During my last short visit to the missionary teams in Tanzania, I was very concerned about the gap in living standards between you, the comfortable people of the so-called Western world, and our brothers and sisters in these poor parts of our planet. For this reason, instead of giving a sterile description of my stay there, I preferred to put down some simple thoughts that might help at least a few of our missionary brothers and sisters to make life-changing decisions. I am simply writing what I understand the Lord wants from us Orthodox. When we are going to travel for a few days to a foreign place, we meticulously prepare even the smallest detail so that nothing is missing from our luggage. If we are so concerned about the luggage for a short trip, how much more should we be concerned about the luggage for our last trip? What will be in our suitcases then? Will they be empty? Will they have our good works? Or will they have the rubbish of a lifetime’s sins? This temporary life for the Christian, (especially the period of his retirement), should be the time of preparing his soul to present itself in hope of salvation before the righteous Judge. We have as much time of our own as God will allow us for this preparation. Some will make the following argument: We have spent so many years of our lives working, let us now enjoy the benefits of our labors and later see. Here is the Lord’s answer to the parable of the foolish rich man.
“Is this night thy soul required of thee, and hast thou not prepared thy food?”
Who can guarantee that we will have time to spend what we have saved? When the Lord sees that the condition of a soul is tending to get worse, in His love and wisdom He takes care of it in time before it gets worse. On the contrary, if that soul is striving to improve, He gives it years for its labours to bear fruit. They are mistaken who think that serving and glorifying God by your works in the years left to live will be a dull and uninteresting thing. On the contrary- it fills your life and finally gives it some meaning. You may work long hours, but this work does not tire you. You gain nothing materially, and yet you feel fulfilled as a person and sleep the sleep of the righteous with a rested conscience. Your pocket is not filled, but your soul is filled. There is no better employer than the good God. He pays you many times more than you have worked for Him, and He always gives you what you need at the time you need it, and you are sure that this is the best, if you will only trust Him. How good it feels when you fill your life with works that please God! It is a wonderful feeling. When you take the first steps, Divine Grace then comes and works in you. Your spiritual eyes are opened and you see everything differently. You see with love the whole world and all the works of the creator. You cannot tolerate that you are satiated with all the good things and that somewhere on earth millions of children are dying for lack of food and medicine. Thou canst not tolerate that thou shouldst enjoy the water of God lavishly and somewhere else they die of gastroenteritis from dirty water. The Lord told us: “As long as ye have done it among my least brethren, ye have done it to me.” Christ shows us how we can become His friends, His own. He tells us clearly that by helping our starving brothers and sisters, we are helping the Lord Himself. Let us now see who are the very few of whom the Lord spoke. In my humble opinion, in our country the few in comparison to the third world countries are few. Thank God, there are soup kitchens in every city in many parishes. The ladies of the Philoptochos of each parish look for and find the helpless and help them to the best of their ability. The social welfare works quite satisfactorily. The church provides considerable help with its various charitable activities. I think we can safely say that our own poor are their own rich. Here we consider a need to change our old car or living room. From our garbage one can build a whole household.
But what’s going on there? Where hunger mows without mercy? Where people are dying for six euros (that’s what malaria pills cost). Where leprosy, which we know only from the New Testament, rots the bodies of our brothers and sisters? Where the children search in the garbage, like our stray cats (and what can they find in their own garbage?). Where water is carried on their heads in buckets for many miles, to cover the family’s needs for a week? Where, with our love, the missionaries drill a well or a borehole, a whole village is immediately established. The clean water that we waste without restraint means life for them, the removal of death. These are our brothers, the few.
Apart from the deprivation of material food, they are also deprived of spiritual food, which is more necessary. Who will speak to them of the truth of Christ? Will it be the papal missionaries, who, in addition to distorting doctrine, interfere with political power wherever they go? Do the Protestants who talk about Christ, but have nothing to do with the truth of Christ? I think the only ones who can help our few brethren spiritually and materially are our orthodox missionaries, who leave the comforts of easy living and go to these distant lands with their miserable living conditions to offer their souls. They have no children, but their children are all those orphaned and skeletonized African children who see in the missionary the father they never knew. They rejoice like children when they see them happy and cry when one of them loses the battle for life. They don’t care about the glory of the world or money. If they come to us like beggars, they do it to have some rice in their bag and some medicine for the sick and hungry children. How can you do missionary work with empty hands? How can you talk about Christ to the mother whose child is dying of hunger or lack of medicine? First you help her in her pain by showing all your love, and she, when she is relieved of her problem, alone will come to ask you . “Why did you help me?” For the love of Christ. “And who is Christ who has so much love?” This is how the mission begins. But how could it be done with an empty missionary bag? Who will listen to you if you can’t help him? So it is important that we help. The Orthodox Christian also needs works. Words without works are empty cans without content, which can only make noise. It is worth quoting the words of a bishop: “Perhaps at His second coming Christ will not ask us how many rosaries, how many fasts or how many penances we have made, but He will certainly ask us if we have given food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, medicine to the sick, shelter to the orphan.” The simplest and surest way of helping is to give the necessary supplies to our missionaries. Money, medicine, food, water will be the tools in their hands to save lives from death, and souls from the spiritual death of idolatry and heresies. Everyone can help in this effort. No matter how small the amount we give, it will be important to them.
We can also, if we wish, give some of our time and gifts that God has given us, buying heavenly shares that do not deflate, like the stock market. As the Lord said, “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.” May each of us become his laborer. The doctor and nurse, instead of going to some exotic tourist resort, let them go across the street to some rudimentary hospital, the kind that missionaries are setting up all over Africa, and let them emulate for a few days the example of St. Anargyra. The housewife without any specialization can cook and give her knowledge to our brethren there. The agriculturist can teach them to grow their own corn. The engineer or artisan can help them with the knowledge of his craft in building schools, hospitals, temples, in constructing wells and boreholes, so that they too can have some of the clean water that we so wastefully waste. He who has contacts and public relations skills can use the talent that God has entrusted to him to make the work of the Orthodox missionaries known and to raise awareness among our fellow human beings who are not aware of the miserable situation there. He can also organise events to collect goods and money for hungry children. The painter can make pictures for the churches being built there or painting exhibitions and dispose of the proceeds. The musician can give concerts for the same cause. The ladies can organize events such as handicraft exhibitions to raise money to become bread, water and medicine. Everyone can help. Everyone can minister, whether there on the front line or here in the back. I know that it is not easy to stir the deep and murky waters of hypocrisy and convenience. It is not easy to go against the tide of indifference and pro-totalitarianism that prevails these days. But it is certainly nice, because we will not be controlled by our conscience and we will be able to look our children in the eye without being ashamed. It is up to us that the hungry children of the whole world will be beside us as advocates of defence in the hour of crisis, and not that they will be stern accusers against us if we now turn our backs on their misery. If we properly allocate the leisure time and the material and spiritual surplus that God has entrusted to us to manage, we can buy heavenly shares that do not deflate like the stock market, because Christ himself has guaranteed it to us. We will have the Lord as our companion in every difficulty. Our hopes of His mercy will be increased and our fear of death and future judgment will be lessened. If we add to all this the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion with the bath of pure confession, then we no longer have anything to fear except our old evil self. In short, our hitherto black and white life will be filled with color and light. Let us, then, my brethren, write in bright letters in the book of our lives as many pages as the Lord still allows us to turn, and let us give the fewest of us the opportunity to fill our suitcases for our last journey.
Anastasios Sekeroglou
Regular Member of our Fraternity
