Journal: Fresh Perspectives

Report from the TEAM
Africa Conference:

Toward Effective Anglican Mission

by Amy Coulta

Thando signs Amy’s guestbook

Peace and the MDGs: A partnership for sustainability

“Disarmament will enhance sustainable development and the achievement of all of the MDGs.” I heard these words from Archdeacon Tai Matalavea, then Anglican Observer to the UN, in October 2004 at the kickoff for the Micah Challenge. Since then, I have been particularly interested in how social development and peace work are related. On one level, they seem disconnected—what does ‘peace’ have to do with the struggle against the devastation caused by the spread of HIV/AIDS? How does ‘peace’ relate to the need for universal primary education? What I learned from my fellow TEAM delegates was what I heard Archdeacon Tai saying that October afternoon: sustainable communities are those made of healthy, educated people free from the extreme poverty that causes disease, death, and hopelessness, all living in a world of non-violence. Peacebuilding is community building.

As TEAM explored ways for Anglicans to embrace the Millennium Development Goals, it became clearer that peace work is a wholly necessary component of achieving the MDGs. “If you want peace, work for justice” the old slogan goes—heal the sick, feed the hungry, empower the oppressed—serve God’s will for a just world and God’s peace will follow. The work of sustainable development, though, also works in the reverse. In order to seek justice, often the first order of business seems to be the establisment of a stable, non-violent community. If people continue to be at war, then food, medicine, education, all will continue to be weapons used to achieve domination.

Brian Grieves, Peace and Justice Officer of the Episcopal Church, led a workshop entitled “The Role of the Church in Peace Building.” “Sustainable economics require sustainable peace,” Grieves said. “Peacebuilding equals mission. Mission heals divisions, binds wounds, builds understanding.”

Grieves pointed to the ending of Apartheid in South Africa, our hosts for the conference, as a model for the Church’s mission of reconciliation. He pointed to ongoing work in Northern Ireland, Namibia, Burundi and other places as signs of hope in the process of peacebuilding. Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, spoke of a two-tiered approach. The first is post-conflict reconciliation, which seeks to stabilized communities and begin a process of healing and introducing a new approach to dealing with conflict. This then leads to the second tier that is “peacebuilding.” “Peacebuilding is generational,” Kearon said. “It’s about building a new way of life."

The Role of Women

The most important piece of the conference for me, and I heard many others say the same, was the opportunity to meet and begin relationships with Anglicans from around the globe. Being able to share stories of our different contexts and to discuss potential partnerships was invaluable, both spiritually and in terms of mission. In particular, we often discussed the role of women, both regarding their particular victimization in the wars going on and their hope to serve as a key resource in redeeming society as one rooted in justice resulting in peace. One such powerful voice was that of the Mothers’ Union, which produced this list of key issues that must be addressed as part of MDG work:

·         Violence against women, including rape, is used as a weapon of war.

·         Women suffer the greatest during war, but are the key to achieving sustainable peace.

·         Women work within and across communities to create positive change; they must be recognized as integral to formal peace processes.

·         Education is the most important factor in achieving gender equality and, in turn, conflict prevention and peace building.

·         The Church must bring pressure to bear on governments to advance women’s status politically, economically and socially.

The role of women in global development was spoken of often throughout the conference as a distinct voice, a voice rooted in the care of children which is often central in women’s lives around the world and throughout history. “Mothers just don’t want to see any child suffer, because they recognize that each child is another woman’s son or daughter,” Archdeacon Tai said as we sat in the lobby one morning. “Because of that they begin to find ways to end violence and hunger.”

At the workshop “Reflections on the Recent UNCSW” [United Nations Council on the Status of Women], we heard how the International Anglican Women’s Network gathered there commented on the particular charism that women hold as a result of their role in the family over so many generations of human history. Because women have for so long worked privately to hold families together in the midst of difficult realities of human existence, they are uniquely prepared to address—now in public—that which is at the heart of contemporary human suffering: conflict resolution and feeding the hungry. The experience reported to us was one of relationship building, described as “a spiritual encounter with one another” through the sharing of stories and of the hope of shared mission.

Other Learnings

“You can’t have development where there is violence is destroying communities,” said Joanna Udal of the Episcopal Church of Sudan. “And poverty is at the root of war. Both must be addressed.” I heard this refrain many times during the TEAM conference. There are the apparent reasons why the wars being waged around the world are a barrier to development: allocation of financial resources; destruction of schools, clinics, and other parts of infrastructure; the destabilizing psychological effects of living with the consequences of conflict. But there are other implications for a world embroiled in conflict as it approaches social development programs. One poster published by the Church of Uganda, entitled “Chain of Hope,” depicts a woman carrying firewood and its text describes the impact of war on the environment and the increased burden on women to care for the villages. Another related issue is refugee/asylum seekers/immigration around the world. Susie Snyder, priest in the Church of England, works on such issues in the U.K. Her work urges the church to explore the civil wars and other conflicts in developing countries and the issue of the refugee/asylum seeker ‘crisis’ in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia. “As a way to support these countries in conflict situations, we need to make connections between the root causes and what our governments are doing in these places. Refugees are the presenting face of a deeper issue.”
Other concerns connected to peacebuilding included the issue of food security, addressing the reality that in many conflict situations the availability and distribution of food becomes a tool for domination, making food a weapon.

