News Briefs
Episcopal News Service. July 19, 2001 [2001-188]
Helping hands on their way to Belize
(Episcopal Life) Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) has launched a $500,000 project in Belize to provide housing for the victims of Hurricane Keith, which struck the Central American nation in October 2000.
ERD is working in partnership with the Diocese of Belize, part of the Church in the West Indies, and the government to build 30 houses in Caye Caulker, an island along the northern coastline. The project includes infrastructure for water and sewage, job training and economic development.
Abagail Nelson, ERD's coordinator for Latin American projects, said the agency is designing a microcredit program "that will help people on the island invest in their own cottage industries: fishing and services." Hurricane Keith destroyed many fishing pots, devastating the industry.
"The training around the microcredit program will enable local people to restock their pots, and develop their businesses around their own initiatives," Nelson wrote by email from El Salvador. "This is a participatory process that will continue for many years, way after the construction is done."
Nelson said the government's involvement makes this project different from others under way in Honduras and El Salvador.
"We are in a position to really benefit from the diocesan relationship with the government," she wrote. For example, the government is contributing land, slashing transport costs for getting materials to the island, and they are involved in the selection of families. "This is an example of the close-knit relationship between the church and the government, which helps smooth the process," Nelson said.
After the hurricane, a $50,000 emergency grant to the diocese helped install water-purification units in five villages in the Belize River Valley. The units helped prevent water-borne diseases from the hurricane's floods.
Hurricane Keith devastated the economy of part of Belize, including the tourism, sugarcane, cattle and vegetable industries. Nelson said ERD had been in discussions with all the dioceses in Central America about development projects when Keith hit. "Belize in many senses picked us, not the other way around," she wrote.
Volunteer groups, who usually come for a week, are welcome to help in Belize. They may contact volunteer coordinator Kathryn Webb at 800-334-7626, ext. 6105.
Send contributions to Episcopal Relief and Development, c/o Bankers Trust, Box 12043, Newark, N.J. 07101. Donations also may be made from the Web site, www.er-d.org, or by phone, 800-334-7626, ext. 5129.
Tutu celebrates 25th anniversary as an Anglican bishop
(ACNS) The Most Rev. Desmond Mpilo Tutu, archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, celebrated his 25th anniversary as an Anglican bishop at a service at the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin in Johannesburg, South Africa, on July 16.
According to a report by Siphiwe Sithole, "With the simplicity of a boy and a gentleness that has characterized his life, Archbishop Tutu kept his audience gleefully happy, with story after story, and breaking the solemnity of the three-hour serve with his infectious humor." He called the scene "just spectacular" with many of Tutu's friends joining to thank God for the 1984 Nobel Peace laureate "who contributed so immensely to the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa."
In his homily, the Rev. Timothy Stanton reminded the congregation that Tutu's life had its share of difficulties. As a youth of 13 he contracted tuberculosis which almost killed him. In thanks for Tutu's role as general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, Stanton said that the bishop's theology greatly shaped the events that would put an end to the oppressive system in the country.
Representing the Anglican Communion, Secretary General John Peterson said, "We thank you for truly being a friend, a friend who laughs, a friend who cries, a friend willing to carry our burdens."
Zimbabwe's First Lady says church holds answer to AIDS pandemic
(ENI) Grace Mugabe, First Lady of Zimbabwe, told a meeting of the country's Council of Churches that "the church holds the biggest answer to the challenges that confront us," particularly the AIDS pandemic. "Running through all the anti-AIDS messages is the call for behavioral change. I am sure you will agree that, to a large extent, this is something achievable only through preaching the Gospel. Our message of mutually faithful, lifelong relationships can only succeed when society as a whole [promotes] God-fearing living."
The latest reports from the United Nations reveal that about 70 percent of adults and 80 percent of children living with HIV are in Africa, mostly in southern Africa. Zimbabwe has one of the fastest infection rates in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 1.5 million are infected, according to the nation's ministry of health and child welfare. The public health system has not been able to cope and the shortage of foreign currency and the subsequent scarcity of essential drugs has made the crisis even worse.
