Issues of Death and Life

Marching to the grave

When I walk along Cambridge Road to Dumisani in the mornings I pass the Amagasela Funeral Parlour. Often the sound of hymn-singing greets me. It tells me a family is attending to the arrangements for burying a loved one. A little further along, outside the rival firm of Ahh Chithi Bunga, stands a lorry. Its green tarpaulin is pulled aside, revealing a large load of plain wooden coffins. At the Kahla & Zantsi Funeral Parlour, a few paces further, all is ready to welcome the new day’s customers.  From Dumisani’s front door, I can see people entering Mtoba Funeral Directors. It is only eight o’clock in the morning. Death in King William’s Town is big business.

We often hear of those who have ‘passed away.’ Yet, despite the fact that almost 11% of all South Africans over 2 years old live with HIV, no one dies of AIDS. There is a conspiracy of silence. Adults expire from TB or pneumonia, or even diabetes; children from lower respiratory or diarrhoeal diseases, but no one dies of AIDS, indeed it is rarely mentioned. Official statistics are less sensitive: out of a population of 46 million, 6 million South Africans live with HIV/AIDS and in 2008 over 350,000 died of it.

World AIDS day was 1st December. South African media carried the usual mix of statistics, warnings, campaigns, moving testimonies of those living with HIV and heart-rending stories of the thousands of AIDS orphans. After years of denial, the government is now rolling out the world’s largest antiretroviral programme, but access to treatment is still low.

HIV/AIDS forces its itself on the attention of the world, but few seem aware of another plague, causing worse devastation. If there is evasion regarding AIDS, the world is in total denial about this other pandemic, a disorder which infects not 11%, but 100% of the world population. Its pitiless mortality rate is also 100%. Unlike HIV/AIDS this curse is centuries old and can also be described by a word of few letters: SIN.  Ralph Venning, who witnessed the devastation of the Great Plague of London in 1665, described it as the Plague of Plagues.

Transmitted from generation to generation, sin is endemic in the human race. Though, literally, infinitely and eternally more deadly than AIDS, there is a fundamental difference. For this pandemic there is a cure. The remedy is simple, easily obtained and free at the point of delivery, though infinitely costly to produce. It is the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son and its effect is immediate and total. That is why people who recognise the seriousness of the infection get so passionate about the remedy, describing it, with great understatement, as Good News. This is good news that no-one can remain silent about.

Although all Christians can and ought offer this treatment, there is also need for people to be trained in what used to be called, ‘the cure of souls.’ That is precisely what Dumisani Theological Institute does. It prepares God’s people to combat the plague of sin by training them to preach and administer the sacraments, to engage in personal conversations and to reach out to the community.

This work, though immensely rewarding, can also be arduous. We are glad to be coming to the end of the college year and look forward to a holiday. The first part of next year promises to be even busier, however, as I will not only be teaching at Dumisani, but also giving undergraduate Church History lectures at the University of Fort Hare on Mondays and Tuesdays.

It is impossible to exaggerate how much we need, and how much we appreciate, your prayers for our health, stamina, mental and spiritual freshness, and for all we need.

As the old year runs out and the new approaches, we thank you for your support and wish you God’s blessing, a very happy Christmas and a joyful New Year.

“First Pure, then Peaceable”

Two recent events have given me slender encouragement that creedal and confessional Christianity has not been totally overwhelmed by Post-modern relativism. The first is the publishing of  Alister McGrath’s Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth (New York: Harper One, 2009). I have not yet had an opportunity to get a copy in my hand and evaluate the book myself, but the publisher’s blurb is very heartening.

In recent years the distinction between heresy and orthodoxy has come under fire by those eager to reject the formal boundaries of sanctioned beliefs about God, Jesus, and the church. In a timely corrective to this trend, renowned church historian Alister McGrath argues that the categories of heresy and orthodoxy must be preserved.

Remaining faithful to Jesus’s mission and message is still the mandate of the church despite increasingly popular cries that traditional dogma is outdated and restricts individual freedom. Overturning misconceptions throughout the book, McGrath exposes…how many of the heretical beliefs and practices rejected by the church were actually more stringent and oppressive than rival orthodox claims.

