Promoting Dignity and Hope

By Bob Longino

The 3-year-old barefoot ball of fire named Christina Kausiwa appeared out of nowhere. All 29 inches of her. She hugged my leg and, with a tiny forefinger, started poking my bare left arm.

“Azungu!” she sang out. Her face blossomed into a magnificent smile. Then she ran off laughing while chanting at the top of her lungs, “Azungu! Azungu!”

So far, I understood. In Chichewa, the national language of Malawi in southern Africa, “azungu” means white man. But Christina was far from done. From a distance she called out rapid phrases punctuated by giggles of unending glee.

Shorai Nyambalo, the Habitat for Humanity Malawi staffer accompanying me and Habitat photographer Steffan Hacker on our trip to document Habitat home partners in an impoverished rural community in Malawi’s Melanje District, translated.

It seems Christina wanted me and Steffan to have a sleepover at her new Habitat house.

Soon dozens of children had scampered down the dirt roadways to see the two azungu. I took photos of the mass of kids and each time turned the camera around so they could see the results. They shouted with delight.

All the while, Christina, the smallest of the bunch, would elbow her way to the front, the wave of kids tossing her about like a rowboat in the Atlantic. She’d fall to the ground, crying. But instantly was back on her feet, fighting her way forward to see the latest picture and laugh.

She wore a dress caked in dirt. She was hardly a year old when she and her two older siblings lost both their parents to AIDS.

Their 25-year-old aunt, Rhoda Kameta, adopted them. When Habitat Malawi found the family, they lived in a rundown, windowless, two-room structure made of un-burnt bricks with a mud floor and leaky thatch roof.

Now they have a well-built Habitat house with a metal roof, windows and a blue mosquito net to sleep under to help prevent malaria.

What is striking about Christina, her aunt and the other Habitat home partners Steffan and I met, interviewed and photographed in Malawi to promote Habitat's Orphans and Vulnerable Groups program is how happy they seem. Most have next to nothing. Many days they have little to eat.

But joy they have in abundance. It flows like rapids.

Last month in Durban, South Africa, joy was also rampant when dozens of Habitat home partners, some dating back to the 2002 Jimmy Carter Work Project, at long last received title papers, making them official home owners.

As each name was called to receive title, cheers erupted in the audience. Recipients who came forward often danced and sang.

The joyful display was emotionally overwhelming and a testament to the impact of Habitat’s work.

I believe that to more fully experience pure joy, one needs to have endured intense suffering and deep emotional pain.

In many respects, these displays of joy from those who have suffered underline Jesus’s teachings in Matthew and Luke. “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth … Blessed are you the poor for yours is the kingdom of God.”

At Habitat, a key part of our refreshed mission principles clearly states that as an organization we should not only build houses but "promote dignity and hope" for all people.

That seems pertinent as well for Episcopalians. Our Anglican baptismal convenant asks us key questions, such as "Will you seek and serve Christ in all people, loving your neighbor as yourself?" and "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being?"

We answer, "I will with God's help."

Only by acting on what we say we will do can we know that Christina will have the best chance to become the determined, powerful, joyful woman God intends her to be.





Christina Kausiwa, 3, sports a wide grin as she stands outside her new Habitat home in an impoverished community in southern Malawi’s Melanje District. Christina’s family, which includes two siblings and the aunt who adopted them after their parents died of AIDS, is one of 52 recipients of Habitat homes so far in Habitat for Humanity Malawi’s Orphans and Vulnerable Groups program. ©Steffan Hacker/Habitat for Humanity International.

Being There

“You’re on your way to church, right?” my brother Bird asked from where he sat on the deck of his sail boat where he was sipping coffee and watching morning break over Lake Lanier.

It was how he said it, as if I weren’t on my way to church something would be amiss in his world. I told him Wolfie (his nephew, my son) was always anxious when I missed church, too. I asked what all this was about—am I so obviously racked with sin that I need ritual cleansing at the church? “No,” Bird told me, “we feel like when you go, you represent the whole family.”

At church walking through the Parish Hall, I was stopped by Dick Harris, who apologized for a snarky email he sent about the possibility of me returning to church one of these days (I actually missed it or it didn’t make an impression) but the point was well-taken. When I am not there—when any of us are not there 1) we are missed by our fellow parishioners and 2) our extended families won’t get into heaven.

Not only are we missed by our spiritual community but I realized this morning being there is like being present as a parent watching your child grow. Most Sundays aren’t a big Christmas pageant or candle light Evensong—they’re plain ole’ services where Patricia preaches on Bible folks like Esau and Jacob. The plain ole’ Sundays where you’re sitting there with your hands in your lap and you hear the voice of a child from the Vienna Boy’s Choir—only it’s Joseph Henry, rough and tumble little guy who has given just given a performance worthy of a very large cathedral. (I can still picturing him on one of his first acolyting days helping his mother, yawning and then placing his chin on the altar as Patricia did communion.)

