| Out of Egypt, out of slavery ideas enlighten mission school BY LINDA WORTHINGTONUMCONNECTION STAFF  In the 1930s, approximately 100,000 former slaves were still alive. They were the last generation to tell their stories, retired Bishop Forrest C. Stith told more than 250 people at the Cooperative School of Christian Mission in Hagerstown July 19.
Researchers from the Library of Congress did 2,000 interviews, a few of which were dramatized and shown in an HBO movie titled Not All One Voice. The audience was emotionally shaken at the revelations of oppression depicted in the film.  Bishop Stith, Bible study leader at this years weekend training program for people interested in missions and church leadership, used the ancient stories in the book of Exodus applying them to the experiences of the African-American community and other oppressed peoples today.
The theme of this years school was Crossing Borders Journey in Hope. The Exodus experience and the African-American experience out of slavery in the United States provide us with many lessons, the bishop said, including a sense of belonging. Slaves had a sense of belonging because at night they tell their story. In modern times, he said, segregation had some positive characteristics, that we produced better, had more disciplined children and more purpose, and that church and community were stronger. Under oppression, the church grew, Stith said. Another learning from the Exodus story is that when people are brought or forced into transition, such as when slavery or segregation ends, there is a loss of identity without the gain of freedom. Oppression and freedom affect both the oppressed and oppressor, Stith said. Both become dehumanized. During the Civil Rights Movement, the group that had the most difficult time was poor whites in the deep south. Enslaved people adopt and adapt and make it through life, he added. Bishop Stith stressed that freedom does not mean freedom from responsibility, for either the Israelites, the former slaves or the descendants of slaves. During the weekend, Bishop Stith and Lonise Robinson from Asbury UMC in Washington, D.C., led workshops on the Underground Railway, based on a trip members of the church took last year by bus, from Delaware to Canada, retracing the steps of Harriet Tubman and other leaders in the movement that saved more than 300 slaves lives.  The attendees at this years school also heard from visiting missionary Shimba Ndala Mulanda. She is Congolese by birth but as an International Missioner with Women, Children and Youth for the General Board of Global Ministries, her mission field has been in East Africa. Her work is based in Nairobi, Kenya. She has worked extensively as a computer trainer and has organized and taught at computer learning centers in Washington, D.C., and Nairobi, and will soon be opening a center for women and girls affected by HIV/AIDS in war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mulanda spoke of the oppression in East Africa, and the devastating spread of HIV/AIDS, especially among women and children. When a church member is terminally ill, she said, the church gathers around to support that person. The churches have traditionally filled the gap for children left as orphans by HIV/AIDS, but that is becoming more difficult to do, she said. There are so many and the people in the churches have so few resources. One of the goals of the computer training centers is to provide a means for survivors of AIDS to make a living. Men have had a chance to get educated, she said. Women, not so, and they have no access to computers. The centers also offer classes in hair dressing, tailoring and they help affected families to learn about home-based care for those with HIV/AIDS. Her mother lives in an area of the Congo where war and violence against women is rampant, where women are buried alive, she said. Ive not seen her for seven years. Mulanda and the Rev. Kaberuka Jupa, also a Congolese and district superintendent of the Rwanda District of the East Africa Annual Conference, led focus groups on the struggles, fears, dreams and hopes of the churches in their respective areas. Jupa said that of the 77 United Methodist congregations, 32 have some sort of building to use. The United Methodist church was born in the refugee camps of the Congo in 1996 and has grown from a few thousand to more than 40,000 members today, the Rev. Richard Brown-Whale reported. Jupa, like Mulanda, told of the devastation that war and AIDS has on the people of Rwanda. He is encouraging each of his congregations to adopt 20 orphaned children to house and feed, and is looking for sister congregations in the United States to help with financial support. Following Mulandas remarks, Bishop Felton Edwin May raised a concern. During a recent meeting at the White House, Bishop May noted that United Methodists have been addressing hunger and AIDS for years. He urged the audience, Write him (President Bush) and thank him, and ask him to keep his promise to give $15 billion for AIDS in Africa. Bishop May added, and ask for an equitable and fair trade policy for Africa, in order to put the African countries on an equitable playing field. Mr. President, please keep your word, Bishop May said. Study classes met each day on the themes as determined by the General Board of Global Ministries. This years classes, in addition to the spiritual growth study on Exodus, included Mexico and Creating Interfaith Community. | 
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