Thoughts on Healing a Hurting World

Rev. Joy Daley (L) and Dean Jacob, Executive Director of the Anglican Diocesan Development and Relief Organization (ADDRO), Episcopal Relief & Development's partner in Ghana


More thoughts from the Rev. Joy Daley…

On the first day of our journey, as our group all stood together waiting, I shared a quote from John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: “A journey is a person in itself. No two are alike and all plans, safeguards, policing and coercion are fruitless…..we do not take a trip, a trip takes us.” And the trip did take us to places outward and inward that I didn’t expect, and ultimately to the place of realization that when God’s people join together in fighting disease and poverty, it really makes a difference.

As we traveled from one end of Ghana to another over the course of the week—riding in vans and small planes, staying in a number of hotels, packing and repacking, leaving things behind—the items I had stuffed in my bags “just in case” became less and less important.

“The kingdom of God is near.” Those of us in the U.S. often assume that we are the agents to others of such a message. But in Ghana, the reverse was true in many ways. That message of hope was proclaimed to us over and over again in the witness of the people we met and through the work of Episcopal Relief & Development in partnership with the Anglican Diocesan Development and Relief Organization (ADDRO).
 
These days, we often hear about Episcopal and Anglican conflicts and differences. But when we realize that the Church is really about joining together in ministry to spread God’s message of peace and hope, when we get busy changing lives, differences fade into the background. When the gospel guides our vision and our actions we become free to join in an interdependence that is incredibly life-giving to all those involved.

This is what I saw in the partnership of Episcopal Relief & Development and ADDRO over and over again throughout the week. It both humbled me and gave me a sense of pride to be a member of God’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.