In Heresy, McGrath explains why no heresy has ever been eradicated—rival beliefs only go underground and resurface in different forms. McGrath presents a powerful, compassionate, and deeply attractive orthodoxy that will equip the church to meet the challenge from renewed forms of heresy today.

Not so long ago the term ‘heresy’ seemed to be the almost exclusive property of a narrow, sectarian, bombastic, fringe of the evangelical world, or if it were used, it was uttered in hushed tones, as if the very word was somehow inimical to Christian vocabulary.  Well, it is to be hoped that McGrath’s book will equip those who know in their heart of hearts that defending the faith and contending for the truth is of the essence of Christian witness, but perhaps lacked the courage to do it.

The second event came from Friday’s Commission of Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Last year’s General Assembly was marked by the revolutionary decision, by a substantial majority, against the clear teaching of Scripture, to sustain the call and induction of Scott Rennie, an openly homosexual minister, to a congregation and to stifle debate by the imposition of a gagging order, balanced by a moratorium on the appointment of homosexual ministers.  In defiance of the spirit of this decision the Presbytery of Hamilton agreed to nominate an openly gay man to begin training as a minister. This was covered by both the Times and the Herald. Then on Friday, the Commission of Assembly, by a slender majority of 43 to 38, interpreted the moratorium of May 2009 as extending to applications to train for ministry, as well to ordinations and inductions. The application of homosexual students will, therefore, be sisted until May 2011.

Whilst I rejoice that this obstacle has been put in the way of homosexuals entering the ministry, to me, this success is mitigated by the very slenderness of the majority. Obviously no sea change of attitudes has taken place in the Kirk in the intervening months since the Assembly. For the Confessional Christians of Scotland, of all Presbyterian denominations, there is, therefore, everything to pray for and much work to be done before the Assembly of 2011.

With a siren cry for peace coming from the senior court of the Kirk, many may be intimidated from keeping up the struggle. To those who are, we say, that whilst it is undoubtedly true that the apostolic injunction of James 3:17 calls on us to exercise wisdom that is “peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere,”  it retains and affirms a clear moral and spiritual integrity, it is “first pure, then peaceable.”

Pantheol

Dumisani students working in the library

Last month was relatively uneventful, which, after Augusts’ health scare is, I suppose, something for which to be very grateful. Elizabeth has an appointment with her consultant in early October, but we are not expecting anything alarming. During September, I had a number of opportunities to speak about the life of Tiyo Soga (1829-71), the first Xhosa to be ordained to Christian ministry.

The highlight of September was a visit to Potchefstroom, with Dumisani colleagues, Deon and Shelley Lombard, for Pantheol, an annual gathering of theological colleges which have links with the North-West University. The event was helpful, if somewhat dull, with our time filled by descriptions of new course structures, quality assurance procedures and the introduction of a web-based aid to teaching and administration. Much of the work of God, however, viewed from a human perspective, seems dull, but seen in the light of eternity may be highly significant and ordinariness ought not mask the tremendous privilege of preparing a new generation of Christian leaders for the Church in Southern Africa.

For Elizabeth and me the highlight of Pantheol was a paper on John Calvin and Human Dignity by Koos Vorster (Professor of Dogmatics and Ecclesiology). Koos reminded us that when he was a student in the 1960s his professors, supporting the doctrine of apartheid, denied that the concept of human dignity could be found in Scripture and attributed it to humanism.  Drawing on Calvin’s affirmation of humanity created in the image of God and his doctrine of natural justice, Prof. Vorster eloquently exposed the intellectual poverty and immorality of racism.

Of course, outside apartheid South Africa, rarely has it been doubted that Christianity teaches, supports and promotes the concept of human dignity, the essential unity of the human race and the necessity to be our brother’s keepers. Scotland’s Christian leaders recognised this as early as the Reformation when they sought to establish a nation under God, with universal education, a sound legal system, a democratic church government and, ultimately, a deep commitment to philanthropic missionary work.

