Dear Members of Our Saint Andrew’s Community:

Arthur and I pray that all is going well for each of you individually and for your families. Today is the middle of our second week at the Lambeth Conference, and we are beginning to settle into the daily routine. However, communicating with you over the internet continues to be difficult, as our ability to access wireless networks here is limited.

Most afternoons there is a discussion group held at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, just up the road from our bed and breakfast, St. Stephen’s Guest House. Today I want to share with you one of the most moving experiences we have had here at the Conference. It happened at the discussion group which met on Saturday, July 26th. The discussion leader was The Very Rev. Rowan Smith, Dean of St. George’s Cathedral in Capetown, South Africa, and he told his story to us. (Please note that telling our story to the people at this conference is an essential aspect of our presence here.) He told us the very moving story of how Reconciliation took place in South Africa as Apartheid was slowly phased out. He and Archbishop Desmond Tutu were deeply involved in this process, and it is still so real to him that at times he broke down and wept as he told his story. The significance of his story for us was to point out that all over the world people are discriminated against, because they are gay or lesbian individuals. In some parts of Africa, people are executed for being gay or lesbian, and Peter, an Englishman from Cairo, Egypt, dares not have anyone know his sexual orientation for fear it will cost him his life.

Here is a summary of Rowan’s story. Under Apartheid every black African was required to carry a green card which indicated what race you were. There were various categories of black people, depending on the shade of their skin color. You were arrested if police found you without your card. Rowen passed around his old green card so that we could all see for ourselves. Between 1948 and 1990, Rowan said that the first test used to determine if the person was white or non-white was to insert a pencil in the person’s hair and have the person shake his or her head. If the pencil fell out, that person was classified as non-white. Rowan stated that the 1980’s was the worst time for all black people in South Africa. In September 1989, 35,000 black people marched to protest against the treatment of blacks who were in the majority in South Africa. On Holy Saturday (Easter Eve) in 1990, 100,000 people attended the funeral of one of the key black resistance leaders who had been murdered. Rowan says that if anyone had shouted kill the whites, that it would have happened and many whites in South Africa would have died. But peace was in the hearts of all those black people, and so there was no violence. After that event, things began to change, and on April 27, 1994, blacks could vote for the first time. Nelson Mandella was overwhelmingly elected as the new President of South Africa.

There were so many bitter memories that it was felt the best way to achieve national healing was to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which Archbishop Desmond Tuto chaired. Its task was to examine gross human rights violations and show them to the nation. This was not a Nuremberg trail. Rather it was an attempt to create peace and reconciliation. Except for the terrible cases, people were not put on trial and jailed. Rowan says that it was mostly a process of asking the nation to listen to all the voices. He wept as he relayed the voices of so many parents: “Just tell me where my son’s bones are buried.”

Rowan concluded his story by saying that the healing goes on. He smiled as he finished by saying that now the South African Constitution even has a clause that guarantees gay and lesbian rights - a reference to the fact that today many African countries execute people for what they consider to be the wrong and sinful sexual orientation.

Grace and peace to you all.

In Jesus’ love,

Sam and Arthur from the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England