Outside the gates

One of the startling revelations to my theologcial perspective came about one Christmas morning at a feeding program for kids living and working on the streets of Harare. At the time I don't think I appreciated the essential link between charity and justice, which would develop over time (Helder Camara's sharp theological challenge, 'when I feed the poor they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist' is a taste of where this path would lead). At this point in time I was simply happy to help feed the kids on Christmas morning - it seemed like a good 'Christian' thing to do!

We gathered early on Christmas morning outside the Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Harare and began feeding the kids. The children came most mornings to receive some nourishment and a hot cup of tea before heading onto the streets to earn a crust; begging, watching over parked cars, befriending tourists, prostitution - you name it. The children used to gather within the grounds of the church until the wisdom of the ecclesial powers prevailed and the feeding program was unceremoniously asked to move beyond the gates. The program did - just outside the walls of the church.

As the children began to eat their fill, some asking for medicine which was beyond the realm of our activity there that morming, the worshippers began to gather for the Christmas service. Most parked their cars and proceeded to cross the street, taking a wide birth away from the kids. I watched as they walked around to the other side of the cathedral and entered in a different entrance to the building. Later as the carols were being sung within the church, the kids began to sing outside, offering a rather less choral performance. But at the time I could not help wondering 'where is Christ present this morning?' I won't be so bold on reflection to claim that Christ was absent from the Church, but at that particular moment it felt like Christ was present outside the gates, not inside it! Now this is not a remarkable or new theological insight, but it hit me for six at the time and began to shape a new set of challenging questions to my journey of faith.

Work with the kids eventually became the heart of my daily work within the ministry, and as a result, the theological challenges began to come in thick and fast.

Meeting Mangezi

The VSO ethic is to send volunteers to work alongside local counterparts around the world, sharing skills in the process of 'development'. My counterpart was a jolly, larger than life character called Mangezi. There was little special about our first meeting in a dark corridor of the Ministry building. This was a man who, as a boy, had survived an attack on a rural village close to the Mozambique border during the early years of the Independence struggle. Hiding behind a bundle of logs he had witnessed the destruction of the village by government forces which sought to prevent Zimbawean 'kids' being trained across the border.

Mangezi had done well for himself, ending up in head office of the Ministry. Our first meeting was hospitable but lukewarm. I could not have foreseen that one of my final duties in Zimbabwe in the years ahead would be to pay last respects to this brother, throwing dirt on his coffin and offering a eulogy in the midst of the village mourners. He had survived many things through the years, but the virus that had sunk its teeth so deeply into this part of the world proved all too conquering.
My journey in Zimbabwe would not have been half as rich had this man not been part of it, and I would leave with a deep sense of loss which remains with me to this day.