07642
October 8, 2007

Advocacy helps hold leaders accountable

by Eva Stimson

LOUISVILLE — Eight years ago Bobbie-Francis McDonald, a Presbyterian from Lawrence, KS, packed her backpack full of medicine and traveled to southern Sudan. An experienced nurse, she thought she could help the hungry, war-ravaged people she had heard about from a mission speaker at her church.

“I thought I was going to be Clara Barton in the brush,” McDonald told a workshop at the World Mission ’07 Conference Oct. 3. Instead, she ended her trip “devastated and in tears,” because the needs she saw were overwhelming.

When she shared her frustration with one of her Sudanese hosts, however, he said, “Bobbie, you bring us hope.”

Inspired by his comment, McDonald went on to co-found the Sudan Advocacy Action Forum, a network of Presbyterians and other Christians working for a just and lasting peace in Sudan. They lobby legislators, send out e-mail alerts and try to educate U.S. citizens about the effects of violence in southern Sudan, and more recently the Darfur region.

McDonald joined two members of the Peru Mission Network, Ellie Stock and Lisa Martino Taylor, in leading a World Mission ’07 workshop titled “Advocacy as Mission: Protecting Human Dignity, Getting the Message Out, Building a Network.”

Stock defined advocacy as “telling your story in a way that puts pressure on something that needs to be changed.” She added, “Advocacy is a mirror that holds accountable the groups that may be victimizing other people.” She and the other workshop leaders stressed that advocacy is an important extension of mission involvement.

As an example of how not to do mission and advocacy, Taylor told the story of a U.S. group that tried to teach more productive agricultural practices to men in Nigeria. When they returned to Nigeria a few years later, however, nothing had changed. What they didn’t know was that in Nigeria the women, not the men, were in charge of farming.

U.S. Christians need to challenge their assumptions about people of other cultures and do mission in partnership with them, Taylor said. “We think we can solve problems with science and technology and money,” she added. But people from other cultures may have “a hundred generations of passed-down knowledge that we don’t always appreciate.”

Stock and Taylor have worked with the Presbyterian Joining Hands network and others in Peru and the United States who are fighting pollution produced by a lead smelter in the town of La Oroya, Peru. The smelter is operated by Doe Run Resources, a company based in St. Louis.

Stock said that Doe Run’s license to operate in La Oroya was extended recently—but for only three and a half years rather than the five years the company had requested, and “with some strings attached.” That may not seem like much to celebrate, she said, but “it was a great victory for advocates.”

Taylor described how a personal trauma propelled her into advocacy. “When I was a teenager, I was sprayed by a crop duster,” she said. After exposure to the toxic chemicals, her face became red and swollen. The doctors didn’t know how to treat her.

She recovered and went on to become an activist on environmental issues. When she learned about the Joining Hands effort in La Oroya, she felt God was calling her to contribute her expertise. “I knew too much not to get involved,” she said.

To those wondering whether God might be calling them to some kind of advocacy work, Stock gave this advice: “Follow your passion—where your gifts are and where your heart’s been touched.”

Eva Stimson is editor of Presbyterians Today magazine.