Next on the programme, I presented the current work of Dumisani in this our thirtieth anniversary year. In doing so I made reference to the wonderful work of the Lovedale Missionary Institute. Lovedale was founded in 1841 by the Glasgow Missionary Society. It continued under the Free Church of Scotland, then the United Free Church of Scotland and finally the Church of Scotland.  For over a hundred years this multi-racial educational institution produced a steady stream of black intellectuals, ministers, poets, hymn-writers, journalists and educators, until its work was sabotaged by the 1953 Bantu Education Act.

Today, South African  theological colleges such as Dumisani, have a fresh opportunity to train Christian leaders for service in a nation which guarantees equal rights under the law, but which is beset with increasing secularism. If present opportunities are to be seized Dumisani needs well-trained teaching and ancillary staff, adequate buildings, sophisticated computer facilities and a good library. In fact we need what any UK based theological college would take for granted. Such people and facilities are not easily found nor do they come cheaply. If the vision of thirty years ago is to become a reality Dumisani depends on the prayers and generosity of our international friends and supporters.

Thank you for helping us.

Troublz, joyz and chalengez

University of Fort Hare: Centre of Theology & Religion

After a mammogram indicating a suspect patch, Elizabeth recently saw a local consultant. Thankfully the news was good; there is no urgent need of surgery and probably no need at all.  There is no sign of anything sinister but the merest hint of an irregularity that needs to be watched. Elizabeth is to see the consultant again in three months after a further scan. A Christian man himself, not only did he waive his fee, but invited Elizabeth to see him at any time if she has any concerns. We are very, very grateful for the support and prayers of all who shared with us the uncertainties of the last weeks.

When not away, we are now  very happily worshiping  with the Free Church of Southern Africa congregation in the Club View area of King William’s Town.  We love the fusion of African warmth and vibrancy, evangelical commitment and, as in the Scottish church of John Knox’s day, the use of the Lord’s Prayer, Apostle’s Creed and Doxology.

Enjoying lunch

Elizabeth has started a Sunday School; the first week there were eight children, then fifteen, last Sunday and today over twenty. Some children coming from nearby  houses will hopefully help us contact their parents.

With funds from the Greyfriars-Stratherrick Sunday School and Mother and Toddler group we have bought cheerfully coloured plastic children’s chairs and tables. All but the pre-school children are able to follow simple English and some of the older girls translate the story for the youngest.

The adult congregation is growing steadily; attendances can be unpredictable and we have yet to achieve the number which hides a few absences, but it is all very encouraging and we have every reason to praise God.

Today (16 August)  we were joined by our sister congregations in the King William’s Town district. Our district minister, Umfundisi (Rev) W. Tshoni preached and our visitors brought generous contributions for our building fund. Nine years ago the municipality gave us the site, but the economics of building are challenging and the work is not yet complete. If you felt inclined to contribute your donations would be very welcome.

Starting in January, I will being teaching some Church History classes at the University of Fort Hare, taking first and second year undergraduate students for three lectures each week. The course emphasises  African and South African Church History and ties in with my research into the first Scottish missionaries. UFH is ta result of the work of the educational work of Free Church of Scotland at the nearby Lovedale Missionary Institute. Lovedale’s racially integrated educational policy was deliberatly  undermined and finally destroyed by the racist policies of the South African Nationalist party and especially by the passing of the execrable Bantu Educational Act (1953).  So it will be good for the Free Church to once more have even a minor role in helping the teaching of theology in this historic and strategic university.

Work at Dumisani is both demanding and very satisfying. Elizabeth is involved with students not just by cooking for them but at a deeper personal level too. Under the surface, belying their cheery smiles, so many face deep difficulties and struggles.  One student with whom Elizabeth has struck up a good friendship has been going through a very tough time. We found her recent Facebook message to us both humorous and moving. After I had commented on a good but exhausting day,  she wrote (I hope you can understand the SMS text style):

“u dserve a rest. we r grateful for da information and teachings u gve 2 us. preparing us 2 b genuine equipped leaderz. my mum Elizabeth is a gud gud gud wife I knw.  shel prepare a warm soup  4 u 2 help ur mind relax. I miss chatin 2 her, I can easily relate and cmfrtably share ol ma troublz and chalengez. gudnyt.”