The Body

One of the biblical priniciples we used to approach the MDGs was 1 Corinthians 12:26: If any part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers with it. We find freedom in our relationship with Christ. Then, in our relationships with others, we live out the implications of that freedom—we live as a community “in which each lives for the good of all” as Rowan Williams put it, also saying “when one is deprived, all are diminished.” The work of reconciliation operates on that very principle.

“No one can flourish at the expense of the other. To believe otherwise is to hold a fundamental untruth, unreality. No community is protected from the loss, trauma of others,” said Archbishop Williams. When our mission is to restore all people to God and each other in Christ, we are called to God and each other in Christ, we are called to be agents of reconciliation. We are called to enter into places of loss and trauma and find the Christ, risen. Following down His road, that way of truth and life of Jesus, we are called to restore right relationships in our communities. The TEAM Conference showed me the importance of creating partnerships, in particular between peace work and the Millenium Development Goals, in order to further God’s mission “on earth as it is in heaven.”

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Amy and Bishop Joseph Tsubella

Building Relationships

Most of our time was tightly scheduled, but we did have a few opportunities to visit some local communities. A group of about twelve was welcomed by the people of St. James’ Katlehong on Sunday morning. The service, although largely in languages unknown to me, was a wonderful experience. The singing, praying, hands extended in welcome, all rooted in our shared tradition of common prayer, expressed the sort of radical welcome the gospel calls us to. We were never strangers; we were always honored guests. Parishioners would give up their seats for us to be more comfortable. A choir member would show me the hymnal they were using. A young girl would hold my hand. Everywhere we went, our hosts insisted that we be fed. Even in the middle of church, we’d be asked to stand up and tell a bit about ourselves. Our presence there—we were certainly a conspicuous group—was embraced as a gift to be shared.

I was also able to spend a few hours away at a Game Park outside Johannesburg. Lions, rhinos, warthogs, cheetahs, ostriches and more roamed around us as we drove through the beautiful African landscape. We managed to get close enough—but not too close!—to see these beautiful creatures for ourselves.

These kinds of opportunities, along with shared worship, bible study, lunches, and dinners allowed us to experience the richness of the Anglican Communion in ways not often possible. We were able to see each other as who we are: passionate Christians, committed in mission to our neighbors around the world, building partnerships to further God’s will for health and salvation for all people.

Gathering of the Mother’s Union

Mothers’ Union Prayer for Peace:

God, you taught that we should love our enemies. But how hard it is to love those who have killed our husbands and abducted our children, raped and mutilated our sisters, leaving us destitute, our hope shriveled like corn during a drought, its growth stunted before it could reach its potential.

Loving God, we pray that you will strengthen all who work for peace especially women who have suffered the ravages of war, oppression and violence yet still work for reconciliation, proclaiming peace and justice for all.

We pray that the Church may become a prophetic witness for peace, and that governments may find compassion, strength and courage to challenge unjust and violent structures. Amen.

Background of the Conference

The TEAM Conference (Toward Effective Anglican Mission) was held in Boksburg, South Africa, March 714, 2007. In 2001, Anglican (Africanoriented) HIV/ AIDs conference in Boksburg, known now as “Boksburg I.” That conference began connecting Anglicans, particularly African Anglicans in mission, with particular emphasis on confronting the problem of HIV/AIDS, generating a sort of tool-kit for churches to use in their mission efforts, sharing best practices and creating a network so that the information and recommendations might be shared across the Anglican Communion. The recommendation that an subsequent conference should be held in five years to measure the progress of mission since Boksburg I was combined with the desire for a conference dealing with issues of social development and, eventually, the desire for a conference engaging the Millennium Development Goals, resulting in the TEAM Conference.

About 400 delegates attended from 33 Anglican provinces. The conference produced a set of recommendations for engaging the Millenium Development Goals which will be distributed across the Communion and open for comment. You may read a summary of the recommendations at the Episcopal News archives: www.episcopalchurch. org/3577_83596_ENG_HTM.htm.

Amy Real Coultas is a native of Louisville, Kentucky and is vicar of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Shelbyville, KY and Episcopal Campus Minister at the University of Louisville -- both partnered with Hannah Ministries in Byumba, Rwanda. Learn more about that work at helpinghannah. org. Amy is a member of the National Executive Council of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and is particularly interested in how the work of creating a culture of peace is related to global development. For refl ections on the TEAM Conference, visit Amy’s blog: www.thoughtwordanddeed. blogspot.com.

A crowd of young people gather in welcome