The People of the Karoo
One of the most exiting things about our life together as a denomination is the warmth and hospitality that we always receive during our Executive and Assembly gatherings.  Congregationalists always go out of their way to receive us with love, care and expectation.  This time around we are meeting in the Karoo, which is one of the regions where our church is struggling for survival.  We have churches scattered widely in communities where there are high levels of unemployment, poverty and continued marginalization of certain groups.

As we meet here we come to express solidarity with our church in this region.  We hope that our visit we demonstrate that our churches in the Karoo are not alone in their struggles and that they belong to a wider family.  We hope that our visit will raise the morale of those who sometimes do not feel the immediate closeness of belonging to the United Congregational church of Southern Africa. 

Our visit here ought also to be a learning opportunity for the majority of us who exercise their ministries in urban areas.  The Karoo region possesses a lot of experience in rural ministry, which has kept the church going in very difficult circumstances.  The areas are vast and require a lot of travelling to get to meetings and to do God’s work.  As we deliberate on our business at this Executive meeting we should take time to consider ways of supporting and being in solidarity with the people of this region. We come as bearers of the hope that is in Christ, in order to remind us and the world that we yearn for a future that is crafted in the visions of Christ.   These are visions of justice, peace, love and faith.  These are the values that guide us and energises us as we seek to be obedient to the gospel of Christ. 

Xenophobia in Southern Africa
As we meet here we do so in the shadow of a region that is riddled with a spate of a spirit of xenophobia.  We address this matter in the present tense as, contrary to what others may want to say, because the xenophobic attacks were not just a passing phase.  The horrid attacks we saw in South African townships in May this year were an unfortunate climax of what we referred to in a previous report as the bubbling under the surface within the African continent.  The attacks against foreign nationals from the African continent were and are an indication of serious socio-political problems that continue to grip our continent.  Unfortunately the South African government has simply dismissed these attacks as merely a matter of criminal activity by some people.  The reasons for these violent uprisings are varied, complex and cannot be explained away with simplistic answers. 

I wish to postulate here three theses that could point us in a direction of discovering what it could be that leads to xenophobia. 

i)  Some years ago Gustavo Guitterez wrote about what he called the ‘irruption of the poor.’ He had observed the continued impoverishment of his people by the land-owners and the trans-national corporations snuffing life away from ordinary people.  He knew that this kind of situation could not continue indefinitely, a time will come when the poor would have it no more.  Guitterez was correct in his assessment because in the late seventies and eighties the Latin American sub-continent experienced revolutions by the poor.  Countries such as Brazil, Argentina, El Salvador and Chile experienced a turn-around because the poor and marginalized rose through popular movements and made their voices heard in politics, economy and social life of their countries.   Although the ruling elite in Southern Africa want to be dismissive of the irruption of the poor through these ugly uprisings, a time has come when the poor in our region cannot take it anymore.  This time around the attacks were and are against poor foreigners from the African continent.  But if the poverty, squalor and despair of the poor in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe are not addressed, then the next time these irruptions would be even bigger, and they would be directed at the rich in these countries.  It sounds hysterical and over-the-top to be talking of a ‘next time,’ but as the church it is our duty to warn and caution those in power to heed the word of God:

 “…I have made a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me…Our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we waste away because of them, how then can we live”(Ezekiel 33:7,10b)?

ii)  South Africa has a history of violent protest, which often expresses itself during picketing, marches and taxi boycotts.  It is a highly politicized society that never takes anything lying down.  Some of this violence comes from many years of anger against oppression, exclusion and poverty.  Unfortunately this anger is not always channelled responsibly and creatively towards social transformation.  This was clear during the xenophobic uprising where some of the most horrendous acts of violence were committed against the vulnerable and innocent people.  People were beaten up, their properties looted, raped, hacked to death, and burnt alive. This kind of wantonness and blind fury cannot be simply dismissed without serious thought and intervention that will address its root causes. iii)  Another thought we wish to raise here in relation to these attacks is that there has been a chasm created by apartheid between South Africans and other Africans.  The many years of oppression, boycotts and sanctions has led to an isolation of those that had to exist under apartheid system.  Whilst there was a fluid movement of people between Africans in the interior, this was not always possible for those on the Southern tip of the continent.  This is not to excuse the xenophobia, but to understand that unless Africans confront their history it will continue to haunt us.  What the UCCSA has identified for us as a mission priority of building relationships does not hold true only for us, but for our countries as well.  It is important to build friendships, cohesion, and acceptance between peoples of our countries.  This is especially true for many of our people who hold some dangerous beliefs about Africans from the north of the continent.  Some of these include calling other Africans makwerekwere, or the belief that they are in our countries for no good but to steal our women, jobs and to commit crime.  These are views that fuel feelings of xenophobia, which will lead to a break in relationships between our people. As church we have an evangelistic responsibility to promote tolerance, acceptance of the stranger among us and the promotion of better living conditions for refugees in our communities.  We have to encourage our local churches to go out of their way to be welcoming to the strangers in our neighbourhoods.  

