Learning to See

A Memoir of Southern Africa

Richard Christensen

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781666731446, 9781666723946
• eBook ISBN: 9781666723953
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Ministère chrétien

Teaching in the southern African nation of Botswana in the early 1980s, Richard Christensen faced a new world, one endlessly fascinating and challenging. Experiencing warm hospitality from many people, sharing both joyful celebrations and painful struggles with students, he and his family encountered a deeper sense of the true meaning of community. Travel in apartheid South Africa and war-weary Zimbabwe gave him a fuller understanding of the reality of oppression and how people of faith endured their plight and kept hope alive. In this experience, so surprising in many ways, he came to a deepened realization of the genuine freedom of the gospel and the hope it affords us. He saw that relationships are what save us, that the salvation of God in Christ is not merely personal and individual, but communal, and that we are thus more dependent upon one another than we realize. Learning to see the world with new eyes, he discovered not only a more expansive vision of the church and the world, but also a more honest and complete understanding of himself as a product of an affluent and segregated society.

1

The Face of a New World

Sunday Morning in a New Land

African Worship

“Stop! Stop!” The church deacon leading worship interrupted the hymn singing, scolding the congregation for not singing more vigorously. He insisted that they begin the hymn again at a faster tempo. People responded by holding their personal Setswana language hymnals higher as they began to sing again, this time with more volume and greater enthusiasm.

Early in our time in Maun, at the edge of the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana, Jack Purves took Elaine, our ten-year-old Sherry, and me to worship with the local congregation of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa. Our partner church with the United Church of Christ, the UCCSA helped sponsor Maun Secondary School, where Jack served as principal and we were assigned for a three-year term. The church’s roots lay in the nineteenth-century work of the London Missionary Society, the group that sent missionaries Robert Moffatt and his son-in-law David Livingstone to Botswana. Old-timers still referred to the church as the “LMS church.” The pastor, Rev. Peter Mudiwa of the majority Shona tribe in Zimbabawe, had fled the violence of Zimbabwe’s civil war two years before. He served as pastor of the church and also taught some of the religious education classes at our school, work that I would share with him and Jack’s wife Christine.

On entering the church building, we mingled with people of all ages as we found a place in a pew midway down the center aisle. Much chatter surrounded us as people settled in to their places. People around us greeted us with shy but warm smiles. We watched as little children wandered the building at will. Dogs roamed around the back of the sanctuary and up and down the side aisles, but the more than 150 people filling the building didn’t seem to mind. Several elderly women sat on the floor, legs stretched straight out in front of them as they customarily sat on the ground at home. On the front wall hung a simple wooden cross. We noticed many of the women dressed in what appeared to be a kind of uniform: white cap and blouse with a black skirt. Many men wore white t-shirts with the words “Soldiers of Christ” printed on the front. We later learned that each of the churches in Maun (and around the country) had distinctive uniforms, many quite colorful and festive. Walking through the village on our way to worship, we had spotted a group of women with sky blue sashes worn diagonally across one shoulder over white blouses. Each sash had a bright yellow star sewn on it. We soon learned to identify which church someone attended by the style and color of the uniform.

In a setting quite different from our Pennsylvania experience, Elaine and I soon became caught up in the enthusiastic spirit of joy that poured forth in the worship. Her shyness overcoming her, introverted Sherry seemed hesitant and uncertain about participating, clinging close to her mother. Rev. Mudiwa baptized a small baby and welcomed two new converts into the life of the church. A deacon helped to lead worship, calling on several elderly men in the congregation to pray on behalf of the church, a common custom in African church life. Each man rose, sometimes slowly and in obvious pain, to offer a lengthy prayer. As different as the setting seemed to us, we experienced almost immediately the warmth and fellowship of the church universal. Barriers of culture and distance broke down as people welcomed us, loaning us hymnals and helping us find the right page as we joined in singing hymns. People carried their own personal hymnals to worship, so none lay available in the pews. One tune seemed quite familiar at first, but I could not place it because of the Setswana language. Then it dawned on me: “Bringing in the Sheaves.”

