Salt and Light
A Report from the Li Tim-Oi Foundation
Salt and Light is a small book, not really a book at all. A pamphlet might describe it better. Twenty pages. You can read it in a few minutes, but it will enter your mind, find a place there, and perhaps change you forever.
Salt and Light was written by Christina Rees,
a British woman, as a record of her recent visit to Kenya and Uganda as a representative of the Li Tim-Oi Foundation.
Li Tim-Oi, you'll recall, was the Hong Kong
woman ordained in 1944, the first Anglican woman to become a priest; the anniversary of her ordination was accepted into the Episcopal Church calendar at the General Convention in 2003.
After Li Tim-Oi's
death in 1992, her sister made the first, founding gift that established a foundation in her name, a foundation dedicated to helping women in Third World countries to receive the education that would enable them to serve as priests, deacons or in various lay capacities. Christina Rees' visit to Africa was undertaken simply to discover how the women who had received grants from the foundation were faring and what more might be done to help them.
The small booklet begins serenely: three women
drive across an African veldt dotted with acacia trees, the sky wide and cloudless above them. They are on their way to visit the family of a woman who has just died of AIDS. She had contracted the disease from her HIV-positive husband, who then abandoned her when she became ill.
Two of the women are priests; the third is Christina Rees, author of Salt and Light. "This was only one of many encounters," she writes, "that showed me just what these women have to contend with."
Many of Africa's ordained women, she goes
on, serve in small and rural parishes and when, as often happens, the parish cannot pay its quota to the diocese, the priest receives no stipend--sometimes for months on end. One of the priests she met survives on gifts of vegetables and fruits from the gardens of her parishioners; another is--somehow--raising six children orphaned by the AIDS virus that has ravaged many parts of Africa.
In many cases, these rural priests have no
transportation; one woman told Rees that she often walks up to six hours on the days when she visits parishioners.
The women themselves were quite matter of
fact about such difficulties. "It was not the physical hardships that caused them to complain," Rees writes.
"Time and again the women spoke with a sense of joy and gratitude about their ministries." She notes, however, that they were often upset by the way they were treated by their male colleagues "and in some cases by the church," which often refuses them additional training and discourages them from attending conferences and seminars available to the male clergy.
Yet even these difficulties fade before the massive ills of the societies in which they live and work. There are, for example, places
in their world where 65 percent of the population is under the age of 16, many of them orphaned by AIDS and living on the street. Polygamy is common, as is female genital mutilation.
Rees tells of visiting a woman who, with her
husband, had built a small library and schoolroom where she is able to teach others to read. "Alongside a colorful poster of the alphabet," she writes, "another poster caught my eye, warning parents not to support practices involving child sacrifice."
When she asked about the poster, a woman
pointed to the tall buildings of a nearby small city. "Behind every large building," she said, "there is a child sacrifice." And she added, "The small buildings only need a chicken."
The practice is now illegal, as Rees carefully
notes, but still occurs, apparently with some regularity.
When the women were asked to list the major
issues in their parishes, the lists were long--poverty,
illiteracy, discrimination against women, domestic violence, child abuse, incest, tribalism and ethnic clashes-the shadow of Rwanda still haunts much of Africa.
Though the women were steadfast in their commitments, they were often wistful about their lack of social lives: professional women in Africa have few peers and are often resented and disparaged by their male colleagues. When Christina Rees organized a gettogether for recipients of Li Tim-Oi grants in Kenya and then again in Uganda, the response was immediate and grateful. The women quickly dubbed themselves "daughters of Li Tim-Oi" and at once began to make plans for future meetings.
And they began even more quickly to generate
ideas for cooperation and support, not only among themselves but among other African women working for change.
Salt and Light, brief though it is, has wisely
made room for numerous pictures. Women's faces look out at us from every page. They smile, shy and perhaps a bit wary. Even the young seem a bit tired. Some have
the beginnings of the thousand mile stare of warriors too long in the trenches.
Look again, however, look carefully at these
faces, and you will begin to sense the steel behind the shyness and the will that forges hope--that hallmark of our humanity--even when hope seems beyond reason.
"I returned to England,: writes Rees, "in awe
of their strength...excited and humbled to see the huge difference they are making in the lives of the people."
Copies of Salt and Light may be obtained, or donations made to the Li Tim-Oi Foundation, by contacting the Rev. Canon Christopher Hall at achall@globalnet.co.uk or writing to
The Knowle
Deddington
Banbury OX15 OTB UK
The website of the Li Tim-Oi Foundation may be visited at litim-oi.org