Give Me This Mountain, by Helen Roseveare

Helen Roseveare when she was a medical missionary in Congo

I have just finished reading Dr Helen Roseveare's autobiography, "Give Me This Mountain." It is a classic missionary life story, telling of Helen's teenage years, university life as a medical student and as a star hockey and cricket player, her conversion, and then her first placement as a WEC missionary doctor, in the Congo in the fifties and sixties, pre and during the independence struggle.

It is so honest, which is why I loved reading it. She writes in a real and lively way, so that you feel that you can see the sparkle in her eyes as you read it. And it is almost like following a modern-day blog, in that, she recounts so many of her thought processes and emotions along the way, and the mistakes she made, the struggles she had, her disagreements with other missionaries, her feelings of being the odd one out, of loving the Africans too much, or of being imposed upon too much, her feelings about being single, and much more.

It is also a fascinating account of how just a few missionaries, in a country with no trained doctors of its own (then), managed to set up several hospitals and training centres: Helen herself established and monitored over forty local clinics in the surrounding areas, among many other projects. She sounds like such an independent, gifted woman, much-loved by the Congolese she worked with and for, and yet often she apparently felt lonely and misunderstood, and according to her book she felt as though she achieved little.

This book culminates with the account of how the hospital and the missionaries fared in the violent days of independence. Many left, but she did not, and was captured at one point by Congolese soldiers and even raped. She does not go into that at all in the book, apart from hinting that she and the others all suffered physically at the hands of the soldiers. But her willingness to suffer and to stay in the country, to side with the people, to try to understand, is inspiring.

Helen Roseveare 

I am now looking forward to reading the second book she wrote, about her return to Congo only a short while after these events. It is called, "He Gave us a Valley."

I recommend this book to all you medical and missionary types out there. Maybe some of you already know it, it is a well-known classic - I am glad I finally came across it.

The Lower River, by Paul Theroux

 If you have read Paul Theroux's 2002 Dark Star Safari, you'll know that Theroux worked at Makerere University in Uganda in the 1960's, and made a return visit to Africa forty years later, when he traveled from Cairo to Cape Town by local transport, revisiting Uganda on the way. (Before his stint at Makerere, he had gone as a Peace Corps volunteer to Malawi - but he was thrown out because of his political activities there.)
Dark Star Safari irritated me because, although I enjoyed Theroux's descriptions of the scenery, the people, and his journey, I found his attitude really annoying. He seemed to think that he alone understood Africans and Africa, and that all the people he met along the way, apart from poverty-stricken Africans, were either idiots, or misguided, or self-serving and making a buck. He wrote off every NGO worker, missionary, and settler.

But he had an agenda apparently which goes towards explaining this: he was out to show that Aid was a bad thing, all the "help"given to Africa  had failed. He makes the case that the cities and towns of Africa he visited on his journey, had badly deteriorated rather than improved in the forty years since he was there before. Especially Makerere - which was a beautiful and organised campus in the 1960's. He found it not so much so in the 2000s. Well, having recently seen photographs myself of Kampala and Makerere in the 50s and 60s, I might be inclined to agree on that point. However I still find Theroux arrogant. It would be somehow different if he would be even a little bit sympathetic to the people who have come with good intentions, sincerely trying to "help," rather than drawing them all as a hopelessly naive and/or cynical bunch. (Which OK, some missionaries and aid workers are, but, not all.)

This book, The Lower River, written in 2012, reflects Theroux's belief that aid has basically ruined Africa. It is quite a shocking story. He writes about the Malawians harshly, but puts all the blame for the way they have become on the westerners who picked them up, used them and dropped them, in his telling of it.

The story is of a retired shop-owner who, with nothing left in his American life,  returns to the remote rural village in Malawi where he spent four happy years as a Peace Corps volunteer in his twenties, building up a school, loved and accepted by the people, living the simple African life. But the village he returned to, turned out to be nothing like the one he had left before. Only a few people knew him still, but they had aged far more than him and were all but unrecognisable. But he was welcomed as an honoured guest, and apart from his disappointment that his school was a fallen-down ruin and home of snakes, he was initially happy to be back. But slowly he realises that the people have changed. Independence has been a disappointment to the rural areas of Malawi; the hope of prosperity and development, which had given the people such a positive and determined attitude back in the 60s, has failed them, and they find themselves worse off than ever, with no hope at all. So they see the white man, who tells them he has come back to help, as a dupe, and they basically wheedle, flatter and manipulate all his money out of him until he is as poor and helpless and trapped as anyone there - if not more so. The story turns very dark.

