wfn.org | U.S. group witnesses faith, devastation in Sierra Leone

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

March 7, 2000 News media contact: Linda Green·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-31-71B{121}
 
NOTE: This report is accompanied by a sidebar, UMNS story #122.

By Pamela Crosby*

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (UMNS) - A visit to war-torn Sierra Leone gave six
United Methodists a first-hand look at the suffering and need for relief in
the West African country.

The U.S. group met with survivors of atrocities and saw the devastation that
eight years of civil war have wreaked upon Sierra Leone. At the 120th
session of the Sierra Leone Annual Conference, Feb. 22-27, the visitors
heard Bishop Joseph C. Humper repeat his call for international intervention
in his country.

"We call on the international community to know that delay can be dangerous
and that they must come to our help," Humper said. "We are calling on all
peace-loving people to help break the deadlock on disarmament."

The six Americans, representing the United Methodist Board of Discipleship,
United Methodist Communications (UMCom) and the Wisconsin Annual Conference,
were in Sierra Leone at Humper's invitation. The bishop had invited the Rev.
Ezra Earl Jones, top staff executive of the Board of Discipleship, to visit
his country last May. Jones had accepted and arranged for a delegation to
accompany him.
 
A United Nations peacekeeping force is trying to implement a peace accord
reached last year. However, rebel soldiers with the Revolutionary United
Front (RUF) continue to attack civilians, and few have turned in their
weapons, according to news reports.
	
The war has devastated families, communities, businesses and churches, and
thousands of United Methodists are among those suffering in the aftermath.
United Methodist-related schools and educational centers have been
destroyed, churches and property burned, and ministers and their families
left homeless. Last year's annual conference session was postponed because
of war-related atrocities that occurred Jan. 6-16, 1999.

"We are all traumatized," said Rev. David Caulker, former Board of
Discipleship member and district superintendent in Sierra Leone. "All of us
have suffered and are still suffering through horrible, horrible
circumstances."

Jones was accompanied by the Rev. Horacio Rios, the board's director of
international ministries, and UMCom Producer Pamela Crosby, who attended the
meeting to learn the communications needs of Sierra Leone church leaders. 

Bishop Sharon Rader of the church's Wisconsin Area - and president of the
churchwide Commission on Communication -- sent three representatives to
research ways to enhance her area's active partnership with the Sierra Leone
Annual Conference. The Wisconsin team included Harland Samson, International
Volunteers-In-Mission coordinator; the Rev. Joyce Rich, associate pastor of
First United Methodist Church in Appleton, Wis.; and Amy Valdez Barker,
conference coordinator of youth ministries.

The United Methodist Church has 85,000 members and a wider community of
200,000 people in Sierra Leone, according to estimates in the 1997 World
Methodist Council Handbook of Information. Other Methodist traditions also
are active in the country.

While in Sierra Leone, the group visited several United Methodist churches
and schools, a displacement camp and an amputee camp, and met with church
leaders about the conference's needs. They also discussed challenges related
to Christian education, evangelism, worship, stewardship and communications.
	
During the 2000 Sierra Leone Annual Conference, the Americans heard Humper
and Shirley Yeama Gbujama, an associate lay leader and member of parliament,
discuss the challenges their country faces. 

Besides leading the country's United Methodists, Humper also was recently
elected president of the Council of Churches in Sierra Leone and honorary
president of the World Council on Religion and Peace. 

The bishop recalled the rebel invasion of Freetown, Jan. 6, 1999, which
occurred on the Christian holy day of Epiphany. 

"The result of that memorable day," he said, "was the killing of many
innocent people; burning of houses, churches, mosques and public buildings;
raping of girls and women; abduction of children, youth and young adults;
destruction, looting and the like."  
	
In response to the government's declaration that peace was "in Sierra
Leone's hands," rebel troops also cut off the hands of innocent victims.
More than 1,000 Sierra Leonians have lost fingers, hands, lips, legs and
ears in the civil war, according to a report by Human Rights Watch last
June. At a camp for amputees, the U.S. group met a young victim whose left
arm was severed when she was 2 weeks old.

Humper discussed the church's vision in the context of Sierra Leone's
troubles, and he gave conference leaders a 23-point challenge. He encouraged
the release of 2,000 children and young girls who are still abducted and
raised concern about the slow pace of the disarmament, demobilization,
encampment and reintegration process. 	

"In a world where the craving for power becomes belligerence," he continued,
"where greed threatens the ecologically delicate web of life, where
injustice seems to triumph over justice ... in this world we, as United
Methodists, witness the presence and challenge and struggle of grace."

The pre-conference journal listed page after page of instances where
buildings and projects have been destroyed because of war. Yet the faith and
hope of the church members remain strong, as reflected in the annual
conference theme: "With God All Things Are Possible."

In her laity address, Gbujama cited specific areas in which the conference
needs help.

"In the same vein of reconstructing our lives," she said, "... the laity
desire the strengthening of the community development arm of the conference
to assist in the rehabilitation of mission and community schools,
congregational farms and other such community-based projects at the
conference level."
	
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*Crosby is a producer at United Methodist Communications.
	

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United Methodist News Service
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