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A letter from Mike and Nancy Haninger
in Congo |
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March 7, 2005
Dear Friends,
In the picture accompanying this letter you see Mamu Tshiela.
She is an elderly widow who lives alone in our village of Tshikaji.
During this rainy season, her hut collapsed on her, injuring her
back and left hand. Nancy was recently called to the village to
see Mamu Tshiela due to another chronic illness, glaucoma. After
an examination by the ophthalmologist, we learned that her condition
is beyond treatment, and she suffers irreversible blindness. There
was much love and concern shown by those around her who were helping
her live, but there was no hope of any resolution of these problems.
Today she is being assisted to live a more dignified life through
the work of the village Presbyterian Church answering God’s
call to mission in helping the poorest of the poor, the indigent
widows and orphans. God mentions these, His children, many times
in the Bible, pointing them out as deserving of our love and care. |
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Mamu Tshiela's glaucoma is beyond treatment. She is being assisted
by the Presbyterian Church in Tsjikaji village. |
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Last year, we were paid a visit by
a mission group from Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte,
North Carolina. During their visit to the Democratic Republic of
Congo, they received many requests for funds and project support.
However, they were most moved by our local pastor’s (Pasteur
Ilunga) presentation of the needs of the indigent (basic foods,
health care, housing) and the total inability of the local church
to attend to these needs beyond suffering in solidarity with these
people who suffer so much and so unjustly. Orphans and widows share
a common condition in that they have lost those who loved them most,
their parents and husbands, and upon whom they depended for their
very lives. They live among a poor people, but they are either too
young, too weak, and inexperienced or they are too old and frail
to survive without some charity from their poor neighbors. In the
village, those with next to nothing share what little they have
to help the absolute poor survive, much like the poor old widow
in Luke who put her two small copper coins into the poor basket.
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Her only two coins—all that
she had to live on! If you want to witness faith through action,
come to the village. If you want to see immense suffering beyond
what you could possibly imagine, come to the village. The will to
help and love your neighbor is there, but the means are so limited.
Pasteur Ilunga wants to be a more capable pastor but he too is poor.
We are not! The answer seems pretty clear. |
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Mamu Tshiela's house collapsed and injured her back and left hand.
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But, is the answer really so clear? The great
benefactor could arrive in a poor village with a bag of money and
start paying for house repairs, medical care, food and clothing
(responding to Mathew 25), and start to feel very good about himself.
He could return home telling all about what a great thing he had
done, perhaps showing some “before” and “after”
pictures. We all love that and we are all somewhat guilty of doing
just that. But when we leave the village and move on, what happens
to the other widows? |
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When we fix the house of the first,
this then becomes the expectation. What is normally required of
a family by a culture is no longer necessary because “the
missionary will do it.” It is much more complicated to work
within existing local village systems, respecting the culture
and helping to find lasting solutions. When we speak of existing
systems, we are speaking of God’s church. We are speaking
of pastors, elders, deacons and just regular folk in the congregation
who want to help, but are too poor themselves to do much. One
of the most difficult parts of mission can be to identify how
to help without calling attention to yourself. We are told by
God that whatever we do to help the poor, we must do in secret.
He knows. When we act to seek and receive the praise of others,
that praise is all we will receive. All good comes from God and
His Church and all glory and praise should go there.
We are so pleased that Myers Park Presbyterian chose to work
in partnership with the pastors and the local churches of Tshikaji
to allow them to make the decisions and do the work of the church
in providing direct aid to the indigents in our village. The pastors
know how to work within their culture, encouraging the systems
that have kept their people alive for generations. They know how
to make things better without damaging the fragile support systems
that keep them going. As we walk through the village we see so
many people whose lives have been touched by your love. We see
those alive who would have been dead, those healed who were crippled.
We want to thank you for all that you cannot see with your own
eyes. We want to thank you for the support that you give for the
indigent, for the collective field projects to increase food supply,
for the women’s development projects to help women learn
to read, for the nutrition program to save the lives of malnourished
children and to prevent them and others from this suffering, for
the health center that you helped build in our village where illness
can be treated before hospitalization is needed, and, lastly,
for supporting Good Shepherd Hospital, which through its good
work has saved so many lives and returned so many to good health.
All of these activities require the volunteerism of the faithful
and charity, and all are helped by your loving contributions.
This is all done by promoting, encouraging, and supporting Congolese
to help Congolese, brothers and sisters to help each other, not
by our doing, but by their doing. They don’t know your names
but, isn’t that as God has commanded? He knows!
So do we!
From the Congo,
Mike and Nancy
The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
318 |
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