wfn.org | An Experience to Change Her Life

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4-January-1999 
98415 
 
    An Experience to Change Her Life 
 
    by Carol Fouke 
    National Council of Churches News and Information Office 
 
HARARE, Zimbabwe--Thelma Adair, former moderator of the General Assembly of 
the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), had an experience in Zambia last month 
that is set to change her way of life when she returns to the United 
States. 
 
    Adair was visiting Zambia before taking part in the World Council of 
Churches (WCC) festival marking the end of the "Ecumenical Decade: Churches 
in Solidarity with Women," and she gained a new sense of being a neighbor. 
 
    "There was a bad storm, and teh family came with candles for me and to 
make sure I was okay.  I would have let my guests sleep through it!  The 
best they had, they offered.  When I go back home I have to re-examine the 
casual manner in which I take other people." 
 
    Another issue about family and being neighbors came from her visit to 
an orphanage, she said.  Few government resources were available.  A huge 
percentage of the national budget had to go to external debt payments. 
 
    "We as Christians need to help our government and the IMF 
(International Monetary Fund) to reflect on how they are asking these 
countries to pay their debt," she said, speaking in support of the debt 
cancellation campaign, which will be prominent on the agenda of the WCC's 
eighth assembly here. 

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