MISSION IS FUN

RIDING AT THE AGE OF 70

BY FR LUIS ALBUQUERQUE MCCJ

THE PARISH of Yanahuanca in the mountains of central Peru had several communities. The missionary had to go to one of them to celebrate the feast of the patron saint. He took with him a Monfortian Sister and a young girl.

When they arrived at the place where the road ended, they saw a man with two horses. They tried to go by car through the mountains, guided by the illustrious horseman, but it was difficult for the car. So, they decided to go on foot, because the priest had never ridden a horse. After a while, he encouraged himself to ride on the animal and he felt comfortable. They were able to reach the place for the feast. When they arrived they were surprised to see that there were two chapels next to each other, one for the Catholic Church and the other, for another church.

They also noticed that the beer had arrived at that place. Everything went smoothly and after praying and singing, strengthened by a good lunch, they returned in the same way. The priest was already a master at riding, but at a certain point, he felt sorry for the Sister, who was already 70 years old and tried to give her his horse, so that he could go on foot. At first, he didn’t manage to convince her because she had never ridden a horse before but finally, she agreed. Riding was easy for her and she was giving glory to God saying that it was necessary to reach that age for the chance to use such an animal for transport. Everything was going well, but then the priest invited the Sister to share the horse with the young girl so that she could also take a rest from walking.

“Now that I was doing so well and enjoying it, why should I ever dismount? Oh well!

They arrived at the car and descended from 4 000 m to 3 000 m where the parish was.

THE LAST WORD

ARE YOU ANGRY BECAUSE I AM GOOD? (MT 20: 1–16)

BY FR SILVANO FAUSTI SJ | BIBLIST AND WRITER

THE PARABLE of the Workers in the Vineyard contradicts, at its root, the logic of possession and claim; none can demand what is, instead, a pure gift of grace.

Those regarded as ‘first called’, both in Israel and in the Church, behave like Jonah: they are enraged to see that God is ‘merciful, forgiving, long-suffering, and of great love’ (Jonah 4: 2). They are attached to their spiritual goods, like the rich young man to his material ones. They are like the elder brother, who is angry to see that his father is good to his younger brother (Lk 15: 28). In this parable, those ‘first called’ even risk rejecting the Lord, because He is
magnanimous towards the last.

This parable is a gospel ‘in a nutshell’, similar to Lk 15: 1ff. It goes contrary to the ethics of capitalism, whether material or spiritual. It is not against the law or justice—the labourers of the first hour are given what is right—but it emphasises grace. God’s law and justice are that of love and liberality; His reward exceeds all merit: it is a reward, given out of mercy to all. For all, salvation is the free love of the Father. One cannot steal it by cunning or earn it by sweat: it is grace.

Eternal life, which the rich young man wants to have (Mt 19: 16), can be obtained not by doing something more, but by leaving everything. One must leave not only material goods but also spiritual ones. The Kingdom is of the poor in spirit (Mt 5: 3), of those who have become like children and accept it as a gift from the Father to His children in the Son. The privilege of the little ones and the least, is that, not deserving it, they understand that it is a gift. The others—the rich in spirit—will only accept it if, unlike the elder brother, they welcome the younger one; only if, unlike those who have worked since dawn in this parable, they are happy that their brothers of the last hour, have the same children’s salary as them.

This parable, along with that of the steward in Lk 16: 1ff, is even more irritating than Lk 15: 1ff because it uses economic language: it is a dig at our market-oriented way of conceiving love. The passage is divided into two parts: there are five different calls from sunrise until an hour before sunset (vv. 1–7): at sunset there is the moment of reward, starting with the last ones who receive the same retribution as the first ones, who, of course, complain (vv. 8–16). The focus is on the rebuke to one of the workers of the first hour, who does not accept that the Lord treats those of the last hour as He does. In this parable, Jesus brings back down to earth what was in the ‘beginning’: the way of the Father, who is benevolent to all His children, even to those who do not deserve it (cf. Mt 5: 45).

The Church, if it seeks salvation from her works, will no longer have anything to do with Christ: she will fall away from grace (Gal 5: 4). Christians, knowing that they have been saved by grace (cf. Eph 2: 5), putting aside bitterness, indignation, anger, clamour, slander, and all kinds of malice, are called to be kind to one another, to pardon as God has pardoned them in Christ (Eph 4: 31f).

HUSTLE SMARTER, NOT HARDER

YOUTH VOICES • HUSTLING

HUSTLE SMARTER, NOT HARDER

Side-hustling has become popular, especially among unemployed youth or those in search of an extra income to make their living. Though it often demands prolonged hours of work, it also brings valuable contributions and untapped skills to the forefront of society

BY JILL WILLIAMS, CANDIDATE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT | PRETORIA

IN SOUTH AFRICA, as well as 59 other countries worldwide, Worker’s Day has been celebrated on 1 May as a public holiday since 1889 (South African History Online 2022), through the support of an international federation of socialists and trade unions in Europe. Many workers’ benefits and humane standard working conditions, such as the eight-hour work day arose from various movements worldwide. Funnily enough, with the fast-paced world we are living in, it seems like we are moving back to exaggerated working hours, with an average of 21.1% of South Africans working more than 49 hours per week, nine hours more than the standard, according to Writer (2019). The COVID-19 pandemic fostered the rise of the ‘work-from-home’ model. This played a role in making people more accessible, since working at home became more widely accepted and accommodated through platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Skype. It also reduced the amount of time completely away from work that we spend as a society.

The Built Environment is one sector of employment, where workers put in more hours than they are being paid for to get work done. Credit: Brian Odwar/Pixabay.

Hustles take many forms, including the well-known small business of mobile food trucks. Credit: Sam Jotham Sutharson/Pixabay.

