The Words of the Hadj-amar Family
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The Words of the Hadj-amar Family |
I had not heard of the Gambia before my wife and I picked it as our mission country at the 1996 national messiah workshop in Chung Pyung. I had been unaware of its existence, but my wife and I were very happy to have chosen an African nation.
The Gambia is a tiny country, a former British colony. On a map, the Gambia appears like a river within Senegal about two-thirds of the way down from Senegal's northern border and flowing from 320 kilometers inland to the Atlantic Ocean. This is because the Gambia's territory consists only of narrow strips of land on either side of the Lower Gambia River. The borders of the Gambia undulate parallel to the river for most of its length. Only for the hundred kilometers before the river empties into the Atlantic do the Gambia's northern and southern borders look as if they were drawn with a straightedge. This is where the Gambia is at its widest, north to south, at just fifty kilometers.
The Gambia is a poor country, whose resources are mainly agricultural produce and fish, but it is peaceful, without tribal or religious conflicts. We were determined to go to our nation with the whole family and did live there for a while with our three sons -- Urio, Su-won and Su-chang -- who at the time were ten, seven and four years old respectively. Eventually, we recognized our limitations in overcoming certain environmental and economic circumstances and returned to Italy. However, we have tried to work in the Gambia for some period every year.
In the beginning, I mainly tried to support the programs already set up by the local church, which included family life education, HIV prevention workshops in the local schools, Divine Principle seminars, inter-religious conferences, various other education programs and Sunday service. I am grateful for the support of a young Korean missionary, Kim Jae-than and the Japanese sisters of WFWP, who had made a good foundation of membership before we came to work there as national messiahs. In the beginning of our mission we also benefitted from being able to work with Mrs. Nishiki, the Eve-nation national messiah and the Berndt family, the Abel-nation messiahs.
It is not easy to work with people of different nationalities in a country that is not your own. To tell the truth, differences of opinions, ideas, culture and experiences among the various missionaries came out, and sometimes prevented us from working smoothly; if we had been able to overcome our disunity, probably we would have achieved much better results working together.
WFWP had a scholarship program to help needy Gambian students continue their studies. For quite a few years, our family supported this program from Italy by collecting money from various sponsors to "adopt" students.
After visiting the Gambia over a number of few years, I felt dissatisfied with what I was achieving. Hence, I thought of a long-term, significant project that could help improve the daily life of the people. All over the country, you can see village wells built by foreign individuals or by NGO associations. I had not immediately thought of providing a well. I had been planning to build a school of agriculture, where young people would learn agricultural techniques and practices and perhaps other skills such as fish farming or computer use. This would be combined with character and family values education under a vision for a peaceful world. I envisioned this as the Chonju Peace Education Center. To fulfill this, however, we need money.
In 2003, to win the trust of the Italian people and encourage them to contribute toward this project, I created an official association using the International Relief Friendship Foundation model -- IRFF Italia-Gambia. This made it possible to accept donations from public or private donors. I did this with a few friends and at the same time created a similar team of Gambian friends to work on this and future projects.
The Gambian team put me in touch with Mr. Dawda Jones, a member of parliament. Through him, we met Mr. Jatta, chief of Kunkujang Village. After listening to our plan and explaining it to other village elders, they welcomed our education project and gave us land to build on (and dig in) free of charge.
I was so excited about the project that I didn't stop to consider the costs. If I had, I probably never would have begun.
One thing I knew for sure: once completed, it would be a functional and valuable project that could be reproduced in others places.
The Peace and Love Association was created in memory of Steven Grande, a second- generation Italian brother whose philosophy of life was to completely invest himself and leave something positive behind for others. He died in a car accident on January 1, 2006. Reading his diary, his parents, Mario and Edda Grande, discovered that Steven had dreamed of building a food factory in Africa.
One day Mario and Edda told me they felt that the Chonju Peace Education Center project was something Steven would have wanted to be a part of. For that reason, they and Steven's younger brother Terrence joined other members of the Peace and Love Association in raising funds for the project. Things would have been very difficult without their help. When I am in the Gambia, I often feel I am not alone, but that Steven Grande is actively helping me from heaven to realize this project.
When I lived in Rome, my neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Giampaolo, also offered their help. Mr. Giampaolo is an accountant for ACEA, Rome's public water and electric company. He told me his company was sponsoring projects in Africa and that if I were interested,
I could apply through him to receive sponsorship for my project in the Gambia. That's how I could receive €17,000, which enabled me to begin our project in November 2007.
It is very difficult to run a project in a country that is not your own. I felt I had to supervise every step in person and control everything that was bought so that none of the money was wasted.
At first, people didn't believe in the project, but when they saw what we achieved in such a short time, they couldn't believe their eyes. I am working with a good construction team from the Village of Kunkujang. This is very encouraging. We are working hand in hand, knowing that this project will benefit their children's future.
It hasn't been easy because I work as a volunteer and my family has to survive with the little money I give them, particularly when I go to Africa for the project for two or three months at a time. I feel particularly sorry for my children.
While in the Gambia, I have to stop and take a break from time to time. Often I go to the seaside to fish; even if I don't catch anything, I enjoy it very much. One day, I went to my usual fishing spot. It was a cool morning with a slight breeze. I was concentrating so much on fishing that I was disconnected from anything else happening around me. My concentration broke when I heard a loud voice calling my name. It seemed as if the voice filled the whole universe. Ramdane!
Wow! Who is calling me? I asked myself, but when I turned around to see where the sound had come from, I couldn't locate the source and realized it was God's voice. I was so moved to realize that God knows me. He knows me by name.
The best part of working in the Gambia is that I meet good people who care and want to help me. We have built a wall around the Chonju Peace Education Center. This was required before we could invest in the project further. Within the wall are the well and a small office. Next we want to add solar panels, build classrooms, a student dormitory, toilets, a kitchen and a good irrigation system. For this, we are working to find the necessary funds, and we are looking for sponsors who would like to become part of the project.
There is great satisfaction in working to help others.
For more information about Mr. Hadj-amar's projects in the Gambia, please go to www.italia-gambia.org