Sangomas, Sodom and Smart Thinking

What you have heard from me... entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others.

Friday, 5th June. I came home to find a flier from our local Sangoma, or “traditional healer” (they used to be called witchdoctors) stuck between the upright stanchions of the gate. Small, printed in blue ink on cheap paper, in both isiXhosa and English, it advertised the remarkable services of Dr. Juma and Mama Mia. Here was a one stop solution for a vast array of predicaments. I selectively quote some of the ailments this pair claims to be able to fix. They include, “winning the lotto, marriage problems, shop accounts, bring back lost lover, TB, loose or gain weight, luck, diabetes, bewitchment.” Beneath a stylised picture of a suited, pipe-smoking, bones-casting Sangoma was the strapline: “Come hear about you and spread the news.”

Incongruous as it may seem, those words immediately transported me back to Scotland and the aftermath of the Church of Scotland Assembly’s recent decision to endorse homosexuals in ministry. A decision that has split the Auld Kirk deeper than most realise, or are prepared to admit and one that the Assembly will surely rue. Although, I assume, the members of the Kirk’s majority might be inclined to dismiss Dr Juma’s claims, his strapline, nevertheless, sits remarkably comfortably with them.

The focus of the Church’s message used to be on the equally breathtaking claims of personal, moral and spiritual renewal made by Christ. But unlike Dr Juma, he proved to be as good as his word and thousands testify to the change he has made in their lives. There was a time when they loved to tell their stories of him finding them just as they were and making them new men and women.  Such testimonies, from “the guttermost to the uttermost,” as they were sometimes described, used to be the stuff of informal church gatherings, the stock-in-trade of Christian publishers and the substance of Sunday sermons. Congregations were gripped by the dynamic of such passages as I Cor. 6.9-11, which, with its litany of the unhappy and lost – the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, gluttons, drunkards, revilers and swindlers – concluded with the affirmation of transformation; “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” And how they just loved to emphasize the glorious adversative conjunction, “But!”

That theme of conversion was also reflected in the hymns and songs of the day. Typical was Rufus McDaniel’s “Since Jesus came into my heart,” which, sung with gusto, reinforced the glad message of Christ the Transformer.

I have ceased from my wandering and going astray,
Since Jesus came into my heart!
And my sins, which were many, are all washed away;
Since Jesus came into my heart!

The theologically cognoscenti might have smirked patronisingly behind their hands and the ‘unco righteous’ might have tut-tutted at such homely and unsophisticated lyrics, but far too many had experienced Christ’s life changing power to permit the truth to be gainsaid. Today, however, such songs are largely silent, abandoned because their theology, as well as their style, is considered passé. And along with the hymns and songs of conversion, has gone the converting Christ. In his place stands an anaemic, impotent and politically correct substitute, who pats his acolytes on the head, affirms them just as they are, and then leaves them and their transgressions strictly alone.  Although the word “testimony” is, I am told, still used in such circles, the more the focus swings away from Jesus, the more it has become a synonym for autobiography. So, as Dr Juma might say, “Come hear about you and spread the news.”

Pulpits which once proclaimed conversion by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the power of the Spirit now promise nothing more exciting than a Sunday morning quick dash along the aisles of the spiritual supermarket, picking and mixing whatever is palatable, topical and chic from a disparate range of ‘spiritualities.’ The most life transforming aspect of such services is the Fairtrade tea, coffee or juice served afterwards. Fewer and fewer attend these Sunday Philosophy Clubs simply because there is nothing in them that can’t be gained from a ‘long lie,’ a leisurely breakfast, a visit to the local Tesco or Sainsbury and a relaxing read of the lifestyle columns of the Sunday Herald or Sunday Mail.

