Solusi University - Africa

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Philippians 2:1-2 New International Version

Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.

 

 

Solusi: First founded in 1894, almost 130 years ago, as Adventism’s first attempt at reaching people who had never known Christ.

Solusi: Long a symbol of mission, Adventists, progress, adventure, sacrifice. Adventism’s flagship university in Africa.

Solusi: I first visited there in 1948 and remember nothing. We moved there 1954, 60 years after its founding, C. Fred Clarke, my Dad’s mission was to found a university to train Christian leadership for an independent Africa. Solusi became home for me as a teenager. Years later I enjoyed working with a Solusi graduate in Tanzania in 1969 and 1970, where he was my principal. I last visited Solusi a few weeks ago.

Solusi: The only university in Zimbabwe to remain open during the worst of civil war and raging riots in other universities of the land.

Solusi: The graveyard of saints, almost since its beginning. My mother, “She loved much,” rests here since 1974, 80 years after its founding.

Solusi: Surviving decades of tribalism, which generates hatred between people.

Christ wept bitter tears when he lamented Jewish rejection of his mission to save all tribes, not just Jews: “Look, your house is left to you desolate,”[2] as He turned His back on them.

Paul lamented, “Oh Foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth;”[3] as their church was being torn apart by Judaizers who insisted on circumcision and that all believers become members of the Jewish tribe.

Atlantic Union College (AUC) was gutted by a president who forcibly replaced his faculty by his fellow islanders, his fellow tribesmen. Founded in 1882, many of its graduates went as missionaries to the world. His tribalism forced its demise in 2011. It was reopened in 2015 but couldn’t recover and was sold in 2018.

Solusi: You have long battled tribalism. In 1956 your acting president had himself deputized to take major action when students of one tribe threatened to murder those of another tribe. But what riotous students couldn’t do in the 1950s, the actions of those above you are destroying you now. Will 2024, your 130^th anniversary, be your last?

Solusi: I plead as Paul did with the Philippians: “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.”[4]

Lord, I pray that Your Spirit may so fill Solusi constituents that they may be one as You and Your Father are one,[5] in spite of our varied human backgrounds. Lord, Save Solusi!

 

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[1] Solusi University ©2023 Uni Clarke

[2] Matthew 23:38

[3] Galatians 3:1 NIV

[4] Philippians 2:1-2 NIV

[5] John 17:21-23

Lively Stones in the Spiritual House

 

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1 Peter 2:5 (King James Version)

 ⁵Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

 

Growing up in the South Africa of apartheid I attended a white school. The law insisted that I do so. I attended the Helderberg College Church. Our family always sat on the front row. This was ostensibly because my grandfather was hard of hearing, which he was. But we continued the practice even after he had died.

White students and white families filled the church. Because there was no church nearby that the blacks could attend, they were allowed to come to our church. But they had to sit in the very back row of the balcony. Up there they would not be noticed by guests coming to our church.

When I was twelve, my grandfather died. Our family moved from South Africa to Solusi, a black school in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Here all of the white missionaries sat in the front few rows of church. This was to set an example to the “poor benighted” blacks who filled the rest of the church. We wore suits and ties. Our shoes were polished. Our hair was neatly combed.

I knew that many of the missionaries really sat in the front so that they would not be contaminated by coming into contact with the blacks. They seemed afraid to be too closely associated with people who came to church barefoot because they owned no shoes. Afraid that their “Sabbath” dresses and suits might brush against the only dress or shirt a person owned, and in which they had walked maybe a mile or more so that they could go to church.

I was, of course, not immune to picking up on some of this superior attitude. As a child growing up in the home of a college teacher at Helderberg, I felt superior to the poor kids who were simply students living in a dormitory. We all felt superior to the blacks sitting in the back row of the balcony to whom no one deigned to speak. They were a real embarrassment to the church.

Once in a while I would express something that hinted at my feeling of superiority. My mother would call me aside, look me square in the eye, and say in tones of rebuke: “You didn’t make yourself white!” Often this would be followed by a pointed lecture about my real place in society. We were simply each one a stone that God was building into a His spiritual house.

In Rhodesia we didn’t have the strict apartheid laws. On a regular basis Mom would invite the older (black) people into our home for a feast. She made no bones about the fact that these women were her friends. Other missionary families, trying to preserve their thin veneer of superiority, frowned on this practice. Nor would any show their faces near our home during one of Mom’s feasts. The local people loved her. They regarded her as their friend, too.

