There's Much to Celebrate

Thanksgiving for me this year took on an entirely new form. If you would have asked me a year ago what Thanksgiving meant to me, my likely response would probably have consisted of something like time with family, food, and football. Which are all great things, and yes I am thankful for them, but those things mean so much more then the empty containers I use to put them in.

For the first time in my life I can honestly say that I was thankful for the food on the table yesterday. As a YAGM family we prepared an entire Thanksgiving feast together. It wasn't grandma and mom slaving in the kitchen all day as I sat lazily in the livingroom watching football. It took all ten of our combined gifts and talents as a whole family to provide a meal for each other.

We found family in each other, and even maybe a new way to define what family really is. Not to say our families 8,000+ miles away weren't in our thoughts or prayers, but for most if not all of us, we found a deep comfort in each other i'm not sure we were expecting to find.

It was a great reminder for me of how much we really truly have to be thankful for everyday. I desperately hope I can remember to thank God each and everyday for the things, people, and beauty he has brought into my life. And I don't need a special day to remember where it all comes from in the first place. Happy Thanksgiving from South Africa!!

Peace

Velvet Elvis

I've been doing a lot of reading lately and this is one of the things that came up in one of my books. I don't wish to comment on it or really elaborate on my own thoughts. I just wanted to put this out there and let it work as it may in your own mind for yourself. So here is an excerpt from Velvet Elvis by written by Rob Bell.

 

"Missions then is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there. It is almost as if being a good missionary means having really good eyesight. Or maybe it means teaching people to use their eyes to see things that have always been there; they just didn't realize it. You see God where others don't. And then you point him out.

 

Perhaps we ought to replace the word missionary with tour guide, because we cannot show people something we haven't seen.

 

Have you ever heard missionaries say they were going to "take Jesus" to a certain place? What they meant, I assume, was that they has Jesus and they were going to take him to a place like China or India or Chicago where people apparently didn't have him.

 

I would ask them if people in China and India and Chicago are eating and laughing and enjoying things and generally being held together? Because if they are, then Jesus, in a way this is difficult to fully articulate is already present there.

 

So the issue isn't so much taking Jesus to people who don't have him, but going to place and pointing out to the people there the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst.

 

It is searching for the things they have already affirmed as real and beautiful and true and then telling them who you believe is the source of all that. "I am here to tell you where I think it comes from…."

 

And if you do see yourself carrying God to places, it can be exhausting.

 

God is really heavy.

 

Some people actually believe that God is absent from a place until they get there. The problem with this idea is that if God is not there before you get there, then there is no "there" in the first place."

 

 

Peace

 

 

*written November 11th

Hit By A Mac Truck

They tell us at the beginning of this YAGM experience that vulnerability is going to play a large role in the next year of our lives, and so far I would agree whole heartedly. Of coarse it's somewhat up to each individual as too just how vulnerable they want to allow themselves to truly be. I got to recently experience this vulnerability on an even deeper level then I already have since my arrival.

 

Earlier this week I got hit with a flu bug. I use the term "hit" in a rather literal sense, cause I seriously felt like i'd been hit by a Mac truck. My entire body ached, my head was throbbing, and my stomach was uneasy to say the least. I have spent so little time sick in the last three years (other then broken bones) I think I was in denial about it at first. It didn't take long for my doubt to disappear though as my slight rumbly tummy turned into death warmed over within about an hour. When a person becomes ill, they pretty much have to trust the people around them to help with their care. Putting ones self into a much more vulnerable state, even more then usual as a YAGM, whether you like it or not. And lets be completely honest, when most of us become sick we really just want our mommy cause well, she just does it best. The fact of the matter though is that mom is a long way away right now. Luckily for me, I have about five mothers on any given day of the week.

 

The following morning I tried to tough it out and went to the creche as I usually do, but it didn't take long for Mosa, Kelebogile and Dinah (three of said mothers) to realize I wasn't feeling up to par. The harder I tried to prove I would be ok the more they insisted I take it easy and just go lay down. It wasn't long before they had won the argument, but what mother ever looses an argument right? I spent the next 20 hours face down in my pillow nearly dead to the world. My dad would come in every couple of hours and check to make sure I was still breathing, ask if I needed anything, and then let me go back into my flu induced coma. He even made me some soft porridge that night, as it was the only thing that sounded even remotely appetizing. I woke up the next morning feeling like a completely new person. I was greeted with questions of concern as I entered the creche, only to assure them I was feeling much better. Dinah proceeded to load my plate especially full at breakfast and lunch that day, saying I needed to make up for all the food i'd missed out on in the last 24 hours haha. I think she just loves any excuse to feed me ;) I guess being vulnerable to the help of others isn't all that terrible after all.

 

Peace

 

*written November 7th

God's Work, Our Hands

I've been gifted with many beautiful moments in my time here, but today's may just top the list so far. There were multiple baptisms at church this morning, three to be exact, so there were multiple baptismal parties afterwards this afternoon. All of them were lovely and I ate until I could hardly move at each, but it was at our last stop for the day that my heart grew a little bit.

 

My little sister was sitting on my lap after we had finished eating and we were basically just there among everyone else somewhat engaging in casual conversation. As we sat there she begin to play with my hands though. At first I didn't pay much attention, but the more she played with them the more she begin asking specifically for me to see what she was doing. I begin to watch closely as she first placed her own hand palm down next to mine. She then insisted that I repeat the motion, so I did. I didn't quite understand what this new game was but I went along with it. Once I too had placed my palm facing down next to hers she gave me my next task. She flipped her own hand over facing palm up this time and again asked me to do the same, so I did. We repeated this pattern a couple times until she stopped me and made the motions of the game much more deliberate. We started at the beginning with both our hands next to each other palms down. But this time she made a point of pushing our hands together so they were touching and pointed at her hand and then at mine. Then we went onto the next step like we had before, both our hands palms up this time. She made sure our hands were touching again and pointed at her palm and then at mine. She looked up at me and smiled. She made me repeat the steps once more with the same touching and pointing to make sure I understood her point and again looked up at me and smiled.