Monday, 8th June. I attended our local King William’s Town ministers fraternal. It was held in the Bisho Community Church, where the minister Mangaliso Matshobane gave a short opening talk telling us how, ahead of the recent elections, he and some colleagues travelled to all nine of South Africa’s provinces to pray for and with the candidates. As they moved from place to place he was increasingly made to consider that his concerns might have been misplaced. Of course, it was right to pray for the politicians, parliament and the nation, but more and more he came to see that the nation was the way it was because the church was the way it was. The searing and confronting Scripture passage he then read and passionately applied was Isaiah 1.10-20, where God calls his people ‘Sodom’ and challenges them to state what right they had to trample his courts preoccupied with religious rituals and self-righteous liturgies, when his uncompromising priority for them was, “wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil.” But even here, in the blazing heat of God’s judgment, lies encouragement for the faithful; as Calvin reminds Assembly minorities and other loyal but marginalised groups:

Hence it comes that hypocrites are proud of their numbers; and weak men, terrified by the pompous display of those numbers stagger. …but we ought to be satisfied with knowing that, though the number of the godly be small, God still acknowledges them as his chosen people; and we ought also to call to mind that consolatory saying, Fear not little flock; for it is your Father’s good please to give you the kingdom.

Wednesday, 10th June. This is the night of our small group Bible Study. We have been working through 2 Timothy with Matthias Media’s study guide, Run the Race. This week we first explored Paul’s highly topical warning about “scheming, manipulative people who were influencing and leading others away from the truth.” We then marveled at the power of Paul’s faith. Even when things seemed to be falling apart at Ephesus and his own prediction was being fulfilled, that “from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things,” (Acts 20.30), he knew that God always has the last word. Convinced that his investment of time and energy in the Gospel was not for a lost cause or a forlorn hope, he felt profound contentment as he looked back over a full life well lived. Though possibly facing Caesar’s executioner, he could speak of that final journey from time to eternity in a spirit of triumphant expectation.

Yet, lest we be accused of concluding on a somewhat escapist note, I was also delighted to learn on Friday, that in the aftermath of the fateful Assembly there is a real desire among those with a love for the orthodox Christian Gospel to come together for prayer and mutual support. Dominic Smart, minister of Gilcomstom South Church of Scotland, Aberdeen, recently told his congregation that, “The situation in the Church of Scotland is worse for evangelicals than we thought.” And he was frankly open-minded regarding the question of staying in the Church, although that was, “probably the option that most people found most instinctively attractive before the Assembly.” He added, however, that, “It’s fair to say that many are reconsidering that … in the light of what actually happened. Going somewhere is …an option; [and just] because we aren’t doing it straightaway no-one should think that it couldn’t ever happen.” And in the meantime? Dominic hopes to see “people [drawn] together from different parts of Scotland and …from different strands of the Presbyterian Church.” That is what so many others in Scotland are hoping for. All they need to do to make it happen is to phone around, put some dates in their diaries and turn up.

Theological Famine Relief

 

Unda Awka had been slipping in and out of consciousness through lack of food prior to the arrival of aid.

Over the past decades we have all seen the graphic and harrowing pictures of starving people used to alert us to their needs. They rightly tug at our heart strings and we spontaneously react by sending a donation. Not to do so would be unthinkable.

Here in South Africa, as in other parts of the world, we daily see a form of deprivation that cannot be photographed. How can you take a picture of a starving soul? How do you convey on a video the suffering of a people dying from spiritual hunger? But this invisible famine is real. It is what Amos 8.11 spoke of, “a famine…not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.”

Recently Dumisani was contacted by John Piper’s Desiring God, International Outreach, with a view to learning more of the work we are doing and enquiring how they might be of help to us. My eye was caught by a heading on one of their leaflets announcing Theological Famine Relief for the Global Church. I thought, this is exactly what Dumisani is engaged in. Not just going out into the villages and local townships to preach the gospel, though we certainly do that, but by teaching and training God’s great famine relief agents, the ministers of his Word.

