Crossroads

It's hard taking a photo because if you show you're carrying a camera you'll be mugged so I had to take this shot from a moving car, but this is the township of Crossroads. Families have been waiting 20 years here to get a government assigned house. People are living in the kind of storage containers we use on construction sites, and in corrugated iron shacks and weatherboard houses if you're better off. Most houses have barbed fencing.
This morning I walked through it for the first time to go to a local church. Two guys came up to us to try and get hugs - they were already drunk and it was only 10am in the morning. We aren't allowed to walk through it on our own, but a Tata (father) of one of the cottages walked us there so we were safe.
Lower Crossroads Baptist church was mostly in Xhosa. It was in a new little wooden building that doubles as a preschool. People broke out into random song and it was hugs all round at the beginning and again the end. Africans are very huggy.
We walked back and I chatted to another Tata about the kids he takes care of. It turns out that many of them come from the hospital, where they have been abandoned by their families when they find out that their son or daughter is sick from AIDS. HIV has a huge stigma here so Africans don't tell each other that they have it, and if you do tell, you will be outcast by your family. So even though these parents know that they too have aids, they will abondon the children rather than let the rest of the family know that the child has aids from them. Sadly, some of the kids are now old enough to ask where their parents are and to understand that they have been rejected. Out of 43 kids, 20 still have living parents, but only 6 visit regularly.
Class begins properly on Monday. Even as I type the first speaker has arrived on base - they have arranged for different teachers to come each week to speak on their speciality.
This week is on hearing the voice of God. We have had some class time already but it was mostly orientation and prayer/goal-setting. I have also been assigned to work with the youth group here, which meets on fridays and has about 35 local kids.

Here's a pic of some other members of the team


Matt (Aust) and Cam (USA)