7/29/2015
Three more stories from this past month South Africa;
1)Trek up in Drakensberg Mountains
On Mandela Day, our Zimele leader and liaison Kim took us to the Drakensberg mountains. It was a beautiful hike that reminded me of books and movies. I had the “Mighty Joe Young” theme song stuck in my head while we headed down trails into bush, jungle, and wide open scenic views.
I enjoyed my time walking, our team was spread out enough that I could talk to God out loud and no one would overhear. I woke up and felt attacked that morning. I prayed against being tired and the spirit of comparison, which attacks periodically on a squad of 25 people. This time it had more to do with feeling disconnected or not being thought of from people. I have sent e-mails and stories to people back at home and around the globe, and a lot of the time I haven’t got a response–but others on my squad have. Then the buzzing of the enemy tries to swarm around my head. “There is something wrong with you. You are not liked or thought of like they are” and so on.
I told that spirit to bite the dust, even making a flicking motion with my hand, and then talked to God about it. It became a praise session and at the end I asked Him something that I’ve asked ever since coming to Africa, “God, please show me a lion.”
At one point we stopped at a river leading into a small pool. I saw Jennifer eyeing a deep spot and asked her if she was thinking of jumping in. She grinned at me and said “Maybe.” Mercy then looked at me and winked. I told her I would jump in if she did, as I removed my shoes.
Jennifer was the first to go. She sputtered and shrieked when her head popped out of the water, a sure sign that it was freezing. But she was also grinning from ear to ear. Mercy and I quickly followed. It was frigid, the kind of cold that steals your breath and shocks your muscles, but it also felt so good when we came back out, laughing and dripping. We had just jumped into a pool in the Drakensberg Mountains on Mandela day!
On our way back from hiking, I saw a little inn named “Wit’s End.” Now, I grew up listening and adoring this children’s radio series called “Adventures in Odyssey” and there was a very important place in the series called “Wit’s End” after the name of one of the main and maybe most loved characters. When I saw this place, I asked the car to stop so that I could take a picture with it. It was like finding a childhood treasure in the most unexpected place.
We then stopped at this Antique shop called “The Ugly Duckling” –which completely endeared me to it . I found an old, antique looking compass. It barely points north, is old fashioned, slightly smells, and I loved it! It spoke to me of old fashioned adventure and how I am on a blind adventure with God. I bought it and walked out of the store.
Something bright caught my eye. I turned, looked to my right, and laughed. There a few feet from me was a lion. A life sized brass lion.
Well, I prayed that God would show me a lion. I laughed again and then gasped. Right next to the lion was a large, beautiful, wooden, old fashioned wardrobe.
I found Narnia in South Africa!
God really knew how to make me smile and feel special. I may not have an opportunity like the other teams in seeing a real life lion in South Africa,
but God showed me Aslan. Just for me.
2) Cinderella’s Slipper and Dorthy’s twister
Our team was told that we were going to attend a Net Ball tournament, where the winners would get jersey and supplies. I had no idea what netball was before this, but it looks like basketball with no dribbling and more throwing. After the game, some people of the community also brought out five little children, orphans, to present them with new shoes. The shoes were sparkly and brightly colored slippers–Cinderella shoes. I went over to their little group after the presentation and knelt down.
“Sanibowna.” I said. Two girls giggles, stuck their fingers in their mouths and just grinned at me. One girl then kicked out her foot at me, showing off her new shoe. I gasped and awed over it, until she laughed and put it down. I then preceded to give out high fives and pound its, and thumb war games. I only had a couple minutes with them, but they were highly significant to me. Some of these kids only recently lost their parent or parents. They were alone, relying on the kindness of relatives and strangers. And they were smiling and giggling.
It reminded me again of Cinderella. How enemy wants us to believe that no one wants us, that we are worth nothing, that we are orphans. But God sees us, dances with us, pursues us without fail, until He has you. He takes of your old shoe, and slips on a new slipper. He takes off your old self like dirty rags, and wraps you in your real identity.
This next part is a less spiritually significant aspect of the day, but it was something I remember with a lot of affection.
Later on that night we had a wind storm like no other. We actually heard the wind coming. We thought it was rain, and so we all left the fire to go inside. When the wind hit, sparks from the fire flew everywhere, even into the hut. It was quite dark outside without the fire and everyone was running around finding water to splash over the embers or collecting items to put them inside. I heard Aly’s panicked voice, “Where’s Tori? Where’s TORI?” I was putting away a bucket of water and then ran back inside the hut to show Aly that I hadn’t been swept off by the wind.
Our unease didn’t lesson in the night–it grew. Great gusts of wind sounded like it would take off our roof, and blew sheets of dust into our eyes and clothes. Mercy was in the middle of praying when a pocket of dust flew directly into her mouth. The wind only increased as the night went on. Aly and eye were both reading the same book, and the chapter we were reading had an epic battle scene. The storm was a perfect background, but when the wind’s howling got particularly strong, I would sit up in my bed to peek at Aly. She would be staring back at me with wide eyes.
I escorted Beth to the bathroom outside, thinking I was such a nice friend. I slipped and fell against the hut, and later we found out that a large branch crashed and broke open our water container, and that was why the ground was so muddy. But as Beth shut the door, and I turned around, I took in the howling wind, my hair whipping like a funnel around my head, the branches of trees shaking then breaking, objects that scurried across the ground, and I kept imagining something running at me from the corner of me eye…
It was a mistake to be alone out here. Mistake, mistake, mistake!!!
“Talk to me!” I shouted at Beth in the bathroom. “Talk to me while you are in there!!”
I heard Beth’s uncertain voice inside. “Um…do you want to come in here? I’m pretty much done.”
I jumped in without hesitation! 🙂
The wind storm didn’t die down until morning. It was a great night. 🙂
3) Washing His clothes
The last week before debrief, we moved from our location in Winterton and from our beloved Gogo’s, and stayed for a week with another family in Loskop. This was a much more dangerous place because it was in a town. We were not allowed to walk outside the property unless we were with a local, and they would literally lock us in at night. Now, the African diet, consisting mostly of mashed corn, potatoes, and paloni, sometimes didn’t agree with us, and we would have to deal with that at night. We had to use the chamber pot bucket in our room, or unlock our door and run to the cramped and stinky outhouse out in the dark, jumping at noises that came from the road.
It was hard not to fight the though, “Why are we hear? Why did we have to move?”
One day, the women who we stayed with told us that we were going to go and help a grandmother clean her house. She was nearly blind and takes care of six orphans. When we arrived her house, we were surprised by the squallar of the hut. Dishes with food were left everywhere, piles of dirty laundry were strewn all over and under the beds, bugs scurrying out of every crevice. We decided to help do their laundry.
As I was cleaning a small grey shirt that clearly had both vomit and poop embedded into the fabric, and thought hit me: I was washing Jesus’ clothes.
Whoever did this for the least of these…you did it for me.
I GET to wash Jesus’ clothes. This was an HONOR!
And if I ever feel the need to be annoyed or complain, I will think about that elderly woman who should have been taken care of, open up her home to take care of six children!
Thank you all again for your continued prayer support. It is SO NEEDED!!!
God Bless!
Tori