Working beyond your hours

According to Labour Guide (2023), working overtime, i.e. working more hours than the standard 40 hours per week in South Africa, is voluntary and can be done for only three hours on any given day, with 10 hours being the maximum number of hours in any given week. Remuneration is given for additional work and both the employer and employee agree to the terms of work for overtime, including when it will commence and come to an end. This, however, does not usually happen for over-worked individuals, particularly in the private sector, who are working extensively beyond their normal working hours to ensure work is completed on time and to ensure they keep their jobs.

People working in the field of the Built Environment, often speak of the private workspace regularly being a situation of worker exploitation as work is being done beyond the standard working hours, with no overtime or additional benefits. With the scarcity of jobs for young professionals in South Africa (let alone well-paying jobs), everyone wants to prove their willingness to work and lead in a company by accepting more responsibility and gaining more work experience for minimal or no remuneration. This is likely happening in other sectors too. Although there are councils which are intended to prevent and regulate things like this, the implementation of good practice is happening at a very slow pace—far too slow for the rate of economic shifts happening globally.

Being busy vs being productive

According to Writer (2019), The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) uses GDP per hour worked as a measure to track actual employee productivity in a given country. This has identified that on average, local workers work 8.6 hours a day; however, in terms of productivity, South Africa is contributing only $98 per hour worked, and ranking second last to Greece, amongst countries who are part of the study. Although we work long hours, our productivity levels in monetary terms are low. This makes one ask the question—are we busy being busy and staying occupied or busy being productive and bearing actual fruit from our work?

Vetkoek dough packaged and ready for distribution to the clients. Credit: Jill Williams.

Frying samoosa’s for a client’s order. Credit: Jill Williams

The phrase working smarter and not harder comes to mind. Is our way of working really beneficial for us in this country? Above and beyond this, we have faced great hits to our global economy due to factors such as the war in Ukraine, resulting in shortages of wheat and other products in various countries and contributing to high inflation rates in the prices of food in South Africa. This has placed pressure on the daily needs and money available for households of all calibres. We want better pay and better-paying jobs so that we can meet our daily needs, and often this means resorting to working longer hours.

As COVID hit and the rise of home chefs started trending, I began realising that I can put my new role as a cook to good use

One of the ways we have begun working extended hours, particularly in a more digitalised and social-media-exposed society, is through the rising trend of side-hustling online and otherwise, to make an extra income. This has become very popular and gained momentum, particularly amongst young people who have work and even for those who don’t have work but are looking to make a primary income. These side hustles range greatly from the selling of beauty products such as Avon, making natural beauty products and scents and selling them; the selling of homemade cooked ready-to-eat or heat-and-eat foods; drop shipping; teaching kids English online; or even type-writing and transcribing online, to mention but a few.

Side-hustling own experience

As a society, I feel that although we are pushing children through universities, to get their degrees and become academic doctors (which are all great things), we lack absorbing these obtained skills back into the job market. Too often, people are labelled as overqualified and have to settle for jobs that are not even in line with what they had studied, just to earn an income. Now and then a Facebook post shows graduates, fully clothed in their academic regalia, standing at the side of the road and begging for a job. Added to this is the need for people to reduce their wage expectations in the job market due to the need for more work experience than one might have been able to acquire while studying. Some of my friends who graduated with me struggled for many months to get a job, despite them having a Master’s Degree and more than two years of prior work experience. It’s a jungle out there.

I do foresee a great harvest of job availability and the growth of microeconomies through the energy and resilience youth has to offer the world

Before I began my current job, I experienced a few months of being unemployed. The moment I saw the ‘pass’ on my academic record and was informed I would be graduating, I was flooded with a sense of relief and gratitude, followed by the numbing thought: WHAT NOW? I was officially unemployed. I had instantly switched from being a student to being a statistic. In the months leading up to the time I began working in my current job, I was actively doing my bit to get employment. However, I still needed funds in the interim. I became frustrated at the process and the waiting, even despondent at times in that I could not put into practice the skills I had spent so long obtaining. Now I was a cook, a cleaner and a general homebody, an unemployed person. As COVID hit and the rise of home chefs started trending, I began realising that I can put my new role as a cook to good use. I began selling some of the foods I liked making, such as vetkoek (savoury fried dough), koeksister (twisted doughnut like treats with cinnamon and coconut), roti and samoosas. I also made use of skills I had learnt in varsity in terms of marketing my products on social media and creating digital posters and short videos. This greatly helped to spread the word about my product. I also got mostly positive feedback from clients and had some repeat customers. I was assisted somewhat with making roti’s by a family member when I had larger orders and my dad assisted greatly with transportation for free deliveries of the products to my clients.

Overqualified people often cannot find work due to little work experienced. Credit: Alpesh Solanki/za.pinterest.com.

This was a great learning experience and showed me that I could really make something of this with a few tweaks to my business model. Thankfully, I got a job four months after I completed my studies. On the business side of things, I tried to convert my hustle into a side hustle. This worked to some degree, but I eventually realised I would require more capacity in terms of manpower, as well as a physical location for my products to be sold for a continual influx of customers. My inability to keep up with orders and manage my working hours lead to my decision to halt the side hustle, to focus on my main hustle, allowing myself time to rest and recuperate after the mental trauma of having studied for the past seven years. I haven’t yet resuscitated the business, but I will. Watch out world!

We need to find a way to make money work for us more than we work for our money

What I learnt from this experience was that one needs to be realistic with what you are expecting from your business in terms of time and the amount of money, skills and effort you would need to put into the business. What risk reward factor are you willing to invest or spend on your business or side hustle? Another important thing is that you need to be vocal about your product or service. That is where networking starts: by making it known that you have something good to offer the world. This experience highlighted to me that we somehow need to find a way to make money work for us more than we work for our money. Side-hustling, though very exciting and rewarding when done well, can be very exhausting and draining in terms of one’s time and energy. Balance is key, but can be very tricky to navigate.