The problem with a spiritual famine is that not all the starving feel hungry. Spiritual starvation often creates apathy rather than desire. But where God’s Spirit is at work people do sense their need. Deon Lombard, who teaches Old Testament, was invited last Sunday to preach in Xhosa at a Zionist congregation in a location not far away. Zionists believe the gospel but mix it up with aspects of African traditional religion, including sacrifice and the ancestor cult. But God is at work and Deon found a people who had come to see that salvation was through Jesus alone, and they desperately wanted to know more of God’s Word. Another Dumisani associate works fulltime among Zionists and reports an amazing openness to Scripture. Sometimes we have students from this background who are keen to get to grips with Scripture in order to pass it on to their people. It is not only Zionists who are hungry for the Word; the same cry comes from evangelical churches, mainstream denominations and marginally Christian groups.

The challenge for Dumisani is to train those who can serve up Christ-centred, nourishing, spiritual food because Jesus assures us that “whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”  Dumisani doesn’t run courses on anything fancy, everything is geared to feed the spiritually hungry. The problem is we are limited in what we can do by the resources available to us.

Nothing is more distressing than to hear of a mother who wants to feed her family but has nothing in the cupboard. We are not quite like that but at times feel we are getting close. And that is where you can help.

We recently launched our 30th Anniversary Challenge. It is comprised of two parts, covering what accountants would call capital and revenue expenditure.

Firstly, we are asking for help to raise money to build a purpose designed theological college. Does that sound expensive? Well, it’s not. It will cost little over R4 million, at today’s exchange rate,about £380,000 or $500,000. Here in South Africa you get great value for your money and it really makes sense to invest in God’s kingdom; it is certainly safer than banks and shares.

Secondly, we want to create a stream of regular funding from which we can pay recurring and ongoing expenses, such as salaries and the general running costs of Dumisani. You might like to think about helping with this by setting up even small regular payments.

Larger sums may be deposited directly into Dumisani’s bank account (details below). Please bear in mind that for every transaction paid direct into our bank account the bank charges Dumisani R100 (almost £10).

Smaller sums and regular gifts in favour of Dumisani are best channelled through the International Missions Board of the Free Church of Scotland, who can advise on direct debit payments in favour of Dumisani.

Free Church International Board

Mr Calum Ferguson, International Missions Board, Free Church of Scotland, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH1 6LS

Dumisani’s Bank details

First National Bank, Corner of Cathcart and Maclean Street, King Williams Town, 5601, South Africa

Account Number: 61264001672 - Branch Code: 210519 - Swift Number: FIRNZAJJ

Dumisani 30th Anniversary Challenge

 

Plans for Dumisani's future

 

For Dumisani’s 30th Anniversary year, we are seeking the help of our supporters to raise the funds to enable us to develop this strategic ministry even further. The Challenge has two parts, you can help with either or both:

Part 1: To raise R4 Million by June 2010 to build and equip a new Dumisani Theological Institute

Dumisani’s Board of Governors believes that we should develop our buildings to make the institution more effective in training leaders for the South African church. Initial investigations suggest that the project will cost approximately R4 million (approximately £285,000 or $400,000). Would you, or your congregation, be prepared to make a significant contribution towards these costs?

Part 2: To raise R30 000 per month in small, regular donations from a large number of supporters.

To finance the ministry of Dumisani in all its facets, we need to raise R30 000 (£2,300, or $3.600) per month in regular monthly donations, by adding new donors who are willing to commit to giving £5/$5/R50 (or whatever their local currency is) per month and churches which are prepared to commit to giving £30/$30/R300 per month.

For full details click here:

Easter Communion

Effie and Elizabeth (May 2007)

 

Effie Macleod died in 2007, in her late nineties. She was a dearly loved member of Greyfriars Stratherrick Free Church in Inverness and widely regarded as a Christian woman of wise and modest spirituality, and progressive outlook. Latterly, a favourite topic of conversation was the old Free Church communions on the Isle of Lewis in the days of her youth.

