Emily Shaw
My Brothers and Sisters in Africa
Dr. Davis and Dr. Moeller
1 February 2012
Will the Real Missionary Please Stand Up?
For the pre-trip meetings early in January I was selected to research the role of Christian missionaries in shaping the landscape of Africa in both a historical and religious context. Pros included building schools, hospitals, and bringing fresh water to remote locations. Cons included using religion as a tool of imperial domination and demeaning African cultures and traditions for their barbaric nature. During my research, I also came across a paper that many of my classmates, including myself, found paradoxical and even a bit amusing. This particular reading hailed the successes of African missionaries bringing religion to the West. The implication being that Africa had not only grasped Christianity but also was preaching to the same Europeans who had introduced it there in the first place.
In America, I had been skeptical, but after spending just three weeks in Africa I now know that it is true. I cannot say why the marketing industry portrays Africa as the “dark continent”—a land backward, starving, and devoid of religion, but this is the picture of Africa I had upon arrival. Instead, I found myself becoming friends with Mercy, the preacher’s daughter, and feeling completely at home in the Methodist church. If anything, I experienced a greater showing of faith in Africa that I typically do in America and it felt good.
In Zimbabwe, we did a lot of traveling around the countryside and the effects of missionary work could be spotted quite readily. Many schools and hospitals still carry the name “Misson” such as the Mission Hospital located near the Fairfield Children’s Home in Old Mutare. Churches still fund these schools, which allot a significant portion of their curriculum to studying the Bible. There is no talk of the separation between church and state or offending other religious beliefs. I even met an Africa University student who was writing her Faculty of Theology paper on how the separation between church and state is not found in Zimbabwe.
But it wasn’t until I had attended a Methodist sermon conducted entirely in Shona,seated in a plastic lawn chair,in a church with dirt floors and no roof, that I realized how strong their faith really was. With Dean Beauty translating the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13:24-30), I heard the gospel preached to a congregation who had walked several miles to be there that day. They were God’s children, his wheat, and the praise they gave to the Lord made me feel like a weed in comparison. Nevertheless, with my faith feeling restored by the choir’s lovely voices and the members praying on their knees in the red dirt, I had truly been blessed that day. I have never experienced a people so poor by my American standards give so much of themselves and their resources to a group of visitors. I ended up leaving a small offering that I pray will help them complete the building of their church, which in turn will allow the lay pastor to reach more lives. I had never felt more compelled to leave an offering than I did that day, because the work of the Lord is evident in that place.
Overall, past mission work in Africa has taken root, but African faith in the present may have less to do with foreign missionaries that I could have ever imagined. I witnessesRobert Soungweme, who makes just $2.00 a day working on the Africa University farm, thanking the Lord daily for all that He had provided. I met women who would divert my thanks to them directly to the Lord and Elsen who would calmly reassure us that the Lord would watch over thebus as we traveled through Zimbabwe.
Even though mission work was not my primary motivation for going to Africa, I strongly believe that I gained much more, spiritually; from my visit than I ever had to offer. No matter the language, we are all His children worshipping the same God, only I discovered that the Africans in Zimbabawe, have taken such a strong hold of Christianity that I consider myself privileged to have been allowed to worship alongside the most faithful group of people I have ever encountered.
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[Do you notice the dove flying in the clouds above the church?]