Loading ...Mosquito nets, wells save lives in Africa
flockwoodFrank Lockwood
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
HOT SPRINGS — A United Methodist bishop from the Democratic Republic of the Congo shared the Gospel at Arkansas’ Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church this week, and thanked the state’s Methodists for providing clean drinking water and mosquito netting to his country’s people.
Bishop Nkulu Ntanda Ntambo said lives have been saved because of the generosity of Arkansas Methodists, who have paid for 26 wells to be dug in the northern part of the Republic. Arkansas Methodists also collected more than $200,000 to buy 20,000 nets to protect sleeping Congolese from mosquito-borne malaria.
In an interview, Ntambo praised his fellow Methodists for responding to his people’s needs.
“Our suffering — they respond to it. They feel it,” he said Monday. “When we cry, they hear. When we ask, they give.”
Arkansas Bishop Charles Crutchfield invited Ntambo to speak at the annual meeting. This is the African bishop’s third trip to the state.
“We have a very strong relationship with the Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Arkansas Methodist spokesman Martha Taylor.
The North Katanga Conference, which Ntambo oversees, is a sister conference to the Arkansas Conference.
Although Arkansans sow financially in Africa, they reap spiritually, Taylor said. “It’s not a one-way street. We have the ability to bless them in certain ways, but they bless us as well.”
The African nation, formerly known as Zaire, has roughly 71 million people and sits on the equator. Its land area is roughly one-fourth the size of the United States.
Torn repeatedly by civil war since its independence from Belgium in 1960, millions died between 1998 and 2003.
The average Congolese earns less than $1 a day, Ntambo said. The typical man lives to be 53 years old. The typical woman has six children. Roughly one out of every 12 babies dies during the first year of life, according to the CIA’s World Factbook.
“When we have children, we don’t know how many of them will live,” Ntambo said. The bishop said eight of his 13 own brothers and sisters died during childhood.
But clean water, made possible by Arkansas Methodists, means less disease, fewer deaths and more hope in village after village, Ntambo said.
The message of the Gospel is also falling on “very good soil,” Ntambo said.
One hundred years ago, there were roughly 200 Methodists in Ntambo’s country. Today, there are hundreds of thousands.
“The United Methodist Church, back home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a very powerful leading church today,” Ntambo said.
A United Methodist bishop since 1996, Ntambo was elected to his nation’s senate in 2007.
“Congo is over 80 percent Christian, which means the missionaries did a very good job, and we are very thankful for their commitment and dedication,” Ntambo said.
After years of civil war, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is now increasingly peaceful and stable, “a country in which God is in control,” Ntambo said. “Christianity is all we need. It’s all we have today. It has transformed us.”
June 13th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Thanks, Frank, for the publicity. The overall project is called “Imagine No Malaria”. It is sponsored by the entire United Methodist Church. The goal is to eliminate malaria from Africa by the year 2015.
http://www.imaginenomalaria.org/
As I have mentioned before The United Methodist Church has an active ministry on the African continent, consisting of both spiritual and humanitarian missions. It’s a real joy to see.
June 14th, 2010 at 9:39 am
Not all the influence is positive:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/22/malawian-gay-couple-jailed-14-years
June 14th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Please compare the amount of funding devoted to AIDS to the amount of funding devoted to mosquito nets?
It is difficult to save lives when people are more interested in being politically correct. For example, the above mentioned penalty against a homosexual couple.
Outlawing homosexuality would save countless lives. Why won’t they support that?
June 14th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Yes, Sophia, we have much work to do in ministry with our brothers and sisters in Africa! But we can’t let irrational cultural norms stand in the way of humanitarian efforts or the teaching of the Gospel. (It didn’t stop Jesus.) It would be an exaggeration to blame Christianity for the entirety of the homophobic attitudes of many Africans. In South Africa one might actually argue that the Church is providing a witness for a more gentle, Christ-like tolerance of our homosexual brethren.
June 14th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Outlawing couples from engaging in heterosexual relations would save even more lives, Justin, but they won’t do that, either.
But that’s not the point. The point is that we can all help, and the way to help is not to cast aspersions on what others are doing, but pick a charity that’s doing what you want done and support it.
June 14th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
But Caleb, just think how many lives would be saved if homosexuality was a capital offense!
June 15th, 2010 at 2:50 am
Yes, Jose, all those millions of men dying from AIDS, that was such an act of compassion to throw out biblical morality, wasn’t it?
Does it matter at all to you that our “more gentle, Christ-like toleration of our homosexual brethren” actually caused untold suffering, pain, and death?
When you thrown out biblical morality, that is what you get: suffering, pain, and death.
By your definition, both Paul and Jesus (not to mention Moses), were homophobic. I stand with Paul and Jesus, despite your liberal slurs and moral posturing.
June 15th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Now, back to the subject of malaria. Can we all agree that the only real solution is to outlaw mosquitos? I mean, what kind of wishy-washy liberal stuff is that– going to all the trouble of buying and distributing mosquito nets– when all you have to do is pass a simple law? Harrumph.
June 15th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Justin, Paul supported slavery as well. Do you support that, too? If not, you’d have to say that he wasn’t quite the be-all and end-all of morality you seem to think he was. And, as far as I know, Jesus never spoke about the issue of homosexuality at all. Or slavery either, for that matter.
June 15th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Jose, I hope at least you would agree with me that “prevention is better than cure”. Methodist Church prevents mosquito from transmitting malaria germ to human blood by providing net. Only mosquito net alone would not serve halting spread of malaria. Growth of mosquito must be stopped by filling ditches preventing mosquito from hatching eggs and spraying pesticide to kill them. Under developing countries like Africa do not have enough resources for costly HIV/AIDS medicine for cure. Banning same sex sexual activities that spread HIV/AIDS, as well as support of majority people is cost effective way of saving human life. It also improves morale value, ultimately increase happiness, productivity of human labor and finally harmony in a society.
