Laughter and Friendship - A Community's Strength FEATURES HerB/d LAUGHTER AND FRIENDSHIP IN EL SALVADOR Working with a community ................................................... 3 EDITORIAL COMMENT A THEOLOGICAL CERTIFICATE A student's eye-view of his graduation .............................. 5 How quickly moods change. We've all rejoiced in the new freedoms THE LORD'S TIMING now enjoyed by people in Eastern John Furmage describes a new work in Brazil ................ 6 Europe. For the first time, many Baptists from that part of the world THE CATALYST were able to attend the Baptist Precipitating change in Brazil ............................................. .. 8 World Alliance Congress in Seoul. There has been generally a feeling BICENTENARY FEATURE of hope and confidence linked with We heard you calling ........................................................... .. 9 a determination, on the part of the A little preliminary work ......................................................... 10 BMS, to be open to the new oppor­ tunities in mission which are now A SYMBOL OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM before us. Robert and Catherine Atkins delve in French history ...... 13 But not everyone could get to Seoul. Because of an attempted TWO WHEELS ON OUR WAGON coup, Ken Cadette, the Secretary of The new Young People's Project ........................................ 14 the Baptist Union of Trinidad and Tobago, felt he could not leave the BOOK REVIEW .................................................................... 15 island. Alvaro Rodrigues and Joao Makondekwa from Angola were IN VIEW delayed and missed the consulta­ BMS and other news ............................................................. 16 tion the BMS was holding with its mission partners. Coming out of a VIEWPOINT 30-year-long situation of war they More letters .............................................................................. 18 had to wait until they were in the UK before getting visas to travel to MISSIONARY MOVEMENTS etc .................................. .. 19 Korea. And now the world (this is being The BMS shares with partner churches in: written in August) has been plunged Angola France Sri Lanka into a new crisis in the Arabian Bangladesh India Thailand Gulf. Hope is giving way to fear. Belgium Jamaica Trinidad Confidence is being replaced by despair. But at such times we should Brazil Nepal Zaire remind ourselves of why we are part El Salvador Nicaragua of Christ's body, the Church and why we have been commissioned by MISSIONARY HERALD General Secretary our Lord to be His ambassadors of The Magazine of Revd Reg Harvey good news. The Baptist Missionary Society When some missionaries got PO Box 49, Baptist House Overseas Secretary together they grumbled and com­ 129 Broadway Revd Angus MacNeill plained about the difficulties and Didcot, Oxon OX11 8XA problems of their situation until Telephone : 0235 512077 Editor one of them said, 'Isn't that why we Telex: 94070435 BMSB G Revd David Pountain Fax: 0235 511265 are here 7 If these people were perfect and the place idyllic, we Design wouldn't be needed.' Anthony Viney And so we have been given the task, in an imperfect world, of being Copyright Enquiries about service overseas to: 1990 Baptist Missionary Society Personnel Secretary Christ's people who are continually photoset and printed by Joan Maple building bridges of reconciliation, Stanley L Hunt (Printers) Ltd who are working for His kingdom Rushden, Northamptonshire ISSN 0264-1372 of love and peace. 2 September Herald EL SALVADOR David and LAUGHTER AND Rachel Quinne! Mee describe how the church FRIENDSHIP at Zacamil, San Salvador, is working with the community STRENGTHEN of San Roque. AN ROQUE CONSISTS of a hundred or so shanties and basic Shouses on the lower slopes of the San Salvador volcano. Access to the US ALL area is along a steep dirt track being tom away even more each day of the Sensuntepeque has now increased to rainy season. more than she can earn in a day. Like Many of the houses are built along most people in San Roque she has no the sides of the paths that weave job security, moving in and out of through the coffee plantations and it is work according to the seasons and the there, planting, weeding and eventually needs of the coffee plantations. harvesting, that many find their subsistence living. Others go to sell in COUPLE OF months ago Carmen the city markets or work as domestics. A worked, with nine other women, It is to this community that members weeding and tending a hillside of of Zacamil Baptist church go two or coffee bushes. It is a job that would three times each week. normally be done by one man, but the women asked to share the job. As a ARMEN, IN HER mid-twenties, is result, it was finished in a fraction