Mugabe said that the health, social and economic implications of the disease were staggering and could not be mitigated by any single organization or the government alone. As resources are re-directed to fight the disease, gains in the fight against poverty are erased, she pointed out. "Yet the sad news is that poverty is associated with an increased rate of HIV infection and a poor prognosis among infected individuals," she said.
Dutch Protestants move closer to blessing same-gender partnerships
(ENI) The largest Protestant church in the Netherlands has moved a step closer to blessing same-gender relationships after a lengthy consultation process in which local congregations and regional assemblies considered a draft of a proposed change in church law.
A working group of the Uniting Protestant Churches in the Netherlands that prepared the draft recommends that final decision-making authority on whether life unions, including those of the same gender, may be blessed within a given congregation rest with the individual, local churches. Couples seeking a blessing would be required to show that they are in a relationship based on "love and fidelity" that has been registered with civil authorities. Dutch civil law has recognized such partnerships since January of 1998.
While most church members favor blessing alternative relationships, also referred to as life unions, strong opposition continues within the two Reformed churches that joined with a smaller Lutheran church to form the Uniting Protestant Churches. Synods of the three jurisdictions will vote on a revised proposal at joint meetings this November and in May 2002.
Global South ready to take Gospel back to Northern Hemisphere
(ENI) Because Christianity has been able to adapt to local conditions and has thrived in the Global South, churches in the region are ready to take the Gospel back to the industrialized world that sent missionaries to Africa during the colonial era, according to a conference in South Africa.
The five day meeting in early July brought together 120 theologians, historians and sociologists from around the world to look at the effect of globalization on Christians and the extent to which their religion is now rooted in the Southern Hemisphere.
Prof. Jehu Hanciles of Sierra Leone, an Anglican now teaching at Fuller Seminary in California, said, "The processes of globalization have contributed to an explosion in the number of non-governmental organizations. And in Africa they often wield more power and influence than emasculated and impoverished governments." He added that critics were right to compare the impact of NGOs to that of western missionaries in the 19th century, "not least because reliance on external resources allows them to promote western-defined solutions which cause social disruption on the ground."
While definitions of globalization may vary, he said that it was already clear that the developing world's contribution to the process would be to re-export Christianity to the Northern Hemisphere. "The less well-noticed fact," he added, "is that the much-celebrated shifts in global Christianity have had little impact on the privileged position of the Western tradition within the theological curriculum."
He argued that Christianity was spreading more successfully in the developing world today than it had in the days of European missionaries. "Christianity thrived in Africa because it lends itself to translation and takes on the garb of different cultures much more easily than, for instance, Islam, which comes with its own language, Arabic."
One of the ways Christianity would be re-exported would be through immigrant communities, he added. "Christianity is a migratory religion and, throughout the centuries, migration movements have been a functional element in Christian expansion," he said.
Middle East church leaders express gratitude for international support
(WCC) A delegation from the World Council of Churches returned from a four-day visit to the Middle East to report that Christian church leaders in the area are grateful for those around the world who have visited, spoken out against human rights violations, and have been working for justice and peace in the region. It is time for partners in the ecumenical movement to go beyond statements and resolutions, the church leaders urged. And they pleaded for an action-oriented solidarity for the Palestinian struggle -- including proposals to develop and support and accompany the church of Jerusalem and the wider Palestinian and Israeli civil society in a non-violent struggle against injustice.
The mandate of the delegation was to explore ways to assist in developing an international ecumenical response to the conflict. In particular the delegation discussed the feasibility of an ecumenical witness for peace program, as well as an international ecumenical presence for protection, monitoring and reporting.
The delegation's visit was part of a preparatory process for an international ecumenical consultation to be convened by the WCC August 6-7 in Geneva.