Rev. Mudiwa had been ordered from Zimbabwe to Maun by his Methodist bishop after being threatened by one of the rival liberation movements fighting to overthrow the White minority government of the nation once known as Rhodesia. As Peter had not yet mastered Setswana, one of the deacons translated his sermon from English into the local language. From the sermon and by simply looking around at the congregation gathered there, we had our eyes opened to the circumstances faced by many people at the time. In a congregation of more than a hundred people, the offering that day totaled a little more than the equivalent of fifteen US dollars. Most people had little or no cash, depending upon raising cattle and a couple of crops for their living. Even so, moved to contribute more than they already had, a few people came up front toward the end of the worship to drop more coins in the offering plate. Strange and mystifying to us, a widespread belief in witchcraft and magic spells in the entire region generated fear in the hearts of many. Peter spoke to this fear in his sermon by declaring that fear could be overcome only by trusting in something stronger than fear: the love of God that binds us together.

Looking around the room, I also noticed a larger issue of love and reconciliation evident in the congregation. Some members of the Herero tribe mixed in with the others in the crowd. The Herero had fled east from Namibia into Botswana many years before, and Botswana people often regarded them with disdain. But there they were, the Herero women in their colorful patchwork skirts worn at ankle-length and cloth headdresses shaped like cattle horns. Defying common divisions of tribe and clan, a sign of the power of real reconciliation shone brightly.

A Powerful Witness

Mr. Motsamai Mpho, the national leader of the Botswana Independence Party and a former presidential candidate, sat in the congregation. People generally had a high respect for Mr. Mpho, both for his political activity and for his deep Christian faith. In the early 1950s, he had studied in South Africa and joined the African National Congress, actively working in the ANC’s nonviolent political activities. In December 1956 the government arrested him as one of a group of 156 political and trade union leaders charged with high treason. The police assigned each prisoner a number, designating Mr. Mpho as accused no. forty-eight and Mr. Nelson Mandela as accused no. thirty-two. Charges were soon dismissed. But in March 1960, the apartheid government declared a state of emergency and arrested a large group again, jailing Mr. Mpho in Pretoria. After detaining him for four months, the government released him, giving him seven days to leave South Africa to return home to Botswana, then called Bechuanaland. Some months later, he and two other men founded a political party initially known as the Bechuanaland Peoples’ Party.

Only a month before we arrived in Maun, Mr. Mpho had stood up in worship one Sunday and confessed that he realized that he hated Ian Smith, the White leader of the minority government in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Saying that he knew he could not be a Christian if he held this hate within himself, he then stated that both Botswana and the newly liberated Zimbabwe now welcomed Ian Smith. Upon hearing this remarkable story of his life and commitment, a feeling arose in me that would come often that first year. In southern Africa, it seemed, I would learn far more than I ever taught.

2

Starting Over

An End and a Beginning

Wilderness Wanderings

I came to southern Africa as a result of a broken marriage and an overpowering desire to take up a challenge unlike anything I had ever done. In 1979, the year I turned thirty-four, the need for a change grew strong in me. Two years before, serving as a parish minister in central Pennsylvania, I suffered the pain of an unwanted divorce. As a result, a powerful urge began to grow in me to see the world in a new way. Always being one who sought more information, more understanding, seeking the right questions, always looking for ways to open the eyes of others to new worlds and greater possibilities, I grew up with a strong desire to learn, to understand, and to help others to see meaning. Attending theological school and becoming a pastor helped me to get a grasp of the depth and seriousness of life. I learned to be fully present with people struggling with grief, pain and aimlessness. Those two years up through 1979 had been spent in an agony of thrashing my way through the disenchanted forest of the painful divorce, a time filled with agony and uncertainty. I longed to see something new, yearned to see the real beauty in the midst of the ugliness of the world.

An introvert in the extravert profession of parish pastor, I struggled with a strong desire to understand and explain the whys of life. I wanted to interpret ideas and experiences so that people would grasp something of the rich tapestry of this world we inhabit. I longed to see the world with new eyes, as a child does when seeing sights for the first time. The word religion itself has roots in a Latin verb which means to reconnect, to put things back together, to make meaning, to see the world whole. Wherever people lose connection, they fail to see one another, blocking the relationships that make life truly human. When the connections in life are broken, we find it much easier to dismiss others, pay no attention to them, and even harm them. For me, becoming a minister became a matter of fostering relationships, making meaning in the light of Christ. In 1979, to my surprise and delight, intriguing opportunities came to my attention through the world mission agency of the United Church of Christ: chaplaincy positions in Indonesia, France, and the southern African nation of Botswana.

