Chris Maclay
Ghana

A refugee camp is not a great place to have a dodgy tummy ……

I went to the Liberian refugee camp (Budumburum) on Saturday, stayed overnight, presided and preached at their morning service, and came home on Sunday afternoon. My stomach had things to say earlier in the week, so I was a little unsure how it would behave. Pit latrines and a lack of running water did nothing to allay my fears! ………… I will spare you the details, but a combination of prayer and Immodium seems to have carried me through. It is useful to be able to text urgent prayer requests to the family!

The camp was not as perhaps we would have imagined. Apart from tell-tale signs (like a lot of UNHCR flags and signs), it looked like a typical ramshackle shanty town, with streams of grotty waste water meandering between the tiny houses. Some people have been there for as many as 14 years, others only 3. People came with whatever money they had and built themselves places to live. Forget ideas of the UNHCR providing housing, and of beautifully straight-lined organisation. This place is a complete labyrinth of higgledy-piggledy houses, mud tracks and heat. I am normally pretty good at direction, but I was lost within minutes!

So, people built and maintain their own places, but they are not allowed to get work in Ghana because of their refugee status. They trade amongst themselves, but otherwise there is not much to do, and money is totally dependent on what friends you have outside the camp who can send you resources. So, if you have a friend or relative in the US, then maybe you will be one of the more affluent in the camp. If not, you may struggle big-time.

Another problem is boredom. How will you pass the time? There seem to be more video and DVD stores there than I have seen anywhere else. And TV is very important. How do you keep your young people on the straight and narrow when there is nothing to do except sport? How do you maintain biblical values when husbands and wives have been separated for up to ten years, and do not even know if the other is alive? How do people cope with dodgy tummies when they live there day-in, day-out? Cholera is a constant threat. And these are people who led productive lives back in Liberia, now reduced to simply struggling for survival. Some will die in the camp, miles from their families and from their land. How would you minister to such a people? What would be your message as you preached to them?

We also saw a ‘pile’ of people with their jute bags waiting in a kind of pen for the coaches that would take them on the first leg of their voluntary repatriation. Can you imagine the emotional turmoil for them? For some it will mean going back to a country which they fled fearing for their lives. They go back, not knowing who will be on their land (if they had any), whether they will have anywhere to live, and the promise of a couple of hundred dollars from UNHCR. For some of the children, they are going to a country they have never seen before.

All Souls church was built by and ministers amongst the refugees, worshipping in a traditional American Episcopal way. I wonder whether a church in Portsmouth Diocese would be interested in a link with a Liberian church for refugees, within the Diocese of Cape Coast?

We came home in the afternoon, on the dreadful Cape Coast – Accra road which is being rebuilt. The dirt track we now use is a corridor of swirling dust. At one stage we could see no further than 20 yards. Today I feel as if I have a bad cold, I have ingested so much of the road surface into my lungs!

It seems most of the students will travel home to vote, since they are registered at home. So, the college will be on hold for a few days. Knowing some, they will not hurry back! And there will be various stories of how they needed to stay to deal with one sort of crisis or another. That is life here. A couple of weeks ago one of the students lost his Father, and then another lost his Mother. In such a situation, there is a lot of preparation to do for the funeral a month or so later.

I conclude my teaching on HIV/AIDS this week, distributing the Mothers Union education packs to those who will use them in their congregations. We had interesting discussion with the students last week as we talked about how to help people with HIV prepare for the future. This involves encouraging them to leave memories, photos, letters etc for their children. But also we discussed the importance of writing a will. Only one of the 40 had written a will. In the UK it is so vital to write a will, so I encouraged them strongly to do so. But then someone spoke up and said ‘But what if you have nothing to pass on?’

Pause

Literally, some of these guys will not have a house of their own, and will probably be able to carry most of their belongings in the back of a pick-up, or a couple of suitcases. So, a will may be important to some, but not all. One important thing is that people who are dying leave clear instructions that they do not want their children to waste all the saved money on the funeral. If they do not write this and have it witnessed, then the pressure on the children will be intense to ‘properly honour’ their departed parents.

Prayers?
That the elections on December 7th would go well and peaceably. And that God would overrule in the whole process.
For St Nicholas seminary at a pivotal moment, that the Faculty and Board would hear God’s guiding voice.
For the Liberian refugees.

Advent begins: Let us be very careful then, how we live….. as children of the light….

Chris

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