Johanneburg News

So today I was sad because I have no idea where I have stuck my head for the last two weeks, but this morning was the first I heard about the racial violence in South Africa.
Strangely, last night before I found out I had this super strong sense to pray for Joseph Project in Johannesburg, and as I thought about the children there I actually started crying right in the middle of the Friday night service.
Then today I chatted online to a couple of my friends there and the violence is worse than I thought when I first heard about it. Some kids from the Joseph Project centre have had to take refuge in the local police station, more have been evacuated as Fox street (1 street behind the project and where many of the kids live) has had looting and the police moved in with rubber bullets. The staff are volunteering at the refuge centres.
The violence is mainly Zulus against other african immigrants and is concentrated in the townships. The government is responding like in apartheid days - sending in the tank-trucks to the townships. Armed mobs are on the streets and refugees are fleeing back to the countries they left - even Zimbabweans!
I'll end with a quote from Dylan at http://www.mr-boohiss.blogspot.com
My Zim friends made a humorous (I admire their resiliency), but incredibly sad comment. “We Zimbabweans, where can we run? Mugabe, violence and beatings at home. Racist South Africans beating, robbing, and killing us here. Hmm… I guess here is the best then. I would rather be beat on a full stomach than beat on and empty stomach.”

Lightning Crashes

This morning, I was cranky on my way into work because two of my buses pulled up to the stop but then only let people off and wouldn't take on passengers - so I was late and ended up walking part of the way there. As I rounded the last corner on the Kings Rd in Chelsea I realised why - a police cordon was re-directing people around the wreckage of a silver car. As I passed it I heard a female cop say "one dead in the silver car, the driver of the taxi in critical condition". It's a little bit small town around here cause of the council housing estate opposite so people have been dropping in with rumours of up to three dead in the silver car, and that they were joyriders.
Anyway, feeling cranky about public transport being late seems a bit callous in the light of this.
Then I received an email saying that one of the youngest children I had taught in the preschool in Joburg died a month ago, but they'd thought he had just moved back to Mozambique. Fernando was quite cuddly and had the world's biggest smile, but he was sick in the last weeks while I was there, listless and sleepy all the time. Apparently his father took him to a witch doctor and then he died. This total waste of a young life just makes me angry - I think that there's probably a good chance he would still be living if he had been medicated properly.
However, also over email came the great news that one of my friends, Corrine, is pregnant! She's had scans (you can almost see facial features) and it's all very exciting!
So this morning has just been like the Live song, 'Lightning Crashes'...

lightning crashes, a new mother cries
her placenta falls to the floor
the angel opens her eyes
the confusion sets in
before the doctor can even close the door

lightning crashes, an old mother dies
her intentions fall to the floor
the angel closes her eyes
the confusion that was hers
belongs now, to the baby down the hall

oh now feel it comin' back again
like a rollin' thunder chasing the wind
forces pullin' from the center of the earth again
I can feel it.

lightning crashes, a new mother cries
this moment she's been waiting for
the angel opens her eyes
pale blue colored iris,
presents the circle
and puts the glory out to hide, hide

Nearly out of Africa...

It's only a couple of sleeps till I fly for London. I've been tidying up and preparing for it. I've also been reflecting on all this time in Africa and what I've learnt.
Most of all I think I have learnt to wrestle with God, rather than not involving him at all and avoiding the hard emotions.
Why did we have to flee a country? I don't know but I do know God is okay with me being angry about it - He's big enough for that.
Why are so many still suffering? I don't know but I do know Christian Africans that have a deep joyful faith regardless.
Does God use ridiculously young and naieve people? Yes.
A lot of our time felt wasted and ineffective- was it? Perhaps, but then most of mission work is long boring 'wasted' work with very few rewards and possibly never seeing the results.
Would I do it all again if I knew what would happen? Definitely. I do not want to let go of the little understanding that I've gained of a people standing among a country in ruins and what the lives are like behind those faces on the world vision ads.
I have made many great friends who are now scattered around the world, which makes me exceedingly grateful for the giant re-union heaven will be. I will miss the children here at Beautiful Gate, I have watched some of them grow from whimpering babies to having developed vibrant little personalities even though they are only just talking. It will be strange not waking to their chatter.
See you in London.

Last Night in Joburg

So while the strike was going on we didn't really have any schoolkids coming to Joseph Project so we began working with one of the Lambano baby house, which has very small children and toddlers. Most of the time we just held them and played with them. For one day I went to the park with them which they loved.



