wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Woes aplenty

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #7676 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Woes aplenty
03210
April 24, 2003

Woes aplenty

Moderator's trip is balm to drought-ridden Dakota ranchers

by Evan Silverstein

BISON, SD - During a tour of drought-stricken South Dakota, the Rev. Fahed
Abu-Akel, moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA),
stopped in at Dakota Feed & Seed to watch an apparatus called an auger fill
feed sacks with grain.

In Bison, a small, dry town in northwestern South Dakota, the moderator and a
small delegation of other church leaders watched 16 ranchers collect the
orange-brown bounty and carry it, two bags at a time, to their waiting
trucks.
	
The ranchers hauled away 3,000 pounds apiece, hoping it would be enough to
sustain their livestock until the arrival of spring rains.
	
The grain was from Hands Across South Dakota, a relief project launched
jointly by the Presbytery of South Dakota, the South Dakota Farmers Union and
South Dakota Extension. The Hands program, now also supported by farm
organizations, government officials, chambers of commerce and the Association
of Christian Churches of South Dakota, has worked in recent months to supply
desperately needed food to humans and livestock in the area.
	
"This trip creates in our mind, in our psyche, in our life really, the
diversity of the PC(USA)," said Abu-Akel, a Palestinian-American minister
from Atlanta. "Small churches, small presbyteries, and how our members come
from every part of life."
	
Two years of relentless drought have afflicted a part of the country that
Presbyterian author Kathleen Norris described as a "region that requires that
you wrestle with it before it bestows a blessing."
	
Aside from an occasional light spackling, precipitation has been hard to come
by in western South Dakota. Streams and ponds have dried up, pastures have
shriveled, and many ranchers have been forced to sell off their herds. 
	
"Some are losing their farms," said the Rev. Peter Funch, the executive of
the Presbytery of South Dakota, who accompanied Abu-Akel on his tour.
"Particularly the younger farmers, those who just have gotten into it,
probably less than 10 years ago. I'm hearing that a number of them have
already gone under."
	
Abu-Akel and others in the delegation learned that drought is one of a number
of problems now plaguing the nation's increasingly bare breadbasket. 
	
The survival of long-time farming and ranching families is in question
because of an escalating economic crisis caused by a shift in the industry
from small operations to large, corporate mega-farms.
	
Entire communities are withering away.
	
"I'm absolutely convinced we're not talking about a rural crisis anymore,"
said the Rev. Dick Poppen, a Presbyterian tent-making pastor from DeSmet, SD.
"We're really talking about an agricultural revolution that continues to go
on, all across the world. ... We don't know how it's going to play out."
	
The group toured Poppen's farm, about 112 miles northwest of Sioux Falls, and
visited the church he serves as pastor, Endeavor Presbyterian in nearby
Fadora.
	
In between, Abu-Akel visited Spirit Lake Presbyterian Church in DeSmet, where
he enjoyed a "farm meal," and Carthage Church, a United Church of Christ
congregation also led by Poppen.
	
The delegation made dozens of such stops during its whirlwind crossing of
South Dakota, dropping in on agriculture-related project sites, family farms,
ranches, rural churches and community service programs. The group traveled
east to west, stopping in little towns including Brookings, Miller and
Meadow. 
	
The eventful three-day tour, which started on March 24, was part of the
moderator's "Mission USA" trip, the third incarnation of a program that takes
the PC(USA) moderator to different parts of the United States to check out
Presbyterian-related projects and mission sites.
	
This year, tour organizers had two objectives: to give Abu-Akel a first-hand
look at the social, religious, economic and emotional effects of the
agricultural crisis, and to let him see some of the PC(USA) ministries
addressing the problems.
	
Abu-Akel said his first trip to South Dakota helped him understand the vital
connection between urban and rural communities. 
	
"The crisis of ranchers, the crisis of drought, is difficult to see, living
in Atlanta, living in New York or Los Angeles or Miami, where some of us in
urban settings can go 24 hours to Kroger and buy anything we want," he said.
	
Among those traveling with the moderator, were in addition to Funch, the Rev.
Curtis A. Kearns Jr., director of the National Ministries Division (NMD);
Kearns' executive assistant, Pam Green; J. Grant Lowe, interim executive of
the Synod of Lakes and Prairies; and Diana A. Stephen, the PC(USA)'s
associate for Network Support for Rural and Small Church Ministries.
	
One highlight was a visit to a tiny, two-room schoolhouse near Meadow that
looked like something from television's Little House on the Prairie. 
	
