Day 5: Soshanguve (Block P)

10AM

There's a lot of finger pointing in the U.S. about our unemployment rate. I believe it's 9ish percent. In South Africa, half of the employable population does not have a job.

We visited one of the newest campuses of a faith-based education program called Popup. They serve those they call the "disempowered". They give them a foundation in faith first. Then they teach them skills that can help them start a business or find work. This campus is in the township. That means the skills they teach here are welding, bricklaying, plumbing...like that. There is constant need here for skilled laborers because the government, with international grants, is helping people who live in corrugated metal shacks by tearing them down and building new brick homes. This is creating jobs as well as homes, and more importantly, it is allowing town residents to start businesses of their own. It's cool to see a new economy emerging.

1230PM

We got to see the venue where the rally is going down. We met some of the crew we'll be working with. It's gonna be pretty rad. We haven't practiced at all yet. So we should do that.

2PM

I learned cricket today. I'm an excellent bowler. Tulani is teaching us the rules but we're too busy wreaking havoc with with the bat.

Here come the kids. Time to get in it.

5PM

Block P kids got attitude. This one dude was ragging on my shoes.

Him: what are your shoes called?
Me: Um...converse?
Him: Not all-star?
Me: No, one-star
Him: Ha! You only got one star!
Me: Little punk...

They sang to us, which ruled, but we were all taking pictures and video at first like they were some kind of spectacle. I didn't realize until afterward how we must have looked. Pastor Albert made us sing a song with them.

Pastor Albert, by the way, teaches old school. If you sit down with him, he'll just start preaching to you. If you try to converse with him, you better be on it, cause he'll straight call you on stuff. Like he was explaining how his church does not just bring people into the church but that they go out to bring Christ to the community and help orphans and widows. I chimed in with "that's what Jesus called true religion". He looked at me sideways and said "that's in James" and he called out chapter and verse. I was like "oh". After that I didn't say things.

Anyway, after the singing and the eating and the tambourine making, general shenanigans ensued.

530PM

Today I washed dishes, cleaned tables, carried this heavy-ace pot of chicken like a block and a half, played with kids, stapled paper plate tambourines, and tied shoes. Seriously, I don't even know who I am anymore. This really is true religion. I don't know who said it; Jesus, James, whatever. They were brothers or something right? So they were pitching around the same lines anyway. The point is, it's true. Normal religion is for wusses.

Day 6: Soshanguve (Block W)

650AM

The nights are fun. We get back to Kwa Kerus feeling punchy. The ladies proceed immediately to preparing dinner. I shuffle around awkwardly trying to be helpful. Jarred lies down on the couch and demands that Alyssa tell him a story, which she actually does. I play guitar. Robb strikes up intellectual conversations. David films everything.

Dinner is always lively banter and storytelling. We debrief the day. Afterwards, the ladies set about preparing for the next day's activities with the kids, and we practice for the rally.

805AM

All of the different tribes here are descended from the Zulu. The Zulu are dancers. I've had several conversations with people who want to explain to me why they dance. It's as if they're self conscious or they worry we think them strange.

The best explanation I got was from Pastor Albert. He said that, according to Zulu tradition, any Zulu person may approach the king. He named the holy city where the king, a divine figure, resides, but I can't recall it. Anyway, when you go to that place you must begin dancing in worship while you are still far off. This proves to the king that you are a child of Zulu. When he is satisfied, he will send his servants to fetch you to him.

Albert says this is how they view their dancing now that they have been found by Jesus. They always begin their church gatherings with song and dancing. I've been wondering why the songs here are such simple forms. That's why. Because the singing is only to allow for the dancing.

The point he was making is that in order to gain influence with people you must understand them. He has a wealth of experience with white missionaries coming to him to teach his people. Mostly they make no effort to learn the ways of the Zulu. They teach the way that they were taught and it falls on deaf ears.

Jesus was cross-cultural. He once travelled out of his way to visit a woman in Samaria and spoke right into her cultural situation, even though he, himself, was a Jew. He was able to gain influence because he understood her.

