November 18, 2010
Long Beach Airport
As I Sit
As I sit in the airport ready to embark on my fourth overseas and fifth overall missions trip, I reminded once again of the journey that life is. I am reminded of those places in time that we occupy through circumstance and choice, luck and obedience, fortune and misfortune. I am reminded of the places my life in God has taken me. I am reminded of the story that God is writing.
I know I just mixed metaphors there, but maybe life is more than just a simple trip, maybe it is a journey with a specific goal, a destiny wrapped in the destination. Maybe life is the hero’s journey.
As I sit here in the airport I am wearing the last clean, unpacked t shirt I had, a baby blue tee emblazoned with the face of the comic book hero named Captain America.
As I sit, I realize that I am a hero on a hero’s quest. My journey is ever rambling, ever winding. Sometimes my Author works in themes, sometimes the tale is episodic. Like the comics I read as a kid (okay, which I still read), sometimes there are years between plot threads and their resolution, years between events and their connection to the story being woven.
As I sit waiting to go and do God’s work, I am reminded that I am a hero. My power doesn’t come from a red sun, a chemical accident, or even an alien suit. My power comes through Christ as I die to myself. As I give from my tiny amount of fish and my moldy bread, as I watch the One who drew me from the pits turn it all into a feast at His table where all are welcomed, I am humbled and excited.
As I sit waiting for my plane, I know that a new chapter is about to begin. A new lesson, a new adventure, the same journey.
November 21, 2010
Stanfontain, South Africa
Curiouser and Curiouser
On the plane ride from JFK to Johannesburg I listened to Tim Burton’s score to the recent re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland. Having arrived here in Stanfontain, I fell more like I have arrived in Underland than in South Africa. My hero’s journey has turned topsy turvy. I feel lost and unable to navigate. I feel out of place and yet called to this land. I feel as though I am trying to find my “muchness”; to find the real me.
I shared with Mike Stephens the night before I began this journey, that I felt called to CSA as a leader. Having been on other trips and having been brought to a place of healing, I assumed that I would be the one who was comfortable, the one who was confident, the one who would lead.
I rode on four different planes before landing in Capetown yesterday. Beyond the disorientation of twenty-four plus hours of travel, time changes, and jet lag, I was fighting a bad case of motion sickness and constipation (too much info?). I didn’t really feel like reaching out, like giving of myself.
After settling in, the team walked down to the beach under a cloud covered sky filled with misting rain. We were told that it would be ninety plus degrees our entire time here.
On our way back to base camp we walked through a squatter camp. I had seen similar conditions when I visited Johannesburg in 2001. During that trip God began in me a heart that desires to see South Africa made whole. Yet on this afternoon, whether it was the jet lag or the weather, I felt very little.
I didn’t approach anyone. I didn’t engage or even smile at the children who ran barefoot through the township. I simply walked along, trailing behind my team, keeping a cynically watchful eye out for the team.
After wards we drove a short way to the township of Bonneville. Bonneville is the place where our team leader Mervyn grew up. It is the site of the very first CSA in 2002. During our time there, I watched as my teammates fearlessly engaged the children. I watched as children swung from the arms and hung from the necks of my teammates. I watched as tiny black hands braided the blond hair of my teammate Gillian. I watched as others prayed with the adults of the community. Then I noticed the South African team had formed a dance circle.
I watched as the youth of South Africa reached down to bless the children of Bonneville. The team cheered on the kids as they showed us their moves. As I stood there still disoriented, still unsure of where I was, beginning to doubt why I was there, a little one came up to me with his arms stretched upward.
Soon I too was covered with kids; one on each hip and a third on my shoulders. Somehow, the dance circle turned into a praise circle. As we sang and danced, the misty rain that had dampened my spirits broke. It was replaced with a double rainbow that stretched to both ends of the horizon.
With my jet lag and my fears, I still haven’t fully processed what that day means. However, what I recall is a scene where the rainbow framed the tin shacks of the township; both framing the children as they sang praise to their Creator. As I look back on that moment with God’s beauty as the backdrop to a scene cast by the effects of man’s ugliness, yet altered by the joy of the redeemed-I know the entire trip was worth it, if only for that one moment in time.
However, that moment now seems like a distant dream. Like Alice I can’t quite grasp the memory. That moment in Underland that was unique and frightening and wonderful, now seems so distant and unreal. Was that rainbow truly there? Was I really schooled by the gifts and talents of the South Africans that I thought I had come to teach? Was I yet again reminded of how big my God truly is?
And more than trying to remember, trying to recapture, I wonder what God has for me. I came with the idea of being a leader. In the van on the way from the airport to base camp we were met by Khaya, Caleb, and Romano. They are three South Africans who were once CSA campers and are now in their third year as CSA leaders. Since they are the veterans, they joked that they were in charge. After what I saw yesterday, I am willing to follow.
I shared with Caleb that I was encouraged by the South African team and their willingness to just jump in and begin. He responded, “Hey man, we are all one team!”
It is an odd place to be, to not be the one that instantly sparks to kids, and even more than that to not be the one the kids instantly spark to. I am curious to see just how far down the rabbit hole this journey will take me.
