Today, I became a mother.
Week One. Oh how is it hard to sum up what happens in a week into one little blog. Our team got here on Saturday, the fourth of July. Our hosts were gracious enough to cook us a South African BBQ called a Braai (Bry) to help us celebrate. Sunday we went to church at First City Baptist Church, the home church that all of our hosts go to.
Let me just pause and tell you how great our hosts are. We are the first world race team to come to East London and work with FCBC and Hope Schools. Our main host contact Dawn has found people from the church to house us in apartments called flats so that we each have our OWN bed. Not only do we all have our own bed with sheets, pillows, a mattress, and blankets but we also have a WARM shower. They have also taken it upon themselves to go grocery shopping and cook us meals for the time that we are here. We literally did not have to focus on anything but our ministry and our laundry this week. Praise God for such servants to our lives, I hope that we can be as useful to them as they are giving to us.
The rest of the week we were working at Hope School putting on a Holiday Club (Vacation Bible School) with two other week long missionary teams from New York (Father’s Heart and Journey Church) for the kids. We also worked outside extending a fence line by cutting down trees, cutting grass, moving rocks, and pulling up crabgrass.
One of the many challenges was our laundry. In South Africa, everything is very humid and damp all the time. It was raining outside at the beginning of the week a lot so we could not hang them outside and because inside was always damp; our clothes never dried and started to smell worse than when we put them in. Today is the last day before we leave for Lesotho on another missions trip with the First Baptist (Yes we are going on a missions trip within a missions trip). We checked our clothes after holiday club and they were dry. EVEN THE JEANS. I have never been so thankful nor have I prayed so hard for clean dry clothes.
From traveling so much, I got sick. At first it was just a cold with a runny nose and a sore throat. By Wednesday, I was nauseous, congested, achy, sore throat and sore ears. The works. I ended up sleeping most of the day Wednesday and the entire day Thursday. One of our hosts is a doctor and she had her husband give Kacy and I this Med-Lemon tea. It is green, hot, and tastes awful. I ended up sweating out the sick. Today I woke up and I am almost back to normal. If you could still pray for healing for my team as others are starting to get sick that would be awesome.
So by now you have either skimmed my writing or read anxiously wondering if I adopted a child. It is coming I swear. Keep reading.
This week at the holiday club the theme was put together by the New York teams. It was boundaries. Basically we taught them things your parents would teach you at a young age like don’t say mean things, hit or kick, have self-control, etc. but incorporate bible verses into them. These kids are taught Jesus on a daily basis even more so than regular schooling. It is not that they are behind in anyway because they are actually grades ahead of other public, better off schools but these lessons were requested by the school caretaker/social worker. If I must be completely honest, it was really hard to teach them these things because they already knew them. I wanted to go deeper into the problems of the children and express the love of God into them instead of teaching them to respect their boundaries of their anger, self-control, actions, body, and heart. I would hear my teammates say that their hearts are breaking for these children and I sat there infuriated. I was angry. These children would cry because something minor happened but in their eyes you know they are not crying from the bible story that they are listening to or the name some other kid called them. They were crying because something reminded them of a past horrible life event and we were just sugar coating bible stories for them and teaching them on how to be polite.
My anger builds as I learn more about the rich culture of South Africa and the Apartheid. The Apartheid is the separation of the whites and blacks. In America, when we had segregation, we were not able to use the same water fountain. In Africa, they are not allowed to even be in the same areas as the white people. The apartheid just ended about 20 years ago. To say that South Africans are still experiencing these effects doesn’t even begin to describe these conditions. It is like Jim Crow times up in here. One clear cut example is that white people drive cars and black people take transportation and walk. There are some black people with cars but not many. I have not seen any white people on the streets, in the supermarkets, or doing outside work. In fact, I have not seen white people other than at Hope School and the church. I am in no means trying to say let White Power rain down and fix the problem but I do have problems driving from our apartment seeing people live (very modestly compared to Americans) in apartments with many gates and barbed wire to down the street where there houses are shacks. Why are these conditions like this in a relatively nice area of Africa? East London, although unsafe in many areas, is considered to be one of the most civilized, westernized places of Africa and they are letting fellow community members live like this. Why is there trash everywhere in some areas and in other areas it is kept neatly in plies? Why does no white person feel as they can walk in the streets amongst their brothers? After all this is the motherland! In Africa, robbery and break-ins are very common but WHY does it have to be this way. The anger just started to consumes me and I am just mulling it over in my mind as I thrash at this long grass and weeds with a Machete in order to make more room for the children to play. Every branch that is torn down, I start to get more upset. I start doing other jobs and the anger just seems not to go away.
Many of the children at Hope have horrendous stories. In Africa, it is believed that if you have sex with a virgin that AIDS will go away. There is a little girl that attends the school that was gang raped when she was only two years old. Another girl came to holiday club very upset and she was upset because her mother was out drunk all weekend and forgot to feed her. Another boy has sores on his head because his mother beat him. Many of the children at Hope already ride the public transportation system and this is really heartbreaking to me because our host doesn’t even want us to use the public taxi service in fear it is not safe for us. Many kids have also seen their parents murdered, raped, or have dealt with drug exchanges. Some don’t even have parents and live with grandparents or cousins. The children complement you by telling you that you are fat because they know that you are healthy and not infected by AIDS. My heart is hard when I glimpse into these children eyes because I know that darkness surrounds these children in most areas of their lives. We are teaching lessons about anger and using not sweets as examples when in the lunch room they are making chicken liver for lunch. These people that do commit their life and time to this place are angels on earth trying to make a difference in a dark area. I am not at all bashing or criticizing what Hope school is doing, I am just so angry that more differences cannot be made and realizing that my time here in one short month will not make an impact.
I was praying all week, even the two days I was not at Holiday Club, that something overwhelms this community to do more for the children of Hope school as well other kids like this that can’t go to Hope. I was praying for some revival or someone to swoop in and radically change the place. I was hoping for God to open the eyes of the community to the unfairness and for the mistreatment of one another.
I so wrapped up in feeling angry and worrying about how I can change South Africa as a whole, I didn’t even realize the lives I was touching. Today a girl named Emihle wrote me a letter. Emihle was not one of those little girls that I felt my heart ache for after one sight, she is one of the older children that seemed to have life at Hope School figured out. She is joyous, likes to dance, likes to take care of others, and is polite. She wasn’t even in my class that I taught. Emihle and I bonded over breaks in between classes. I didn’t do much with her but dance, teach her how to play a handshake game, let her play with my hair, and give her hugs. I didn’t tell her I loved her and I didn’t promise her I was coming back after I left. It didn’t matter how much I did or didn’t do with her she still wrote me a note. The Note Reads:
Dear Mommy, Aunty Allison I love you
You are the best sister or mommy ever. I have never saw someone treating me like I am your daughter. I will love you till I die. I’ve never loved someone like you. “what great love”
From Lovely Daughter Emihle.
Just like that I became a mommy to a not so little girl in South Africa. I was so concentrated on the bigger issues at hand I forgot to savor the little steps I made. Two tears streamed down my cheek at this moment because I realized I wasn’t living in the now.
Psalm 142
I cry aloud to the Lord, I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble. When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way. In the path where I walk men have hidden a snare for me. Look to my right and see; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life. I cry to you, O Lord; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Listen to my cry, for I am desperate need; rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me. Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me.
***PS Pictures ARE coming soon