This is the way we are to teach; by first understanding.

130PM

To give an honest picture of my personal experience here I have to admit how inadequate I feel. I know this is not about me and that's what's so frustrating. I cant escape my insecurity. I want to be useful and clever and charming but I think god just wants me to be here.

We spent the morning with the grannies. These are older ladies who have lost adult children, mostly to AIDS, and are now raising their grandchildren, or the children of family members. The grief and hardship that these women face every day is just unimaginable to me. What am I doing here? What help can a white foreigner possibly offer in this situation? One lady told me about how she lost her husband, her daughter and her son. She said she has only Jesus to turn to.

It made me angry. It made me think of this line I heard once that was written in a letter by a medic in world war 2.

"Dear God, please come and save us. Come yourself. Don't send Jesus. This is no place for children."

3PM

As I've processed what I heard this morning from the grannies, I find one thread:

"Please pray. This is hard."

I'd like to pass that message on to you. Seriously, contact me. I can get you names if you'd like. Prayer is no joke for these people. For some, it's all they have. When they thank us for being here with them, which is often, it's because they believe, with all their being, that our prayers will somehow make it hurt less. Think about that when you tell someone "I'll be praying for you."

530PM

We visited one of the orphan center caregivers at his home today. He's on bed rest recovering from surgery. We walked through the township to get there, which was cool. His name is Soli. I'm sure that's short for something. He plays piano. Thulani says he's pretty good. Maybe we'll jam with him someday.

8PM

Andrew Brightenburg arrived today. He fit into our misfit group right away. We had a little miscommunication about his schedule today so we may be scrambling a bit tomorrow but we have the paint and the painter so we're gonna go make it happen. Welcome, Andrew. Sorry we couldn't have a beer to celebrate, but my suitcase is full of partially crushed goldfish.

1115PM

Story time was epic tonight. Hanging out at the house is really like medicine after some of these days. I'm thankful for Marcia and Jennie, who couldn't be here with us, for letting us make their house our home for the week. We are taking good care of it, though the occasional pillow has been thrown when the situation warranted.

Day 4: The Vast Expanse of the Heart and Soul

930AM

The ladies from Harrisonburg arrived yesterday. They were really tired but they sat through our clinic at the church, listened to mine and Jarred's obnoxious banter over dinner and then stayed up late making paper plate tambourines and cupcake wrapper flowers to prepare for today's visit to the orphan care center. They inspire me. I hope that I can be of some use today.

1245PM

People die everywhere. Here they just die alot. It's good business for stone companies. We visited the cemetery today. There were so many graves. Out of respect, I didn't take pictures of the smallest. But I will describe them.

They put them all together in one block because it's more efficient that way. All of the adult graves are adorned with trinkets like plates and cups and such needful things, a custom of the local ancestral beliefs. But the children's graves are covered with brightly colored toys, bows, ribbon, painted cups, dolls...like that. From a distance it looks like the detritus of some holiday parade. Not all of the parents could afford stones. But then not all of the children had parents.

I was at war with myself as we walked because I was determined to keep it together. I did, mostly, but I could not speak. I stared for a long time past the childrens' graves at the bulldozers digging new rows for the weekend.

5PM

Some of you live in South Africa, and I want you to know that I find this country both beautiful and familiar. Some vistas seem almost like northern Arizona. The people I've met are amazing. We actually talked yesterday, for a while, with the worship leaders about relations with the whites. They honestly have a better understanding of their differences here than we do in America. It's hard to explain. Apartheid was pretty messed up and it wasn't that long ago. There is a lot of healing to do.

We were talking today about tragedy. People always say they are surprised at the strength of others who endure it. Like we all think that if it were us we'd just implode or something. I don't think that's true. I think the human spirit is just such that it finds a way to carry on. I mean, what else can it do? I won't say that these orphans and their caregivers are strong, though I'm sure many of them are. I'll just say that they're people.