 

A five year old showed me a new definition of what it means to be a child of God today. Through her playing with my hands she had come to discover that the pigmentation of our palms was the same. Race is a reality I have had to face at times since I arrived here, but today my little sister gave me one of the most beautiful gifts I have ever received. One that I will hold close and dear to my heart for the rest of my life.

 

Peace

 

*written November 3rd

Waving The "White" Flag

I got to go to a coffee shop yesterday in a town that is about 17km away from my village. Now, when I first heard that I was going to coffee shop I got pretty excited I'm not going to lie. I love coffee, and haven't had anything in regards to coffee except Nescafe instant since arriving. So the thought of a cup of "real" joe was pretty exciting.

The moment I crossed into the threshold of the shop I immediately felt different. It was a very nice, quiet, little shop with your stereotypical coffee shop artistic touches. I have spent many hours in shops very similar to it back in the states, but something felt very different here. As soon as I made my way into the back patio area I begin to understand why it felt so different. As I took my seat at the table I realized I was completely surrounded by white people. It was the first time since arriving that I found myself surrounded by a completely white population.

As I made my way to my table and finally sat down, I could feel eyes piercing me like tiny little arrows. Now I realize some of the things I was feeling were probably somewhat things I was projecting upon myself. But non the less I felt incredibly out of place, and the company of white South African's looks I was receiving told me I was out of place.

For the first time in my life I identified with and placed my identify with a racial group that wasn't white, and from the looks of it, they didn't want to identify with me either. The privilege they outwardly displayed and almost waved around like a flag of victory for all to see was truly disheartening and somewhat sickening to honest. It was at this moment that I begin to realize just how much the people of Lekubu have become my family and my home. They are people I care desperately about, people I trust, and people I love.

 

Peace

 

*written October 26th

Bob Marley?

I've alway hear that music is the universal language, and not that i've ever doubted that statement, but today I got to witness it first hand. It was just another day at Keromang Lutheran ELC and the kids had just finished eating their lunch. Kelebogile, Mosagwe and myself were in the kitchen cleaning up the usually after lunch types of things and working on the dishes, and for some reason I was quietly singing No Woman No Cry to myself. Kelebogile stopped dead in her tracks and turned her gaze to me. "Bob Marley?", she said to me with a half perplexed half excited look on her face. I replied with a simple "Ee ma (yes mam in Tswana)", and a big smile. "Oh you know Bob Marley? He is from way back Keeni!!", she exclaimed. So to further prove to her that though young I truly know my Marley music I started into Buffalo Soldier. As soon as I finished the first line, Kele piped in with the second, I with the third, and before long all three of us were bouncing back and forth to the beat and singing Bob Marley songs together as we did the dishes.

It's the little moments in life that become the truly extraordinary memories you will cherish for a life time.

 

Peace

 

*written October 24th

We Danced As If Nobody Was Watching

It's nights like tonight that a person begins to understand just how profound of a relationship it is that we live in on a daily basis, whether we are aware of it or not. It's an overwhelmingly simple, yet complex array of emotions that most of us only occasionally can find the depth to truly grasp and hold onto if even only for a split second.

I was sitting in the living room this evening reading the Daily Sun, a South African newspaper regularly available in our home, and became ever more distraught the more articles I read. The amount of hatred, anger, and ugliness in some of the people in this world was more then I could handle. My reading even lead me to scribble an angry new entry into my journal. But as I smashed my pen into the poor pages of my journal I stopped myself, and as good mentors have taught me, allowed myself to turn to wonder rather then anger. It was then that I understood it was utter sadness that was overflowing from inside me, not anger. I let myself linger in the feeling for awhile, hoping to maybe better understand where it was truly coming from. The events that came to follow are those only read in books, or seen in movies.

As I closed my journal and re-secured the leash to it's cover, my feet started to carry me somewhere. I wasn't entirely sure where or why, but regardless I was on the move. I reached across my bed and grabbed my hoody that had been laying there, placing it over my head as I exited the house out the backdoor. I placed my hands into it's front pocket to find my iPod. For no apparent reason at all I pushed the earbuds into my ears and scrolled through the artists to a familiar friend I had gone to so many times before and quietly wandered around behind the house. I wasn't more then 20 meters from the house when I begin to realize why I had come outside and I sat down. I lay flat on the ground with my eyes lost and entranced to the evening sky. I watched in complete ah as the last remaining thoughts of daylight slowly gave way to the growing darkness of the night sky and the stars begin to glisten in victory for possession of the stage. As I listened and watched it began to feel as if gravity itself had been suspended for the time being and the milky way itself begin to dance and roll like gentle waves crashing against a white sandy beach. I felt a cool river flowing across my cheek as myself and creation became lost in each other and became one again. The beauty, simplicity, and total nothingness, yet completeness of the situation wrapping me in it's blanket of peace.

For the next hour or two, I'm not even sure to be honest, myself and Bon Iver laid out under the stars together and basked in the beautiful glory that we had been so graciously gifted with and the sadness that had once cloaked my soul was nowhere to be found.

 

Peace

 

*written October 22nd