Caleb, I do not agree with you with your biblical interpretation that Paul supported slavery, so that slave becoming a master is sin like human involving in same sex activity is sin. As stated earlier blog that master/slave relationship was established economic theory at that time as factors of production and Paul only endorsed the current culture to maintain peace in mind for gaining spiritual salvation, which is more important than material gain in this life.
June 19th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Julian, you just don’t understand what was going on. The entire book of Philemon is a letter asking a master to take back a runaway slave. There is not a word in it that condemns slavery or that suggests that the master — who is made out to be a Christian — should free the slave.
One can say that Paul couldn’t very well have bucked societal norms by condemning an institution that was so ingrained in Roman society. And that’s exactly my point: Paul, and the other authors of the New Testament, whoever they were, and despite what you want to think, Julian, we don’t have any idea who they were, were writing in a historical context. Everything they wrote was informed by and influenced by that context.
Paul couldn’t condemn slavery, and he couldn’t support the rights of women, gays, and lesbians for exactly the same reason: Society wouldn’t tolerate it. So, if one accepts this explanation for Paul’s support of slavery, one also has to accept the same explanation for his views on women and gays. Watch what you get yourself into with these facile explanations, Julian: They often come back to bite you, as things you don’t think through in the beginning often do.
June 19th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
Caleb, so apparently Paul wouldn’t say something because “society wouldn’t tolerate it?”
Fact check: Paul was fond of saying things that got him repeatedly beaten and eventually killed.
Conclusion: Your interpretation does not fly. Don’t pretend to condescend to Julian.
Jose: they tried to outlaw mosquitos, through the widespread use of DDT. That was outlawed, thank you environmentalists! Better to have dead Africans than thin eggshells, eh, Jose?
June 21st, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Fair enough, Justin. So, then, why did Paul support slavery? Because it was right? And I’m not pretending to condescend to Julian; I am condescending to him.
And if we’re going to blame someone for DDT, it should be the industrial farms that used it by the gallon when drops would do; I suspect its reasonable use wouldn’t be too bad, just like perhaps reasonable oil wells in the gulf aren’t a danger, either . . .
June 21st, 2010 at 10:57 pm
Caleb, did you find any where in Paul’s letter that he supported directly/indirectly unfair treatment by masters to their slaves for increasing their productivity in agricultural land? If you do, please do not hesitate to share with us with biblical reference. Rather I found in his letter that he alerted masters to behave humanely to their slaves fearing God who is Master of both masters and slaves. Also he advised slave to work with their heart and soul to please their master by performing what they supposed to do. Like wise in modern time we please our supervisor (master) for promotion and salary increase and management science (like St. Paul) advice corporation (master) for profit maximization to treat labor humanely, such as equal fare, incentive, recognition, hygienic factors in corporate environment etc. Only difference with today’s labor world is that they are free to move but bind with corporate laws and policies. It is needless to say I earned MBA degree long time back. Therefore your claim, because Paul supported sinful behavior of masters to their slave, his teaching against same sex activities is also false/sinful and suggest Christian not to believe St. Paul. Your claim is fabricated, outright false and purposeful to justify an unjust human nature which leads to death of human souls as St. Paul taught in his letter. If I am wrong in interpreting corporate labor management, please let me know.
If you read carefully the book of Philemon, you would find Paul talked about forgiveness. Both Philemon (rich master) and Onesimus (runaway slaves) were good Christian.
June 22nd, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Where do I begin?
Maybe “support” is too strong of a word to describe Paul’s sentiments towards slavery. That he “tolerated” it is probably more accurate. Why you guys even care I have not a clue.
AIDS in Africa is spread primarily through heterosexual intercourse, not homosexual. Homosexuality is not tolerated in much of Africa, so banning it officially would do little to nothing to stem the tide of AIDS.
“When you thrown out biblical morality, that is what you get: suffering, pain, and death.”
-Justin.
You get these things even if you don’t throw out biblical morality.
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Good point, Cheese. I’ll tell you why I care what Paul wrote, and it’s simple: Christians all over the world have taken it seriously for hundreds of years. The reason they take it seriously is because they think that Paul has presented a complete picture of what is or is not moral.
In particular, they constantly cite his antipathy toward women and gays as reasons these groups shouldn’t be given full participation in churches today. My point is very simple: If Paul was wrong about women and slaves, just maaaaaybe he was wrong about gays, too.
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Julian, you begin by saying: “Caleb, did you find any where in Paul’s letter that he supported directly/indirectly unfair treatment by masters to their slaves for increasing their productivity in agricultural land?”
Well, Julian, as usual, you begin by misquoting me. I didn’t say anything about how Onesimus’ master treated him. I would imagine that while it’s worse to be a slave owned by a bad master than a good one, slavery is still wrong and I’ve never heard of anyone volunteering for it.
My point is that slavery is just as wrong when practiced by a “kind” master than a cruel one, and while Paul may have weakly asked Onesimus to be good to the slave, he hardly condemned the institution of slavery, which is my point.
And, as I wrote earlier, the point is simple. You all want to make Paul the be all and end all of morality. He supported slavery, he supported inequality for women, and every single moral rule he laid down was directly related to the society in which he lived. This was, after all, a guy who wrote more about eating food dedicated to idols than he did about either slavery or women or gays. I realize that a cottage industry has arisen, whose goal is to show that everything we’ve always been taught about Paul is wrong, that he wasn’t anti-women, that he wasn’t anti-gay, and that he wasn’t pro-slavery. This is just wishful thinking. Paul wrote what he wrote, and it’s not hard to read.