The orphans come after school. They get a good meal, cooked buy ladies like Prudence who, by the way, has a killer voice. They have activities and crafts and learn their maths and english. I say forget all that. Get the soccer ball!

The kids are really fun and amazingly kind, and I don't honestly care for kids who aren't mine. I had a pretty awesome time playing soccer and giving piggy back rides. My wife would have thought I'd lost my mind.

6PM

We're on our way to Willem's house again.

Andrew Peterson wrote this song called 'World Traveler'. It draws a metaphor of relational growth as a journey. 'Im a world traveler, into these uncharted lands to blaze a trail in the vast expanse of the heart and soul.'

That's what we're doing here; blazing trails, and we can do this anywhere. I had to fly coach for 14 and a half hours to figure that out.

615PM

Roundabouts suck.

Day 3: Soshanguve (Blocks P and Y)

We spent the entire day in the township. We went to church at River of Life Christian Fellowship. I could not have been more out of my comfort zone. There's video.

They made Robb preach and made me sing and play guitar. They made all of us dance laps around the room several times. Then we went over to the Kerus house of encouragement and had lunch. It was good.

We gave a clinic for worship leaders at the church. By 'we' I mean Robb. That dude can teach. We shared some songs back and forth and talked alot about cultural barriers and the meaning of worship and that.

6PM

I'm now at Willem's house where Internet lives. Im checking email and I'm realizing that people are actually reading this. I have mixed emotions about that.

840PM

Soshanguve is not really what I expected. I mean it looks like I expected and everything but the people are different than I thought. They don't act poor. You're all wondering what I mean by that and I guess so am I. I had a conversation with this lady named Patricia. She's the pastors daughter. We were talking about challenges they were facing in the church. She didn't say anything about poverty or hunger or poor facilities or anything I could leap in and solve for her like Superwhite Man. Instead she talked about young people making poor choices and broken relationships and getting people to understand who Jesus is.

It's not enough to say my expectations were wrong. The entire framework for my thought process about coming here was erroneous. This is a partnership and I find myself digging deep into my limited experience as a church leader just to try and offer them some weapon against the same darkness we face in our own church. I'm ill-prepared. I may as well be in New Jersey or something, you know, except everyone is black and more polite.

Day 2: Pretoria and Soshanguve

845AM

I'm reading selected psalms. I'm noticing that David had a particularly kingly way of talking to God that the other psalmists did not have. Take psalm 30 for example. David is recalling one of his earlier lamentations where he asked the Lord something like 'if I am dead then who will praise you? The dust?'

We talked about it and decided this was not a healthy way to talk to God, but Robb pointed out that the more significant thing is how God would respond to David when he acted up like that. In 2nd Samuel 7, David declares that he's going to build God a house because David had a house and God lived in tents (David reasons alot like Peter would later). God tells him, basically, "Silly David. I will build you a house." God responded to David's pride with enormous and humbling blessing. I think that's cool.

1230PM

There's a lemon (or lime?) tree in front of our house.

1240

We're on our way to Soshanguve for the first time. David is filming everything. He's probably filming me blogging back here.

We had an amazing time this morning at Kwa Kerus, singing and playing together and talking about the bible. This team is perfect. It's hard to explain why, but I can just tell that we we're hand picked for this.

130PM

The Kerus House of Encouragement is in block y on the western end of Soshanguve. It's really a beautiful place. Simple and clean and well-kept. We met Prudence there who tends to the care of the place.

They have a garden where they grow spinach and cabbage and other vegetables. They used to get frost in the winter. They were promised a greenhouse but it never came. They planted grinadella around the garden and that made a big difference once it grew in.

While driving through the township we saw a sign taped to a post that read "Same day abortions. Safe."

Willem is an amazing host. He knows alot of stuff. But so does Robb. He knows what "desiduous" means. If this were a text message, I would put a smiley face here.

215PM

It's clear now that I'm changing. The mountains make me cry. Andrew Peterson should come here.

