Hand in Hand Global Mission Support Blog Digest

Andrew Steele has been a Young Adult in Global Mission coordinator in South Africa for the past year. To support a YAGM participant, or another of the ELCA’s nearly 250 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

In August 2010, I boarded a plane to Chicago for what would be the beginning of my year living abroad. I had to say goodbye to all my friends and family, knowing that I wouldn’t see them on Christmas, my birthday, Easter or any other special holidays.

At that time, it was the hardest goodbye I’d ever had to experience. I was leaving all that I knew, and leaping into an unknown world. But now, a year later, the goodbyes I have to experience with my South African hosts hurt worse than those of a year ago.

I find difficulty leaving the people who have supported me during my most vulnerable times, and I cannot grasp the reality of this experience coming to an end.

When I left to come to South Africa, I didn’t expect to fall in love. But I have felt a love stronger than any love I’ve felt in my past.  I’ve fallen in love with the generosity, hospitality and “Ubuntu” seen in every South African I’ve met. I’ve fallen in love with Jesus like never before.

I’ve fallen in love with the world’s most marginalized people who have taught me so much. And my love for the majestic Maluti Mountains of Lesotho has been renewed and so has my love for its people. Now my heart truly belongs to Africa.

This past year has been the most challenging, difficult, stressful, agonizing and unpredictable year of my life — and it’s been the best year of my life. Despite the numerous hurdles that presented themselves this year, I wouldn’t be who I am today if I had not faced them.

I walked alongside those I once ignored, and I felt the presence of the Lord in places I’ve never known. I was at my most vulnerable this year, but fell upon a plethora of grace and love from my hosts.

I am forever thankful for the love, compassion, grace and hospitality I experienced from my South African hosts. I cannot express how blessed I feel to have experienced what I have with the people here.

I must say goodbye to the beloved country, but thankfully I will say hello to a new life as a more globally formed and informed person.

To read Andrew’s complete farewell to South Africa go to LivingLutheran.com.

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Brian and Christine Palmer are ELCA missionaries in Liberia. To support the Palmers, or another of the ELCA’s nearly 250 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Liberia it is said to be a predominantly Christian nation. Yet the longer we live here the more we are discovering how blended Christianity is with the traditional African religion. The cords of the ancestors are tightly roped around the lives of most Liberians. Is Christ the true Savior for Liberians or do the traditional witch doctors have additional messages?

There are those who practice “Juju,” a form of witchcraft that is similar to voodoo. It’s pretty predominant. A person is targeted and cursed by magic from the witch doctor to make the victim very sick or miscarry, even die.

The children at around the age of puberty go off to traditional schools for a period of time. This is where they learn basic skills of how to live in the bush. The boys learn to build huts, make palm-thatched roofs and hunt; girls learn to cook over a charcoal fire, weave baskets, and make fishing nets. And along with that learning comes the West African Juju as well as herbal knowledge — plants used for healing the body. It’s all very secretive; no one is allowed to tell others what they learned in the bush school. When they come back to their villages, the girls have deep, permanent scars etched in their skins along their waists, backs, and necks making designs like diamonds and linear motifs, like tattoos except, instead of ink, they use scarring to make designs. The bush school is the place where female circumcision happens. It’s where they get initiated into the culture and learn the ancestors’ ways.

Child sacrifices (and adults ones, too) are still amongst us here, the organs used to appease the devil. We are told sacrifices increase particularly during election years from those in high government positions (like this year). Children just disappear. We had two children taken on Christmas Day while people were watching a football (soccer) game right here in Totota, where we live. Men near the man taking the children followed him into the bush and saved the children before there was any harm done to them.

I know the Christian church still has its transforming work to do in the lives of the Liberian people, even though there’s been a long history of effort done here in the name of Jesus over the last hundred years or so.

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Mary Beth and Bayo Oyebade are ELCA missionaries in Nigeria. They now serve with the Mashiah Foundation to provide services for those who are infected with and affected by HIV and AIDS. Mary Beth leads the women’s sewing program which helps women with HIV and AIDS earn money to provide for themselves and their families. To support the Oyebades, or another of the ELCA’s nearly 250 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

The women praise God when they receive the sewing machines.

In early December the Self-Sustainability Department of the Mashiah Foundation gave out new treadle sewing machines to five of the women in our program. Over the years we have given out more than 100 sewing machines. This is an incredible gift to the women as it allows them to do much of their work at home without always having to pay transport to come to our sewing center. The machine is a big step on their road to being able to take care of their families.

These are always times of great joy — and always kept a secret until the staff come dancing out with machines. The recipients are often overcome with emotions. I haven’t seen Nigerian women cry very often in public, but many times this gift is so overwhelming that their tears just pour out.

The women’s immediate response is to praise God for their new machines. It’s a time of pure jubilation. I also love how friends rejoice with those who receive.