of Cthe mother of three young boys. the time and the women were given the They have made their home in a shack same amount that one would have of sticks, clay and corrugated tin in one received - to share between the ten of of the paths into a steep ravine. them. About four colones each per day The eldest boy, Elias (8), goes to (about 30p) and that for a day's hard school in the afternoons. David and labour from 7 am until 4 pm. Carlita (6 and 3) stay at home with They job-shared because they all their great-grandmother when Carmen needed some money, but also because is working. She has been planting and they were too afraid to work alone due tending coffee bushes that smother the to the natural dangers of the steep hillsides under the shade of mango, terrain and the other dangers of being jocote and guarumo trees. women alone in heavily militarised and Carmen's husband, Rufino, is in thickly wooded countryside. prison. A former member of the para­ When the job was done, Carmen military 'civil defence', organised by was back to embroidery and selling the army, he was accused, with two fruit in the market to raise funds to others, of attempted rape. keep her family and with a very After three years in Mariana, the complex sense of 'gratitude' to the central prison for men, his mental coffee owner for 'letting' the women health collapsed and, in June, he was work together. transferred to a special ward in the In spite of the love and care she psychiatric hospital. From there, at one pours out on her children, the o'clock in the morning, he was parasites, eye infections and the like, transferred to the prison in constantly find the gaps in the make Sensuntepeque. He was refused shift armour. Basic medicines cost permission to take any of his few more than a week's wages. personal effects, which included the only photograph of their first child, a ARMEN'S FAMILY IS typical of daughter, who died in infancy. CSan Roque where about 90 per cent Carmen continues to visit Rufino of the families have no constant male The lower slopes of the San Salvador when she can, but the bus fare to adults. Some of the men have been ► volcano (above and page 4) Herald September 3 EL SALVADOR us, helping us to understand a little more of what the stories, challenges, insights of the tradition we claim can mean for us all. In those celebrations we meet with about 60 children and 30 or so adults. In the reflections on Sundays, the families from the volcano have spoken of their dreams of good health, housing, food, education for their children, of clean water in their houses rather than half-an-hour's walk away, and of electricity, even lighting on the main track. They have spoken of work and real salaries and the possibility of working with a clear conscience knowing that their children are cared for. Conversations began about a ◄ recruited and serve with the army in suspicions that are cultivated to make nursery-child care centre which could other parts of the country. Some have the military control easier. be a community/education centre at the left in search of work elsewhere. Some A couple of years ago, three young same time. Someone loaned a small have abandoned one difficult situation men were killed in San Roque, but not plot of land and many of the people after another until they join the before the skin had been peeled off from San Roque, women and children alcoholics who live, fight, sleep and die their chests and faces. It was a typical on the streets of the city. death squad killing to be read as a The laughter and the There is no shortage of young warning to others in the area. At night, women, for whom the pressures are heavily armed columns of soldiers friendship strengthens us equally destructive, to provide them station themselves along the main all and with two babies with easy female company in the tracks through the area. brothels run by the military. Other The guerrillas still pass through, threatened with death men, in an effort to swim against and often buying food from the homes, but from malnutrition in the maybe turn the tide, have become there is no doubt who it is the people guerrilla fighters. fear. No one likes to go out after dark. house next to the plot, there is no need to talk N WEDNESDAY AND Sunday 1 A TE HAD A PARTY with the about the seriousness or Oafternoons about ten of us from V V people from San Roque one the young Zacamil church congregation Sunday afternoon, under the trees on urgency of the task. visit the homes in San Roque and, on the hills, with some games. There were Sundays, gather with many of the some 'getting to know you' dynamics, women and children under the trees on two young people from the church as the side of the hill for some songs, clowns, songs, a pinata - a huge games and a short Bible reflection.