3PM

We're having tea at Willem's house. We all asked for tea thinking it was the more culturally appropriate thing to do. It turns out its not. They have afternoon coffee here. Afternoon tea is a British custom and Afrikaners are not fans of the Brits. Something about a boar war...

No telling when I'll have Internet access again. God bless, everyone!

Day 1: Johannesburg and Pretoria

10AM

I'm in the back of a car being driven by a man named Bob. Bob is from Colorodo where they drive on the left side of the road, and incidentally the left side of the car. They don't do that here and this is causing Bob and me distress. Still, Bob is doing remarkably well under the circumstances.

Sitting next to him is Willem. You pronounce that 'Villem' because, hey, why not? Willem is speaking afrikaans on the phone. It sounds Dutch but he says it's closer to Flemish.

11AM

People live in constant fear here. The intense and nearby poverty generates alot of crime, mostly violent. Willem is pointing out neighbors houses, as we stand in his driveway, and telling us about the break-ins. It's pretty awful. His house is surrounded by a 12ft wall topped with electric wire and has multiple perimeter alarms.

130PM

A trip to the local pick-and-pay confirms a suspicion that arose when I packed Andrews care package from his folks: no goldfish.

340PM

We're staying at a guest house operated by a slightly crazy afrikaner family. They host childrens' parties here. Out my window I see children taking pony rides and chickens running around.

420PM

Kwa Kerus (the place of Kerus) is really nice but i have no internet connection. Bob gave me this thing called "magic jack". Magic Jack is a dongle that you plug into a usb port. Its supposed to connect you to the internet. It failed and asked me if I wanted to launch "magic fix". Magic Fix is a website...on the internet.

My jet lag is like the jet lag of a thousand suns. Else I'd have realized earlier that magic jack has an rj-10 port on it. Oh.

Day 0: Virginia, New York, The Sky

6AM

We slept in this guy Zach's living room last night. It was like college, which is fine because one of us, David, is in college and the rest of us think of college fondly(ish).

Robb has Ebola. Ok, so it's just an infection, but man, the coughing. He's 60 hours into an antibiotic though which is a good thing for all of us.

I just realized that David, who plays bass, is also our videographer. I'm sure I knew that already and just forgot. He has a steady cam. We could totally make a found-footage film like Chronicle or the Blair witch project.

Our flight is at 8:30. It's 6:15 am. I need Starbucks.

930AM

Just landed in New York. Flight was nice because I had a whole row to myself. The down side is that those seats were supposed to be occupied by Robb, Jarred and David. Dang.

They're trying to get a direct flight to Joburg. We'll have to meet up there. Looking forward to having a whole row to myself on the long flight though and this way I'll avoid catching whatever death plague Robb has.

This is it for day 0 since i'll be on a plane for the rest of it. Caffeine headache starting. Plane stuck on tarmac. Still need Starbucks.

A Little Bit of the Thing

I'm who i am because of high school. And so are you.

People with advanced degrees in psychology will argue with me and they will probably win. Nonetheless, i do not recant. I believe that what you experience in high school is much more formative than what you experience as a child. This is because high school is where we line up. It's where we get ourselves organized from best to worst. It's where we establish our expectations for approval in life. We leave high school understanding our place in the world. The irony of it is that we pretend, at some point, that we've left it behind. We have not. We say out of one side of our mouths that "beauty is within" and "attitude is more important than aptitude" even while we continue to rank ourselves according to physical attractiveness, intelligence and athletic prowess. We all still play the game of seeking and bestowing approval.

You'll have to forgive me for feeling sentimental on the day i leave. In general, you must forgive me also for not wearing my new role as missionary with the appropriate amount of disinterest. It's my first time. I'll get over it and shrug about it like everyone else later. For now, suffer my passion.

Here's something that Donald Miller had to say about the approval game in high school in his book Searching for God Knows What:

"The feeling was that if we were last on the social ladder, or near last, we would be facing some kind of torture. Though it sounds absurd, it felt true, as though there were a spirit in the air directing our passions. It was incredibly important to climb this ladder, and the closer you were to the top, it was believed, the easier you could breathe, because at the top people loved you and cared about you and gave you a little bit of the thing God used to give you."

