She put in all he had

Some years ago, I was talking to a friend who was running a project. When he told me that the money for the project came from the local people and business houses of the country in which he was working, I didn’t take him seriously. I didn’t believe him. Perhaps I was too submerged in the traditional ways of Church projects. I’m converted now and proud of it.

Besides agreeing with my friend and acknowledging him as a prophet, I believe that unless the African Church turns to local people and local institutions to finance her charitable works, she will continue running big projects on foreign aid but be impoverished of prophetic voice. She will have very little, if anything, to teach people about what she does.

As part of the legacy of missionaries, the Church in Africa has been running various institutions in the service of the people using structures that cost far beyond what the local people can sustain. Missionaries from the West often sourced funds from the connections they have at home. This often creates problems when a local priest takes over such an expensive venture, but without the same access to funds or connections.

Besides, those costly institutions, there are also missionaries who have been helping people, especially with bursaries, for deserving cases. But that has created an image of a rich Church with rich priests. Consequently, when people approach a priest for money they are simply not ready to accept that he may not have money to give them. He is then seen as stingy and will never be thought of as a good priest.

So it is easy for a priest to abandons himself to asking for money round the globe. True, many priests are working in places where people are really in need and are suffering. So if he can do something, such solidarity in itself is a good thing. At the same time, if we are going to respond to every local problem with money from outside so as to impress people, then that is counter witness.

The struggles and even the humiliation a priest may have to undergo in sourcing such funds are simply not known. Worse still, the extent of generosity of those who offer the money is not always appreciated. It’s a pity that gestures of generous sacrifice is sometimes perceived by the beneficiary as the false image of rich Europeans who don’t know what to do with their money.

In the light of such a mentality of receiving, it’s not surprising that often the budget for a new project is drawn up in dollars or euros. This must stop. It’s not just about money either—it’s a whole mentality. Look around in charitable organisations, and what do we see? We find European students who come to help as volunteers. Where are our African young people, who may be doing nothing when they are not studying?

Why shouldn’t they spend their time usefully doing some charity work? In Proposition 17 of the Second African Synod, the Church is called to emulate the early Christian community, to renew her engagement in the service of the poor. It notes that the African Church has to create an internal system to take care of those needs. The maturity of the African Church would require of us to train ourselves to respond to the needs around us first with our own means. Not with a big structure, not with a big budget, but with a big heart.

If a priest thinks of doing something more structured, let the parish community take that responsibility. If the people can see a priest in this exercise asking for money from local people, with all the humiliation and the labour it involves, that will go a long way. It will perhaps not reap millions in funding, but it will educate the people. They will have a better appreciation of what the Church does and, perhaps, learn something.

It is here that I feel that the African Church should rise, take up her pallet and walk; to grow in charity that goes beyond pushing a coin into the Sunday collection box; to put heads together to discern and act on how to take care of the needy in the community, and not to be mere administrators of what others have given. Do I have a problem with money coming from outside? Not at all! I’m just trying to re-read the Gospel as an African. The disciples asked Jesus to send people away to buy themselves food, but he taught that we ourselves give them the little we have to eat (Mt 14:15-16). It’s only evangelical.

I know many people are struggling for their own needs. But where is the African hospitality and solidarity we sing about? Indeed, unless we re-read the message of Christ as an African Church, the whole fuss of a maturing African Church, inculturation, remains just nice talk.