Some Words, and Another Week

So, I think most of the maintenance group was a little disappointed about the amount of work we did in our first week. These feelings were naturally accentuated because the other groups had amazing stories about getting to know children or adults with hard lives, and witnessing to them. Anyways, Dana knew that this was going on and so he shared a quote with us from Pascal "Do small things as if they are big things and big things as if they are small things." The reason for this is that everything is done to serve Christ. If we do a small thing and do it well, serving God, then we have fulfilled our telos. Moreover, when we do "big things" we shouldn't puff ourselves up over how great our work is, but instead do those big things as if they are small things. Dana also talked about how important our work really is: cleaning up Sizanani is an admirable end; our work in one week would have taken the one groundskeeper a month to complete. This talk helped me feel a lot better, and of course feel slightly ashamed at thinking that manual labor is somehow inferior.
A friend sent me these verses:

1 Corinthians 12:14-25 (New International Version)

"Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

"The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other."

July 14, 2008

Another week has begun, and I've switched to the orphans group. Today was great. I woke up, had breakfast, spent some quiet time, played a competitive ultimate frisbee game, went to St. Joseph's and worked on a slide presentation and database enhancement, and spent some time (well, all afternoon) with the Sizinani orphans. I am totally exhausted, but feeling good. The orphans had an unending source of energy and loved soccer. Also, we taught some of them how to throw a frisbee. A few of the girls from our group brought fun toys like parachute men, marbles, bubbles, chalk, and jump ropes for the children as well.

Still, those of my group who talked to the orphans about their lives said that they universally wanted to be adopted. They did not enjoy life at the orphanage. That was pretty sad. They seemed happy to me, but I am sure it was because we, their big playmates, were there. It must be lonely at the orphanage day in and day out; nothing breaks their schedule and they never travel anywhere.

Apartheid

July 13, 2008

On Friday, I spent my last day on the Maintenance group, doing typical things. We cleaned out gardens, mowed, raked, and weeded. I know that I chose this group first, but I had second thoughts when I figured out what the group does. Since I am only able to be on two of the four groups (maintenance, orphans, St. Joseph's, and disabled children), maintenance would be the weakest one for impacting me. I had hoped to have a large impact on this group by fixing things (which I have a lot of experience in), but this is simply manual labor. It is disappointing to me, especially given how much work and money it took to get to Africa.
P.S. We never did the control burn - if it happens, another group will get to do it.


On Saturday, we went on an excursion to the apartheid (uh-par-tide) museum in Johannesburg; and visited a flea market. The apartheid era in South Africa was a time in the 20th century when the white population oppressed the blacks. It is very similar to the Jim Crow laws of the American South - segregation in schools, toilets, and living areas. The 20% white population owned 80% of the land (even though 80% of the population was black), and forced the blacks to live in separate areas, which are still present today in slums called "townships." The squatter camp I saw this week was the Mamelodi (Mother of Melodies) township. The museum was interesting and shocking; not on par with the Holocaust museum, but similar. There were many unjustified arrests, unfair trials, tortures, and concentration camps in South Africa.

The craft fair was cool; I bought gifts for my family and a couple things for me. Everything was extremely cheap. This may have been a curse; the belt I bought to replace my old broken one is already going the way of its predecessor. Oh well, it didn't cost much anyways.

On another note, here is a good quote I heard: "Coincidences are instances in which God chooses to remain anonymous."

Later today, and in another post, was Dana's talk to the Maintenance group (and everybody really) about the unfulfillment we felt in our work. His words helped me substantially.

Mamelodi

July 10, 2008
Today, I went with the Boston group to the University of Pretoria's Mamelodi Campus. It is a satellite campus with only a few hundred students. On the way there (in fact, right outside the gates of the school) we passed the largest squatter camp in Pretoria - it was just miles and miles of cardboard and tin shacks all smashed together. Just look at these pictures, and contrast the shacks to the University next to it. They are literally across the street from each other.

See the mountain range in the back of these photos? You can't exactly tell with the photos at this quality, but the shacks extend up onto the base of the mountain without intermission.

Maintenance

July 8, 2008

"Well, it's night and the first two days of work are done. I am on maintenance this week with Trent, Natalie, Dane, Caroline, Stephanie, and Katy (K-Ry). These last few days, we pruned garden beds, cleaned a tennis/basketball court, and helped get a soccer field ready for a control burn. The burn will be tomorrow, if the wind is down. It should be exciting.

Oh, by the way my small group is Trent, Dane, Paul (little Paul), Zach (M), and the Nate who just arrived." If you can't tell, we had a lot of people on this trip with the same first name.

-This is a short entry, I found very little time to write. Later in the trip a "quiet time" was established for a portion of the morning, which helped.