Highland communions typically lasted over a period of five or more days. Informal fellowships and prayer meetings run by the elders might stretch this out to a week. Officially, however, the services began on Thursday, the ‘Fast Day’, when the whole community would stop work and attend services at which the emphasis was on introspection and self-humbling. Friday was the ‘Question Day,’ a unique form of fellowship when a minister would set a verse for spontaneous discussion by the men, who would attempt to relate it to their recent Christian experience. On Saturday, the accent was on anticipation and preparation for the communion service of the following day. On Sunday, or ‘Sabbath’, morning the Sacrament was dispensed. In the evening the emphasis of the sermon was evangelistic. Monday’s services concluded the communion season on a high note of praise and thanksgiving.

Open-air Highland Communion, c.1870

Effie loved these great sacramental gatherings at her Siabost home, in Lewis, when Christians would travel from near and far to be present. After the services they would gather in homes for fellowship, prayer, and psalm and hymn singing and questions of theology and Christian life would be discussed. At their best these fellowships were useful, but sometimes the ‘bodachs’ (old men) would forget themselves and lose everyone in bizarre flights of exegetical fancy or abstruse and speculative theology. The sessions would go on into the early hours, punctuated by rounds of tea and scones, with crowdie and jam. Exhausted, the company would disperse to sleep; sometimes four to a bed.

In South Africa this tradition, imported by the early Scottish missionaries, is alive and well. Called conventions, a similar Thursday to Sunday pattern is followed. At our recent Easter convention, people travelled from the Transkei in the north and from as far south as Cape Town. It was a great time for reunions, good food, and warm fellowship; as well as the more formal preaching. On Sunday, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated and it was moving to see over 500 people being served by elders, some wearing frock coats of a bygone age, whilst Psalm 116 was softly sung through twice. Silver and pewter plates, piled high with morsels of bread and eleven silver and pewter cups of wine, topped up from great ewers, were needed to serve the congregation. Some of these old communion vessels were inscribed with the names of Scottish congregations who had passed them on as surplus to requirements; perhaps a mute testimony to a dwindling Scottish but a growing South African spirituality.

Cooking stew for the post-communion dinner

One friend told us how she had not been able to get to sleep before two in the morning, so taken up had she been with fellowship and singing. Effie would have loved it all. From the big black cast iron pots in which the meat was cooked, to the banter in the kitchen and the meeting up with old friends from afar, to say nothing of the spiritual nourishment.

Our personal experience, in five continents, over thirty-five years of ministry, is that Christians share far more in common than the superficial linguistic or cultural differences might suggest.

Apartheid might have dispossessed the Xhosa people of their civil rights and privileges, shunting them from pillar to post at the whim of the Pretoria government, but it did not rob them of their dignity or spirituality. Like the communism it reviled, the hated apartheid has also perished in the dust. And as we joined the convoy of cars and minibuses jolting their way homewards along the gravel road, the great affirmative words of John Ellerton came to mind:

So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall never,
Like earth’s proud empires, pass away:
Thy kingdom stands, and grows forever,
Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.

A photo album of pictures of the Easter Convention

Glowing with Pride

    Dumisani faculty, graduates and awardees, 2009

We are told that pride is sin. But there is, I believe, a non-sinful pride which consists of that deep sense of gratitude and satisfaction that someone else, not you, has succeeded but in whose success you have been privileged to play a small part. I felt that kind of pride last Saturday (14 March) during the Dumisani annual awards and graduation ceremony. It was thrilling to see the satisfaction, joy and enthusiasm shining on the faces of our awardees and graduates. 

Thirteen students successfully completed Basic Ministries Studies, a kind of access course, opening up theological education for those who want to go on towards, say, a degree, or who take it as a stand-alone course confirming them in their faith. Four students succeeded in passing the Advanced Ministries studies, a course for students who do not fulfil the requirements for university registration but nevertheless are able to meet the demands of the BTh curriculum. We also had six students graduate with a fully accredited North-West University Bachelor of Theology degree. In all, twenty three students succeeded in their chosen courses of study.  They were flushed with success and I felt incredibly proud of them.