iv) We also have to state here that the South African immigration system is in a crisis.  In fact one wishes to be bold here and ask if in fact the immigration system has not contributed to the xenophobic attacks.  To simply allow people to stream into the country without acknowledging them as political refugees running away from political repression leaves such people vulnerable.  The continued insistence that people from Zimbabwe are economic refugees is not only a denial of reality but in fact connivance with the oppressors in the country where these people come from.  The flip-side of this position is that it leads to the poor and oppressed foreigners becoming the burden of the poor in South Africa.  They go to townships and informal settlements where poverty is already rampant, and this only leads to frustration, anger and a fertile ground for social unrest.  We have to acknowledge the work of the churches who have been working with displaced people in order to re-integrate them back into the communities where they used to leave.  Unfortunately the government’s heavy-handedness and haste in demolishing the refugee camps has not been helpful.

Visit to the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve in Botswana
In May this year the Officers of the UCCSA went on a solidarity visit to an area in Botswana known as the CKGR.  This is a place that has in recent years come into the attention of the international community because of the relocation of the San people who had lived here for many years.  The San people or the Basarwa have been protesting their removal from the Game Reserve and have appealed for assistance from civic society in their quest to be returned home.  A group of them managed to organize themselves and challenged their relocation in court.  This led to a historic court case that took three years and was concluded in 2006.  The judgement allowed the Basarwa who had petitioned the court to go back into the Game Reserve.  However, the judgement also concluded that the government was under no obligation to provide the Basarwa in the reserve with amenities such as water and food.  This has led to a situation where some Basarwa have returned to some settlements within the reserve, but live under extreme poverty and hunger. The UCCSA visitors visited the Game Reserve with the intention to see for themselves the plight of the Basarwa in the Kgalagadi.  The journey was most enlightening and involved travelling in very difficult terrain where even 4x4 vehicles struggled to make it.  We had hoped to visit the Basarwa who are in the Game Reserve and those who have opted to take the government option of living in the new settlements outside the reserve.  This was not possible due to the hard terrain, but we managed to meet with a community of Basarwa in Mothomelo.  What we saw and experienced there cannot be described adequately with words.  We saw people who had not eaten any food or had water for more than a week.  The people sat under a tree and looked in the distance with empty eyes.  They ate wild berries, roots and drank juices from all sorts of wild water melons.  We sat and listened and grieved as we heard their painful story.  They had a kraal-like structure which they made a church.  In front of the church is an imposing cross that could be about four metres in height.  They confessed they no longer wanted to go into church.  They did not understand why God could not answer their prayers when they prayed for water, food and family.  So they decided to stop praying, but have not demolished the church.  It stands there as a reminder of their faith. We gave them what little food and water we had.  We left them with the promise that we would not forget them and that we will pray for them and plead on their behalf with the Botswana government.   The terrain was so bad that one of our vehicles started over-heating.  We turned back and left the dangerous and predator ridden reserve.  Our vehicle died in the Kgalagadi, just outside the reserve, and we slept in the very cold, a reminder of the seemingly hopeless situation of the Basarwa.  We got help at 1am and were able to return to normal life.  We were helped on this journey by the Botswana synod, Botswana Council of Churches and Ditshwanelo, the Botswana Centre for Human Rights.  We continue to work with them to seek ways of providing food, water and finding a lasting solution to the situation of the Basarwa.

The Zimbabwe Situation
The Zimbabwe situation continues to deteriorate and remains a cause for concern to all of us.  Following our proposal for an ecumenical summit on Zimbabwe, the Council for World Mission agreed to sponsor such an event.  The summit was hosted by the UCCSA, UPCSA, CWM and SACC.  The summit was called with the intention to be a space for discussing how freedom, peace and justice can be attained in Zimbabwe.   About 70 people attended the summit; with a large number coming from Zimbabwe, some coming from international organizations and others being Zimbabweans in the diaspora.  The theme of the summit was “Overcoming Fear by Faith” with the intention to address the debilitating fear that adds to the oppression of God’s people in Zimbabwe.  The summit was bold in its analysis and prophetic in its pronouncements.  We had inputs from people such as Prof. John Makumbe and Prof. Allan Boesak.  Following the summit a group went to present the statement of the summit to President Thabo Mbeki’s office at the Union Building. The Summit rejected the illegitimate rule of former President Mugabe, and called for a negotiated settlement as the way forward for Zimbabwe.  The Summit also pressed for the expansion of the mediation team, and called on President Mbeki to stop giving signals that seem to suggest biasness on his part. A continuation committee has been set-up and it includes representatives from the organizations that had co-hosted the summit.  The following issues have been identified as part of our continuing work on the Zimbabwe situation:

