Guest blogger: Rebecca Nako
It’s
an honor to be a member of the 2007 Pilgrimage of Peace that is
journeying to South Africa, where we will also attend the TEAM
Conference organized by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, of the
Anglican Church of Southern Africa. Bishop Marc led the first
Pilgrimage for Peace to Alabama, where young people met with veteran
Civil Rights Movement organizers, and we are continuing this pilgrimage
to South Africa in that spirit, to an area where an intense struggle
for peace, justice and reconciliation has and continues to take place. As
Sheila Andrus has said, it’s particularly heartbreaking that South
Africa has been hit so hard with the HIV/AIDS crisis, just as they have
emerged from the horror of apartheid. Our pilgrimage to South Africa
will be as God’s witnesses to this crisis, while we also learn about
the reconciliation process that is occurring at both the spiritual and
political levels. We will also actively participate in the TEAM
Conference, where representatives from the Anglican Communion will come
together to focus on the UN’s Millennium Development Goals—the fight
against HIV/AIDS and poverty in particular.
We’re
a diverse group of young people and adults, and it’s been a privilege
to meet my fellow pilgrims, who have come together from around the
diocese—and we will be joining more pilgrims from Alabama and Rhode
Island (and hopefully Israel/Palestine) when in South Africa. In
preparation for this pilgrimage, we’ve had discussions with Bishop Marc
and Sheila, who have also shown us a couple of very challenging films
on the global HIV/AIDS crisis (“A Closer Walk”) and apartheid (“Girls Apart”). Many thanks to Sheila, who has done a great amount of work in
Africa as an epidemiologist and environmentalist, and who has given us
much insight on the public health crisis in Africa. She has decided not
to join us on this pilgrimage in order to allow another pilgrim to
participate, and she will be greatly missed!
On
a personal note, I find it particularly poignant that our preparation
meetings for this pilgrimage took place right before and right after
the communiqué from the Primates’ Meeting in Tanzania was released. As Bishop Marc has said, “The
forty youth, young adults, and adults who will comprise the 2007
Pilgrimage for Peace at the TEAM Conference will be taking their part
in Christ’s drawing of the world into communion.” At a time when there
are forces that want to tear us apart, let us work for the love,
respect, inclusion, dignity and care of every single one of our sisters
and brothers, in every corner of the world, and may that take
precedence in all of our interactions with each other.