 "Can you say 'salaam?'" the moderator asked an audience ranging from
kindergartners to eighth-graders. "That's Arabic for 'peace.'"
	
The delegation also visited Brookings, near Sioux Falls, where they met with
members of Dakota Rural Action (DRA), an organization of farmers, ranchers,
small-business owners and working people who advocate for family farms, rural
communities and conservation.
	
Last year, DRA received a $100,000 grant (over three years) from the
Self-Development of People program area. Stephen's office has been
contributing $1,500 a year for several years. In 2001, the Presbyterian
Hunger Program kicked in $12,000.
	
"The visit allowed us to see mission in action as we listened to the stories
of congregations, a public-policy advocacy group and community redevelopers,
and saw a food bank and saw emergency grain delivered from the eastern to the
western part of the state," Stephen said. "The PC(USA) to some degree or
other is involved in all these mission endeavors."
	
The visitors were treated to farm-fresh meals and spirited worship at many
locations, and discussed agricultural and related issues with elders,
ministers and church members, many of whom said they were honored to play
host to the denomination's highest elected official.
	
"This is really exciting," said Carolyn Petik, a Presbyterian rancher from
Meadow, who with husband, Jerry, grows barley, oats, alfalfa and hay. "We
would have never expected in a thousand years for the moderator of the
General Assembly to come to this part of the country. It makes us feel good
that the greater church cares enough about us to be here. It brings us hope
that things can change, and that we're not fighting the battles alone."
	
The tour's farm focus was inspired by a report adopted by last year's General
Assembly, We Are What We Eat, a response to a farm-crisis overture enacted by
the 1999 GA. The report challenges Presbyterians to address issues of food
production and consumption.
	
The Petiks and 40-member Hope Presbyterian Church in Keldron, SD, were among
the supporters of the 1999 overture, whose official sponsor was the
Presbytery of South Dakota. 
	
"What I hope we're actually able to do (on this tour) is put a face on the
kind of issues that are covered in the report - the challenges facing small,
independent farmers, the issues of migration away from the farm to the urban
areas, and how the rural churches and ministries are coping with that
reality," said Kearns, the NMD director.
	
Abu-Akel praised Presbyterians for serving as a unifying force in rural
communities and helping farmers and ranchers "stay on the land and continue
working in the name of Jesus Christ."
	
"This trip sensitized me to see the importance of rural ministry and
importance of the church to take seriously small congregations," he said.
"These small congregations are becoming ... a change agent in our society."
	
The moderator said he hopes the We Are What We Eat report will be a step
toward revitalization of rural churches, noting that more than half of the
11,000-plus PC(USA) congregations are in rural communities.  
	
"We are a small-congregation denomination," he said, "and we need to take the
small churches seriously. We need to take the struggling churches seriously,
and rural ministry seriously, all over America."
	
Since last September, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has sent $60,000 in
drought aid to the Presbytery of South Dakota. Most of it has gone to Hands
Across South Dakota, which has a regional task force, co-chaired by Jerry
Petik, that has gathered information on drought-assistance needs in eight
northwestern counties, and was in charge of last month's grain distribution
in Bison.
	
Dependence on food pantries has doubled since the drought began. The very
people who once produced food for the world now need a food handout. That's a
bitter pill for farmers and ranchers to swallow.
	
"Out in this county, when you ask a farmer or a rancher if they need help,
and they say, 'Yes they do,' then they're very desperate," said Clint Clark,
a county extension educator and a Presbyterian. 
	
The food pantry Florence Hoff manages in Bison helps about 20 families a
month.
	
"I say, 'If you won't eat it, don't take it, because someone else may need
it,'" Hoff, a commissioned lay pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Bison,
told Abu-Akel.
	
She started the Bison program because some people had a hard time getting to
the food pantry she opened 13 years ago in Lemmon, about 35 miles away.
	
This was the first moderator's mission trip since April 2001, when the Rev.
Syngman Rhee toured the Northeast. The inaugural tour, in 2000, took Freda
Gardner to the Northwest. In 2001, the Rev. Jack Rogers didn't participate.
NMD officials hope the tours will become a regular part of the moderator's
schedule. 

*** For instructions on using this system (including how to UNJOIN this
meeting), send e-mail to mailrequests@ecunet.org
------------------------------------------
Send your response to this article to pcusa.news@pcusa.org

------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send an 'unsubscribe' request to

pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org