Wordless Wednesday....

'Cause I'm too tired to write....

This blog has no title

So people keep telling me how much they enjoy reading my South Africa blogs and noticed I haven't posted anything lately. The truth is, the longer I am back from Africa, the harder it is to write about it. The emotions swirling through me have somewhat settled and I am focused on wrapping up my current job before moving onto bigger and better things. Wrapping up the job has been stressful. It is among the top five most stressful situations a human can go through, along with death of a loved one, divorce, buying a house, and moving. I didn't want this blog to become G's random thoughts on depression, so I refrained from writing anything.

This morning I woke up with something on my mind. One of the reasons it has become difficult to write about Africa is because the stories I want to tell the most feel so personal. How do you write about a teenage boy who speaks English so clearly, is a top academic achiever in his school, but is struggling with the dreaded virus? He misses a lot of school because of hospital stays. Truth be told, if it were up to me, I go pick him up and fly him here to the U.S. to one of the top hospitals. "Surely," I think to myself, "we have the world's best medicine here." And then a stab goes through me, because I realize that as much as I love Africa, I don't trust that they have decent hospitals with enough trained physicians. Then I feel bad because I don't want my friends in SA to think I am criticizing their beloved home. So I take the only action I can take when I hear my little teenage friend is back in hospital: I fall on my face and cry out to God for mercy. I continue crying out until I know he is through the worst and is back home again. How do I express the light that seems to surround him? The lessons he taught me in just a few short days? This child has nothing but forgiveness for an alcoholic father who was drinking away his stipend. He has no proper birth record, so he chooses his age and his birthday. He does this with joy -- not bitterness or anger. God has huge purposes for this child, and I have to trust that God can keep him alive to fulfill those purposes.

Then there is "Band-aid". This slight little girl is about eight years old. We were playing games with her and the other children when Jeanette (our nurse) noticed she was hurt. Jeanette pulled a splinter out of the little girl's hand, put antibiotic on it, and wrapped a band-aid around it. Band-aid was soooo grateful! She threw her arms around Jeanette's neck and kept saying "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!" She was full of bubbly joy. Effervescent. When we saw her a few days later, we barely recognized her. She had strapped her baby sister to her back and carried her to the drop in center. She fed the child off her own plate, unselfishly giving up her own meal. The responsibility of caring for her helpless one and a half year old sister weighed on her heavily, and the bubbly child we had met a few days before was buried.

There are hundreds of these stories -- sad stories that turn to stories of hope brought to a hopeless generation, and stories of success. There is the very enterprising young man who took what Swa Vana taught him and started a home decorating business in the bush. Yes, folks, he uses his sewing machine to make curtains and sells them. His sewing machine was broken beyond repair when we were there, but he was pressing forward with the business.

Across the street from one of the drop-in centers was a man who played very very LOUD music. He harbored bitterness and resentment, and would crank up the volume whenever the children were gathered in the center. Instead of going over and asking him to lower the music, he was invited over for a meal. He was very sick, very fragile, and had to be carried. While in the center, he heard the Gospel message and accepted Christ as his personal Savior. He then began blasting Christian music. Two weeks after his conversion, he died; however, we know he is in a better place, and he died in peace and joy instead of bitterness and anger.

Back in the States, it is easy to tune out what one does not want to face. It is easy to get caught up in the minutia of daily life and forget the suffering one has witnessed. God has a way, however, of bringing these forcefully to the front of one's mind again. Last week I logged onto www.philly.com and read an article about a section of Philadelphia where people are far below the poverty line with no jobs, no job prospects and no way of putting food on the table for their children. They are mostly ignorant of the types of assistance available to them from the government. Largely African-American, they do not trust white people. It sounds sort of familiar. If I really want to be like Mama Charmaine when I grow up, I will find a way of helping them. Now I am praying for vision and purpose for my future. As much as I want to go back to Africa, doesn't charity begin at home?

Huntington Hospice Care

I'm standing at my sink getting ready to do dishes. I turn on the hot water tap and within 30 seconds the hot water is scalding my hands. I jump, yell, and turn on the cold water full blast. I get the temperature regulated and tackle the dishes. I am not happy. I have hot running water. Too hot. And I'm complaining about it. Dang. I need to go back to Africa. I need to remember what it was like to do dishes in unheated water. But when I was there, I wasn't doing dishes alone. I wasn't eating alone. It was a community effort. I miss the community.

"It doesn't pay," says Gladys, "but it's important work...It's my people…It's my community!" We are walking dirt roads visiting bed-ridden patients in Huntington. Hospice work is one of the services coordinated by Swa Vana. Sixteen hospice workers spread out over the village every day to take care of people too sick or weak to care for themselves.

We enter the first house. Its small and the thin mattress in the middle of the floor dominates the room. Gladys moves around opening the two windows, sweeping the floor, and piling up the scant laundry. The patient sits up. She is one of the lucky ones I'm told. She can scoot around on her hands, so she can move herself out to the doorstep for fresh air. I look around at the bare cinderblock walls, the small wooden bench along the back wall with a few belongings stacked on it.