My refuge in loneliness became prayer and dear friends. For more than a year I wandered through a wide range of emotions, doubting my own worth. Emotions ranged from “It can’t be real,” to a despairing, “What will I do now?” and then finally, “Maybe I’ll be okay, even if I’m alone.” Slowly I came to see that I still had a life, a gift always greater than we imagine. Gradually the conclusion formed in my mind that my own worth as a person did not depend upon being married. Even more importantly for my self-understanding, I began to recognize what had been my own lack of sensitivity in the marriage, reluctantly concluding that placing the fault for a failed marriage completely outside of myself involved simple self-righteousness and denial. I found it no easy task to work through the slow process of honest self-examination and admit the truth to myself. I had paid much too little attention to her needs for affirmation and support.

Elaine Enters

In the midst of the application process for overseas ministry, I met Elaine, a woman of deep sensitivity, strong faith, and keen wit. Coincidentally, in the same time period of 1977–79, Elaine had endured a similar experience of a difficult divorce. Her husband had left after almost ten years of marriage. Both Elaine and I had entered a first marriage fully confident of lifelong commitment, so each of us felt bereft when our respective spouses no longer wished to be married. My own parents had lived a long love affair through four years of dating and what eventually became sixty-one years of marriage. It never entered my mind that anything different would be true for me. The feeling stuck with me of having been roughly thrown off a merry-go-round of wishful illusions of a perfect marriage.

We met in October at a Christian singles group meeting. In later years, she would smile and tease me about being too slow to approach her. Several weeks after meeting me, she realized that if she wanted more attention from me, the first move would have to be hers. One evening in mid-November, she telephoned to ask me for a date.

Our first date, over sundaes at an ice cream parlor, resulted in a remarkable two-hour conversation overflowing with the joyous discovery of one another and an openness neither of us had encountered in what seemed a very long time. We discovered in one another genuine compassion and a passion for life that had not been shut down by the agony of the previous several years. When we said goodbye outside in the cold and windy night, I shivered, but not from the cold. Something inside had broken loose, an outpouring of longing and emotion too long bottled up. We met frequently thereafter, talking for long stretches, praying together, and continually discovering how much we shared in common, in attitudes, in faith, and in our quest to offer ourselves fully to another in love and real openness. I had emerged from the disenchanted forest.

Elaine and her ten-year-old daughter Sherry lived in a mobile home that she owned on a two-acre tract of land near the little town of Rebersburg, twenty miles east of State College. Her mother lived a short distance down the road and could look after Sherry when necessary. One of her two sisters also lived nearby. With no rent or mortgage to pay, along with the help of her family, Elaine managed to live on her paycheck from her job as an assistant bookkeeper...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: The Face of a New World
• Chapter 2: Starting Over
• Chapter 3: If You Want to Go Quickly, Go Alone; If You Want to Go Far, Go Together
• Chapter 4: Teacher Training and Travel
• Chapter 5: Settling in and Making Friends
• Chapter 6: Keep Your Eyes on Your Destination and Not Where You Stumbled
• Chapter 7: If You Want to Teach Someone, Don’t Beat Around the Bush
• Chapter 8: Death of a President
• Chapter 9: Students and Teachers
• Chapter 10: Doubling the Size of Our World
• Chapter 11: Scripture Union and a First Retreat
• Chapter 12: Life in Maun
• Chapter 13: Believing is Seeing
• Chapter 14: Wisdom Is Like a Baobab Tree: A Single Person’s Hand Cannot Embrace It
• Chapter 15: Christmas Travel Adventures
• Chapter 16: Transitions, Troubles, and Death in a New Year
• Chapter 17: If You Never Raise Your Eyes, You Think That You Are the Highest Point
• Chapter 18: Games, Stories, and Celebrations
• Chapter 19: Teaching Teachers
• Chapter 20: The One Who Has Many Friends Is Not Caught by Darkness on the Road
• Chapter 21: The One Who Has Many Friends . . . (II)
• Chapter 22: The Circle of Life
• Chapter 23: The One Who Stumbles, Falls Forward
• Chapter 24: Beauty Will Save the World
• Chapter 25: The Road to Freedom Is Full of Thorns and Fire, Yet Happy Is the One Who Follows It
• Chapter 26: The Light Shines in the Darkness . . .
• Chapter 27: . . . And the Darkness Will Not Overcome It
• Chapter 28: Too Many Bends on a Footpath Do Not Prevent One from Reaching One’s Destination
• Chapter 29: Farewells and a Final Adventure
• Chapter 30: The One Who Never Leaves Home Thinks Mother Is the Best Cook
• Bibliography