After working in Africa for 40 years, my parents’ time came to return to America for rest and retirement. But Mom’s heart couldn’t take the impending separation from her friends. Six weeks before they were scheduled to leave, she had a heart attack. Now she is buried amongst her friends in Africa; one stone amongst the many in the spiritual house God is still building.

Help me remember, Lord, that in Your sight I could count as nothing, but You have given me the honor of being a stone in the spiritual house You are building.

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[1] https://www.standout-cabin-designs.com/small-stone-cottages.html

Wealth or Love, Which Do You Want?

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Song of Solomon 8:7 

World English Bible (WEB)

⁷ Many waters can’t quench love,
    neither can floods drown it.
If a man would give all the wealth of his house for love,
    he would be utterly scorned.

Fred Clarke and John Fetzer were best friends and partners in the radio business back in the late 1920s. Fetzer had bought WEMC and converted it to WKZO. This was the most popular radio station in southwestern Michigan. Fetzer later moved it to Kalamazoo. Then he started or acquired radio stations across the United States. During World War II he was the national radio censor for the U.S. Office of Censorship to make sure that secrets were not broadcast to the enemies. After the war he shut the office down. He stated later that if he hadn’t, it would have continued, and he “shuddered to think how powerful it might” have become. He owned the Detroit Tigers baseball team for twenty years and became famous in Michigan.

When Fred’s father died of a heart attack, Fred did a lot of serious thinking about where his life was heading. He, too, saw the possibility of great riches and an easy life, but he also saw the great opportunities of service to God. Over his father’s coffin he pledged his love and service to the Lord. He promised that he would do whatever God would have him do, go wherever God asked him to go, and never ask what his salary was going to be. He remained a good friend of John and persuaded him to help support the founding of Solusi University that became a major university in the emerging country of Zimbabwe. It was the only school of higher learning to remain open throughout the civil war and later disastrous, runaway inflation that destroyed the country’s economy.

Fred would occasionally speak of his opportunities with Fetzer, telling how fulfilling and satisfying his life choice had been since then. His educational work has benefited many of the countries of southern and central Africa. Although he was never wealthy, he lived a comfortable and beneficial life until his death at nearly 101 years old.

Oh Lord, may we scorn offers of wealth and resist circumstances that attempt to drive out our love for You.

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[i] http://wittyskills.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/solusi-web-screenshot.png

Adventist Missionaries to Africa

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Acts 2:17 

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁷ And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams

This weekend the Fellowship of Adventist Missionaries to Africa (FAMA) held its biennial meeting in Cicero, Indiana. I had been planning to be there for two years now, but my cancer treatments nixed that possibility. I have been leading FAMA for most of the last 4 years but left it in the very capable hands of Charles Schlunt. Imagine my delight when Dr. Russell Staples phoned me Sabbath afternoon and gave me a firsthand report of the meetings.

In 1954 my father, C. Fred Clarke, was called to Solusi Mission, then a 10 grade high school to convert it into a 4 year college for the training of Africans to prepare them to be leaders in the Adventist Church. He overcame almost insurmountable obstacles, and in due course they graduated their first four students. When I was in Tanzania, I had the privilege of working very closely with Thomas Lisso, one of those first four graduates.

Dr. Staples, Professor of World Mission, Emeritus, at Andrews University is a pioneer Adventist missionary both from Africa and to Africa. He started teaching at Solusi with Dad. Then he became the second president of the university and set it on its very successful course. It is one of the major universities in the country of Zimbabwe and was the only university to remain open during the worst of that country’s tragic financial collapse. Solusi has had as many as 5,000 students from many parts of Africa. It is practically at the center of the Southern Africa—Indian Ocean Division of Seventh-day Adventists, apparently the largest division of the Adventist Church.

Dr. Staples reported that of the close to 22 million Adventists in the world, 11 million live in Africa, and of those 3.5 million are in the SAIO Division. This success can be traced back to the far sighted leaders who yielded to the leading of the Spirit to prepare for this vast need and tremendous growth.

Last summer Sylvia and I stopped by the Staples home where we were hosted for several days. I encouraged Dr. Staples to give a presentation at the FAMA meetings. At the time he turned me down, but I was delighted when Charles visited him, and he agreed to do it. He gave an overview of the history of missions in Africa, and his presentation was well received.

If you would like to be placed on the mailing list for the FAMA Newsletter, please contact me by responding to me on this blog.

Lord, thank You for the Outpouring of Your Holy Spirit and for those willing to follow Your leading.

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[i] http://solusi.ac.zw/event/voluntary-week-of-spiritual-emphasis/