The Church Of Ireland
Press Release

We had introductory meetings last autumn at the See House.  We agonised over the need for training, and of course for interviewing interested applicants (both young and leader applicants).  That was a difficult in-depth procedure for all concerned, because this kind of experience cannot be taken lightly.  It involves the meeting of very different cultures and conditions of both people and environment.  It is also the challenge to meet Christ on the ground, in team relationships, among the African people, in worship, and in the unknown factors that are bound to occur.  It took a year to learn about the project, to choose and train the team, to prepare spiritually and psychologically for the challenge, particularly as the time was drawing near and we became aware that Kajiado was beginning to experience the pain of drought.

They are still praying that the rains will come this November after two years without a drop.

We joined each other here in St Patrick's, Monaghan at the end of June for a Team Holy Communion and Commissioning Service.  The Rev Sam Wright's wife Paula (formerly of Cleenish and Mullaghadun, but now in Christ Church Cathedral, Lisbum), one of the original trainers of the group, came back here to preach.  She pulled no punches about what could lie ahead, and the spiritual and emotional strength that people would need both here and in Kenya.  There were some five hundred people here that night, and I felt that no-one was left unmoved.  The send-off for our thirty-strong team was at Aldergrove Airport on 5th July, and it was a joy in the middle of the large airport lounge to be asked by the team, their leaders and families to pray with them before they left.  I prayed, God blessed, and they left with a sense of faith, prayer support and service in a venture well-prepared.  That was all part of Phase I - The Preparation.

July in Kajiado Diocese, Kenya was Phase Il.  They had raised over £35,000 to get themselves there, to resource project materials, and with your help to give some immediate assistance to the drought victims. The word had come through loud and clear, our thirty-strong Clogher group were going to be there on site, CMSI told the story to the C of I Bishops' Appeal Committee, who then allocated (with the backing of all of our bishops) the astonishing sum of £30,000 to help with immediate food relief those affected by the drought.  The group went out on our behalf, they became Christian mission partners in deed as well as in word, and they grew astonishingly in mental, spiritual and emotional maturity.  As we had all believed they have come back deeply changed and committed young adults with an experience to share, and indeed deeply changed and committed leaders also with much to give.

The third and final phase began with the report back in Enniskillen on September 6th continued here in Monaghan on the 7th.  Bishop Taama had also returned to Ireland and joined the group for their first reportback opportunity.  At 7.50pm that evening in Enniskillen I thought that no-one was going to be there to hear them.  But by 8.05 pm, the problem was how to find or pack in another seat.  The project members spoke with confidence and to the point.  With the occasional short set of slides, and songs, they helped us to enter their experience; we learned what it is like to share food with patient hungry people, to build a small worship centre for the local congregation where there simply have been no resources to provide shelter from the sun, or wind, or chill.  Then Bishop Jeremiah spoke to us.  He expressed deep appreciation of the team’s contribution. He said to us that they were quite simply the best prepared and most committed Christian team in both witness and service that had ever come to them as partners in mission.  They didn't just talk about the love and grace of God, they showed it in themselves, they worked hard, and they shared what they had, gave people hope, and showed what could be done.  and of course in our report-back evening we ourselves thanked God and we prayed for God's guidance about the future.  That is where we are now, looking at the future and how to make sense of Phase III.

My first question is, where do projects like these sometimes fail?  Well, what can happen is this.  Young people are enthused and excited about a possible new experience abroad.  They have a spirit of adventure and idealism about helping others and sharing their new sense of Christian commitment.  Then they go and (depending on their level of preparation) they have either a rewarding or a disappointing experience; if it has been a good experience they come back ready for action, but maybe no-one else at home has felt much involvement and there's little opportunity to share the good news and to follow it up.  They are disappointed, and they lose heart.

