wfn.org | African women find little rest in hard, busy lives

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Jan. 16, 2002 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
10-31-71BP{011}

NOTE: A photograph is available. For related coverage, see UMNS story #010.

By Linda Green*

SAN DIEGO (UMNS) - The western concept of Sabbath is not a reality for
clergywomen in Africa.

"There is no Sabbath for us back home. We work 24 hours a day with little or
nothing," said the Rev. Nelly Wright of Liberia. "You are blessed in America
and have opportunity to have everything. You can help us make a difference."

Wright and other clergywomen from Africa spoke about their daily lives
before and during the 2002 International United Methodist Clergywomen's
Consultation. The Jan. 7-11 consultation was designed to help clergywomen
remember that setting aside time for rest is necessary for physical and
spiritual well-being. During interviews, many African clergywomen described
lives that afford little time for rest and renewal, not just for themselves
but for African women in general.

Female and male clergy in America depend on the congregation to meet their
needs. "I cannot identify with that," said the Rev. Dorothy Macully, also
from Liberia. "In my country, a clergywoman is the congregation's mother,
father and also its everything." If a parishioner is hungry or has no food,
the pastor is expected to provide assistance, although she is also without.
"You don't have time to recharge yourself. You can't step away for awhile."

Wright and Macully were among four clergywomen from Liberia attending the
consultation. Each expressed feeling guilty for being in San Diego, having
fun and access to large quantities of food, while their families at home had
almost nothing to eat, their fellow clergywomen were barely coping and their
communities were being ripped apart by conflict between tribes. The
situation is the same in many other African countries, torn by tribal and
civil warfare and struggling with high levels of poverty, unemployment and
other pandemic problems.

The guilt was most visible at meal times. Sitting down to dinner on the
first night, the Rev. Rebecca Sackor said, "I could not eat. I thought about
the six children I am responsible for and what I left home for them, which
was very little." Sackor is pastor of Weamah United Methodist Church in Pami
Hills, Liberia. 

When told about the $35 per diem each was allowed for meals, Sackor and her
Liberian clergywomen were astounded. "Thirty-five dollars would feed a
family for almost three weeks in my country," she said. 

Observing the amount of food left on plates to be thrown away, "I wished I
could grab that garbage can, take it back with me and my family would have
enough to eat that day," said the Rev. Nelly Wright, pastor of Tubman United
Methodist Church in Paynesville, Liberia. "We get what we can afford back
home. I felt uncomfortable eating."

The Rev. Anna Kpaan, superintendent of the Monrovia District, said her guilt
at the consultation was a result of the desperate situation in her country.
Seventy-five percent of the population is unemployed, she said. "God feeds
us every day and makes a way out of no way."

The women are suffering from abandonment and abject poverty, said Macully of
New Georgia, Liberia. Visiting America was a blessing, but seeing the other
clergywomen enjoying themselves made her want to say, "Why can't you do
something to help the less fortunate women and children back home?"

The Liberian women received scholarships to attend the consultation from the
United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry, and each received
$125 from Liberian Bishop John Innis. Each woman left a portion of that at
home for the care of her family and used some of the funds to pay her
country's exit tax. "In spite of what we were given, we came here with
nothing and we will return with nothing," Wright said.

Kpaan, also the president of the United Methodist clergywomen in her
country, said being pastor in Liberia "is a sacrificial job." The only
income they receive is the sometimes $15 per month that comes from the
church salary, she said. "We don't get enough. In order for clergywomen to
feed their families, we have to go the extra mile. We don't have the basic
necessities for life, yet we have to be role models." She expressed the
empathy she has when she visits the nearly 100 clergywomen and observes that
most are without husbands and child support, are shoeless and wear
threadbare clothing. Sometimes, she said, she is in the same situation. 

The Liberians said they and their colleagues cannot afford a clerical
collar, Book of Discipline, Book of Worship or Bible study materials. "We
are doing ministry in broken pieces," Wright said. 

Many do ministry and engage in their day-to-day activities without
transportation, telephones and electricity. "We use candles and we walk
miles," Kpaan said.

During the Jan. 7-11 consultation, the more than 1,185 clergywomen from
across the globe were provided tools to rediscover and reclaim the Sabbath
while responding to the challenge to change the world. The women focused on
the theme of "Creating a Woman's Sabbath: Come Away and Rest Away," and
participants had opportunities to explore what it means to rest in God.

"I believe that God is about to look upon my country with eyes of
compassion," Wright said. 

"We want the clergywomen from here to help clergywomen from home. Women in
America will not be free if we are not free," Macully said.

During a workshop on "Sabbath in Various African Traditions," the panel
speakers -- a Kenyan, a Zimbabwean and a clergywoman from the Congo -- said
the western concept of Sabbath is not a reality for clergywomen in Africa.

Finding instances of Kenyan women experiencing Sabbath was a challenge for
Anne Gatobu, a student at United Methodist-related Iliff School of Theology
in Denver. Finding Sabbath in the traditional context was difficult because
most practices in her country work against a woman's psychological, physical
and spiritual well-being, she said. She listed polygamy, isolation during
menstruation, genital mutilation and other instances of abuse that
dehumanize women in her country and across the continent as examples.

As she prepared for her presentation, she encountered impediments that
caused her to wonder, "Where could rest, peace or Sabbath be for the Kenyan
woman?"

"How would one even think of peace of the mind and body, of the soul when
(the Kenyan woman) has too much responsibility and demand, and such little
freedom?" she asked the audience.

Gatobu said she found instances where Kenyan woman get away to rest and
renew their spirits of womanhood and their connection to meaningful life.
These occasions, she said, are not in the traditional mandates for Sabbath,
but are actually found in what the modern woman deems as atrocities and is
working to change.

For example, polygamy is practiced in some tribes, and the Kenyan woman is
often involved in choosing a second or third wife for her husband. "It gives
her a break from his sexual demands," Gatobu said, and that provides a type
of rest.  

In Kenya, a woman is considered to be impure during menstruation and is
isolated for three to five days, a practice similar to Hebrew customs in the
Bible. Gatobu said Sabbath occurs during the three to five days a month when
a woman gets time off from her usual duties and rests awhile. The woman is
not responsible during that time for feeding and caring for her family. The
same is true for a woman who has given birth. She is secluded for three
months, and her household is another's responsibility.

Gatobu noted that in all of the practices that seem to be dehumanizing,
women found a way to create Sabbath. "There was a community of other women
around that made the women experience Sabbath. Indeed, Sabbath for the
Kenyan woman is not just an individual retreat, but has a communal
dimension."

The Rev. Kabamba Kiboko of Prairie View, Texas, and a native of the
Democratic Republic of Congo, described how her understanding of Sabbath has
been impacted by the traditions of the Sanga tribe, to which she belongs.
The closest word to Sabbath in her native language is "kisungu," which means
education, but not in the western sense of the word. By definition, kisungu
is holistic and involves learning about being, she said.

Kiboko said kisungu involves learning who you are for the purpose of
understanding why you are. It is a continuous process of learning about
yourself and your origins, your connectedness, your inner makeup- "all in
order to understand your purpose for being, why you are here in this time
and space, and why you exist in the first place," she said.

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