What I do know for certain is that there is much more to explore in the realm of hustling and certainly many more lessons to be learnt. Working longer hours does not seem to be dying down soon, particularly for the entrepreneurs in our society, but I do foresee a great harvest of job availability and the growth of micro-economies through the energy and resilience youth has to offer the world.

FRONTIERS • ST MICHAEL’S HOSPITAL, CHAD

PROMOTING INTEGRAL HEALTH

At St Michael’s Hospital in Donomanga, Chad, a team of health professionals, coordinated by the Mexican Comboni Missionary Brother and medical doctor, Juan Carlos Salgado, does everything possible to ensure that patients are treated with respect and professionalism, healing them and helping them to have hope

BY BRO. BERNARDINO FRUTUOSO | MCCJ

WE LEFT Laï, in the south of Chad, at six o’clock in the morning, while it was still dawn. We were travelling to Donomanga, a small town 80 km away, where we were going to see the work done at St Michael’s Hospital. The institution belongs to the diocese of Laï and is part of the network of health services run by the local Caritas.

The heavy rainy season had just ended and caused a lot of damage to the dirt road. Our driver zigzagged the car with skill and speed, trying to avoid the big potholes which the rain and other vehicles had opened in the road. We passed groups of villagers on motorbikes, bicycles, trucks—used as passenger transport—or ox carts.

“With my service, I do everything I can to make people healthy and happy”

Along the roadside, villagers, mostly women and children, carry buckets and basins with water that they collect from the communal well and the firewood they use for cooking. Some children walk to school, which runs from Monday to Saturday, from 07:30–12:00 under a scorching sun, as the temperature starts to rise and soon exceeds 35°C. Everyone has to breathe the dust that rises in large dark clouds as motor vehicles pass by.

In this southern part of the country, rich in arable land and with great agricultural potential, rice and cotton plantations stretch across the horizon. We also pass herds of cattle on the roads.

Serving the sick with joy

After a bumpy three-hour drive, we pass through the main gate of St Michael’s hospital. The first thing we see are groups of people sitting in the shade under leafy trees. Others occupy the corridors outside the various wards. “It is the patients’ families who take care of them. Each family takes responsibility for their patient, cooks for them and keeps a close eye on their health,” explains Brother Juan Carlos Salgado, a Comboni missionary and the only doctor practising in these facilities.

Sister Angela, a Mexican nurse who has been in Chad since 2008, belongs to the congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She collaborates with the administration of the hospital and takes us on a tour of the facilities. She tells us that the hospital has a capacity for 70 inpatients, divided between paediatrics, maternity, general medicine and infectious diseases. The hospital serves 10 000 patients and is the only one for the 111 538 inhabitants of the Donomanga district.

Bro. Juan Carlos examining one of the patients.

Maria Oralia, also Mexican and who arrived in Chad just over a year ago, tells us that the logistics of storing the medicines were demanding and complicated, as there is no public electricity service and they had to use a diesel generator and batteries. However, “this task is now easier”, she says with a smile, “because a few days ago 24 solar panels were installed and guarantee energy throughout the day and allow us, for example, to preserve medicines which need low temperatures for storage.”

Bro. Juan Carlos adds that it can be difficult to understand how a hospital can function without energy, but “they have adapted to working with scarce resources”. He says they can now “have a blood bank, keep basic services running for 24 hours and even perform some operations with more peace of mind in case of emergency”. Before, they had to turn on the electric generator hoping it wouldn’t break down.

In the maternity ward, Sister Aurelia, a young nurse originally from Guatemala, has been working at the hospital since 2008 and is responsible for the administration of this wing, the paediatric ward and the operating theatre. With a warm smile, she tells us that she is originally from San Marcos, a region with fairly mild temperatures, but has adapted well to the hot, dry climate of Chad. In the cool mornings of the dry season, she “even has to put on a coat” because she feels cold: night temperatures drop to 14–16°C and Chadians wear thick coats. She stresses that the mission of her institute, founded in Guadalajara, Mexico, by Mother Naty Venegas, the first female Mexican saint, is to serve those who suffer most, the sick, and that she is very happy at Saint Michael’s.

Bro. Juan Carlos worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a nurse before coming to Chad

Sr Aurelia tells us that they receive, on average, about 100 parturients a year, often with some kind of complication. “When there are difficult situations that the nurses have not been able to resolve in the village health centres, they send the pregnant women back to the hospital,” she explains. Sr Aurelia enters the room and talks to a woman who had been bitten by a snake and was already being medicated. She asked a man sitting by the door to take out of a jar the small poisonous snake that one of the villagers had killed. She tells us that “if the lady had not been assisted, the poison would soon have spread and she would have died quickly. Snakebites are still frequent in the region, and people are bitten when they work in the fields or the villages”. Sr Aurelia says “Every year, there are about 100 patients who arrive at the hospital in this condition”.

Bro. Juan Carlos attends to a pregnant woman and, shortly afterwards, performs an ultrasound scan to make a better diagnosis, find out about the health of the baby and the mother, and decide what steps to take.

Daily challenges

The hospital, as we have observed, is well organised, although it does not have many staff members, since, including all the employees, only 38 people work there.

When we arrived, Bro. Juan Carlos was in his consulting room attending to the outpatients arriving that day. He says that many people arrive at the hospital already very sick, because “first they resort to local medicines and healers and only after that, if there are no positive results, they come to the hospital”. Many patients arrive already very ill, for example, with major infections resulting from accidents or injuries with knives, machetes or weapons, or very advanced diseases. The most common diseases in the region are infectious diseases, namely tuberculosis and malaria, child malnutrition and respiratory diseases. During the rainy season from May to September, malaria frequently affects children and the recovery process is more complicated, as many suffer from severe anaemia.