Another example of striving for self-sustainability is a woman who does not have the use of her legs due to having polio as a child. Consequently, she can’t use a treadle sewing machine. She comes to our program from time to time. I’m always reminded of the Bible story of the persistent widow whenever I see her. She kept telling us that she wanted us to help her buy firewood so she could be selling it at her house. In January, we paid for a load of firewood which she is selling from her compound. Ideally, by the time she finishes selling the wood, she will have capital to invest in another load of wood as well as some income to feed herself and her child.

She was so happy that day when some of our staff members visited her in her home and took the money to her. We will be following up with her to see how her business venture is going.

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Brian and Christine Palmer are ELCA missionaries in Liberia. To support the Palmers, or another of the ELCA’s nearly 250 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

A typical house in Liberia.

Living in a developing country has its challenges. Yet working with people who have similar goals can be not only refreshing but downright encouraging.

We’ve befriended a Peace Corps volunteer who has served in the southeastern section of Liberia at about the same time we came (we’ve been here almost a year) and has relocated to Totota. She loves my espresso and Scottish shortbread fingers I get at the Lebanese grocery store. And what she gives me in return is her altruistic enthusiasm for what she’s doing, her willingness to live simply. She sets a great example for me.

Then there are my two elder mentors Edna and Alvina. Edna teaches in the first nursing graduate program that’s getting off the ground in Monrovia. If she’s not teaching, she’s back at her Zorzor house, way out in the bush. She volunteers her time there as a nurse for the bush hospital and has been a missionary for over six years.

Alvina and her husband raised their children in Liberia while they and a team of translators translated parts of the Bible and educational materials into the various tribal languages. Her husband passed away over seven years ago. She and I have had talks about living here as a woman and as a single woman at that. She misses her husband and confided to me that on his deathbed he encouraged her to continue their work, knowing she wouldn’t be happy doing anything else. God is providing her with the funds to go on. And she is happy doing what she’s doing.

And then there are Dione and Jenny. Dione is a senior at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and Jenny just graduated from Luther. On their own they put together this Liberian itinerary, “sold” it to the ELCA short-term missionary board, and even though they’re paying for the trip themselves, are under the umbrella of the ELCA Global Missions. They are spending their summer helping out at the regional hospital working in the pharmacy just because they want to help out. Very impressive.

The list of people in “The Network” goes on and on. Even though living here has its daily challenges, it is very much balanced by this network of people the Lord graciously is using to offset the hardships. Their lives give me hope, strength, and a future in Liberia. I’m thankful.

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Dirk and Sarah Stadtlander are ELCA missionaries in Senegal. To support the Stadtlanders, or another of the ELCA’s nearly 250 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Fatimata Ba, Aminata Ba, and Dirk at the Pentecost worship. Afterwards, as we welcomed Fatimata with song, Aminata danced with the wooden bowl, which is a Fulani “milk pail” now being used as a baptismal font.

Easter and Pentecost celebrations have been particularly exciting this year in the Linguere parish. At Easter, four young boys were baptized during the service. Three of them were the sons of a Christian man who is part of a team translating the Hebrew Bible into Pulaar. Preparation for baptism involved an open and frank conversation between Dirk, the ELS evangelist based in Linguere, Oumar Diallo, and the boys’ mother, a practicing Muslim. She agreed to the baptism but said she wasn’t ready for her baptism because of familial pressure. The fourth boy was Oumar Diallo’s grandson, who is being raised by Oumar and his wife.

A young woman named Fatimata had shown interest in Christianity after working for a Christian couple. She came to church, Bible study and prayer regularly. Oumar Diallo led her through baptismal classes. Oumar made contact with her family, helping them understand the new faith Fatimata was living. Some of the family even came on Easter to witness the baptism service. Fatimata was baptized seven weeks later, during the Pentecost service.

It is exciting and uplifting to see the people of the Linguere parish reaching out and living as witnesses to their Muslim neighbors, friends and family. We pray that events like Fatimata’s baptism will encourage them to continue to let their light shine in Linguere. We also pray for new Christians like Fatimata, that they will be strengthened in their faith and encouraged by the community into which they have entered.

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Kristopher and Rebecca Hartwig, ELCA missionaries, work with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania by developing hospice and palliative care teams throughout the country. They will be concluding this service in July. To support the Hartwigs, or another of the ELCA’s nearly 250 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Kristopher and Rebecca Hartwig, shown with Heidi and Nathan, will conclude their service in Tanzania in July.

Dear friends in Christ,

Please find our letter for this month below.

Crossing over

Rebecca wrote a piece of music of this title, and it somehow expresses our feelings of transition.  Looking ahead, there are a host of new possibilities, which we trust in God to be made good, even as we have anxieties and uncertainties. Looking behind, there is gratitude, some sense of relief and more gratitude. It is never easy to leave community and friends, yet now we must.

Crossing over, in Biblical language this mostly refers to the Jordan River. The Israelites could not enter the Promised Land until they had crossed over that river. That a whole generation was denied the crossing (Moses et al), and that Joshua’s leading of the next generation across the river was just as miraculous as crossing the Red Sea, are signs and warnings and wonders in the history of our faith.