Thankfully this isn't me getting nibbled on. But they were right next to our van.


Tonight is our last night at Joseph Project. We reunite with the other teams on saturday and begin debriefing next week. Outreach has been challenging, rewarding and downright dangerous at times. But I have learnt and experienced a lot even though our team did not end up working where we thought we would. Definitely I want to be back in africa someday.

Apartheid Museum

The group that went to visit the apartheid museum - Ren, Kari, TJ, Matt and I.


Nooses for those who died fighting apartheid.


A Casspir vehicle that patrolled the streets during the riots.


Dis-armed weapons from the fighting. There were a lot of AK-47's.
The fighting had even come down Commissioner street in Johannesburg, which is where we were staying. Even though I remember seeing the news about Soweto during the 90's, I hadn't realised that a lot of the fighters were children - until I saw video footage of them being beaten up by police. It is really amazing that there is peace between the races in South Africa today after the terrible atrocities that line their past. I think Nelson Mandela did a pretty good job against the odds. It was incredibly moving.

Day at the Park

This is the park we went to on Saturday. We had a picnic lunch.


I lay on the grass and took photos.






This is Ryan, the ninja, jumping off the horsy ride.

Joseph Project

So now we're safe and sound doing sleeping, eating and working in a community centre called Joseph Project. The whole concept of it is to teach the inner city kids of Joburg to dream again. It's based in Troyeville, once a rich gold baron's residential area, now turned into a slum controlled by 'slumlords'.
So here's what my schedule looks like...
Monday mornings I'm helping build a website
Tuesdays I help out in the preschool for kids too poor to go to normal preschool. They are incredibly cute but their little toes stick out from their shoes and they still arrive in shorts even when it's freezing. Here's some photos of them.

This is Josua who quite prefers the pink bike.

This is Noella. I think she's from the Congo.

Here is the extremely rickety swingset that rocks off it's feet everytime the three of them get on and start swinging.

Mawimpizo, who is the smallest boy in the class, also managed to build a tower bigger than he was. I was so impressed.

Esther is a Malaysian Australian who is the preschool teacher. We have 'circle time' every morning which includes singing. People keep asking us if we're sisters e.t.c


Everyday Lungile, the girl, dresses up like a princess.


We're trying out a new thing, which is teaching them to clean their own dishes. It's very slow, but they did do it. The kids here have to take on a lot more responsibility around the house than kids in Australia. They already fold their own blankets, wipe down tables and help me butter the bread.



Then on Weds there's a meeting and I plan (which usually means shooting a few hoops at the local basketball court while I'm thinking)
On Thursdays I do building work, which so far has been bricklaying or like today, shopping for cement, timber and fittings.
On Fridays it's the website again.
This is only for the mornings. Every afternoon kids from the local primary schools arrive from 2pm onward. We play cricket, pingpong or this dodgy American version of handball called 'foursquare' which turns the kids really vicious as they slam the ball at each other. Then they sit down at tables and get fed lunch. You can tell the ones that are really poor cause they eat everything.
Then we do homework with them for an hour, which usually forces me to go into teacher mode to make them all sit and concentrate. Their level of education is pretty bad considering the ones I tutor are in Yr 7 and they ask me questions like "what's 6 x 2?". I've been trying to give them extra work to help them catch up because a lot of the time their teachers aren't giving them homework (or the teachers simply aren't turning up to class). Surprisingly they like maths a lot better than English.
Finally it's playtime then clean up at 5pm. By this time I am usually exhausted because I have the rowdiest class. I don't know how teachers do it everyday.
The girl on the left, Princess, makes me play pick up sticks with her every day. I hate that game now. She always wins...until yesterday!


This is the dining situation. That's my team leader, CarrieAnne in the red cardigan.

This is cricket in the garage. It's extremely scary if you're fielding up close. I have bruises on my legs from it.

This is that evil foursquare game. Did I mention it was played with a basketball?

Although at first I really missed the open fields, skies and plain living of Zimbabwe, I'm finally adjusting to life here and not feeling so cooped up. Since this is Johannesburg we can't be outside after 6pm at night so the only time I get to be under the blue sky is if I sneak away to do planning on a weds or on 5 min walks at lunchtime. It was driving me crazy at first but I realised a lot of their regular staff are away so they do really need our team here so I had better stop 'kicking against the goads' and just come to accept it was in God's plan.