Mexican Sr Maria Oralia, from the Congregation of the Daughters
of the Sacred Heart, responsible for the pharmacy of the hospital.

Brother Juan Carlos evaluates the risky pregnancy of a woman
by means of an ultrasound scan.

The missionary doctor’s working day starts early with visits to patients in the different wards; it continues with outpatient consultations, ultrasound scans and minor surgeries. “The more complex and time-consuming surgeries are scheduled for Thursday and Friday each week. However, in case of emergency, they are done at any time, even during the night,” explains the missionary. For this, there are two operating theatres, equipped with the essential equipment.

“Everyone is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. My greatest joy is to see patients going home cured,”

Bro. Juan Carlos worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a nurse before coming to Chad. It was only after a few years, in 2003, that he went to study medicine at the University of Gulu in Uganda. When he finished his degree, he returned to Congolese territory and moved to the hospital of the diocese of Wamba, where he co-ordinated and supervised the network of dispensaries. In Chad, for the past two years, he has been carrying out a difficult service, but one that fulfils him as a person, as a missionary brother and as a doctor. He values his work with the sick, the most vulnerable in society, despite not having many human and technical resources.

Brother Juan Carlos with the team of nurses from the internal medicine ward.

“I am happy to be here. I like the quiet life of the countryside better than the stress and hustle and bustle of the big cities,” he explains. However, working in this remote location has its limitations, drawbacks and challenges. The biggest challenge he faces as a doctor “is the lack of support from other experienced colleagues, with whom I could talk and discuss the more complicated clinical cases”. However, he says that over the years of practise, he has gained “confidence to make decisions” and, whenever possible, he has tried to consult “friendly colleagues using communication platforms, as new technologies allow this teamwork”.

He adds that, despite being in a remote location, this does not prevent solidarity. There is a group of Spanish ophthalmologists who come every year to work, with great dedication, for two weeks as volunteers at the hospital. His dream is to have teams of volunteer doctors from other specialities, especially in oral health, as “this service is practically non-existent in this country”.

He says that when he first arrived in Chad he had difficulty adjusting to the climate and the extreme temperatures. With such an intense workload, it is easy to become dehydrated in this climate, so “I often suffer from kidney stones”. As malaria is endemic, he is also recurrently infected, and this year he has already suffered three characteristic bouts of the disease.

Helping hands of brotherhood and solidarity

Due to the limited resources of the people in the region—most of them are engaged in subsistence farming—consultations and hospitalisation cost very little. As the hospital receives no state funding, finding the funds to keep it running is always a major challenge, requiring ‘creativity and budgetary discipline’.

The hospital serves 10 000 patients and is the only one for the 111 538 inhabitants of the Donomanga district

Among the most urgent needs, Bro. Juan Carlos mentions are an X-ray machine; a unit for sterilising clothes and surgical instruments; a new refrigerator for the blood bank; and repair of the leaking water tank. He adds that “working with limited resources is not easy,” but they have learned to manage them so that “everything works well”. In addition, everyone at the hospital is aware of recycling and minimising waste as much as possible. Bro. Juan Carlos has many projects in mind for the future of the hospital, especially those aimed at ensuring its sustainability. Among these, he mentions the planting of cashew nuts to sell the fruit and the purchase of a tractor to till and cultivate the land owned by the hospital.

Entrance of St Michael’s Hospital, the only hospital in the District of Donamanga in Chad.

Bro. Juan Carlos’ face shows the serene joy of a life given out of love for God and our most vulnerable brothers and sisters. “With my service, I do everything I can to make people healthy and happy. Everyone is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. My greatest joy is to see patients going home cured,” he confesses shyly.

The missionary doctor ends his days tired and often stays at the hospital even at night because he has to perform urgent operations. On those occasions, he cannot come back to sleep in the house of his nearby Comboni community, where he shares his life with three priests—from Mexico, Togo and the Central African Republic—dedicated to the pastoral care of the parish of Donomanga and the twelve small rural Christian communities in the area. Despite the difficulties, Bro. Juan Carlos is a fulfilled person, happy for the mission he carries out with his competent, fraternal and supportive hands, which help to give life and hope to the inhabitants of this remote village in Chad.

THE LAST WORD

The Flight to Egypt (Mt 2: 13–15): A New Exodus of Liberation

BY Fr Silvano Fausti SJ | Biblist and writer

THE STORY of Jesus in this passage is presented as a journey; the journey of the Son, retracing the same path of His lost brothers and sisters.

The episode concludes with a biblical quotation: ‘Out of Egypt, I called my son’ (Hos 11: 1), which interprets the event in the light of the Word; the whole history of Israel is, in fact, a prophecy of the life of Jesus. He descends and ascends from Egypt, the Son accomplishes the new and definitive exodus. He is the light to every human being who dwells in darkness and the shadow of death (Mt 4: 15f).

The Nazarean, as the people of Israel, is liberated from Egypt and from exile and returns to the Land. The passage sums up the drama of Israel and of every person. On the one hand, there is the king and, on the other, the child; the good persecuted by the wicked. Initially, the good is the loser and the evil is the winner and the stronger; but in the end, the Innocent wins, precisely defeating evil with His own blood. The story, from an apparent victory of the powerful, becomes the story of the beloved son, who saves his brothers who had sold him (cf. Gen 50: 20).

