Dr. Samuel Kobia, General Secretary World Council of Churches (WCC), Geneva, CH
A word of greeting, 2006

... A book of faith, a book to teach pastoral care and a handbook for theology with life-stories from all parts of the world and over the course of a century, which is encouraging and demanding – not least as inspiration and incentive for the ecumenical movement. ...

A word of greeting: Christians have an address for the day and for the night

We Africans say, "Onjacoya du grosz!“ which means "God has to add the soul!“ This is the message of the book "Why me? Learning to live in Crises“

In a surprisingly open manner, autobiographies from all over the world report about their experiences with suffering and faith, their crises with diseases, disabilities, persecution, solitude, separation and death and speak at the same time about the wonderful or unavailable faith experiences and trust in God.

The author, ERIKA SCHUCHARDT, who has been for many years a member of church bodies of the Evangelical Church in Germany and of the World Council of Churches has developed on the basis of her analysis of over 2000 life-stories of a century a way to work through crisis as "condition sine qua non“ and recognises: For Christians, too, there is no way around suffering but there is a way through suffering together with Christ. Darkness is not absence of God but rather a hidden presence in which we seek him and find him anew in patient discipleship. She stresses that "Christians have an address for the day and for the night", thus God becomes always "available“ for them and can always be reached.

In an impressive way, we experience the analysis of traces by the author showing how at different places of the world people dared to cope with crises.

Whether LAUREL LEE, the American best seller author, JACQUES LUSSEYRAN who was a co-founder of the French resistance movement, PEARL.S.BUCK, the Nobel prize winner and daughter of missionaries in China, the parents SYLVIA and ALBERT GÖRRES from Germany, HAN SUYIN from China and HAROLD KUSHNER, the Israeli Rabbi and HANS JONAS, the Peace prize winner, all autobiographies in their respective cultures pass through the same way of learning and coping with crises, the 8 stages of the spiral. For all of them this way becomes the "condition sine qua non“ and of all them receive in gratefulness the same gift of a third person, the nearness of God who turns mischief into "salvation“ through faith.

We Africans know this way of mourning and coping with crises for instance in the Herero or Nyakusa rites. In all cultures people in crises are searching for this way and finding it. Courageously, ERIKA SCHUCHARDT puts her finger in the wound of insufficient pastoral care. "It is not God’s fault if his ground staff, people like you and me, are failing“; and at the same time there are many positive experiences with chaplains accompanying people in crises.

A book of faith, a book to teach pastoral care and a handbook for theology with life-stories from all parts of the world and over the course of a century, which is encouraging and demanding – not least as inspiration and incentive for the ecumenical movement.