I'm bringing this particular subject up because this social game that we all play makes us ineffective as missionaries; and we are missionaries, all of us, disinterest or no.

In a weird way, Miller is saying two opposing things here. On the one hand, when you seek the approval of others, what you're really seeking is God's approval which is freely given. On the other hand, if you realized how desperately people needed the approval of others, you'd give it freely. Don't seek the approval of men, but when men seek approval from you, give it. Right?

You're like a conduit between God and his lost people. They're desperately looking around for someone to approve of them, just like you were. At some point someone hooked you up to the source, so now you receive approval from God and give it to others, and suddenly, they're being filled up with a divine sort of approval that they could never really get from a person anyway. That's how it's supposed to work.

My point is that we talk alot about loving people of whom we do not approve, and this is absurd. You cannot love someone if you don't approve of them. I need Jesus to give me his heart because he, alone, loves messed up people with full approval. That includes me, as i still distance myself from weirdos, telemarketers and people with mullets, while skillfully ingratiating myself to people who summer in the greenbriar. It's in my blood. I can't help it.

I'm who I am because of high school. And so are you.

Compassion. Period.

The following is an excerpt from the book How to Become HIV+: Guidelines For the Local Church by Dr. Johan Mostert.

"I received a call one day from my friend Martin Deacon, the Southern Africa Director for Bruce Wilkinson's "Walk thru the Bible" organization. He informed me that Bruce's heart was devastated by what he saw during one of his visits to Africa, and he wanted to do something about AIDS. Martin was putting together a small group of Christian AIDS experts to advise them on the content of Bruce's proposed six-part AIDS video, "God's Answer to AIDS".

A group of about 25 of us became part of this think tank. We were thrilled that someone with the international stature of Bruce Wilkinson would actually focus his attention on something so important to Africa. Known internationally as the New York Times best selling author of 'Prayer of Jabez', his attention would do a lot to focus the church's attention on AIDS.

In the end there was a lot of lively conversation and consensus, except on one issue. Some of us felt strongly that the series should begin with a study on biblical compassion, while the American team wanted to begin with a study on sin and forgiveness. In the American evangelical mind, AIDS is viscerally connected with gays and gays are viscerally connected with sexual sin. Therefore, in this line of thinking, any biblical study of AIDS must begin with sin and forgiveness."

Dr. Mostert goes on in this passage to describe a personal encounter with a family where an elderly woman was raising 4 small children after losing her daughter to AIDS; an all too common scenario in parts of Africa.

I know that there are well meaning people in my church today who believe that AIDS is God's punishment for sexual sin. If that's you, let me ask you this. What did that elderly woman do? And what's God's punishment for your awful, twisted, dark, evil sin? Because I guarantee that, apart from Jesus, God can't tell you apart from a gay guy, and what's more, if that gay guy has Jesus and you don't, guess who's in trouble. And guess who's going to be picking out dapper window treatments for his palace in Heaven.

Where in the bible has God instructed us to go and convict the world of sin? Where exactly? I find precisely two clear directives issued by Jesus as the summation of the entire law.

Number One: Love the Lord your God.

Number Two: Love your neighbor.

Raise your hand if you catch the pattern here. There is plenty about admonishing one another and spurring one another on to righteousness; that is, other believers, but despite what we recovering baptists learned in FAITH training, the gospel message does NOT begin with sin. It begins and ends with love.

Yes, God hates sin, but you know what else God hates? Haters. Check out Proverbs 6:16-19.

I have been instructed to put only one person's sin to death - my own (Col. 3:5). Therefore, I have no intention of uttering the word "sin" even one time while i'm sharing the gospel with hurting people in Africa. I've been seized by the power of a great affection and i have only one word to bring to the broken and the lost: Compassion. Period.

* You can purchase a copy of the book How to Become HIV+: Guidelines For the Local Church here.

