3 August 2005

Dear Friends,

Top news this morning on South African radio concerns a severe famine in Niger and the repercussions of the death of Sudan’s recently elected vice president, a respected peacemaker, in a helicopter crash. Last week, a strike by ground staff and cabin crews of South African Airways was discussed far and wide. A month ago, the media here were buzzing with reports on a corruption trial, which in the end led to the controversial dismissal of the South African deputy president.

Did you hear or read about any of these events in your media? Most likely not, unless you happened to be one of those SAA passengers stranded in Atlanta, London, or Frankfurt for more than a week.

On the morning of July 5, we even heard on the radio that the same man again won the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating competition. He was a bit out of shape, however, as he ate only 49 franks in 12 minutes, not 53 like last year. Even some of you in the States might have missed this bulletin.

Unfortunately, the transfer of information in the cyber age does not always work equally well in the other direction.

When, and why, did Africa come to be known as “the dark continent”? According to the South African weekly Mail & Guardian, the American writer George Kimble once said: “The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it.” Ignorance makes it hard to be good neighbors.

• The continent of Africa is home to more than 750 million people who live in 55 countries and speak over 800 different languages. Most of the present national boundaries were arbitrarily drawn by former colonial powers and do not match cultural or linguistic realities.
• While world trade has increased 10 times since 1970 and more food is produced per person than ever before, the number of people going hungry in Africa has doubled. Income per person in the poorest countries in Africa has fallen by 25 percent in the last 20 years.
• In 2004, for every dollar in grant aid to developing countries, more than 13 dollars came back in debt repayments. The limited debt relief recently approved for some African countries by the G8 nations is tied to the requirement that local markets will be opened even further to “free trade.”
• In the global market economy, an African farmer who lives on less than one dollar a day has to compete with an American farmer who is subsidized at a rate of $20,000 a year. The average cow in the European Union “earns” more than two dollars a day in subsidies.

Statistics like these are difficult to hear. Is that one of the reasons why media in the global North rarely report in depth on conditions in the global South? Yet, mutual awareness is the first step toward any kind of positive change.

That’s why we decided to write such a “dry” newsletter. Thank you for reading it.

Each Sunday, worship here concludes with the "Prayer for Africa." Often, as we pray, we also have America in mind.

God bless Africa, God bless America,
Guard her children, Guard her children,
Guide her leaders, Guide her leaders,
And grant her peace, And grant her peace,
For Jesus Christ’s sake. For Jesus Christ’s sake.
Amen. Amen.

Susanne and Ken

The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 339