In verse 13, an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream. Like his namesake, sold by his brothers, Joseph is a ‘dreamer’; in the depths of his pure heart, he sees God (Mt 5: 8). Dreams often seem unreal to us; instead, they are the principle of all reality. Even if one does not know it, one always realises his dreams. God’s dreams always come true in the end, even if they seem impossible to us (Ps 126: 1; Acts 12: 9; Lk 24: 11, 37).

The angel speaks the Word: ‘get up!’ which awakens us to life, in line with God’s dream. Joseph does not respond to the Word with words, but with his bodily reaction. The answer is himself executing God’s voice literally. He practises love in deed and in truth (1 Jn 3: 18), a worship pleasing to God (Rom 12: 1). To obey means to listen by standing in front, facing the other. He who obeys is like the Son because he hears and does His word.

Mary is mentioned at the beginning of the Gospel as the wife of Joseph (Mt 1: 18, 19). Here the ‘child and his mother’ is mentioned, always putting the child first. Mary, Israel and the Church are not the centre; they lead to the centre, which is Him! Both Jesus and His mother are entrusted to the hands of Joseph, the prototype of believers.

The King of the Jews flees to Egypt because of the king of Judea—just as Joseph fled to Egypt because of the envy of his brothers.

Herod represents the figure of the Pharaoh, present in Israel, in the Church, and in each one of us. In our ‘paganism’, just as there is the quest of the Magi to worship the Lord, so there is the quest of Herod, who, like Pharaoh, will kill his children. Jesus, who, like Moses, is miraculously saved, enters Egypt to fulfil the new exodus.

Jesus in Egypt lives as a stranger, in solidarity with the loneliness of all the oppressed, His brothers and sisters. Herod, like Pharaoh, has also an end; the Son, like Israel, sees his end. God from on high laughs at the mighty and their plots (Ps 2: 4). Jesus’ forced ‘flight’ is not the end, but only the fulfilment of God’s plan. Evil is its executor: ‘He has dug the pit into which he will fall’ (Ps 7: 16).

The coming out of Egypt (Hos 11: 1) represents the birth of the Son from the dark womb of slavery. Hosea was speaking of a new exodus, from an even harsher Egypt, the return from Babylon—a time which will mark the beginning of a new springtime between God and His people, which will blossom in the desert (Hos 2: 16).

FRONTIERS • MEXICO-GUATEMALA BORDER

A Stop-Over for Healing

Faced with the migration crisis at the border of Guatemala and Mexico, the Comboni Missionary Sisters (CMS) decided to commit themselves and respond to it. They opened a centre which offers assistance and rehabilitation to the queues of migrants who journey northwards

BY Sr Pompea Cornacchia CMS | Tapachula, Mexico

HUNDREDS OF women, young people, girls and boys, arrive at Belen Reception Centre every day but this diocesan shelter in Tapachula is not their final destination. Hailing from Honduras, El Salvador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Haiti, they have one thing in common: they pursue the American dream. Tapachula, a city in the state of Chiapas, is just a place of transit. It is among the most dangerous Mexican border cities. This small city, neighbouring Guatemala, witnesses the daily crossing of thousands of migrants from Central America and the Caribbean, including Africans and Asians.

Effata crisis intervention programme

The Comboni Missionary Sisters set up a crisis intervention programme called Effata at the Belen shelter, to assist and serve the migrants. Effata is a powerful word which in Aramaic means, be opened. It expresses a desire and a commitment in favour of life.

A community of four Comboni Sisters, from Costa Rica, Mexico and Italy welcome and provide support and compassionate care to the migrants. Three are dedicated to listening and healing through spiritual and therapeutic accompaniment, assisting those who strive to integrate their experience of trauma. Under the Sisters’ care, they renew their hope, self-esteem and courage. Another Sister gives handicraft classes. Both children and adults participate joyfully in art therapy which helps them to develop their creativity. The intervention is focused on two steps: accommodation of the population in shelters or refugee camps and repatriation to their countries of origin to help them to continue in their rehabilitation process.

A community of four Comboni Sisters welcome and provide support and compassionate care to the migrants

The Mexican border is flooded with tears, nightmares and dreams of those who cross it every day. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in 2019, around 450 000 people crossed the border from Guatemala into Mexico seeking asylum or trying to continue their journey towards the north. Young people are fleeing from gang violence, while others are forcibly displaced. Poverty, inequality, social unrest and lack of opportunities are other factors that cause people to leave their families and their countries.

Witnessing the arrival of caravans of migrants at the southern border of Mexico in 2018, the Comboni Missionary Sisters decided to get involved in their humanitarian care. They realised that the reception conditions for migrants in Tapachula were very poor and limited. People were facing serious difficulties in terms of accommodation and food. The most vulnerable, such as single mothers with small children, large families, pregnant women, unaccompanied children and adolescents, the elderly, LGBTQ people, survivors of sexual violence, faced even more precarious situations. Moreover, the Siglo XXI migration station, where thousands of migrants are detained, is also located in Tapachula.

Numerous migrations

As a response to this humanitarian emergency, a CMS community was established in May 2019. Since then, the Comboni Sisters have been committed to promoting the human rights of migrants in collaboration with the Hospitalidad y Solidaridad shelter, a space for refugees and asylum seekers.

In the last two decades, the transit of migrants through Mexico has become a critical phenomenon of human mobility, both in terms of its magnitude and the conditions in which it occurs. Massive flows have gained the attention of the academic and media world. Understanding the causes, effects, risks and vulnerability of those who enter the Mexican territory without proper documentation is crucial. On the other hand, the ordinary transit of Central Americans, the so-called caravans or exoduses that began in 2010 and continued from 2018 to 2020 received contradictory responses in the host communities: rejection by some members and welcome by others.

