ECSW Companion Relationship with ELCSA-Western Diocese
  • Welcome
  • 2016 Visit from S.A. Guests
  • "Before the Visit" Orientation Videos
  • "During the Visit" Orientation Videos
  • Accompaniment
    • What is it?
    • Accompaniment Blog
  • Revisit 2013 trip to S.A.
    • Summary of 2013 Trip to the Western Diocese
    • 2013 Trip Details >
      • 2013 Q & A
      • 2013 Brochure
      • Bulletin inserts or Newsletter explanations
  • Three essential steps
    • Letter of Invitation
    • Application >
      • Expectations
    • Orientation >
      • Blog on preparing
      • Books & Videos
      • Brian Konkol on Accompaniment >
        • Articles by Brian Konkol
        • Brian Konkol on YouTube
      • Barbara Berry Bailey
      • ELCA Companion Synod Handbook >
        • #1 Introduction
        • #2 First Cross-cultural Session
        • #3 Second Cross-cultural Session
        • #4 The Western Diocese
        • #5 Final Details
      • Specific Details
  • What we do in S.A.
    • Our Guides in the Western Diocese >
      • Why Guides?
      • Bishop Ditlhale
      • Rev. Morwaeng Motswasele
      • Dr. Phil in South Africa >
        • Blogs by Dr. Phil >
          • Prisoners of Hope
          • Southern Africa Church Leaders Gather
          • We are all missionaries
    • Orientation in South Africa >
      • Lakeview Lodge
    • One South African parish's plan for their visitors
  • Background to our companion relationship in Southern Africa
    • History of ECSW & Western Diocese >
      • Western Diocese in South Africa >
        • History of Western Diocese
        • Crossways Camps and the Western Diocese
        • 2010 WRV Conference & Madikwe Circuit
        • Maps >
          • Map of Western Diocese
      • How we got to 2013 >
        • 2010 Ziemer Sabbatical
        • 2005 visit from SA
    • Conference-Circuit >
      • Covenant, Goals & Guidelines
    • Our Synod's Companion Task Force >
      • 2012 Synod Resolution
  • ELCA Companion Synod Program
    • Rev. Barbara Berry-Bailey
  • Companion Synod matches
    • East Central Synod of WI with Western Diocese
    • ELCA Synods matched with ELCSA Dioceses >
      • Carribean Synod with ELCSA Eastern Diocese
      • Metro Chicago Synod with ELCSA Central Diocese
      • Montana Synod with ELCSA Cape Orange Diocese
      • Northeast Ohio Synod with ELCSA Northern Diocese
      • Southwest Minnesota Synod with ELCSA Southeastern Diocese
    • other companion relationships >
      • Greater Milwaukee Synod >
        • companion relationship with Tanzania
        • companion relationship with El Salvador
      • Great Lakes Synod with Tanzania
      • Northwest Synod of Wisconsin >
        • companion relationship with Malawi, in southern Africa
        • companion relationship with Brazil
      • LaCrosse Synod >
        • companion relationship with Peru
        • companion relationship with Ethiopia
      • South Central Synod of WI with India
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (ELCSA) website
  • Lutheran Communion in Southern Africa (LUCSA) website
  • The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) website
  • Photo Gallery
    • Pictures of 2013 Synod Trip >
      • Pictures of earlier trips - come and see!

Why guides?

Not all the world thinks like us. What to us is good, a mission, and a helpful service in witness to God's love can come across to other cultures as arrogant, insulting, and enabling dependence on American ideas. Our learning from others and relating with them will often accomplish much more than the money we send or the mission projects we do. Plus in the learning and relating we will be changed!

The ELCA Companion Synod Program is unique. It is at the very heart of who we are as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. For it reveals and leads us in experiencing that we are not congregations nor a synod nor a national church body. We are a church, the Body of Christ. As such we need to be all the above but always together, building relationships and networks, and lifting up the name of Jesus in praise to Almighty God and in service to all humanity.

This trip will be challenging! It will challenge our "mission trip" mentality that is often the work of a lone congregation or a small group of congregations, and which is often OUR action done for others. All the above are important as a starting point.

The orientation beforehand and in South Africa, the immersion in our companion parishes, and the review with Bishop Ditlhale at the end will challenge and push us to experience the church as worldwide, the Body of Christ in which all have gifts, and called into mission that is most effective when it is cooperatively engaged in mutual witness and service hand-in-hand with sisters and brothers around the world.

Lutheran World Federation, "accompaniment", mission, mutuality - will all take on rich and deeper meaning that will transform how we live faith and mission in our personal lives and in our immediate locality. The irony of this trip to a far-away land is that it will lead us to see ourselves and our immediate setting with new eyes.