March 6, 1998
Andrea Harrison
The Women of Madagascar ask: "Who is my neighbour?"
I had thought that I would be on the Internet, researching further background on Madagascar in preparation for this talk. That's what I did last year when I was invited to speak at the World Day of Prayer at a rural church just north of Kingston.
But this year, I find myself thinking more about the life of our women's groups here, and our connection with our communities here, and with our sisters worldwide. And I've been thinking about my own journey in the church, and the impact that the women's groups have had on me.
I started out in the Methodist Church in England. We came to Canada when I was nine, from a small town in Essex, to the City of Toronto. We spent those first few days with friends of my grandmother, then spent three weeks in a hotel on Eglington Street, near Lawrence. Across the road was a Presbyterian Church, who welcomed this immigrant family, just off the boat, from distant shores. I spent the next 16 years as a faithful member of the Presbyterian Church, and awareness of overseas mission was part of my church experience.
By age 11, I wanted to become a nurse when I grew up so that I could work in leprosy missions overseas. That idea came from my church experience - I don't know if it was through Sunday School, or worship, or special events, or a combination of these, but that awareness came through my participation in church as a child.
As a teenager and college student, I was a member of a Presbyterian Church in Hamilton - Southgate Presbyterian. There, there was a missionary, Pauline Brown, who worked in North India, and came home to our church on furlough and visits. I remember her presence. I remember her, with her tanned skin, wearing a sari, a red dot on her forehead, her long dark hair tied back; telling us stories of the work she was doing with women in Northern India. Then, my goal was to work in India, and I could imagine myself, one day, also wearing a sari, and a red dot on my forehead.
What I also remember from those visits by Pauline, was the love and friendship she shared with the women in the congregation. The women were so delighted to see her. During her time away, they had been writing to her, fund raising, and praying for the missions and people of North India. There was a deep, ongoing committment.
During college, I became a member of the Women's Misssionary Society, and needless to say, was the youngest member. There was a study programme on Indigenous peoples in Canada. A native woman came and spoke with us, and I remember her teaching that when her people were making decisions that would affect their environment, such as whether to cut down a tree, they would have to consider the consequences that that would have for the next seven generations. Words of wisdom I have not forgotten. I wondered if at some time, I might end up working with Native peoples in our own country.
Then there was a guest speaker from CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency, who spoke to a gathering of us at Calvin Presbyterian Church in North Bay. He told us jokes, and had us laughing, and then in the next breath, hit us with four paths of destruction that were leading our world to annihilation of the human species: nuclear war, over-population, pollution, and using up all our natural resources. He blew us away. Our laughter stopped, and we sat there facing this devastating reality. He then told us stories - stories of development, stories of hope. He told us of stories of broken tractors sitting in the fields, being replaced by animals that could not only pull the plow, but could provide milk for the family, and manure for the fields or for cooking fuel. I spoke to him afterwards about my dream of becoming an overseas missionary or development worker. He encouraged me wholeheartedly, and sent me a list of agencies that I might wish to contact.
That was in 1986, then in 1987, I was off to Haiti for two weeks to visit with Christians and to help with a building project, and then in 1988, off to Hungary and Romania, to visit with Christians behind the Iron Curtain. And then it was me who was giving presentations to the members of my church - telling of the desperate situations I had seen, but of the hope that existed as we worked together in partnership with Christians overseas. During that time, which is when I was working as an occupational therapist, I took up the sponsorship of two children--one in Haiti, where I had been, and one in India, harkening back to my experiences with the W.M.S., and missionary, Pauline Brown.
Then there was a period where my interest in overseas work waned. I moved again, became a member of the Anglican Church, and at that time, invested most of my energy in my paid work, which was very demanding, and I turned to the church for solace, not for further responsibility. I was nurtured by the Anglican liturgy, and by receiving communion, or mass, every week.
We moved again, and the next thing I knew, I was a member of the United Church, and off to theological college to become a minister. This was perhaps a time when all my church experiences converged. I took a couple of courses on overseas work and development. I did a four month internship in Nicaragua. I was sustained through the demands of studies, by weekly participation in chapel, and receiving the eucharist. I turned to services of spiritual direction offered through Providence Centre, at the Catholic convent in Kingston. I still meet monthly with a Catholic lay woman who has been my spiritual director for, I guess it's three years now. During this time, two nuns have also kept me in their prayers, in a ministry of support, that could easily go unnoticed by people, including me, but does not go unnoticed by God.
So what does all this mean for you, as you are gathered here today for this World Day of Prayer?
Well, what I am trying to say, is the reason that I am here today, is because I have been mentored by those who have gone before me.
As you look around you today, you might be wondering about the future of the World Day of Prayer services in our community, or about the life of your women's groups, or Churches, or mission programmes.
You have probably done a lot of work in your churches over the years - been fund raisers, organizers, visionaries, pillars of the church, pilgrims of prayer. Who is following in your footsteps? Where are they today? You cannot let your vision, your work die. You cannot be a dying breed. The torch, the vision, the passion, the work, has to be passed on to the next generations.
"Well, they don't come," you say. "They're not interested." "They don't have time."
Well, yes and no. There are 10 young women in grades 7 through 9, in the confirmation class I am currently running. I invited them to come today, but of course, they have school. But they are good readers, and they are willing to do drama in church, and I know the World Day of Prayer service sometimes includes the option of drama.
Where are the other young women, who aren't in school? Well, they are at work, or if they are at home, perhaps they are looking after young children, and what would they do with the kids?
And what about the men? Well, a lot of them are at work, but some of them are retired; some of them could, if they wanted to, come to church between chores.