Now we know that this Kenya 2000 Millennium Project has been an outstanding experience.  It has brought hope and joy to many people in Kajiado and many of the 30 young adults and leaders have come back ready to help in a final follow-up phase.  They have represented half of our diocesan incumbencies.  They want to share their experience with you, whether you've had contact with Kajiado or not.  Some of them will help you and your congregation hear more about it if you're prepared to invite them.  At the moment a follow-up Kajiado-linked project running no further than June 2001 is being considered.  In consultation with Bishop Jeremiah this would probably work on helping here at home to finance basic priorities in Kajiado;

1. Water - water catchment, tanks and wells.
2. Education - mostly secondary, vocational and theological.
3. Agricultural Training and Community Development - this would be centred on basic agricultural training and self-sufficiency within small local communities.

You've heard the old Magnus Magnusson phrase, "I've started, so I'll finish." That's what I want this diocese to do alongside our team.  Let's explore their experience and the possible follow-up with them.  Let's see what we can do to help.  and let's do it together.

I read somewhere recently of someone saying that these overseas projects are little more than an escape mechanism to avoid our challenges at home.  That sounds like blasphemous nonsense to me.  When you go to Africa or another needy area yourself, when you see and experience for yourself people living close to subsistence level, with no grants, no welfare, and minimal opportunity for education and healthcare, it puts your own life and your own perspective of what is important on a different level.  When you live with people who have so little and find them asking you to join them in prayers of thanksgiving for God's goodness as you sit down to share their meal, you just have to re-evaluate your own priorities and life-style. What these young people are doing is deeply bound up with the future of the Christian churches if they are in any way relevant to the realities of the 21st century world.  and if we do not welcome, support and involve our young adults in creative church life in this island now, our church will be writing off its richest resource under God and its basis of faith, vision and action to meet people's needs at home or abroad in twenty-five or fifty years time.

It's all about perspective, and it has its obvious relevance to us in Ireland now.  I’m wearing a little chain, as I have done for the last year and half, drawing attention to the Chains of Debt that have been crippling the economic future of many of the world's poorest nations.  The churches are continuing to conduct a Jubilee 2000 campaign to highlight the problem and to call for change.  Thankfully Ireland and the United Kingdom have given a strong lead in the campaign for the cancellation of such unpayable debts, recognising that, as well as being morally right, it is also in the longer term as much to the benefit of the world community as it is to the poverty-stricken now.  This also challenges the nature of our own economic life, whether we are seen as having a celtic tiger economy in the south or wanting to get in on the act in the north.  We've got some huge problems in the agricultural sector and in the demise of some of our older traditional industries.  The world price of oil, and ill-matched taxation policies and currency valuation, are making normal production and competition impossible for many.  All of these factors mean that we have to take on a world perspective, where all are interdependent, and either all live in a relationship of one human family or all in the end perish.  Debt, the environmental questions, rights to territory, violence, corruption, scourges such as AIDS, handling change and living with difference are at the end of the day questions of faith.  It is today's young adults who will bear the brunt of those questions and answers, and it is for us to build up in them both faith and confidence in the God who loves the whole world; the God we love in and through the revelation and life-giving grace of His Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

As anyone living in a cross-border diocese will know, we in this island are all creditors and debtors in some sense. We and our forbears have all contributed valuable assets in faith, skills, development and in resources of many kinds. We and our forbears have also contributed to the power-struggles, the deprivation of others, and to the divisive attitudes that have led to past atrocities.  Every community has given much, every community has much to be forgiven.  We are both creditors and debtors.  Let me end by putting it in the words of Jesus in St Matthew's account of the gospel.  He says 'When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases . . .   your Father knows what you need before you ask him.  Pray then in this way:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors.  and do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.'

That is the crux of the matter at home or abroad.  We are both creditors and debtors, and an end to death and destruction followed by constructive relationships in this island or in any part of the world depends upon our recognition of that fact. May God reveal to us his truth that 'Death has been swallowed up in victory ............ victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.'

I believe that the faith-filled young people in our congregations are the most likely among us to grasp the truth of what the gospel proclaims.  I pray that we will have the faith and the humility to walk with them, so that we will walk more easily with God and with our neighbours.

Thank you for your support and patience, and may God bless us in the work of this Diocesan Synod.