Some of the scenes are very telling, such as one of food aid arriving in otherwise unreachable places by helicopter, being handed out by famous pop stars from the west in ridiculous skimpy outfits, their unknown songs blaring out as the helicopter descends, and the people gathering since the night before, rioting, grabbing the sacks to take away and sell or to feed their own families instead of the orphans it is intended for. Some of what Theroux portrays is true.

But it is, at least I hope, exaggerated, and made into a very gripping but hyperbolic story: actually, a morality tale of the dangers of dependency and aid.

I loved it for its descriptions of scenery, village life and culture before it had gone so badly wrong, and also for the perspective of the mzungu who only came to help - that one could relate to a little bit. But it is incredibly sad. And definitively negative about the effects of foreign aid. There is no sighting of a person who has actually helped, or been a good or positive influence. There are glimpses of "good" Africans, but they have been chased out of the village; they are powerless to help the situation and can only mourn it.

So, read it if you can stomach it.

I still gobble up any book set in Africa, even if it leaves a sour taste in the mouth like this one does. I did abandon one (called Hotel Juliet) after a couple of chapters because it was so badly written. This one is very well written, but, it is only telling one part of the story, a tragic one. If you read it, please tell me what you think...

The beautiful world

These are some photos we took at the weekend, which we spent in Devon staying with my parents, with my sister-in-law Charlotte and their children, cousins to Abby and Alex. We went on a walk by the River Teign, on a beautiful day - it could have almost been Spring! Alex and April Grace especially get on like a house on fire, partners in crime and all that.

According to Abby Bartels, I love nature because I love perfection,
and nature is pretty much perfect without my intervention. I also love the peace, how undemanding, and pleasing and gentle it all is on the eyes. Give me fields, trees and streams, sheep, flowers and birdsong, any day.

Armed and dangerous

Part of my lecture this morning was on "spiritual warfare". I think it is easy to forget that we are involved in a fight, a fight for our own minds. I am cutting and pasting just a little bit of my lecture here:

Definition of spiritual warfare (from Voelkel, Jack, Spiritual Warfare in Mission, Downers Grove:IVP, 2012):

“Spiritual warfare in its simplest form is our partnership with God as he advances his kingdom… Satan and his forces often counter-attack, seeking to thwart us and our inroads with every scheme, wile or fiery dart they can muster.”

But NB, spiritual warfare is not a dualistic battle between equals, as Satan is a created being, not equal and opposite with God. Rather, we are empowered by God to co-labour with him as he advances the kingdom in a world deceived and enslaved by Satan.

Forms spiritual warfare might take on the mission field:

1.     Personal struggles: depression, discouragement, tiredness, loneliness, even disillusionment with mission, doubt re calling or faith, spiritual dryness, anxiety

2.     Interpersonal struggles: discord, irritation with fellow-missionaries, marital problems

3.     Work-related struggles: lack of fruit, obstacles in work

4.     Overtly demonic events/power struggles – demonic possession etc

How to be Prepared:

1.  Key is intimacy with God. NB !!!!! “Jesus did not do miracles, live a holy life and overcome the enemy because he was God. He did so because he depended on the Father and the power of his Spirit for everything he did and said (John 4:24; 5:19,20,30; 6:38; 6:57). So can we." 

2. Ephesians 6:10-20

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, 19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Back to me writing this evening in my bed, pretty tired after my day.

Looking back on my time in Uganda, I feel as though I met with a lot of opposition as described above. I am just not sure if I ever consciously gave it this name, - did I? - spiritual warfare, and if I actually prayed my way through Ephesians 6, as I should have on a daily basis. As I told my students this morning, when you even start to think about going on missions, you provoke the enemy, let alone when you are actually there, doing the work, living the life. There are so many potential pitfalls on the mission field, and they have human and natural and climatic and geographic and social and political causes. Mostly, Satan does not cause the problems we deal with every day. Sometimes, he does. Either way, he tries to use them to wind us up, wear us out, discourage us, turn us off. 

I am just saying to myself and to everyone involved in God's mission in the world wherever that might be, but especially if you have taken the huge step of moving countries and moving out of your comfort zone to work for God's kingdom, that you are definitely involved in spiritual warfare, and that every weapon available will be turned against you, but, you have Jesus and the Spirit and the Word of God and prayer and worship and fellowship and all the armour listed in Ephesians 6 - so: be prepared, and use all your resources, and see it for what it is, an all-important, daily battle.