ELCA Board Hears from Companions in Africa, Asia, Middle East

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The board of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Division for Global Mission (DGM) elected officers and received presentations from companions working in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The board also studied an ELCA strategic planning process and received a report about the Young Adults in Global Mission program when it met here March 14-16.
The board elected S. Christine Mummert, Harrisburg, Pa., to serve the next two years as chair. In an interview, Mummert said her vision for the work of the board includes understanding the ministry of accompaniment.
Mummert contends that "global mission has changed." The "emphasis is now on accompaniment." She described accompaniment as "a sharing, a walking together."
"Last year I brought to the board's executive committee the germ of an idea that we seize opportunities" for board members "to get out and 'walk the walk' with mission personnel in places we haven't been before, so that we really begin to understand what is accompaniment," said Mummert.
She added that another part of her vision for the board is to "make sure all the voices around the table are heard. We're a richly diverse board."
Earlier this year Mummert traveled to Kenya and Uganda with board members James L. Hansen, Hurricane, W.Va., and the Rev. Stephen M. Youngdahl, Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Austin, Texas. Their trip was a study tour led by staff of Lutheran World Relief, the overseas relief and development ministry of the ELCA and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). Hansen, Mummert and Youngdahl shared stories and pictures with the board.
The board elected Youngdahl to serve as vice president, and Judy Wagner St. Pierre, Newport News, Va., was elected secretary.

DIRECTOR OF LUTHERAN SCHOOLS IN PALESTINE HAS A NEW VISION
"The vision, put very simply, is that if we can get the child and the student to enjoy coming to school, we have accomplished the impossible," Dr. Charles Haddad, director of schools for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan (and Palestine) (ELCJ), said in an interview.
The ELCJ has four schools and educational programs with about 2,000 Christian and Muslim students, both boys and girls. "Sixty percent of the students are Christians and 40 percent are Muslims in an area where 2 percent of the population is Christian," he said. Schools and education centers are located in Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Jerusalem, Mount of Olives and Ramallah.
In his presentation to the board, Haddad said the mission for ELCJ schools is "to provide quality education at relatively low tuition costs." Due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, tuition "has hardly been collected, but the church is helping with financial assistance. We are succeeding to some degree."
The ELCA is working with the ELCJ "in many ways," Haddad said. Together, the churches are working to build a "permanent" endowment fund that will help support schools of the ELCJ.
"Our teaching philosophy is progressive," Haddad said. "We want to educate for knowledge and not offer information for students to memorize for government-led tests." He said the implementation of such new approaches as group learning, in-service training for teachers, and community and environmental education "has been a struggle, but we're doing it under prevailing conditions."
Israeli-imposed curfews in Palestinian areas "interrupt education. Students and teachers are forced to work on a timetable in light of the curfews," Haddad told the board. Since the beginning of the school year last September, about 30 to 35 percent of school days have been lost because of the curfews. A way in which students and the school administration have compensated for lost school days has been to conduct classes on holidays.
"Many Palestinians are forced to remain at home during the curfews. It is very frustrating," Haddad said. "Some defy the curfews; risks are taken every day." Those who are caught outside their homes during curfew are subject to "inhumane treatment." Some are taken to the nearest Israeli checkpoint and "humiliated," he said.
Many people have "lost their homes and have had relatives killed. It is very difficult to put into words how people are suffering," he said.
"The cancer of the Middle East is growing," Haddad said. "My vision is to live peacefully in my home, as well as for people around the world to live peacefully in their homes," he said.

HIV/AIDS IN SUB-SAHARA AFRICA
"Sub-Sahara Africa is by far the most HIV/AIDS-affected region in the world," said Dr. Mamy Ranaivoson, DGM's health consultant on HIV/AIDS, Nairobi, Kenya, in his report to the board. "Almost 30 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS and 58 percent of them are women," he said.
"In 2002, 3.5 million new infections occurred in Sub-Sahara Africa and an estimated 2.4 million have died during the course of the year. About half of the 30 million infected are under the age of 24 years, and 3 million children under the age of 15 are living with HIV," said Ranaivoson.
The bad news is that AIDS is the worst epidemic of the 21st century and every country around the globe is affected, Ranaivoson told the board. In South Africa, 4.9 million people are HIV-positive. In Nigeria, the most populated country in Africa, 5 percent of the people are affected. In Kenya and Cameroon, the percentage has reached double- digit figures, he said.
The good news is that the HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women under 20 in South Africa has fallen from 21 percent in 1998 to 15.4 percent in 2001. In Uganda, the decline of HIV infections is down to 7 percent from 15 percent. There has been a change of behavior, such as abstaining from sexual intercourse entirely and the use of condoms, Ranaivoson reported.
"Stand With Africa" is "truly a campaign of hope," he said. Through the campaign, Lutherans can tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic through education, produce enough food to eat and sell, and build peace at the grass roots, Ranaivoson said.
"For the future, the challenge is not only how to sustain and expand successful prevention measures but also to provide adequate treatment, care and support to the millions of people living with HIV/AIDS and the orphans of the AIDS epidemic," he said.
"The vast majority of Africans, more than 90 percent, have not yet acquired HIV. Therefore, more focus on prevention should be emphasized so that they remain HIV-free, especially young people," Ranaivoson said.

LUTHERAN CHURCH IN MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE
"Our mission is to reach and impact our culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ," said Lai Yoke Kiew, executive board member, Lutheran Church in Malaysia and Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Kiew said her work with the board is based on "God's love being shared" through evangelism, outreach and social ministry among the Chinese communities in Malaysia and Singapore. "Many are coming to realize that there is really one God," Kiew said in an interview.
Kiew's parents "came from an ancestral worship" background, which is part of the "Chinese culture," and what she followed. Kiew became a Christian when "a sister prayed for her."
"My mom was ill for three months. In that time, I had gone through a lot of frustration. I managed to [become] friends with a sister in the hospital where my mother stayed. The sister prayed for me and told me about the good news of Jesus Christ and about the love of God," Kiew said, adding that her parents "accepted Christ" 11 years later.

ELCA STRATEGIC PLAN, YOUNG ADULTS IN GLOBAL MISSION
The board discussed a strategic planning process the church is conducting in advance of the 2003 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Milwaukee this summer. The board recommended that the strategy's planning and evaluation committee of the ELCA Church