If I’d missed today, I would have missed that moment forever. I would have missed the singing completely this morning, where it felt like I heard every single voice in the congregation but we blended so well together (even me) that it felt like we were practicing a chant.

I would have missed hearing that Gilda and Lee have got their second grandbaby, a little girl! And the update on Jocelyn’s boyfriend from Sierra Leone being detained for a traffic violation as a result of the new, tougher immigration laws in Georgia (it’s been two months now, the outcome is unclear). And I would have missed Josh pulling off a serious coup de grace with all the leftovers in the freezer. In fact, we served up everything but the madelines from Lent, a block of frozen (I think) peaches, and a Christmas tree-shaped container of something from that season—that we still didn’t throw out. (I once offended Bill Hancock when he pulled a carton of Half and Half out of the frig, thinking we had some and I told him, no, it had gone bad. What?? I smelled it and put it back in the frig. Though he wasn’t there to see it, I felt helping Josh carry out this leftover coffee time scheme exonerated me a little.)

I don’t know what all I missed on the many Sundays lately when I’ve been traveling for work, but I know it’s a lot and there are moments I’ll never get back in the life of my church. It’s sort of like being part of a big family and leaving an empty chair at the dinner table. Absence is felt. But more than being missed, you just never know what you’re missing!

Independence Day

It was hot outside on this July 3 Sunday morning, 80 degrees at 10 am, with temperatures pushing up to the mid-90s. The flowers exploded on the altar--blood red roses, blue hyacinths and white carnations in celebration of our nation’s independence. As I sang the processional hymn—America the Beautiful—I smiled at my fellow parishioners doing the same. “I love this country,” I thought, quite proud, and not a little grateful, to be an American. I was thinking, here we are at little St. Dunstan’s out in the woods, the all of us, the few of us, and we are what America is all about, our little community, taking advantage of the right to worship as we please, every single one of us, in the pursuit of life, liberty, freedom and peace.

But I admit it didn’t take long before my pride in being an American took an unexpected turn. Listening to the sermon this morning, I found myself quite proud to be a Christian, too. As a citizen of a nation, I love my country. (I imagine citizens of oppressive lands feel the same even though they may not particularly like their government).

But unlike my natural love for homeland, I am proud to be a Christian because as such I am reminded what is really is best about that homeland. “Time and time again in scripture we are told that God measures the greatness of a nation not by its military might, not by the wealth of its richest citizens, not by its technological or scientific accomplishments,” Patricia said. “God’s judgment of a nation is based on very different indicators—how a nation treats the poorest of the poor, the ones Jesus calls ‘the least of these.’”

In the Book of Common Prayer our Independence Day prayers remind us to be thankful for our nation and to repent where we have fallen short as its citizens, said Patricia. And I think her sermon served to remind us of that it is our duty as Christians (let alone Christians in the wealthiest nation on earth), it is our job to protect and care for our widows and orphans, especially in this time of national economic emergency when 25% of our children live in poverty, when our measure of poverty for a family of four is $22,000 a year income, and when families who have lost their homes live in cars so that they won’t be separated because homeless shelters don’t take men and women together.

As Christians, it is our job to not turn our backs on the “least of these.” Our nation too often falls short on that. Patricia cited an example down the highway in Lawrenceville where city councilman Tony
Powell noticed the school bus picking up an estimated 200 children from several extended stays motels. His solution to this problem of families with no place to live except cheap motels? Kick them out.
More than a decade ago as county attorney he got an ordinance passed that limited motel stays to 45 days, but it has never been enforced. Now he intends to make sure it is.

Powell's actions are clearly wrong and even more than wrong, it’s just plain mean what that man attempted to do. As Christians, I think our values and beliefs have the potential to make us even better Americans who love and protect our country even more deeply than we do by birthright. And I think that means, in part, doing our civic duty to prevent bullies like the city councilman from hurting helpless families on the brink of complete disaster.

I am also proud to be a Christian because our ministers and pastors and priests, our bishops and nuns write letters to our Congress to speak on behalf of our widows and orphans, to remind our lawmakers what the “most moral measure” of a budget debate should be—“how the most poor and vulnerable people fare.” And I am proud to be an American beyond natural instinct, I am proud to be an American because we have and often exercise our ability to do truly great things, acts of kindness and compassion with which God is most certainly well pleased.

I’ll leave you with the Matthew reading from this morning—it’s one that everyone knows but I never tire of hearing it or pondering its meaning or how I can better put it into effect in my life (I’ll note,
I do fall very short on this one all the time but it’s definitely the goal):

Jesus said, “You have heard that if was said, ‘You shall love your neighborhood and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.