i)  Feeding the Hungry
People are starving and even dying from hunger in Zimbabwe.  The ruling party and its cronies is using food as a political tool to control, dominate and oppress people.  It is no longer easy for humanitarian organizations to distribute food and only those who are openly pro-government seem to have access to help.  We have initiated a process and put in place structures in Zimbabwe to distribute food in the Matabeland, which is most affected by the food crisis.  The distribution process would be organized and overseen by a joint structure of the UCCSA and UPCSA.   In addition to the food distribution we are also pleading for seeds as people prepare for the ploughing season.  Most people did not plant anything in the last season because there were no seeds.  We hope that this appeal will yield generous giving from our synods and friends. The UCCSA, through ministers in the Central region, has been involved in the distribution of food to Zimbabweans in the Braamfontein.  We express our thanks to CWM and Council for World Mission who made donations to us to be able to engage in this ministry.  We have so far distributed food hampers and blankets to over a hundred Zimbabweans.  We have also purchased food, baby formula and medicines for other refugees living at the Central Methodist Church.  Another activity we have been involved in is the supply of books and stationery to pupils at a makeshift refugee school in inner-city Johannesburg, run by the Methodist Church in Southern Africa.  

ii) Supporting Strategic Leadership in ZimbabweThe UCCSA has been supporting ‘ministers in distress’ in Zimbabwe through a contribution of R200.00 a month.  As part of their solidarity actions with our efforts on Zimbabwe the Council for World Mission has given us a grant that will strengthen our efforts in supporting leadership in Zimbabwe so that the pastoral and prophetic role of the church continues. 

iii)  The UCCSA sent a delegation to Zimbabwe just prior to the run-off elections that were held in June this year.  The team comprised Revs Mompati Aaron, Justino Geraldo, Bruce Theron and Sindiso Jele.  This was to express our continued support and solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe.  The team visited in the Matabeleland where most of our churches are and where a lot of the political violence takes place.  Many of our members have been victims of violence from the youth militias, they suffer from economic depression and others have run to neighbouring countries.  The team saw and experienced this sorry situation for themselves.  We had hoped that all the synods would be represented in this solidarity team but unfortunately some of our people reneged at the last minute.  We express our gratitude to the team for expressing the love, compassion and solidarity of the UCCSA with the people of Zimbabwe. 

The Challenge of Poverty in Southern Africa
The levels of poverty in Southern Africa are reaching unmanageable proportions.  We have already seen some of the consequences of the rift that is there between the rich and the poor in our communities.  The xenophobic attacks, referred to above, are one example of some of the results of such rampant and inhume poverty.  However, unless we stem the tide the current situation will lead to a precipitation of despair, social unrest, crime, and the disintegration of our democracies. As a Justice Church the question of poverty cannot just be addressed in a half-measured way. 

To begin with, we have to address poverty as a theological issue.  If the church fails to address this issue as a matter of faith, then we would be betraying our spiritual heritage.  Our Lord Jesus was born in a poor family and in first century Palestine where certain groups that did not belong to the ruling elite were very impoverished.  In fact most of his ministry ends up focussing on issues of the economy, politics and relief work.  His ministry was characterized by what the Latin American Church has described as a ‘preferential option for the poor.’ We raise this issue here as part of our continued search for justice in the world in which we live.  We have to find ways that will enable our local churches and regions to address poverty in ways that are tangible and meaningful to ordinary people.  Sadly, as church we are drifting towards a form of narcissism by accruing financial resources that in fact do not translate into life-giving projects.  In some cases we have become sceptics, due to failures in the past, when it comes to developmental and diakonic projects to address poverty.  But God’s Mission does not give us the option of opting out and finding the easier way of existence. We need to initiate a process through which we can conscientize our people about the levels of poverty in our region, causes of poverty, its dangers, what the Bible says about poverty, and what initiatives are taking place to respond.  We need to engage in this process because poverty is not what God wills for His people but it is a result of human greed, injustice, poor planning and a history of exploitation.  These are things that are at the core of the gospel.  Perhaps we could learn and adapt materials from other groups such as the national council of churches in the region who have done a lot of work in this area. 

The second thing we need to do is to share stories and models of how people are responding in their communities.  There are many local churches that are already involved in developmental work, and it would only enrich us as a church if we were to find a way of hearing about these projects, both where there has been successes and drawbacks. With the dramatic changes of the global economy many people are finding that food is increasingly becoming unaffordable and inaccessible.  it is therefore necessary for churches to assist with subsistence farming and home gardening in order for ordinary people to be able to survive.  The veggie tunnel model, which has been promoted by Dawn and Jon Barnes- Common Global Missionaries to the UCCSA, is something that we could widen its practice.  We have to find ways of empowering rural communities with basic skills in food production in order to address the high levels of poverty in our region.  It is therefore necessary for us to address the question of poverty at different levels; as political justice issue, a theological issue and a matter of survival for ordinary people. 

Conclusion:
We give thanks to God for His mercies and His continued blessings in the work and ministry of His Church.  Our journeys continue to take us around the region, and as we move about in our different tasks we encircle the region with prayers, love and the gospel of Christ.  We encourage all to move beyond their limited space and to have a quest to visit and participate in the sharing of the gospel in Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.  This way the gospel trail and the great traditions of our faith will touch the lives of the many people who are in our sub-continent.