E-mail this storyThursday, June 1, 2006
Student film team discovers church plays vital role in South
Africa
GOSHEN, Ind. (Goshen College/Mennonite Mission Network) –
South Africans continue to pick their way through the debris of
apartheid that devastated the country for half a century. During
Goshen College’s May term, three students and three advisers
sorted through the material they filmed during their South Africa
spring break trip from Feb. 23 to March 6 choosing clips to show
how churches help shape post-apartheid society.
The students, part of the college’s Peace and Justice
Journalism Program, produced a 30-minute video with the working
title, “Dreaming a New South Africa.” Mennonite Mission
Network will mail this video to Mennonite Church USA congregations
later this year.
Pat McFarlane, associate professor of communication at Goshen
College who led the trip, said, “The changes happening since
the end of apartheid make this a great social experiment unlike
that of any other country. I wanted to document those changes,
especially in relation to the churches with which Mennonite Mission
Network partners.”
Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite
Church USA, assisted with the production of the documentary through
a grant and with the collaboration of mission workers in North
America and South Africa.
Tom Price, Mission Network’s marketing director, served as
a consultant for the film team. “We hope the video will
provide the church with some specific examples of how U.S.
congregations are currently working with those in South Africa and
how they can potentially become involved in international
missions,” Price said. “The South African church is a
vital part of transforming society at every
level.”
Way of Life Church, that began meeting in a school classroom in
the township of Khayelitsha 11 years ago, impressed James Weber, a
sophomore communication major from Reading, Pa., and video team
participant. Today, the congregation has grown to become a
significant, positive presence in the community.
“The church’s members were mostly between the ages
of 15 and 25, with hardly anyone being over 40. This allows for a
vibrant service and lots of church ministries,” Weber
said.
These ministries include leadership training, cell groups,
HIV/AIDS education, lifestyle instruction, tutoring, dance and
drama classes and sports.
Way of Life’s pastor, Xola Skosana, believes effective
youth ministry begins in understanding what attracts young
people.
“Go into the kinds of places young people go to. Dissect
what of those experiences are good, and what are not good. The more
we do that, the more young people come. So, we’ve developed a
program that is rife with song and dance and drama,” Skosana
said.
The filming crew also visited Grace Community Church in
Philipstown and Breakthru Church International in Pietermaritzburg.
These churches reach out into their communities with ministries
similar to those of Way of Life.
Christine and Phil Lindell Detweiler‘s family
moved to Pietermaritzburg last December with Mennonite Mission
Network, Africa
Inter-Mennonite Mission and Mennonite Church Canada
Witness to help develop social ministries in the three
churches visited by the film team. Christine and Phil graduated
from Goshen College in 1986 and 1987, respectively. The couple
spoke about mission on the college campus last fall.
Anna and Joe Sawatzky and their two sons began ministry
in Mthatha earlier this year. In 2001, Anna Liechty Sawatzky
graduated from Goshen College and Joe Sawatzky graduated from
Bethel College in
North Newton, Kan.
An annual national survey reports that South Africa has the
fifth-highest prevalence of HIV in the world, with more than five
million people infected (20 percent of the country’s
population). Nearly half a million South Africans die from
AIDS every year.
“If Breakthru Church does not become a place where people
living with AIDS can be themselves, can admit that they are
HIV-positive and feel acceptance, then, all of our worship and
evangelism will have been useless,” said Patric Dlamini,
Breakthru’s assistant pastor.
The optimism of the South African churches impressed Erini
Shields, a film team participant and a junior interdisciplinary
studies major from Yorktown, Ind. Despite all of the problems
created by segregation, economic disparity and HIV/AIDS, Breakthru
Church is continually forming new study groups and increasing
membership, though they already have three Sunday services, Shields
said.
“[The Breakthru congregation] wants to increase
membership, but they also want to help their members realize that
they can do something better with their lives, and that God is
there to help them,” Shields said.
The third film team member, Jonny Meyer – a sophomore
Bible/religion and history double-major from Millersburg, Ind.
– cautions against presenting a one-sided view of the South
African reality.
“Just because apartheid is no longer a policy,
doesn’t mean all the problems have gone away. There is mass
disappointment with the new government [Nelson Mandela’s
party, the African National Congress]. New individual freedoms are
tearing apart communities,” Meyer said.
Meyer quoted Skosana’s wife, Nondumiso, who is a medical
doctor. She gave voice to the frustration that so little has
changed with the demise of political apartheid.
“There is no new South Africa,” she said.
”Real freedom is economic freedom and we don’t have
that. Economic freedom is what must happen, but 80 percent of the
wealth is in white hands.”
As a scriptwriter for the video, Meyer found the task of balance
a delicate one.
“Our experience of the churches’ work in South
Africa was very positive, and that’s the emphasis of our
video. However, we have to recognize that the general South African
reality is not always as positive and full of hope. We need to
remain true to that aspect as well,” Meyer
said.
Though the multilayered complexity of South Africans’
lives could become overwhelming, McFarlane finds a prevailing
spirit of hope for what lies ahead.
“Most South Africans are able to dream a new world of
freedom from oppression with the help they receive from Christ. I
truly believe South Africa is dreaming again,” she
said.
Ryan Geist, president of Penta Vision, Inc., of
South Bend, and former Goshen College communication instructor Ed
Cundiff, also accompanied the team and provided technical
expertise. Cundiff drew from his 25 years of broadcast journalism,
including producing Today’s Life Choices for University of
Notre Dame’s Golden Dome Media.
– by Sheldon Good of Goshen College and Lynda
Hollinger-Janzen of Mennonite Mission Network