Dumisani students, these days, are very representative of the Rainbow Nation. The racial mix includes a majority of black Xhosas, but with some Coloured and White students too. Economically the blend is equally wide – some come from an impoverished background and struggle to pay fees and meet their other obligations, on the other hand I see some students drive away from class in new Mercedes saloons and Mitsubishi 4×4s. There are male and female, married and unmarried, young and old. I guess the age range spans about forty years. Some sail through their courses, consistently getting high marks; others struggle, facing setbacks and discouragements. Some are diligent; others you worry about!  Some have excellent health; others struggle with ill health, including cancer and yet succeed. Some have the support of Christian parents or spouses, other plough a lonely furrow with few who care.

The singing and applause will never be forgotten. African singing, spontaneous and harmonic, and uninhibited  applause with full voiced ululation.  But what, I think, may remain longest in my memory is the competence of these students, some indeed showing streaks of brilliance. One hundred years ago the Lovedale Institute, founded by Scots and in 1843 taken under the umbrella of the Free Church of Scotland, produced a group of remarkable Xhosa intellectuals. Their influence was marginalised and their mouths stopped by white prejudice, which later led to the shutting down of Lovedale as a bastion of anti-Apartheid thought and action.

Isaac W Wauchope

The group included such Christian intellectuals as Tiyo Soga, the first Xhosa Presbyterian minister; the poet John Knox Bokwe; writer and minister Isaac Williams Wauchope; Tengo Jabavu, the founder of South Africa’s first black newspaper, Imvo Zabantsundu, and his son Professor Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu, founder of the All-African National Convention (AANC) and Professor of Latin and Bantu languages at Fort Hare University. 

Bokwe’s son-in-law, the educationalist, church leader and African nationalist, Z. K. Matthews once described them all as “leaders [who] drank deep at the spring of western civilisation and yet …remained true Africans, loyal to the best traditions of their people and good examples of what has been described as the African personality”

It is my hope and prayer that in the years to come Dumisani may, in a small measure, take up where Lovedale finished and provide solid, well educated Christians, strong in the faith and the intellectual equals of any, to lead their people forward into a new era of Gospel success in South Africa. 

A photo album of Graduation Ceremony pictures

Camping in the Mist

 

Hogsback with Scotch Mist

It is a beautiful cool Sunday morning with a cloudless sky. I am sitting under the lemon tree, where I often sit in the early morning. This gnarled old tree produces lemons all year long, providing us with homemade lemonade and lemon meringue pies. Our new indigenous plants are producing colour and form. In one corner the pale blue Plumbago and vibrant orange Cape Honeysuckle make a wonderful contrast, in another the exotic Strelitzia or Bird of Paradise Flower has just started to bloom. My cherry tomatoes are 11 feet high, producing a wonderful crop. Three Hadeda Ibis, large and incredibly noisy birds, that wake us at dawn each morning, are probing the damp soil with their long beaks for worms.

We have been busy recently and the weather hot and humid, and we feel drained. But after last night’s gentle rain, this lovely cool morning makes me feel my energy returning.

This term, I have been at college most mornings making lunches, cooking muffins and chatting with the students. Tuesday is St. Patrick’s Day, and so I have promised them a pot of Irish Stew, with plenty of meat. They enjoy meat, something they don’t often have. I have many opportunities to listen to their concerns and pray with them.

I continue to enjoy marking correspondence courses, learning much myself. In April and May I am to give the talks at the Free Church Bible Women’s monthly meeting. We are doing an overview of the Bible, to show how the isolated texts and stories they have become familiar with over the years connect together. Please pray I will be able to pass on something that will inspire, encourage and be useful in their ministry. We have been asked to teach women in other areas and of different dominations, but need wisdom as we cannot meet all the requests.

Lastly, as you can see we are on another steep learning curve. We have a bought a tent! I never thought that at over sixty I would start camping, but this is the best way to enjoy South Africa’s wild and rugged places. We have had two short expeditions and enjoyed them, even though the misty weather brought torrential rain. It was like camping in the Cairngorms, in Scotland.

Elizabeth