital, I have the ability to travel between these worlds at will. Many, in fact the majority, of South Africans do not have this privilege. I often feel caught between these worlds, comfortable in neither, riding the kombis between them every day.

The South African city in which I live and work is a microcosm of the global reality of socio-economic inequality. Americans live in the wealthiest, most militarily powerful society in the history of the world though they represent a tiny fraction of the world’s population. And yet according to Jeffrey Sachs, a development economist, “Almost three thousand people died needlessly and tragically at the World Trade Center on September 11; ten thousand Africans die needlessly and tragically every single day…of AIDS, TB, and malaria” (my emphasis). According to the UN Human Development Index, half the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day. And yet for me, these statistics were not enough, only numbers in the pages of books and NGO reports. Although not my initial motivation, I traveled over seven thousand nautical miles to come face to face with global inequality. I traveled on a jet plane only once to negotiate the space between two different worlds daily.

I thought that I was coming to South Africa to come face to face with poverty, to witness the stories of and walk alongside individuals. The poor are not people comfortably “out there” living in another world, although we construct our societies in such a way that it becomes easy to avoid them. (In South Africa people that are poor are relegating to townships and inner city neighborhoods, places people advised not to go and are not highlighted in guide books.) And yet I realize now that to talk about poverty is not enough. The daily realities faced by individuals, families and entire societies living in poverty are indeed tragic and dehumanizing. As Christians it is important that we have an understanding of poverty, but this is not enough.

We also need to be talking about wealth. Is it not also tragic and dehumanizing that citizens of developed countries can maintain such a high standard of living in the context of so much poverty? As an American, though raised in what I understood as middle class family, I have realize that I too come from a society of incredible wealth and privilege. I too participate in systems that maintain inequality. Our entire global society, not just those of live in poverty, is in need of transformation. The only thing that is really comfortably “out there” is the moon! Wealthy and poor alike exist together in this world, and we are all in need of God’s healing and transformative grace because of the sins we have committed against God and one another.

Jesus said that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. What is the abundant life? Is it the American standard of living or something far simpler and more sustainable? Was abundance intended for the wealthy few or for all of humanity? For rich Christians, this realization requires a deep, sincere look at and engagement with the huge disparities between the developed and the developing world, extraordinary privilege and desperate poverty. This gap is not something “out there” on those “problem continents” but a reality in which all participate. Living in South Africa, I have entered into this tension. I invite you too, through your growing awareness, to enter into this space, to “travel” back and forth between these worlds. It is my sincere hope that we invite God’s presence, in abundance, to reconcile them. I pray that it may be so.May Highlights

• Attending a Young Adults League circuit conference
• Attending several theological cafes and a lecture at the School of Religion and Theology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)
• Co-facilitating a Peer Education workshop with PACSA’s Gender and HIV/AIDS Desk
• Preparing a statement on the theology of accompaniment for PACSA in consultation with staff and academics
• Creating teaching aids, especially an entire alphabet complete with pictures, and attending my first parent meeting at the crèche

Even now I am sending you...

“I thought you were going to say you were a missionary or something…”

I was shocked to be found out. Our conversation was ending, and I was surprised by this offhand comment. I had been chatting with a cashier in a grocery store.

“Where are you from?”
“My accent gives me away doesn’t it? I’m from the US.”
“Oh that’s cool. What are you doing here in South Africa?”
“I’m a volunteer doing development work.”
“Good for you. Are you enjoying your time here?”
“Very much so. I’m learning a lot from the people I work with.”

These conversations, usually with complete strangers or new acquaintances, usually unfold in the same way. I always introduce myself as a volunteer doing development work. I usually mention that I’m supported and sent by the Lutheran Church in US. But I never use the “m-word”: missionary. “Volunteer” is a safe, secular word, a very different sort of label. It has many positive connotations of giving of oneself and one’s time for the sake of bringing about worthwhile change. I like describing myself as a volunteer, because in those casual, fleeting conversations in the grocery store no one asks tough, uncomfortable questions about what I’m doing in this country.

I shy away from using the word “missionary” to describe myself in these conversations for several reasons. I haven’t taken ownership of the word, because my understanding of it is often quite different from how it is understood here in South Africa and abroad. When many people hear the word missionary they think of people handing out tracts on the street and trying to have conversations with people, the majority of which are very uninterested, even offended or threatened. For many, the faces of Christianity are often these missionaries on the street.

The history of the word “missionary” is a complex one. It is loaded with contemporary and historical understandings, many of which are not positive. Especially here in South Africa the word does not often have positive connotations. Missionaries came to this country with colonization. Although they brought the Christian faith, developed infrastructure through schools and hospitals, and translated Bible, they also often forced their new converts to adopt western cultural practices to prove that they truly “belonged” to the church. Though they often had a positive impact, in many cases missionaries also reproduced in the church the colonial structures of oppression and racism that were practiced in wider society. The white, western missionary was not often someone the black African or later the apartheid government understood as a positive agent in this country.

Being aware of the cultural and historical context in which missionaries worked, I am mindful of not wanting to undermine the churches that are already established here. Who I am, a Lutheran from the US, to be a missionary, in the traditional understanding of the word, when there is a Lutheran church here in South Africa with its own pastors and evangelists? Who am I to evangelize to the people of South Africa when there are many people here far more capable and equipped than I to do that work in this context? Instead, should my work here not be to accompany what is already taking place, to walk alongside and encourage these and other ministries?

Missionaries are almost exclusively associated with evangelism, sent to covert non-believers to the Christian faith. This understanding needs to be transformed and reclaimed by people serving in an international context and by Christians generally. This can only really occur, not in casual conversations, but in meaningful engagement through relationships. I acknowledge that evangelism is important part of Christian discipleship, but it should not be the only understanding of missionary work. To be a missionary is to be a witness. There are so many ways to witness to the Christian faith, in addition to evangelism.

Christians are called to live out their faith in daily, intentional acts of discipleship, in their relationships with others. Philip Knutson, an ELCA representative in Southern Africa, says that all Christians are missionaries. If all Christians are sent into the world for the sake of the Good News, we cannot be comfortable with safe labels like “volunteer.” To be a missionary is not reserved for a select, commissioned few. Christians are not just “do-gooders” on weekend service projects, though those projects certainly have their own value. To be a missionary requires an awareness of how daily actions witness one’s faith, which requires disciple and self-sacrifice in a way that it does not of the occasional volunteer. How would the church be different if each Christian felt called to be a missionary, felt the responsibility to witness through their words and actions? Though I am serving in South Africa, thousands of miles from home, should I be seen as different from any other Christian? Are we not all called to do God’s work in and for the sake of the world? I pray that it might be so.