Re: what's the purpose of the starving millions

Frederick Williams wrote:
loiner2003 wrote:
Frederick Williams wrote:
nothtb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

The people who have money can have no excuse for not trying to help
when we all know so much about what's going on in Africa.
Giving money to needy Africans is not the answer. (Though you are right
to imply that people go hungry from lack of money to buy food rather
than because there is not enough food to buy.) Charity makes people
dependent on charity. A large amount of the aid that goes to African
goes into the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt rulers. A further large
amount is spent on arms.

So was I (and the Methodist Church in Scotland) wasting our time and
money when we gave a substantial sum to an African refugee minister, now
resident in Britain, arranged for his home to be furnished, sent him to
college in Birmingham, and welcomed him as now a British Methodist
minister, so that now he can provide for his family himself?

When such people leave their own benighted countries and come to ours
they (and thus you too) implicitly encourage the benightedness back
home.

Or did you just mean that giving money is *sometimes* not the answer?

Sometimes globally, always where Africa is concerned.


Frederick also wrote in another post:
I don't doubt Eric's sincerity but he may, while doing a small good, be
also doing a large harm: he succours the view: 'I don't like my country
but instead of trying to fix it, I'll go to another one. I'll be able
to survive because the people in that other country will support me'


Frederick, you made a general comment and have now given it a universal flavour even more when you say "always where Africa is concerned." Such generalisations are usually foolish and, in this case I believe, especially foolish.

I did not give all the details of the situation I mentioned, partly because you are so general in your condemnation of such actions that you seem to feel that the details hardly matter. Well, here is some more information about that example - I am giving away no confidences here, the matter is open to those who wish to inquire about it.

My African friend, Charles, is from the (so-called) Democratic Republic of Congo, from Katanga in particular. He was there a Methodist minister. The area where he lives has been through a period of anarchy/civil war almost nonstop since the Belgians pulled out fifty years ago, leaving a huge and ethnically diverse (and mineral rich) country with virtually no preparation for self-givernment. The multinationals have played havoc with the country, for the sake of copper or whatever and generally have not given a damn for the local people. Mercenaries have operated repeatedly.

Ten years ago the situation got particularly bad in Charles' area. Various militias operated, some opposed to anything with a Western flavour to it, and that included Christian ministers, who were threatened with "necklacing." Charles fled for his life; shortly after his family followed him, his pregnant wife and two infant children. They spent months on the road, sometimes dodging snipers. Eventually they crossed into Zambia, and were placed in a UN refugee camp, surviving mainly on handouts of meal.

Far from dodging responsibility, Charles set up a school; he taught English, his wife taught Maths. Charles also acted as pastor to a substantial number of other Christians who had fled, and regularly cycled 50 miles each way to another camp where a Methodist group had no pastor. While in the camp his wife caught cholera, and barely survived. She also survived breast cancer, refusing mastectomy.

After eight years in the camp, now with five children, Charles and family were among a group that the UN classified as unlikely ever to be able to return home. The UK givernment concurred with this assessment and agreed to resettle the group of some 80 people in Scotland, with the co-operation of the North Lanarkshire District Council. That's how Charles and family came to my attention. They (and some other Congolese) became involved in local churches, including mine. They brought new life and joy to our congregation, as well as deep heartache as, very gradually, we learned of their story.

Charles and his family have not given up on their country in the expectation of being cushioned elsewhere. They are contributing to British life, and contributing richly. And Charles' wife is working, from Britain, with a voluntary society back in Congo to offer support to orphaned young girl refugees, some of whom have been sent back to fend for themselves in a country still in chaos.

You may have seen the news this very week; according to the UNHCR some 200,000 refugees have fled Congo as violence and civil war is continuing to escalate.

Do you still think it is always wrong to do the very little that we have done? If so, I pity you.



--

Revd. Eric Potts

"I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."


.

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