wfn.org | Long-term worker in Africa

[BethAH@mbm.org]

December 20, 2000
Beth Hawn
Communications Coordinator
Mennonite Board of Missions
phone (219) 294-7523
fax (219) 294-8669
<www.MBM.org>

December 20, 2000

Long-term worker in Africa still finds new challenges

ELKHART, Ind. (MBM) – After living in Ivory Coast for more than
20 years, Annelise Goldschmidt continues to discover new aspects
of life and culture in this African nation.

Goldschmidt arrived in Ivory Coast in November 1979.

“I didn’t know at that time that I was going to spend most of my
life overseas as a single person for [God] and his service,” she
said.  “I felt God had different plans for me that I never
dreamed of.”

^From 1979 to 1989, Goldschmidt worked as co-principal at a young
women’s boarding school in Man, about 60 kilometers from the
capital, Abidjan.  She served with Mission Biblique, a
French-Swiss mission project with a French-Baptist background.
During these years, she volunteered during two-month school
holidays at the Evangelical Training Center for Communication in
Africa (CEFCA) in Abidjan.  Through her involvement with CEFCA,
Goldschmidt came to know David and Wilma Shank and James and
Jeanette Krabill, former Mennonite Board of Missions workers in
Ivory Coast.

After 10 years as a co-principal, Goldschmidt wanted a change,
and these two MBM couples recognized she was at a crossroads.
They offered her a position at CEFCA as guesthouse manager.
Since 1990, Goldschmidt has lived in Abidjan and filled this
position, which is jointly sponsored by MBM, Mission Biblique and
CEFCA.

She’s never looked back.

“To get the chance to meet people from almost all over the world
and be a part of an American mission is a great privilege for me
as a European,” Goldschmidt said.

Goldschmidt grew up in Basel, Switzerland, the fourth of five
children in what she describes as a strong Christian home.

One of her early memories of church is a Bible school teacher,
who loved to say, “Children born in Christian homes are born
between two pages of the Bible.”  Goldschmidt is a member of
Mennoniten Gemeinde in Basel-Holee, Switzerland.

Her mission experiences en route to Ivory Coast included two
years in a Bible school in Switzerland doing secretarial work,
working as a trainee with Mennonite Central Committee in Quebec
for one year, and then on the French Island of New Caledonia as a
teacher for two years.

“The Lord took me around the world,” she said.  “Since then, I’ve
experienced so much and discovered so much about God’s goodness
and love.”

In each of her mission experiences, Goldschmidt said she has
discovered God in new ways, always finding meaning and purpose in
her work.

At times, it’s difficult not to compare her native cultural mores
to those in the Ivory Coast. When she finds herself comparing the
two cultures, Goldschmidt reminds herself of the values,
strengths and weaknesses of each.

She particularly enjoys how Africans use more outward expressions
of faith, which has helped her discover God in new ways.

“Africans in general are expressing their faith in a more lively,
explosive way.  Sometimes (it’s) in dancing, sometimes in crying
... with all their bodies ... in a more community-oriented way,”
Goldschmidt said.

Today, Goldschmidt’s position as manager of a guesthouse includes
renting the center out to various Christian groups, and
supervising the cleaning, repairs and kitchen operations.  She
also serves as Goshen (Ind.) College’s contact person in the
nation for its Study-Service Term program there, which annually
brings a group of students to Ivory Coast for 13 weeks.
Additionally, Goldschmidt helps with a women’s group, called
Servantes de Béthanie, which offers biblical training and
outreach to women.

“It is quite difficult to challenge women to come regularly to
those meetings.  The political situation in the last months has
made things even worse,” Goldschmidt said.

Ivory Coast’s military dictator, Gen. Robert Gueï, was ousted in
a popular uprising Oct. 25. The wake of his fall has unleashed
religious and ethnic riots and killings.  For decades, the nation
had been a place where different groups peacefully co-existed.
In recent weeks, however, calls have come for secession by the
Muslim north and the Christian south.

Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who led the country for three decades,
was known for his unification of the nation.  But when Henri
Konan Bédié assumed the role as president in the early 1990s,
trouble started.  Bédié’s xenophobic policies created trouble as
he spoke of “pure Ivoirians” and “foreigners.”  That’s when the
divide between Christians and Muslims started.  In 1999, General
Gueï seized power and continued Bédié’s anti-Muslim position.

To date, there appears to be no end to the nation’s political
turmoil.

Goldschmidt sees her involvement in training African leaders as
one her greatest challenges, and an area she feels needs more
emphasis in light of the nation’s recent troubles.

Community-oriented prayer has been especially meaningful in
recent months during times of political unrest, she said.  “It
has encouraged my personal faith.”

The most rewarding part of her work during this time of upheaval,
she said, is “to be where God wants me to be ... (as) God’s
channel of his grace in the broken and corrupted world.”

* * *

Amy Gingerich for MBM news