Incarnation, time fulfilled, and promised salvation assured--and it happened when "a child was given." The truth is stark and clear: children hold a special place of holiness in the mind of God and of worth in the affairs of God's world, and we dare not violate God's intentions.

However, more is needed than the familiar dramatization of stricken and impoverished babies and the appeals for monies and medicines. More than such limited acts of charity are required to confront the injustices within the nations of Africa (and in our nation) that are the causes of the starving babies and their traumatized and hopeless parents.

We must remind ourselves that the prosperity of European and American society owes much to the unpaid labor of Africans over the course of four centuries. Slave trade and slave labor both subsidized the growing prosperity of Europe and America and deprived Africa of peace and the human resources to build prosperity.

Nor is this simply ancient history. Africa continues to subsidize Euro-American prosperity through exorbitant interest paid on "debt"; the poorest continent thus subsidizes the financial institutions of the wealthiest nations. This is why the churches have called for a "Jubilee" cancellation of international debt.

Moreover the violence that has ravaged Africa has been fostered by policies that have favored military dictatorships in countries like Zaire and armed insurrection in Angola and Mozambique. Multinational corporations make millions selling arms to Africa and peddling worthless medicines.

The point of recalling these things is not to wallow in guilt but to turn with eager hope to the One who offers us a new beginning through the confession and forgiveness of sin.

This era offers to United Methodism a time to repent of its own sinful neglect of Africa's children and to commit energy and resources needed to help make life healthier and better for our sisters and brothers and their children on that troubled continent.

In the Foundation document for the Episcopal Initiative "Children and Poverty" we have said:

Relationships of justice, compassion, and mercy toward the poor are more important than cultic practices and are normative expectations of the people of God. "Give justice to the weak (and the children); maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute."

The Wesleyan tradition that informs United Methodism is a history of participation in God's mission. The "Theology of Mission Statement" of the General Board of Global Ministries, our church's mission agency, states it well:

"...partnership in God's mission is personal and social, inseparably combining evangelism and social action. Those who are justified and sanctified by God's saving grace seek to spread scriptural holiness for the transformation, redemption, and renewal of the whole world.

Our church is engaged in Christian witness in nearly all the so-called troubled areas. Today, the Central Conferences in Africa include 13 Annual Conferences, some with districts in other African countries. The scope of United Methodist Church mission is further enlarged by relationships with autonomous Methodist Churches in some countries.

Millions of Africans have been educated, healed, and fed through the church's seminaries, schools, hospitals, and agricultural ministries. African Christians--working alongside missionaries--laid the groundwork for today's thriving churches, and are overwhelmingly responsible for the phenomenal growth of the church in Africa and the movement to spread the Gospel into new regions and villages. There now are close to a million United Methodists in Angola, Burundi, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda, Zaire, and Zimbabwe, under the episcopal leadership of 13 African bishops.

When St. Paul undertook an "appeal" among the congregations of gentiles for the poor of the community in Jerusalem, he underscored the importance of mutuality in the body of Christ. He wrote "...that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want, so that their abundance may supply your want, that there may be equality." (2 Cor. 8:14).

Africa, which is humankind's first homeland, is not just a story of humiliation and violation. It is also a land of astonishing faith and hope and joy. Those who live in more prosperous and peaceful societies receive from African Christians their testimony of unquenchable faith, unflinching endurance, and the song of joy that banishes doubt and fear.

In partnership with the people, and especially the children of Africa, our own faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ will be renewed and our hope for the transformation of the earth restored.

Indigenous United Methodist clergy, lay pastors and other laity, along with missionaries and mission volunteers from throughout the global church have labored on bicycle and on foot, in seasons of drought and refuge, to witness for the unbroken chords of Jesus' love and to sing of God's liberation.

The wars have been fought and the suffering continues but still the people proclaim, "God has not been defeated. God is still working and so we must go to church," for consolation and reconciliation; for spiritual nurturing; and to answer the profound human need for oneness with God. Even when the church buildings are barely standing and ministries are barely able to provide material comfort the people still come to feed their spirits.

As the document from the 1997 consultation with Africa Bishops, held in Harare, Zimbabwe concludes, "Yes, there is Hutu vs. Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi. Yes, the civilian government has been replaced in Sierra Leone. And, yes, there is the clash between the old culture and the new in some nations. But there is also the faith of South Africa, the hope of Namibia, the love of Uganda, and the spirit of Mozambique, where the people are singing the Lord's song with new fervor."

As partners in God's mission we are called into prophetic, sacrificial, risk-filled opposition to the forces of evil, injustice, violence, and oppression; challenging, in the name of Jesus Christ, those structures, systems, policies and practices that destroy God's design for creation and usurp God's authority over the created order. Such witness is a foretaste of the fulfillment of God's reign. (Mark 13:3-13) ⁴

See also:

• Making Mission Mutual by Bishop Joao Somane Machado, Mozambique Area, The United Methodist Church
• Mutuality as Mission: Beyond Charity and Paternalism by Bishop Kenneth L. Carder, Nashville Area, The United Methodist Church