Poverty, inequality, social unrest and lack of opportunities are other factors that cause people to leave their families and their countries

In 2020, the lockdown due to the pandemic put migrants and asylum seekers at risk at the border and in detention centres. Trapped, they became even more vulnerable to organised crime. Borders were closed and migrants were left unattended, as the centres did not provide them with security. Feelings of incomprehension and despair, as well as a loss of orientation, became an open challenge. At the moment, stranded migrants, asylum seekers and refugees say that they are modifying their American dream into a Mexican dream.

Through the programme, women lighten their backload, their energy flows back, and healing takes place. Some arrive with an accumulated amount of grief and sometimes they can’t even breathe. As they process their pain, loss and grief, they regain a sense of courage, strength and determination. Some of them commit themselves to help others who are in the early stages of the healing process.

Much work remains to be done in the Effata intervention programme at the Belen shelter in Tapachula. However, we Comboni Missionary Sisters know that we are not alone. The Spirit of Jesus and the solidarity of the world community strengthen us for service. To you, migrant woman, we say with tenderness, “Open yourself with renewed hope to a more human world: Effata!”.

REFLECTIONS • FAITH RESPONSE

The Quest for a Better Life: Enhancing Solidarity with Migrants and Refugees

In this reflection, the author presents a genuinely Christian response, grounded in Scripture, to the drama of millions of migrants and refugees throughout the world who call out at our doors

BY Fabian Oliver | Theologian, Johannesburg

Escaping terror, finding terror

For many migrants and refugees, leaving their homeland is not only the quest for a better life, but for some, it is their only hope of staying alive. Many are fleeing from the horrors of civil war, violent dictatorships, sexual abuse of women, and extreme forms of poverty and oppression. The search for a better life is perhaps the signalling of a spirituality that chooses life in the midst of death. For some, it is an awareness that God still loves them and wants them to have life in its fullness—and this keeps them going.

However, the quest for a better life is often met with a different kind of terror in their new dwelling place in the form of ghastly living conditions in refugee camps, exploitation by local government officials, afrophobia, xenophobia, and gravely underpaid employment. We are not to forget that for many migrants and refugees the situation they find themselves in is not isolated and exists in a history of slavery, colonialism, racism, and systemic patriarchy. There remains a dire need for justice and solidarity for migrants and refugees. This reflection offers possible considerations.

Solidarity is Biblical

Throughout the Bible, there are stories of migration and refuge. From the onset, there are various teachings on how the Israelites ought to treat the ‘foreigner, stranger or alien.’ As part of the laws of justice and mercy in Exodus 23: 9, the people are reminded not to oppress the foreigner for they themselves know what it feels like to be oppressed in another country. Thus, hospitality towards strangers is a key part of Israelite identity. Jesus’ birth is also marked by His parents becoming refugees, fleeing

their homeland to a place of safety (Mt 2: 13–23). In His ministry, Jesus knew about the experience of not being welcome, feeling destitute, and without a dwelling place. This is evident in His words, “the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests but the Son of man has no place to lay His head” (Lk 9: 58). Jesus notes that the Kingdom of God will be given to those who welcome the stranger, for in doing so they have welcomed Him (Mt 25: 35).

Thinking theologically

Reflecting on migration and God, Botha (2013) offers the metaphor of God as a migrant who derives from God’s dwelling of non-accessible light to[wards] creation. Thus, in Jesus, God comes to us as a stranger in our midst. In reflecting on Jesus’ birth story marked by fleeing from violence, Askevold (2008) boldly states that every migrant [refugee or asylum seeker] “carries the face of Christ, and this compels us to act in a way that protects this innate dignity.” In a similar vein, we can say it is God who waits at the border with the many destitute, it is God who settles in conditions of squallor in the refugee camps, and it is God who weeps with those who have lost loved ones drowned at sea. On the flip side of a theology of God as a migrant, we can also think of God, who is the Creator of our cosmos, and thus it is God who has welcomed us into Himself as children, offering us the land as a means of living life in abundance together. Therefore, we are called to be stewards of the land. This idea of God was reminiscent of the prayer for refugees said by Pope Francis during his trip to the migrants, refugees and asylum seekers at the port of Lesbos:

Jesus notes that the Kingdom of God will be given to those who welcome the stranger, for in doing so they have welcomed Him

“Merciful God, may we share with them the blessings we have received from Your hand, and recognize that together, as one human family, we are all migrants, journeying in hope to You, our true home, where every tear will be wiped away, where we will be at peace and safe in Your embrace.” (Vatican Radio 2016).

Solidarity and advocacy

The situation with migrants and refugees calls us to an ever-present solidarity with all who suffer and are pushed to the peripheries of society. It calls us to carefully think of our methods and governance towards those seeking a better life. More radically, solidarity calls to question our own xenophobia, indifference, and self-centredness. It calls us to question the very reason why there is perpetual displacement, violence, and poverty visited upon certain communities. We need to critique policies and notions that view solidarity and concern for the poor and the marginalised as obstacles to economic growth. Beyond the vast amounts of social aid and policies geared towards migrants and refugees, the question remains, why is the situation and treatment of these people so vile and oppressive? There are no quick fixes or easy answers. However, there are ample possibilities for attaining a better life for all, working together as people, religious organisations, civil society, government, private and public sectors.

SPECIAL REPORT • REFUGEES

Calling for a Christian response to the Reality of Migrants

“Every minute 20 people in the world leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror” (United Nations, 20 June 2021).