We have fled Zimbabwe!

So after being robbed on Monday, during which our car keys were stolen and I was stabbed at while trying to get them back, we were forced to leave the country due to police pressure. The police began accusing us of 'working with the opposition' and since the elections are in January, political opposition in Zimbabwe has been beaten up, imprisoned or simply 'disappeared'. Tehy were also taking in people for interrogation. So it was time for us to leave.
Still God protected us during this time, and gave us an incredibly smooth flight as we ran for it, leaving quite a bit of our stuff behind. I just pray he protects the people we left behind. But we are safe in Johannesburg, South Africa, oxymoron though that sounds.

In Botswana

It's red dust and random animals everywhere. We've just run an exhausting conference, and had our day of rest yesterday round a campfire with smores.
People here are lovely, although I'm still undure how much some of them understand, but I think a lot of the time it's more than less.

Khutala's lunch and pics from the roof

this is the township from our roof at night.


The girls on the roof from left to right - Jenny, Kate, Sara & Lindsey. All but Lindsey are my roommates and all but Kate are American. I'll miss my room, we have great talks at night and none of them are on my outreach team.


This is Ren playing worship mustic on the roof. Jenny likes to pretend she's a Tsotsi (gangster) in the background. Actually I found a good word for her- Scoli (baby gangster).

So today we went to Khutala's house to have lunch with her family. Khutala is one of the Beautiful Gate staff and also my leader in the youth group. We had chicken, beef, potato salad, tuna pasta and bean salad. I was ridiculously full then we ate jelly and watched a Jet Li film that was incredibly gory. Then we chatted some more while watching the cricket and eating ice-cream...what hospitality!!! We stayed till 6 when then her Dad and another guy who was semi-drunk drove us home. This is Africa.

In two weeks we leave for our outreaches. For security's sake I can't write plainly and have removed all mention of where we are going from this site. We are learning to sing in the local language, do dramas, we preach on roles in the family, reconciliation and will teach on abuse, HIV/AIDS and suffering.

Last night we had a stations of the cross chalk chase which was actually quite moving for me. You started having your feet washed, then eating communion together then we went out one by one in silence. First you went into the field to listen to some music (Gethsemane). Then in through a obstacle course of accusations, then to a crown of thorns, whip and red cloth. Then they had to carry a cross from one point to another, which was actually really heavy and awkward. Then into the chapel where Lindsey had painted a picture and there was also a set-up of a cross, dice, cloth e.t.c Finally into a dark tent we made with curtains and mattresses (tomb). Finally we drew pictures. After all this we stayed up late eating peanut choc fudge and watching Hitch.

Clowning around

So today we had a giant kids party for the children of the clinic in the township as well as Beautiful Gate, and surprise, surprise, I was a clown. Well, a pirate clown.

There was a jumping castle which I did get to go on, a waterslide, which sadly I didn't make it on, face-painting, beading e.t.c Although my juggling and magic tricks didn't last for long (because I don't know that many), between Jenny and I we did end up making about 200 balloon animals, mostly dogs or hats and swords. I ended up holding Concilea, who is about 1.5 years old and she would cry if I put her down, so Jenny, my entertainment assistant, ended up doing a crash course in dogs, birds, hats and monkeys. Most interesting balloon request - a ninja!

Game Park + Table Mountain Photos!

A couple of my best animal photos from the game park drive at Worchester. I hung on the back of the ute with one hand, standing and clicking away with the other.

So this was probably the best photo I got, this giraffe was only about 30 metres from the ute. It just popped up around a corner.

Late in the day on the way back this herd of Zebras heard us coming.

Then on last Sunday we climbed Table Mountain. I am really unfit. 100 metres into it I was ready to turn back.

This is Kari near the bottom looking at our goal - Platteklip Gorge. The top was covered in cloud - the 'tablecloth'. We prob should have realised that if the cable car wasn't going due to high winds, it wouldn't be great weather near the top.

This is the view half way up. It's Capetown waterfront and main city. Pretty spectacular.

Near the top, it starts to look a lot like Mordor from Lord of the rings. The mist boils over down into the Gorge. This is Jenny looking dark and scary. She's also my room-mate.
We could not complete the climb because the winds were knocking me off my feet near the top, and the fog was blinding (and freezing!). It just got too dangerous. However, on the way back, we got a lift back to our van in a BMW driven by a German who manufactures plastic car parts. Loved the faces of the other team members we passed...great day.