This Is Africa

I flew out of the U.S. at 10:00 PM on Saturday May 30th. I landed in Cape Town, South Africa at 10:30 Am on June 1^st. That was 4:30 AM eastern time. So early. I am writing this post having now been living in South Africa for a little over two weeks. I have been learning, adjusting, absorbing, experiencing, teaching, and serving in so many ways already, and I have so much I want to sort through and relate to everyone back home. First however, I want to try and get across some of the more informational and technical aspects of my trip that I was unsure about before I actually got here.

I am living in a township called Ocean View, which is about forty minutes outside of downtown Cape Town. Ocean View is one of many townships in Cape Town that coloured people were displaced to when they were forced out of their original homes by the government during the Apartheid. I am still learning about this and probably need a history lesson pronto. To me, a township feels a bit like a neighborhood, but one that has the population of an entire small city crammed into it. In South Africa the world “coloured” is an accepted term that refers to anyone who is not black or white. This includes people of Asian, Indian, and mixed decent. I am still learning and absorbing the affect that the uprooting and displacement had on this community of people and the many communities that are like it.

My friend, Stennett (stennettsmith.blogspot.com), and I share a small room in a house that belongs to our host-mom, named Shireen. Shireen is a single, Muslim woman that lives alone, but who loves to have company and can chat your ear off, even if some of what we say is occasionally lost in translation. Or else in our accents. She is always encouraging us to explore the city, and loves to share her own story with us whenever she gets the chance. She is very open about her own experience with the Apartheid, and tells us that she was six years old when the government forced her family out of their home in Simon's Town, which is now a white area. She is also a great cook, and though we buy our own groceries for breakfast and lunch, she continues to make delicious dinners for us every night. These often consist of things like curry and roti (a kind of flat, fried bread), fruity pizza, and fish with hot chips (french fries). So much yum.

Right from the start we have been pretty busy with our service sites. The first day that we arrived in Ocean View, we dropped off our bags at the Prince's house, and blear-eyed and jetlagged, headed to the high school that the Ubuntu boys (http://ubuntufootball.com/) attend to help run games and tutor. The past two weeks have been exam weeks for the boys, so when they got out of school, we helped them relax and release some energy by playing some field games (or watching Harry Potter on rainy days), and then spent an hour or so going over and helping them study for their upcoming exams. Many of the boys come from rough areas of Cape Town, some with high levels of drug and gang activity, or areas of poverty. Ubuntu provides amazing opportunities for them in soccer, education, mentorship, leadership, and faith, and it has been great so far to be a part of this ministry.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings we work at the Ocean View Care Center in Pre-K and kindergarten classrooms. The structure is made out of donated shipping containers, but the insides provide a good space for lil classrooms. The kids at this school need a lot of love and many come from families who can't afford to feed them, had their children while using drugs, are abusive, or are in other such situations. Needless to say, there is a plethora of behavioral issues at hand, and my job in the classroom often feels more like controlling the chaos than anything else. The Care Center charges no school fees, is run completely by volunteers, and feeds the children two meals a day.
The strength of the teachers at this school is astounding, as it is very easy to get overwhelmed or burnt even on a daily bases and not a single one of them is being paid. And yet they show up everyday to love, comfort, and often scold, but always to teach.

The Care Center also provides other resources for the community like parenting classes, abuse and addiction recovery programs, soup kitchens, and a women's empowerment group. The women's group, called Shine, meets every Friday afternoon, and the other three female interns and I have recently begun to help lead it. We teach a group of 8-12 women about things like how we all have the strength to make our own decisions and that we are all beautifully and wonderfully made. These are ideas that are foreign to many women in this area, as they are more inclined to be passive to those around them, than to realize that they are allowed to question and even to change their situations or the things that are happening to them.

On Friday evenings we help lead girl's small group and youth group for the Ocean View Methodist Church. In the girls' small group we are going through and learning about the women in the Bible. Last week, I helped teach about the strength of Deborah and how she was not afraid to take control of her own destiny through following God and leading her nation into battle.  Sometimes I feel like teaching these girls is a way to help prevent them from falling into the passivity and helplessness that some of the women in the Shine group have found themselves caught in. Maybe if they can understand their worth at a younger age, they will not be afraid to break out of the cycle that many other women are trapped in.

After small group, we run youth group for all of the students. It's pretty typical of what youth group was like for me when I was in high school, and I have been in charge of leading some of the games for the past couple of weeks. Turns out "Protect the President" is a hit in youth groups on both sides of the Atlantic.

I am hoping to find some time to go into more detail on some of these projects that I am currently involved with and to share some stories of the things happening around me, but until then, please find your way to my pictures page if you haven't already. It is easier for me to find the time (and mostly the wifi) to keep this page up to date. And you know what they say about pictures and their worth in words. You can find the link next to the "Home" button at the top of the page. 

Further Up and Further In

When beginning my preparation for this trip, I knew that I wanted to find a way to communicate with my family and friends in order to keep everyone up to date and aware of what I was doing; however, I was not entirely sure of which method I would use in order to do so. Seeing as my range of followers varies from my 18 year old brother to my 86 year old grandfather, figuring out the best form of technology that would be easiest for everyone to use was something I was unsure of. That is until the week before I left for my trip, when my dear grandmother who signs her text messages “XOXO Grandma” and hits her phone against the palm of her hand in order to get it to go into portrait mode, said the words to me, “I really hope you get a blog going so that I can follow what you are doing this summer.” That settled it. If Grandma Peggy thinks blogging is the best communication technology for me to use, there would be no second-guessing.

My next thought was, but what will I name it? It seemed like such a commitment, and my older and much wiser sister quickly squished a few of my more stellar ideas, which she claimed to be “too typical.” Thanks, Kat. She informed me that the name of her blog came from one of her favorite writers. I thought about what some of my favorite books and songs were, and remembered that "Further Up and Further In" was a chapter title in one of my favorite books of all time, The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis. (By the way I recommend every single person ever to read this book, and if you've already read it, read it again. The end.)

So in this chapter of the book, the characters that appear throughout the Chronicles of Narnia series have arrived in the New Narnia, which is essentially Lewis’s representation of heaven, and are exploring the new land, when the Unicorn says this:

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!” 

This seemed like the perfect name for my blog, not only because reading this chapter of the book makes me weepy in the best sort if way because it is a beautiful depiction of what it might feel like to finally step into the place that we are all truly meant for; but this phrase also fits perfectly with what, as Christians, we are called to do. And what I am hoping to live out this summer especially.

During the last Sunday service before I left home, as a group of us who are participating in international missions this summer were being presented to and prayed over by the congregation, our pastor reminded us that “We are not called to stand firm and stand fast, we are called to go forth and go out.” Jesus tells us to go forth and preach the gospel to all creation, and to all nations (Mark 6:15, Matthew 28:19) We are called to go further up and further into this world carrying the Word of God in our hearts, in our words, and in our actions. Though there may be many mishaps, obstacles, adventures, and explorations along the way, ultimately this endeavor to the southern tip of Africa that I have only just begun to embark on, is a way that God is pushing me to go further up and further into his creation and into the hearts of his people. I can't wait to see were He takes me.