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By Barry Mackey
AS I write this, the Pakistani army is mopping up a major offensive against
Taliban militants in the beautiful Swat valley . The cities remain on high
security alert, and strict safety precautions are observed at all times.
I am putting these thoughts to paper some 160 kilometres from the conflict – in Islamabad, the capital of this beleaguered country. I’m on assignment with Habitat For Humanity Canada.
The assignment is to help give direction to a major housing project in Pakistan’s mountainous North West Frontier Province – assisting in the reconstruction of nearly 6,000 homes destroyed by earthquake,
in some of the remotest communities in the world.
My first visit to Pakistan was in August, 1965. I was travelling aboard the Steel Scientist, an old passenger freighter built as a liberty ship in the latter days of World
War II. We sailed into Karachi harbour while enroute to Bombay, in the midst of
the second war between India and Pakistan.
From Karachi we moved on to India, and entered Bombay harbour in a driving monsoon rain. The
team’s baggage and the two single guys, Barry Ashton and myself, were taken to Bombay
customs. So began a two year stint with Literature Crusades (LC), that ultimately
stretched to an indescribable adventure of 20 years.
Joining with three other single guys and two married couples, we were soon on
the Bombay streets with colourful, well designed Christian literature – including bright new photographic covers on the four gospels. Those covers, and the introduction of packages of books in all the major
languages, revolutionized the sale of the gospels in India.
We rode the crowded commuter trains, and systematically covered the markets and
train stations in that great city, the commercial capital of India – including Dharavi, the filming location of the Oscar winning Slum Dog Millionaire.
In early 1967, my fiancé Anne came to India; she was a music teacher from Cambridge, Ontario. On India’s Republic Day, January 26, we were married in the old Scot Kirks Hall in
downtown Bombay, surrounded by our LC team family and many Indian ‘brothers and sisters.’
In July 1967, we moved to Delhi with the intention of starting an all-Canadian
LC team. The government of India determined otherwise.
Thus, we were providentially moved to begin a literature program that mobilized
Indian Christian students, mainly drawn from Bible institutes and seminaries in
the more Christian southern and tribal northeastern India.
Registered as Discipleship Centre (DC), the initiative began to link caring
ministries with literature outreach.
A centre for the visually handicapped was started, and many major Christian post
disaster relief and rehabilitation projects initiated throughout India. We
helped initiate several Holistic Christian ministries, including the formation of Asha Handicrafts.
During these years, Anne also extended her music studies and earned her Licentiate from the Royal School of Music.
Our three children were all born in north India, and we soon became confirmed Delhiwallas (Delhi people) – spending 18 years raising our family, and finding spiritual and personal
development with our Indian colleagues and friends.
During our first round in India, I was West Asia Regional Director for World
Relief Commission (USA). Working from Delhi, I served in disaster relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation in six South Asian
countries.
That work included Afghan refugee initiatives in Pakistan. It was a privilege to
network with national counterpart organizations, and other Christian
faith-based partners.
Our family returned to Canada in 1985, and I worked with World Relief Canada,
and then Christian Children’s Fund of Canada. With the latter organization, I was encouraged to initiate
micro-enterprise development projects in some 11 countries – including India.
Since the 1990s, there has been incredible growth and energy, particularly in
the Information Technology sector. Yet India still holds 300 million of the world’s poorest citizens.
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Daniel Lak’s evocative book, India Express: the future of the new Super Power, notes many challenges facing this country:
• The governance and development of the most religiously, culturally and
linguistically diverse population on the planet;
• Crushing poverty: 300 million living on less than $2 per day;
• Uncertain geopolitics, including civil wars in neighbouring states and an
unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan;
• Corruption at all levels of government, as the business sector becomes ever
more globalized;
• Growing urbanization: three of the world’s most populated cities, which are growing faster than most others;
• Inequality between different Hindu castes, sexes, regions and newly minted
haves and have-nots.
It was to this new India that we returned in 2003 as Habitat For Humanity
International’s regional program manager for India.
Anne had the great joy of bringing music and dance to some of the ‘slum kids.’ At the other end of the spectrum, she also loved teaching piano to
international diplomats’ kid.
Delhi had quadrupled in size. The traffic was beyond description. Even with the
use of natural gas in taxis and three-wheeled putt putts, buses and trucks, the
air was often highly polluted.
From the 60s to the 90s most of India’s industry had been state controlled, and the economy stagnant and unproductive.
With the introduction of economic reforms, an energy and newly gained self confidence has emerged, which was not seen in
the earlier days.
Delhi is building a state-of-the-art Metro transport system, the airport has a
new runway and terminal, roads have been drastically improved with modern
interchanges – all in furious preparation for the Commonwealth Games slated for late 2010.
Meanwhile, India’s population has more than doubled since Anne and I first lived there – going from 511 million to today’s 1.13 billion.
The role of the expatriate Christian worker has become that of being a resource
person. As an Indian Christian leader friend has well said: “Christian workers from the West are welcome, but they must learn to lead from
the middle” – by example, and by humbly using their skills and resources. And so we tried to
do, during our returning four years in India.
I completed that assignment, and finished up as Habitat’s Nepal interim country director by the end of 2007. We repatriated to Canada in January 2008, settling back into Victoria.
However, retirement was not yet to be. Habitat requested my services for some of
their projects in South Asia. This brings us back to my rotating assignments in
Pakistan – full circle to where this article started.
All of the above gives graphic testimony to God’s grace and goodness over my last 44 years as a kind of ‘global deacon.’
Anne and I have been blessed indeed.
– with files from Anne Mackey
July 2009
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