Comet

There will now be a break in the regular programming to deliver you this - a video of a crazy kitten my family got while I was in Africa. His name is Comet, and he's a ball of fun. He likes sleeping in my ski helmet and chasing invisible gnomes in the garden. As a video of him sleeping in the ski helmet would get boring pretty fast, I chose to tape him catching gnomes.

Pretoria

July 5, 2008

"OK, now something happened. In free time during the morning I played kickball and read more of That Hideous Strength, which is going slowly due to the copious notes I'm taking. Half of the athletes ran, and the other half made conditioning stations in the courtyard and worked out that way.
In the afternoon, we took a trip to a huge mall to get on the internet and buy things that we forgot. Here's a couple photos:


Um, yea, there are malls like this in South Africa. This one was about six stories tall and had a skateboard park on the top.

Then, we looked at the executive building in Pretoria and walked around some amazing public gardens. The city of Pretoria filled the skyscape. Again, pictures tell the story:


Oh, and I tweaked my knee in a race through the gardens, it's not so great.

Poverty Makes All Men Criminals

First, I haven't posted for a while because I was traveling back to Bozeman and because I just joined the Facebook world. If you are part of that world and I haven't contacted you already, go ahead and friend me. I think there's only one Richard Gianforte.

On with Africa...
July 3, 2008
"poverty makes all men criminals

"Dana, our in-country host, explained the moral dilemma a cleaning lady in Sizanani Villlage would encounter if we left our cash or ipod out in the open. Assume she is a single mom, trying to feed ten children she is raising because her siblings died - would it be wrong for her to take our things to keep those kids alive?" This discussion with Dana really began to open my eyes to why crime is so high in South Africa. Moreover, by the end of the talk I wouldn't blame the lady for stealing. Not all criminals steal from necessity, but in South Africa I am sure that it is an entrance into crime for many.

July 4, 2008
"Nothing much to report. The past few days have been spent doing evangelism training, team building, and playing during free time. Our favorite sports are ultimate frisbee, football, and soccer."

Sizanani Village

July 3, 2008 at about 12:30 AM

"I arrived, the flights were long, I am not really tired. I tried watching some popular movie on the plane, but all the jokes were crude and it was worthless. I went for a kid's movie instead; it was decent.

"The most interesting part of the day was the conversation with the guy who drove me back. Here are a few facts - oops, lights out. thoughts will come tomorrow.
- apartheid (white rule) ended in South Africa about 10 years ago
-at that time there were about seven million whites, now there are about three million (24,000 or more leave per day)
-this man's car was broken into three times for the radio, so he stopped replacing it
-his house was broken into also; he caught the man but his friends encouraged him not to appear in court to testify in case the man or his friends came back to kill him
-four of his group of six friends have left the country, and he is considering doing the same
-South Africa has trouble with illegal immigrants"

All in all, the man told a story of crime and fear. He said that all officials could be bribed; those citizens who had money didn't need to fear jail time. Also, those with money lived in gated communities and had extremely secure houses. As we drove around later, I believed him. His outlook was a little pessimistic, but he or his friends had personally been the victims of crime.

Charles de Gaulle Airport

July 2, 2008

"I'm more tired than I realize, I think. Maybe I'll feel better once I'm in South Africa.

"I met all of the team, and like them a lot - Nicole, a gymnast at Stanford; Cody, water polo at Stanford; Zach and Dane, brothers at NorthEastern University; Jasmine; Sarah [lacrosse]; Brett, Corey, children Jonah and Christine Ogburn; Katy; Alisha; Alicia; Domino.

"But the sadness - I'm not feeling very confident right now. All but two or so of these students are athletes, in one sport or another. They have workouts and programs to do while in South Africa. (Some of these kids would not have come if they had qualified for the Olympics) While that might seem to be a nuisance, I want it. I feel like I missed my oportunity to do college athletics.

"It doesn't help my feeling of separation from all of these confident Christians that I don't know any of them. All of them seem to know at least a few other people; and there are two main groups (Stanford and [Boston]). No wait, I shouldn't put it like that - everyone is very welcoming and there are no exclusionary groups - they just know each other already, that's all. It didn't help that I sat by myself last flight, and will probably for the next one.

"Oh, one of the girls was on the phone crying when we left, so after she calmed down I told her I was praying for her, and I did. This is something I learned from one of my friends - it is such a help when you are down just to know that someone cares. I wish someone would do that for me now. I went on a walk in the Paris airport trying to think but it was pointless, and I wandered back..."

Yea, I was feeling pretty down when I wrote this. I felt outclassed by all these amazing students and Christians and athletes whom I didn't know very well. The only bright spot was cheering someone else up. But don't worry, the trip gets better :)