Gladys talks to her patient, learning that she did eat that morning. She is gentle and kind, tying a fresh hankerchief around her head. It’s a chilly day, grey and overcast. None of the patients we visit want baths that day. It's too cold. We visited three patients total. Watching the hospice workers in action was amazing. Their empathy for their patients is real. Their commitment to their community is evident. They do not earn money doing this work. Swa Vana does not have funding in place to pay them. They are paid in food parcels.

Swa Vana was asked by the village elders to take on this project over a year ago. They have had some donations, but not nearly enough to meet the needs in the village. When we were there in September, they only had enough knappies (adult diapers) to last the month. We took some supplies over, and it was nice to know that instead of two thermometers for 16 workers, they now have one apiece. It's not nearly enough. Not that any of these people complain. They are so very grateful for everything that they do have. It is me, the missionary, looking at the situation with fresh, wide-eyed culture shock, who wants to wave the magic money wand and make it all better. It's a sobering reality: I can't just fix it. I can help alleviate the need by collecting and delivering supplies. I can care enough to pray. I show that I care by going back whenever I can, and doing whatever I can to help.

Huntington is where Swa Vana started six years ago, after bringing in supplies and establishing relationships in the village. As a result, the tribal leaders offered Swa Vana the Huntington village community center to establish a place where children in dire circumstances could be fed. The bats in the roof were evicted, the buildings were cleaned up and kitted out with kitchen supplies. There are hundreds of stories of ways that Swa Vana has effected change in this area -- stories of initial resistance, which turned into cooperation. Stories of salvation that occurred simply because Jesus showed up in the form of a white woman and her family and fed the hungry -- with no expectations of anything in return. Five years later, the tribal leaders again ask Charmaine to take on a project: Hospice care. Again, Swa Vana steps up, doing what they can do with limited resources.

A new Swa Vana bulding is going up in Huntington. The land was donated, the bricks are made, and the bulding can move forward as soon as the municipality provides the grader needed to level the ground. We walk over to the property and Charmaine describes what it will look like. She points out where the kitchen will be, how the building will be set up. She wants to build hospice rooms for the terminally ill patients, and establish a computer training center for the villagers. This is an ambitious vision. The effort truly does take a community. I see this project growing as more and more of the community gets on board. I see change coming, slowly but surely. Children who have grown up being fed by Swa Vana are graduating school and either obtaining work or establishing their own enterprises. I see a people working together to overcome some pretty overwhelming odds. I want to be a part of it. How 'bout you?

Gladys and I. She has healing hands.

Wordless Wednesday....

Because I'm too (lazy) busy with laundry to write

Wordless Wednesday....

South African Sunset

Introduction to South Africa

WARNING: This is NOT a warm, fuzzy post. Hang with me folks, I have a LOT to share over the next few weeks, but this files under "background".

Do you know all that "stuff" you think you need? You know, the iPod, the new laptop, the latest TV...Well, think again. You really don't "need" any of it. Let me tell you a little bit about "need". I just visited an area of Africa where people live in one room cinder block "houses" the size of my bedroom. Most homes have electricity, but none have running water. There is barely room for a bed, let alone a refrigerator, stove, or any other comforts that we take for granted. Cooking is mostly done outside over an open fire, and bathrooms are non-existent. The more affluent people have the means to dig their own latrines, otherwise the only choice is the community "longdrop". No, these people did not make "poor choices" and end up this way as a result. Let's backtrack just a little.

In 1948 a government was elected in South Africa whose sole platform was Apartheid, which they promptly enacted. This enactment systematically separated three groups of people by skin color: White, colored, and black. Laws were passed implementing curfews, and if you were perceived as "bothering" a white person by merely walking with them, you could be arrested and thrown in jail. Black (tribal) Africans were "relocated" from prime grazing and farming land and forced into the bush. This is a mountainous area with little rainfall. Today, water is piped into the bush through community wells, which are controlled by the government. Apartheid is long over, and blacks are free to move about as they please, but they have little income, little education, and little means of achieving those moves. Those that do make it out of the rural villages often never look back. Meantime, those that remain would love to grow their own food to sell or feed their community, but that is tremendously hindered by the fact that their water is tightly controlled for "conservation" purposes. On any given day, when they visit the well, the water might not be flowing. Are you getting the picture?

yes this is a community well.

Only the very lucky have cars in the villages. Those who do, travel over extremely rough, rutted, poorly maintained dirt roads to get to the more affluent areas. The cars driving in and out kick up a tremendous amount of dust as they bounce up and down the primitive roads. There is a bus. I think it runs once a day, and if you want to get into the nearest city, you have to walk miles to the main road to catch it. There are also taxis that cruise up and down the main roads picking up as many people as they possibly can. It’s a great way to earn a living. Of course, if you can't afford the taxi or the bus, you are stuck walking. There just aren't many jobs out in the villages.

