President's Blog

Last month when I was in northern Ghana, I visited about six different villages to assess our programs and to learn about some of the challenges facing the communities where we are working in partnership with the Anglican Diocesan Development and Relief Agency (ADDRO).

After one has been on a few of these village visits, which are usually very moving, one quickly discerns what I might call the “Liturgy of the Village Visit.”  First one arrives and the village is called together to greet you.  There is usually a short introduction of some of the projects and challenges and then one sets off on a tour of the village.  Generally one is accompanied by a large crowd as one makes one’s way from hut to hut meeting the people, the children and talking with them about their lives.  The particular villages that I was visiting on this trip are participating in the NetsforLife® program and so we were learning about the challenge that malaria poses to families with young children and pregnant women.  Virtually every family that we visited had lost a child to malaria and so the NetsforLife® program is making a huge impact here.

Once the “walk about” is complete, one usually is offered the seat of honor (often the only chair in the village) at a “durbar” which is a gathering of all the people in the village and their elders and chief.  The people of the village put on a performance of their malaria education play–which generally stars the local village hams and gets a lot of laughs.  Drama is a critical way to teach people about malaria and how to prevent it.

Then follows a few heart-felt testimonials about how NetsforLife® has changed and transformed life in the community.  Always there is dancing.  Once everyone has had a chance to show off their dancing talents and encourage the foreign visitors to dance, things generally wrap up with a few brief remarks of thanks from the villagers.

In the last village visit I made, I had just delivered my formal remarks of thanks and greetings from the Episcopal Church and I was gathering up my hat and camera to make my way to the vehicle to leave.  At that point the village headman came forward to say that he had a presentation to make to me on behalf of the entire village.  I was a bit taken aback.  This was definitely not in the “Liturgy of the Village Visit” that I had experienced previously.

As I sat down, the headman said that although they had a gift to give to me they were very embarrassed as it was such a small and poor gift.  He told me that they had wanted to give me an elephant as a gesture of thanks as that was the grandest gift they could imagine presenting to show how important the malaria nets were to their community.  However, they were too poor to give me an elephant.   (I was trying to imagine what I was going to do with an elephant!)

Instead all of the family heads of the village had met that morning to discuss what would be the most valuable thing that they could give me to show their gratitude for all that had happened in their village as a result of the net distribution.  They had decided to collect all of the eggs laid that day and present them to me in a bowl. 

He explained that the eggs represented the entire village’s wealth for that day and while it wasn’t very much, it was everything they had.  They had painted the bowl in vibrant colors and included a picture of a flower growing out of a pot of soil.  He told me that the flower represented the abundant life which the Episcopal Church and NetsforLife® had brought to their village.  He asked that I bring the bowl back to the United States and show it as a sign and symbol of their love for us and our partnership.

Last week I returned from visiting Episcopal Relief & Development and NetsforLife® programs in northern Ghana. Now I remember why I do this work!

In each village the elders and the women gathered to tell us their stories of lives transformed.

Atewini struck me as an elegant and dignified woman, as she stepped to the microphone.

She told me that she was embarrassed that she couldn’t speak English and that she hadn’t finished school. But that she wanted me to understand how her life had changed since becoming part of the women’s empowerment program under the auspices of ADDRO (Anglican Diocesan Development and Relief Organization), our partner in the Diocese of Tamale.

Atewini’s first step was to take out a small loan (less than $100) that allowed her to set up a business to parboil rice that she was able to sell to her fellow villagers. With the profit she made from this business, she was able to buy some farm animals, including some goats, a pig and a cow.

Once the goats had multiplied under her careful husbandry, she sold a few of them to put her children in school. They excelled—they were no longer hungry and could devote time to their studies.

Atewini told me with pride that her eldest child is now attending university and the other is in secondary school.

She is rightly and fiercely proud of what she has been able to accomplish for herself and her family. Her children are now fulfilling and indeed exceeding the dream that she had for herself.

Such wonderful things can be done with so little.

Gift giving at Easter is tricky business. Many times those lovely little chicks and bunny rabbits that make it into Easter baskets don’t work out as intended. Living as I do, in a New York City apartment, they are out of the question for my family, my daughter’s pleadings notwithstanding. Hopefully this year I can once again get away with a basket of nice soaps and shampoos.

There is another alternative, of which I was reminded by a priest from North Carolina who sent me a copy of a letter from a young member of his parish. It reads as follows:

Dear Father Roger,

I saw a goat in the Episcopal Relief & Development book (Gifts for Life catalog). I ordered the goat for you and me. Maybe the goat will go to Haiti. The hungry people can get milk and cheese from a goat. They will be excited!!! We will call her Faith, like in Jesus.

Love,

(more…)

It’s budget season at Episcopal Relief & Development. That’s never a fun time in an organization and that’s just as true with us as anywhere else, particularly this year. Try as I might to live into a theology of abundance and not scarcity, sometimes that’s hard.

However, a very proud grandfather and former board member sent this story to me, which really hit home for me how young people can be the best at showing us Christ at work in the world. I hope it inspires you as much as it inspired me.

His granddaughter’s family had picked up a Gifts for Life catalog at their local Church and upon returning home started talking to her family about what they would like to do out of the catalog.

Because they have family members who are beekeepers, they were drawn to the idea of beekeeping as a source of income for areas that are less than ideal for crops and livestock. They decided to support beekeeping initiatives and to do it in honor of our former board member and his wife.

As the mother sat down to the computer to place the order on line, an envelope appeared on the kitchen table with $80.00 in it and a request from the daughter of the family to donate the money for a child orphaned by AIDS so that that child could go to school and have other necessities of life. The daughter wanted the funds “for a child like me.”

This is a big family—with eight mouths to feed, and everything they have goes to that. The children don’t get allowances or money, except for the things they need for school. The family makes ends meet, but much more than that is not usually possible. Needless to say, the mother was taken aback.

The money that the daughter donated was part of the small amount of money she earns when she baby sits outside of the home. The gift that she gave was a large percentage of what she had saved up over the year. It was a gift out of funds that she might otherwise have used to buy herself a fun t-shirt or other small luxury. This was not money that came from a lot, but money that came from a little.

We can all see Christ working within the lives of young people showing us all how to live a life of abundance, even in times of scarcity.

Please send me your stories about how young people or children you know live Christ-like lives among us and we’ll try to post as many as we can.