For a long time, you have been the workers, the doers, the leaders. I would suggest that the task ahead of you is that of mentoring - of looking for every opportunity to pass on your vision, work, and hopes to the next generations of women, men, teens, and children. And it's not just a matter of stopping cold turkey one day, and saying, "Okay, you do it." Or of inviting others to do things your way.
For example, the way of corresponding with overseas missionaries used to be by sending letters and parcels by boat, and waiting over the subsequent months for a response. This week, I've had two letters from missionaries, sending thanks for the cards sent air mail, from the confirmation class. I can correspond with another missionary friend by e-mail. I get up-to-date briefings on political and development actions in Nicaragua, sent to me, via the internet, from a Canadian in Managua.
I would say that this World Day of Prayer service is of vital importance. Without this service, women, our neighbours, who are struggling in other countries would be denied a voice. In Canada, women have come a long way in claiming their rights and working for justice for themselves and their children. Our sisters in many other countries are just beginning that journey, and they need our support. We can't abandon them now, just because, relatively speaking, things are good for women now in Canada.
When I was in Nicaragua, I was invited to speak at a rural women's church conference on violence against women. These women didn't drive to the conference themselves, like we would, they piled onto the back of trucks and pickups, children in tow. In Nicaragua, where there are women, there are children. The Indigenous women, on the North Atlantic coast, where I was for my internship, had an average of 10 children each, so you would never find a gathering such as this with no children. I met one woman at this conference, who was the same age as me at the time - 32 years old. One of the first questions asked between women who are meeting for the first time is, "How many kids do you have?" Quantos ninos tienne? This 32 year old woman and I managed to astound each other with our responses. I said none, and she said nine!
Anyway, at this conference, I spoke against the teachings of the Bible that say a woman should be silent in the church - easy to do when you are an affluent white woman heading for ordination in the United Church, of course with the limitation that what I said in English had to be translated into the indigenous language - Miskito. At the end of the session, an older woman, probably a great grandmother, dressed in black, came up to me and hugged me, and said, "Tengi, tengi, tengi!" - "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I don't know quite what the impact was for her of what I had said, I just know that for her it was important. And it is important, to our sisters around the world, that we listen to them, and that we join in with our voices. We do that at the World Day of Prayer.
Another thing that makes this service so great is that it is ecumenical. Ask any of your pastors or ministers to get seven churches together for a shared worship service, and there would be much groaning and tearing out of hair, not because it's not a good idea, but because it would be a lot of work. But you do this every year, and you know how to do it.
And it is part of your heritage. Women across Canada have been meeting together for a day of prayer, Eleanor MacNaughton tells me, for a hundred years, and that for over 70 years, there have been a worldwide days of prayer. Everyone who has ever darkened a pew on Sunday morning, should be invited to be here today, but it would have to be accessible.
I know you've tried having this service in the evening, but weren't able to draw many others in, and lost some of your regulars, who don't like going out or driving at night. But this is an opportunity to mentor. It has to be accessible in some shape or form to the next generations C to women, men, youth, and children. Of course, as I speak to you, I'm also speaking to myself, because we face the same dilemmas with our Sunday morning worship.
There are two aspect to this gathering this afternoon - worship and then sharing refreshments together.
Well, what would it be like to have a pot-luck evening meal, followed by a worship service for teens and adults in the sanctuary, and a children's programme of prayer and activity on the theme country? What if some of the youth in our churches did some internet research on the countries, and made posters for the walls, or information sheets for the meal tables? What if the children made prayer cards or decorated candles for us to take home and continue to use in offering prayers for the country and people, about whom we have just learned in worship? What if the men shared in the readings, and the teens shared in drama? What if there was a children's choir to sing for us? What if whole families came out because this was where the evening meal was being served?
I don't know. I'm a dreamer. But I'm an optimist, and I believe that where there is a will there is a way. Dreams are planted, and are passed on from generation to generation.
The previous generations have been good mentors to me. I never expected to become a minister. But here I am today, in clerical robes, further shaped by the influence of this community - wearing a McDonald of Glengarry tartan, and a Celtic cross. Who knows how I will be further shaped in the future. But if I remove this robe, there are the seeds that were first sewn for overseas mission. I did not become a nurse. I have not worked with people with leprosy, but I have travelled to India, to meet up with girls sponsored through the Christian Children's Fund. I have worn a red mark on my forehead, a tikka, placed there by grateful parents of Foster Parents Plan children in Nepal. I have sat with a Miskito woman, who was grieving the death of her husband and talking to her friends in a language I did not understand.
You are called to sew many seeds, and not all of them will grow strong roots, but know that when you do plant seeds, God is the master gardener; that with God's tender touch, seeds grow into trees, that shelter and nurture the next generations. May God give us all vision and courage to help to cultivate the garden. Amen.
Evelyn Murdoch and Pauline Brown, May 1998
Evelyn Murdoch worked as a Deaconess of the Presbyterian Church in the Synod/Synodical of Hamilton & London from 1957 to 1992. She has continued to be busy since retirement, sharing her leadership and ministry skills and passion with a variety of groups. Among other things, she is currently President of the Hamilton Presbyterial, and a member of the Board of Governors at Knox Theological College. Evelyn is a member of my home church in Hamilton, and is one of the people who sowed seeds for me. She lobbied for me to attend the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1984 as a young adult observer. She was the first person to suggest that I consider ministry as a vocation. I was in grade 11 at the time, and I rejected her suggestion--quite strongly she tells me.
Dr. Pauline Brown is a nurse who has worked for many years as a missionary in Jobat, North India. Her focus has been that of rural health care services. She has helped to set up rural clinics, and has been in charge of training of nurses at the Jobat hospital. She has been manager of the children’s centre, and has been responsible for the evaluation of rural health care services. In May, 1998, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity by Knox Theological College.