BY Lance Thomas | Centre for Faith and Community, University of Pretoria

Christian communities and societies in general look at the global migration crisis. Faced with it, different attitudes become manifest

A global perspective

According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), by the end of 2017, there were 25.4 million refugees across the world. By mid-2022, the figure had risen to 32.5 million. There are also 103 million displaced people worldwide. The 2022 report of the United Nations International Organisation on Migration (IOM) estimated that, in 2020, there were about 281 million international migrants—people living in a country other than their birth—meaning 3.6 % of the global population

In South Africa, the African Centre for Migration and Society at Wits University, states that “approximately 5.3% of people of working age were born outside the country”. In the United States, according to Erin Duffin (2022), “during 2022, 25 465 refugees were admitted into the country; a significant increase from 2021, when they were 11 411.”

P.W. Walsh (2022), at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford also affirms that in 2019, “an estimated 388 000 foreign-born people living in the UK came originally to seek asylum; around 0.6% of UK’s total population of around 67 million.”

These numbers are surprisingly low and a far cry from the image of migrants streaming across our borders or millions of migrants ‘stealing our jobs’.

A need for reviewing procedures

In the context of the negative discourse on migration in the United States, a religious Sister, working at the border of the US, told me that migrants wait for months to get their documents in near-prison conditions, in overcrowded buildings. The Sister and her team were requested to make space for a plane load of war refugees fleeing from Ukraine who were given priority in their allocation and allowed to stay in single accommodation, pushing the rest of the migrants into even more overcrowding. The Ukrainian/Russian war has shifted the urgency with which the West perceives the global migration crisis, manifesting a double-standard approach.

From a South perspective, we have been calling for the update of refugee laws for years. The 1951 Convention with its 1967 Protocols is outdated, putting serious pressure on the migration system. UNHCR (1967) and the signatory countries have not managed to agree upon the necessary modifications and this has caused a serious backlog in the migration system. The obligation of non-refoulement—not sending someone back into a situation of possible persecution—is a great positive, but treating each person on a case-by-case basis has complicated the situation. Moreover, many local migration policies tend to become more restrictive on migrants’ rights, often pitting human rights against the national policy, making it more difficult for migrants to get refugee status.

A ‘Holy Family’ of refugees

The irony lies in a world hostile to migrants celebrating, as we recently did, a heavily pregnant Mary forced to leave her home to be counted in Bethlehem. After giving birth she, Joseph and Jesus had to “leave everything behind to escape persecution” and terror. Large tracts of conservative, mostly United States Christian groups, try to convince the world that Jesus was in fact not a refugee; their argument is rather simplistic saying that as Jesus moved within the territory of the Roman Empire, He never crossed a national border.

There are vast similarities between the rise of an exclusive, anti-immigrant and fundamentalist, in its religious approach, orthodoxy, to the rise of the German Evangelical movement under Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, which Karl Barth, the Swiss Calvinist theologian, so aggressively opposed (Dolamo 2020).

Pope Francis lamented in Fratelli Tutti that, “migrants are not seen as entitled like others to participate in the life of society, forgeting that they possess the same intrinsic dignity as any person. No one will ever openly deny that they are human beings, yet in practice, by our decisions and the way we treat them, we can show that we consider them less worthy, less important, less human.” [FT 39].

South African situation

In South Africa, several reception centres for migrants have been closed resulting in huge backlogs regarding the regularisation of documents. The policy uncertainty has left many migrants in limbo with some waiting since 1994, for a procedure which should take three months. The Congolese community, for example, needs to renew their documents every few months while others are renewed every two years. A short span of renewal coupled with more migrants entering the country, plus a scanty and poorly trained staff in the reception areas, compounds the problem. The special dispensation of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa has also caused a humanitarian disaster. After 15 years of having a special visa, these rights have now been forfeited and migrants have to return home.

Since South Africa has a non-encampment policy, many migrants fend for themselves in the most precarious conditions, usually in townships, zones of gentrification around cities or in informal settlements close to places of work or business. South Africa finds itself in a financial decline due to years of mismanagement, theft from state coffers and poor infrastructure development. Recently it was revealed that in a hospital in Thembisa, a poor community, nearly a billion Rand was looted in graft. Within that context, a certain politician declared that “migrants are destroying our healthcare system”.

As the lives of people on the margins of society are becoming more precarious, compounded by the recent Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, many politicians and ordinary citizens use migrants as scapegoats for these larger social ills. New political parties and movements, such as Action SA (Youtube 2020), notorious for their xenophobic rhetoric, received considerable support in Gauteng’s last provincial elections. Their followers seem to be ordinary middle-class citizens around Soweto, Johannesburg and Pretoria, who see themselves as religious upholders of law and order. Others are well-educated people and even religious leaders with an anti-migrant discourse, who support them as custodians of Christian values.

Many local migration policies tend to become more restrictive on migrants’ rights, often pitting human rights against the national policy

Loren Landau (2022), Professor of migration and development at the University of Oxford, pointed out that scapegoating migrants is the narrative of a state that has nothing to offer to its citizens except hate and fear of the other, pitting the poor against the poor.

Since 2008, when South African society became synonymous with xenophobic violence, we have straddled the line between having one of the most progressive constitutions in the world; our inability to implement it; and a culture of care among our citizens protecting the rights of all. This fact leaves our society as a country ‘at war with itself’.

A Christian response

In Practical Theology, the term ‘responsible citizenship’ is currently used. In the context of African history of colonialism, with its missionary mandate of not getting involved in local politics, it could render church leaders ineffective in the protection of migrants. If the political narrative of using the term ‘illegal’ in regards to migrants continues, ordinary church members, under a supposed ‘responsible citizenship’, will shy away from dealing with the matter, following instead the directives of the state, and not reflecting on the harm imposed on the lives of vulnerable people.

Despite the many biblical texts clearly expressing that the justice of a society is reflected in the way it treats its “women, orphans and strangers” (albeit a little patriarchal) we still see our church mission limited to charity. In a city that faces poverty and inequality, land and housing injustice, urban exclusion, massive in-migration, contesting land aspirations, precarious housing, informality, and urban violence, the sum total of church effort cannot be limited to offering food.