Of the Heart

I got hooked up with this team through a good friend of mine, Robb Esperat. Robb is an accomplished musician, an amazing singer/songwriter and an inspiring speaker. He's also our team leader for this trip. Robb is one of the pastors at Virginia Beach Community Chapel and the Chapel has been supporting the work of Kerus Global for some time.

The Greek word 'Kerus' means 'of the heart' or 'with passion' and provides a fitting name for the organization founded by Dr. Marcia Ball and Dr. Jennie Cerullo. I've had the opportunity to meet and talk with Marcia and Jennie and there is no doubt that they go about their work with great passion. You can read more about them here.

Kerus is, primarily, an education ministry. In the community of Soshanguve, where we'll be going, they seek to break the cycle of poverty for as many young people as they can by bringing a curriculum called It Takes Courage, a faith-based absitenance and life-skills training program, to the schools, churches and families there. The ITC program has been embraced by the community and over the past couple of years, local leaders have held several rallies to raise awareness about the program. The attendance at these rallies has grown substantially with each one and, this time, they expect as many as three thousand to attend.

Our team will meet with local musicians there to rehearse and then lead worship for the rally on July 28th.

Our home base will be the Kerus House of Encouragement, a place the locals have taken to simply calling "The Place of Kerus", which is cool because that sort of folds out to mean "The Place of the Heart".

While we're there, we'll also spend time at Kerus' orphan care facility, which provides shelter and services to orphaned children from Block Y, a district of extreme poverty.

I love the fact that "heart" and "passion" are central themes for what we're doing. Particularly in America, there seems to be a numbness that has fallen over the Christian Church. We believe with our minds but not so much with our hearts. More on that later. But for now, i'd like to encourage all of you to pray that the reality of the suffering faced each day by people in places like Block Y would get past your mind and into your heart. In Christ, these are our children, our brothers and sisters, and our mothers and fathers. And they need help.

Preparing For the Journey

'Witness, climb the mountain and face a cathartic wound to pride. Stumble we into the unknown and the courage comes behind'

I can't help but dwell upon Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the story of an English sea captain, Charles Marlow, who journeys by steam boat up the Congo River. The character Marlow seems to have been merely a proxy for the author himself, who travelled broadly by ship and served for a time on a steamer in Africa and who seemed to have garnered from his travels a profound awareness for the depravity of all men which was merely brought into sharp focus by his encounters with natives of the Congo.

The common thinking in the age of imperialism was that bringing western ideas and culture to the uncivilized world was a moral imperative, and therefore gaining access to the untold riches of the 'Dark Contintent' by nearly any means necessary was justified by the glorious vision of a future where the philosophies of the first world would save the lives and the souls of the native people there.

Over a century later we find, as Conrad did, that the Heart of Darkness exists within all men. Bringing darkness into darkness only yields a more formidable darkness. And so we have apharteid, blood diamonds, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, genocide, slavery and many other atrocities funded, armed and, in some cases, instigated by those who once considered themselves saviors.

But men do not have the power to save.

I'm preparing to go to Soshanguve, South Africa on July 19th, 2012 with a team of missionaries to support a program that seeks to battle the aids epidemic by, among other things, teaching young people the value of abstinence and helping them build life skills. I'll describe this wonderful program in more detail in my next post, but for now my point is this:

we need to leave ourselves behind and, instead, bring Jesus.

I wrote the line at the top of this post a few years ago in a song called "It Ends With a Spark". The song is about recognizing that we alone are ill-equipped to do God's work in a fallen world, but that, when called, we need to go anyway. It says in 2nd Corinthians that, while we believers are like broken clay pots, we carry inside of us a great treasure. The love of Jesus Christ is the only light that can break the darkness of this world and as we go into a community that has forgotten how to hope, the greatest mistake we could make is thinking that, of ourselves, we can give it to them. No, we must go as jars of clay, ever thankful that we may simply be present to witness God's grace in action, and we must hope that, in the process, the light of Jesus breaks the darkness within us, as well.