Add to all of this the issue of HIV/Aids. This is an extremely taboo subject. There is still a lot of superstition around the disease, and there are many people (understandably) distrustful of white men and their medicine. At one point rape was at an all time high (estimated 100%) because there was a belief circulating that if you had sex with a virgin, you would be cured. Those who have it guard their secret closely for fear of ostracism. Untreated HIV is leaving thousands of children without parents in a area where most of us could not survive. Look around your bedroom. Could YOU live in it with 12 other people? The lucky children might have a grandmother or an aunt to supervise them. The unlucky ones are scratching out an existence in child-led homes. With such hopeless conditions come hopeless addictions. There is no lack of bars in the communities. Children lucky enough to receive government stipends or food packages still may not have enough to eat if the stipends are used to fund their caregiver's needs or addictions.

At one point, orphanages began springing up all over South Africa to take care of these children. The government put a stop to it, decreeing that the communities must care for their own orphans. With very little resources available, the community does the best it can, but falls very short. Add to that a corrupt local government who literally steals food from the mouths of orphans. A shipment of 12 food packages will most likely be reduced to two as the food makes its way through the different levels of government on its way to be delivered to the children who need it.

Do you still think that you need that "stuff"?

Religion has taken root in a big way out in the bush. Of course, there are many different churches, with every one competing for the attention of the individuals. Several different denominations of Christianity exist (including Jehovah's Witness), along with Islam, traditional ancestral worship (witchcraft) and Zionists (a combination of Christianity and ancestral worship). Christianity has been undermined by several different philosophies that insist the people do as the government tells them and not fight back. One of the most fascinating exhibits in the Apartheid Museum goes into a great deal of detail about this issue. I'll sum it up this way: twisted Christianity is a tool used by whites to keep blacks under subjection.

There are beacons of hope. Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on the myriad of awesome stuff that happened on the trip, the wonderful people I met, and the many beautiful and gut-wrenching stories from South Africa. This trip was very intense, which makes it hard to write about. But it was completely worth it. And yes, I DO want to go back next year.

G

it's coming....and some random stuff

it's coming...
I leave for South Africa in 5 days. I can't wait, but I guess I must. Life has been interesting to say the least, and it's going to get more so when I come home.

and other stuff....

• So recently on Facebook one of my coworkers said he wanted scientific proof that God exists. I suggested he watch The Privileged Planet. So do you have any favorite comebacks for the skeptics?
• I'm watching tv tonight and I'm wondering what is the point of a sandwich called the "double down" and if the king of fast food is trying to single-handedly kill Americans with fat. Thoughts? Has anyone tried it?
• Finally...do you have a favorite scripture? If so, what is it?

The Excitement is Building....

I'm going to South Africa. I can't really describe the anticipation that is starting to build. The nervous jitters and the complete absence of expectations. I don't really know what is going to happen over there. And I'm ok with that. I'm ok with not having control, not knowing what is coming, not having expectations. I'm actually trying NOT to set any. I don't want to set myself up for disappointment. I don't want to put God in a box by telling Him how it's going to be when I get there. I'm just going where He tells me to go, and doing what He tells me to do. Right now, it feels like everything I am learning is preparing me for this experience that will pretty much eclipse every expectation I could even dream about.

New Year

Happy New Year!!

Where I've been:
January of 2009 started out with me separated from my husband, hurting in ways that only God could understand, but focused on Him.
April found me singing my first solo ever. I survived.
The divorce was finalized in May, and started the summer of the name change.
June took me to Oklahoma on a missions trip: building a new sanctuary for First Indian Baptist Church. Oklahoma was awesome, and I didn't want to come home.
July found me in Daytona with the FBL Youth Group. Worship with Chris Tomlin morning and night for four straight days. God made clear His calling that I was to make myself available to go to Africa.
August brought an abrupt change of direction. From planning a move to Lutz, and becoming a leader in the youth group, to moving to Riverview and being called to an entirely different church.
September brought me to the new church, my awesome Lifegroup, and Divorce Care. I discovered God doesn't make JUNK!
October found me wrestling down bitterness and unforgiveness, so I could walk with God as He intended.
November brought peace and the open door to Africa.
December brought assurance that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. I am at peace, and God is romancing me -- drawing me ever closer to Him.

Where I'm going:
2010 is going to be an awesome year. It's going to be a BUSY year. It's going to be a BLESSED year. No matter what curveballs are thrown at me, like Paul, I will say, "Whatever state I am in, I am content."

The PLAN (subject to change, of course, lol):
3 courses in the Spring semester
3 courses over the Summer semester
Travel to South Africa in September.

Happy Thanksgiving...

To my hordes of followers:

I hope your Thanksgiving is full of blessing and hope. Mine is.

I'm thankful that I'll have a house full of friends. Its the closest thing to a re-creation of my family holiday experience since I married Chris.

I'm thankful that in about two weeks I will have another semester behind me. One class closer to graduation.

I'm thankful that God cares so much about me that He will not let me stagnate, even though it hurts to move.

I'm thankful that I received a direct answer to prayer and have the open door to go to South Africa next year.