Not surprisingly, African bishops—at least two of them, recently exiled in the wake of civil wars at home—have been the driving force behind this appeal.

Bishop Joseph C. Humper of Sierra Leone returned home from the United States in July nearly a year after he fled for his life from his native country.

A military coup—since ousted—forced 700,000 people like Humper to leave their homes. Humper knows first-hand the terror of war and the destruction and despair it leaves in its wake.

Upon his return home, Humper listed as his top priority rallying members of the nation’s 258 churches to create ministries of healing for children and women survivors of military brutality.

A fact-finding team who went to Sierra Leone at Humper’s request found that, before they were overthrown, rebel forces had killed thousands of innocent children and adults during the seven-year conflict.

"Some children were recruited as soldiers, others died of starvation, malnutrition and disease," the report noted.

Churches, mission schools and clinics were destroyed.

Humper says churches—United Methodist and others—are seen as a lifeline for people in his war-pocked homeland. A strong faith has seen them through atrocities most Western United Methodists cannot imagine.

"In the midst of all this pain and anguish and trouble, when they hear the church bell, they go to give praise to God for everything," Humper said.

"They go from one suffering to another, and still they say, 'I believe God is there; I believe God will help us make it through,' " the bishop adds.

Bishop Forrest Stith, who heads the Global Ministries’ Africa Project, has spent time in the refugee camps that served Rwandans who fled to the Congo beginning in 1994 to escape civil war.

Stith’s stories tell of deprivation and desolation and families torn asunder. Rwandan refugees returned home, "trying to make a way out of no way," Stith recalls. Many found their homes and property destroyed, schools and churches stripped, family members murdered.

And still, they begin again to rebuild, rejuvenate and re-imagine a better future for themselves and their children. Makeshift schools operate as classrooms are being rebuilt. Faith communities worship in the open air. The horrors of war cannot destroy the power of hope, Stith says.

When the Apostle Paul undertook an "appeal" among the congregations of Gentiles on behalf of people living in poverty in Jerusalem, he underscored the importance of mutual responsibility.

"It is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need," (2 Corinthians 8:13b-14a).

"Hope for the Children of Africa" invites United Methodists from every walk of life to help create a sense of Christian community and find common ground with people of Africa, even as we offer material assistance.

The appeal is not a call to the church for a temporary fix, the bishop’s said, but is a call to ongoing transformation. Such change starts with understanding that when some of God’s people hurt, we all hurt. It continues long after outward signs of relief, reconciliation and rebuilding occur.