November 23, 2010
Glen Carin
Further Up and Further In
I still feel like I am in Underland, but I didn’t want to title this entry “Down the Rabbit Hole.” It feels a little overplayed.
However, I continue to travel to new places each one unique and wonderful. I continue to meet new characters. Rather than creatures who speak in nonsense rhyme, I am meeting those who have been made New Creations that speak with the poetry of the King Most High. They share with me what I can barely take in.
Yesterday my hero’s quest led me to Manenburg. Manenburg is a township that is notorious for gang activity. Within the township there stands a beacon of light known as the City of Refuge. City of Refuge is a church led by a man of vision named Pastor Woody. Manenburg was once completely dominated by gangs. Things were so bad that when turf wars would break out the government simply closed off the streets to contain the bloodshed. Today the church is reclaiming the township.
Pastor Woody doesn’t want his church to be a place where the gospel is preached. He wants his church to be a place where the gospel is lived. City of Refuge feeds the neighborhood children, trains and equips women to make fair trade handbags, and owns a store front to raise funds. The church is open every day as a place to find a meal or simply a moment’s rest. Pastor Woody brings in converted drug addicts and gang members to live on the church grounds. They are taught and discipled before they begin an active role in the ministry outside the church walls. City of Refuge is designed to be a place where one finds healing before they are sent back out to bring others in.
Yesterday morning the team rose early to arrive at the City of Refuge. We served porridge (soup thin oatmeal) and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the little ones of Manenburg so that they might have some nourishment in their bellies before heading off to school.
Today where once there stood a bar that was controlled by the gangs, there now stands a room where children recite the Lord’s Prayer and are fed a simple breakfast.
November 23, 2010
Glen Carin
Words Louder than Actions
Today we went to Merv’s old high school. When we left the states we were told we would be holding an assembly for over eight hundred students. By the time we arrived in South Africa we were told that we would only have two hundred students. This week is final exams and students who do not have tests that day are not required to attend school.
There are some politics and some petty arguments between the alumni association and the school’s principal, but that isn’t the important thing right now. The outcome of it all was the two hours we were told that we had with the students was reduced to forty five minutes or so. Our plans were thrown out the window.
The focus of this trip was for Merv to share who he is and where he came from. The focus was to be what is quickly becoming the theme of this year’s trip: HOPE. Merv is an extraordinary man of God, however he does not have a very loud speaking voice. The challenge would be for the soft spoken Merv to hold the attention of two hundred plus high schoolers sitting in an outdoor quad without the aid of any electronic amplification.
I have never seen a group of people so in tune with the speaker. Merv had the crowd from his first joke to the alter call. The Lord definitely played a sweet tune through the instrument named Mervyn Coteeze this afternoon. But the work was not yet done.
The team was invited to pray with the Alumni Association after the rally. Each person thanked us for coming today. Each one said that they have been trying to show the school that they care, that they want to reach back and help the students and help the school. They said that what we did today finally showed the administration the kind of thing that could happen. They even mentioned that all the head butting over the scheduling allowed for problems to be identified and addressed before they became larger and more difficult to handle.
I am beginning to think that this trip is not about the team coming and giving of our gifts and talents as much as it is about us coming along side those already at work here in Africa.
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| My devo Spot at Glen Carin |
November 24, 2010
Glen Carin
Spies Like Us
I am going to take a break from the narrative of my journey here in South Africa to discuss the character who has impacted me the most this far.
The Scriptures tell the story of man named Caleb. Caleb along with Joshua and ten other men were sent to the land of Canaan to spy on its armies. Ten came back afraid. “The problem is too big!” was their cry. However, Caleb and Joshua saw what was not yet as though it was. They knew the size and strength of the army they would soon be facing could surely crush the Israelites. Yet, they also knew God. They knew that God would keep His promises and give them the land. They saw what was not yet, as though it was.
Here in Africa I have met another man named Caleb. His mane is Caleb Mohamed and his name tells his story.
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| Caleb Mohamed the man who knows South Africa belongs to God |
Caleb is the son of a single mother who grew up in the Islamic faith. She became a Christian a short time before Caleb was born. To protect herself and her child she gave Caleb his Islamic surname and kept her conversion a secret from the rest of her family. In spite of her best intentions her secret did not last. For his safety, Caleb’s mother moved him to a farming community to be raised by people who were not his parents. After some time Caleb’s mother was able to join him, and they moved again.
They landed in a place called the Ark. The Ark, as best as I can describe it, is a combination of Women’s shelter, orphanage, and boarding school. Caleb heard Bible stories in his classes, but never put them into action. A teacher who saw Caleb’s potential suggested he join an organization called the Royall Rangers (Royal Rangers is a Christian Scouting program in South Africa).
Through Royal Rangers Caleb met people his age who loved the Lord. It was through meeting them that Caleb gave his life to Christ. This is by no means the end of Caleb’s story.
Caleb struggled with anger and bitterness. He wondered why he was dealt the life he was given. As Caleb grew older the Lord provided answers for his questions. As Caleb grew older the Lord grew him into a young man who is not ashamed of where he comes from.
South Africa faces its own giants. Caleb is a young man who reaches back and invests into the lives of the youth of South Africa. A young man who sees what is not yet as though it is.
--Jesse "Gonzo" Letourneau