In hospice work, crossing over often refers to the passage from life to death. It is a way of expressing that special time as a process, somehow analogous to childbirth in being fraught with anxiety but, inevitably, something which must come. There is mystery here, as we have had cause to contemplate with close proximity to such recent crossings.

Interestingly, in the New Testament the one reference to “crossing over” that I could find was from John 5:24, referring to exactly the reverse of the hospice meaning: “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.””

We depart from the continent July 17, a day after Nathan’s high school graduation, then rushing to Anchorage for Kirsten’s marriage to Ray. From Aug. 1, we will be based at the ELCA Missionary Apartments in St. Paul, Minn. Over the subsequent several months we will look forward to seeing many of you, sharing our stories and the different ways in which all of us have crossed over. Please pray for us that our crossing might be filled with grace, that we might be gracious within the process and eager for the new promises, yet unseen, that lie ahead. And may we never forget the life to which we have come, in Christ, which is, in a mysterious way, our Promised Land.

Kristopher and Rebecca Hartwig

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Luke and Andrea Roske-Metcalfe are ELCA missionaries in Mexico City. Luke is assistant program dIrector for the ELCA Immersion Program at the Lutheran Center in Mexico City. Andrea is country coordinator for the Young Adults in Global Mission program in Mexico. To support Luke and Andrea, or another of the ELCA’s nearly 250 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

Luke and Andrea Roske-Metcalfe and Olivia

As many of you know, I serve as associate pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Mexico City.  This past Easter, I celebrated my one-year anniversary of service with the bilingual and multicultural congregation.  Needless to say, I have learned a lot during my first year serving as a congregational pastor.  I heard in seminary that the first year is always the most difficult because, well, everything is the first!  Yes, it has been a memorable year, and I am grateful for the guidance and leadership of a strong church council and head pastor.  They continue to guide me through the cultural nuances of living and serving a church in Mexico.

One thing I knew coming into the position of associate pastor in this congregation was the head pastor’s plan to retire.  Pastor Alcantara will retire as head pastor of Good Shepherd at the end of October.  On Reformation Day, we will not only celebrate the birth of the Lutheran Church, but we will also celebrate his twenty-plus years of serving this community as member, student intern, and pastor.  It will be a bittersweet celebration.  There is no doubt that he will be missed, but at the same time, the congregation has entered into an exciting period of its life.

Andrea’s ministry as coordinator for the ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) program continues to keep her busy.  Currently she is striking a balance between two worlds: one of goodbyes and another of anticipation. The current volunteers are within a month of completing their year of service. She mourns the volunteers leaving after a year full of ups and downs, growth and development, yet at the same time greatly anticipates where God will take them next. While she continues to accompany the current volunteers through their goodbyes, Andrea also prepares for the arrival of nine new volunteers in late August.

I would like to ask you to pray for Good Shepherd in the coming months, as the congregation seeks to faithfully respond to God’s call to bear witness to God’s life-giving love.  For these prayers and all of the support you provide in myriad ways to Andrea, Olivia and to me, I thank you!

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Sam and Cindy Wolf are ELCA missionaries in Kenya. Sam is pastor of Nairobi International congregation and works with the Dagoretti Swahili Church. Sam and Cindy also work in developing an AIDS outreach program. To support the Wolfs, or another of the ELCA’s nearly 250 missionaries, go to www.elca.org/missionarysponsorship.

George Odhiambo

George is a big man with ruggedly handsome features. But his body has been ravished by AIDS. Here in Kenya they call it the wasting disease, and looking at George one can see how it got its name.

George Odhiambo is a member of our English speaking congregation and lives in the slum village behind the church. He was born in a small village near the Uganda border, one of eight children.  The family was fairly well off as his father worked as a butcher, until his father died, and then poverty hit.

After his father’s death, George was forced to drop out of  school. There was no work in the area so George made the 600 kilometer journey to Nairobi and got a job as a life guard at a sports club for expatriates.

He married and had four children. They still lived in the slum, rarely had disposable income but he said, “we ate.”

Then in 2002 his wife got weaker and weaker and died. After her death, George found out she had AIDS.  AIDS carries a horrible stigma in this country. Many people still prefer death to disclosure.  She left George with four children.

Within a year George became too sick to continue working. A social worker convinced him to go to the Coptic hospital, where he was also diagnosed with AIDS. The hospital is now providing him with medicine.

Eventually George found work helping an older neighbor to do his banking. The neighbor promised to pay George but he never did. So George withdrew the money owed to him from the neighbor’s account. He was sentenced to 18 months for theft.  After serving only four months, George was released.  This happened shortly after Cindy and I came to Nairobi International Lutheran Congregation.

He began selling eggs.  He makes less than a dollar a day. Now he and his children eat, but only one meal a day.  For growing children and an adult with HIV who needs to take medicine three times a day with food, this is not a good situation.

George is a wonderful, faithful member of our church.  He is one of those rare people God made who are just good and gentle.  Today we were able to find him a job as a part-time night guard, so perhaps his life shall improve.

I asked George for a statement of his faith.  “Pastor,” he said, “God is good! And God is always!”  I must admit his words somehow made me ashamed.

Sam and Cindy

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