At our Centre for Faith and Community at the University of Pretoria, we have sought to partner with Caritas to count the migrants in South Africa and with Kerk in Actie a Dutch Agency to develop groups of ‘church champions,’ people of goodwill who strive beyond establishing soup kitchens which often exonerate bad government policy. We want to train church members to take up social justice issues while still providing the food people so desperately need. As Helder Camara said, “when I give food to the poor they call me a saint, when I ask why they are poor they call me a communist” (Wagg 2014). For true Christians, keepers of their brothers and sisters, no matter where they come from, the Kingdom becomes their priority over building an exclusive Nation.

INSIGHTS • PRESERVING DIGNITY

The Call to Welcome and Protect

BY Fr Peter-John Pearson | Director SACBC Parliamentary LIAISON OFFICE, CAPE TOWN

ISSUES AROUND immigration have become the benchmark for most of the world’s thinking and practices concerning political inclusion. The politics of exclusion is keenly felt in many areas of life; for example, by the poor and those excluded from access to the benefits of the economy. The exclusion of mobile people from the most basic respect for their dignity as human beings, the denial of their most fundamental human rights, including personal safety, and the lack of even the barest of welcomes, is a mark of immigration policies around the world; and, to our shame, it is an increasingly dominant mark of the South African political landscape.

South Africa was once hailed as an example of having a progressive approach to mobile people, a country which refused at the dawn of democracy to adopt an encampment policy for immigrants, and which sought rather to welcome them into the possibility of integration with local communities. Our country, which previously upheld constitutionally guaranteed rights for access to basic healthcare facilities and education, irrespective of status, is now moving stealthily in a very different direction. It is, as many have noted, not only the obvious policy exclusions that undermine the lives of mobile people but also the administrative inefficiency, the lack of political will, corruption and incompetence, as well as arbitrariness in the administrative processes, including the appeal systems, that seriously disadvantage these populations and render them vulnerable.

Pope Francis has proposed four verbs as a reliable guide for policies and practices concerning the immigration of all varieties. He speaks of “welcome, protect, promote and integrate”. Two of the most contentious of these across the globe, but also the two most obviously offended against in South Africa, are “welcome” and “protect”. It is therefore worth taking a closer look at the two.

Pope Francis and others have emphasised that welcoming means making broader, simple options available for those in need to enter destination countries legally and safely; this includes issues around family reunification. In South Africa, in recent months, there has been a controversy over the Minister of Home Affairs’ decision (cf. www.dha.gov.za) not to renew the visas of the roughly 177 000 Zimbabweans who have lived in South Africa at least since 2012 (though most since even before that date), who are here legally, who have contributed to the economy, and who should, under normal immigration jurisprudence, be eligible to stay here and to acquire a more permanent form of residence. This, for so small a group with so obvious a claim, would be exactly what is envisaged under the rubric of ‘welcome’—a safe, simple and legal way of allowing access to a country. Sadly, the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit case shows the utter reluctance of South Africa to comply with this verb.

In Church teaching, it is dignity, not status, which gives people the right to basic opportunities such as health and education

In mobile communities, the value and practice of protection is vital. It refers to the obvious level of protection against physical and emotional abuse, but it also pivots around the fact that safety and access to human rights should be available to everyone, irrespective of their status. This latter idea is quite contentious in most societies. In some places, there is an openness to affording rights to those with status—for example, those who have been accorded official refugee status or who have been given political asylum.

However, in Church teaching, it is dignity, not status, which gives people the right to basic opportunities such as health and education. These are explicitly guaranteed by the South African Constitution, but practice and politically expedient rhetoric have created a different reality which has illegally taken on a life of its own. It has taken litigation by civil society groups and, in some instances, explicit government directives, to secure the correct situation. Even now, there are many recorded breaches of this principle, indicating just how strongly anti-immigrant and xenophobic sentiments are held. It has sadly become part of the regular political discourse across political party lines and is increasingly normalised through everyday conversation. All this serves to render more unstable the already fragile social cohesion in South Africa, and it is for all of our well-being that we urgently need to stop the drift of our country in this iniquitous direction.

RADAR • ESWATINI

Prominent Human Rights Lawyer Killed In ‘Cold Blood’

BY UN STAFF MEMBER

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk has condemned the ‘cold-blooded killing’ of leading Eswatini human rights lawyer, Thulani Maseko, a pro-democracy activist shot dead in his home in the city of Mbabane on 21 January 2022

Stalwart of human rights

“Thulani Maseko was a stalwart of human rights who, at great risk to himself, spoke up for many who couldn’t speak up for themselves,” Türk said.

“His cold-blooded killing has deprived Eswatini, southern Africa and the world of a true champion and advocate for peace, democracy and human rights.”

The UN rights chief extended his condolences to Mr Maseko’s family, friends, and colleagues. “I call on the authorities in the Kingdom of Eswatini to ensure that a prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigation is conducted into his killing, in accordance with Eswatini’s constitution and international human rights law, and to hold all those responsible to account in fair trials. The Eswatini authorities must also ensure the safety and security of all Eswatini people, including human rights defenders, journalists and political activists, and to protect civic space,” Türk said.

Advocate for transition

Mr Maseko was the chairperson of the Multi- Stakeholder Forum, an umbrella association of civil society organisations, businesses and trade unions, political parties, as well as faith-based and women’s organizations.

The group advocates for a peaceful transition to multi-party democracy in Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland.

At the time of his death, Mr Maseko was a legal representative for two members of parliament facing trial for offences allegedly committed during civil unrest that occurred in 2021.

In 2015, after a year in detention for allegedly criticizing the judicial system he was acquitted and released on appeal.