National Mission Team has offered Advent Alternative Gifts in which church members can fund animals, trees, and water to benefit VIP's work in Malawi. There was also an opportunity presented at FPCA through World Vision to sponsor children in Malawi.


We’ve continued to support Malawi mission work in other ways as well. Even though VIP’s work is typically for long-term solutions, when there was a devastating drought, and again when there was historical flooding in Malawi, FPCA collected loose plate offerings to help with emergency needs. Thousands of empty prescription bottles were collected for use in Malawi. And last year’s clothing drive and Share the Harvest effort benefited our Malawi mission.


Marlene Merz was planning a benefit concert instead of an 80th birthday for herself. When she passed away last year, her family and the International/National Mission Team worked together to have a Summer Harmony benefit concert for Malawi in her memory.


In addition to supporting VIP through the concert, Marlene’s family hoped to impact someone personally by supporting a missionary to go to Malawi. Dianne and her husband, John Deisinger, will be traveling to Malawi in August as a result of the concert. Dianne will be able to assess the impact of FPCA’s efforts there since 2011, and John will see the villages in Malawi with fresh eyes. They will report their findings upon their return.


To support this mission, consider donating English-language picture books with black characters or make a monetary donation to fund reading material for children who have no books. Dianne and John will take the books to the children in Malawi. For more information, contact Donna Barnwell or JoAnn Jones at the church office.


—Karen Ensley


A VISIT FROM SAMUEL AKHTAR


FPCA’s Peace and Justice and Missionaries Team is involved with education concerning peace, the marginalized, and issues that might go unnoticed in our world. Activities include participation in fair trade; sponsoring women through Women for Women International; making connections with ministries involved with racism, prisons, refugees, and immigrants; and sponsoring visits from international peacemakers.


One visitor in the past year was Rev. Samuel Akhtar, who participated in a number of events in Lehigh Presbytery, including a Christian/ Muslim dialogue moderated by Jack Haberer, and meetings with FPCA youth and our Mission Team. His story, reported by Sheila Clever, gives a glimpse of how greater understanding can foster peace:


Samuel Javaid Akhtar became stranded in the United States after a conference he attended at the end of August 2001. Unable to fly home immediately due to the flight restrictions to his native Pakistan after September 11, he was offered an opportunity to continue his education and also his ministry in the U.S.


A doctor by training and a pastor’s son by birth, Samuel responded to the call to be a pastor after he was married and had started a family. Samuel shared with his audiences in Lehigh Presbytery a beautiful picture of his home church decorated for Christmas; it is a large, grand church. “Is that your church in Pakistan?” surprised audiences asked. In a series of pictures, Samuel showed how the church (where his brother is now pastor) filled for worship, and then exclaimed, “See, we are not that different, you here in America and those in Pakistan. We all arrive late for church!”


Presbyterians have been active in the region now known as Pakistan since 1854. The current country of Pakistan is divided into roughly four regions, Samuel explained, and his home is in the Punjab region. Although he is an American citizen and his wife and children all live in the U.S. now and are citizens, Samuel still thinks of himself as a Pakistani.


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“I didn’t come here as a refugee or even an immigrant wanting to start a new life,” he said. “I am here doing what good I can do with God’s help.” He currently has a congregation of about 70 members in the Chicago area made up of immigrants—mostly from Pakistan but some from the Philippines and Puerto Rico. His services are in English and Urdu, which are “official” and “national” languages, and both of which are foreign to most Pakistanis, who learn first to speak the language of their region.


Samuel’s father trained him to be a peacemaker from the start. Samuel was the only one of his brothers and sisters to attend public school, and, as it worked out, he was also the only Christian in his school. Christians are only about 2 percent of the population but are the most numerous religion after Islam. It is a crime in Pakistan to proselytize, so Christians have to be very careful if they talk about religion. In school, Samuel was picked on—as minority children are everywhere in the world, he reflected—but soon the teachers saw he was a fast learner and worked overtime to help him learn additional material to what was being taught. This was Samuel’s entry into understanding that religion is not what keeps people apart. He became a mediator of sorts in Christian- Muslim interactions.


When asked what is his most important message to audiences, Samuel replied, “I want Americans to know that being a Christian in Pakistan is no different than being a minority anywhere, and that one can have a good life.” An urgent request followed: “When America does something that makes Pakistani Muslims angry, they respond by attacking the American proxy—Christians. In the name of peacemaking, implore the government and media to be careful with threats and insults. Americans won’t be hurt, but my family will.”


—Sheila Clever


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