Living in Masiphumelele

What an experience that God has invited us to! For about 3 weeks, our team has now been living in Masiphumelele, a township of about 30000 to 40000 inhabitants (the number changes constantly because of people moving away from or to Masi - legally or illegally - and because of the high number of people who die for different reasons). Estimates are that there is about 80% unemployment and about 30-40% of the community is infected with HIV/AIDS and/or TB. The house we are living in is in the heart of Masi and belongs to the infamous drug lord Small, one of the two richest and influential people in the township. How did we get to live in his house? The long-term missionary team (Community Transformations) we are working with, who live just up the hill from Masi, have been praying over this house for years, hoping for Small to stop his shady business as well as to open the door for the team to be able to live in a safe house within the community. And God answered their prayers: a few months ago, one of the ComTrans team members took heart and asked Small for the house. He answered that he had actually been thinking of renting or even selling his house - to a Christian organization! So here we are, our PhotogenX team came just at the right time and are now the first Western team that has ever lived in Masi.Take a look at this LINK so you can see our big green house (left hand side).

And we enjoy it! It feels like we are already making a difference by simply living our normal lives within the community. Many times when we have talked to people on the street in the beginning, they were absolutely stunned when they heard we were actually LIVING among them. We have heard things like "There must be some truth in your words about love, if you actually come LIVE with us." The people in Masi are used to missionaries who come and work with them during the day - but never stay after sunset. And it gets pretty crazy around here - there is ONE legal tavern in the township... and about 100 illegal ones. However, God has sent many angels to protect us and most people know us by now as the "Mulungus" (White People) who are not too proud or scared to live with them and actually watch out over us. Today, I heard a lady tell me that she has asked the police to drive around our house at least once or twice a day just to make sure everything is ok.

Yes, I absolutely love Masi. Our team has seen so many healings (physical and spiritual), people coming to the Lord and turning away from drugs and alcohol, as well as developed close friendships with one another. On a daily basis, our team first walks the streets of Masi, in order to meet old friends and make new ones :). Then we often have some kind of program, especially on the weekends, such as a "Women's Beauty Day," "Kids Ministry" or simply a time of worship. At around 5pm, we host a growing number of people from the community for a Bible Study - which blows my mind because of the honesty and hunger that lies within the people's questions. After the Bible Study (which often lasts for about 3-4 hours), our team has family time. I have to admit, these are some of my favorite moments of the day - our team really has become like a family over the past couple of month that we have spent together :)


And with all the wonders that God has revealed to us during our time here, there are - once again - also hard times. Even though it is such a blessing to be living within Masi, it is sometimes hard to minister to people 24/7. Since we are quite an attraction within the community, we have especially a lot of kids visit our house at all times. Most of them are so needy for love that they want to never leave; which is flattering, challenging, and most of all very sad. Since the first couple of days, our team has been struggling with fleas (and potentially scabies, we are still not quite sure). We have washed all of our clothes and sprayed our rooms - but some things just have to be accepted as they are. When I tried counting my bites at some point reached the number 278...
 

Please continue to pray for our team as we are entering our last weeks of ministry. One of the greatest things  is that ComTrans, the long-term team, will be able to nurture the relationships and the seeds we have just sowed even after we have left!

Homestays in Mbonisweni and Dangers along the Way

For four days, our team was able to live with families within the community of Mbonisweni, one of the communities where we were helping out with the orphan feedings. Our team split up in groups of two and really became part of the African lifestyle. Evelyne and I were placed in the household of Gratitude, a 19-year old girl who had lost her parents and is now running the family of 7 together with her grandma. Our time with them was wonderful and even though communication was not always easy (since the family only spoke broken English), we learned how to communicate non-verbally and how to fit in to the family's everyday life.

We got up in the mornings to take a bucket-shower (people are considered dirty if they don't), helped out with the housework throughout the day, learned how to make pap (African maize meal that is frequently used instead of rice) and participated in the community life. The grandfather, who was only at the house for half of the time because he has two wives and two households, and Evelyne and I had long conversations about God, life in Europe vs. Africa and politics. We realized that our short stay with the family actually made a great impact on the family: by choosing to stay at their house, we, as white people coming from a different part of the world, brought public honor to the family.

After the home stays, our time in White River had come to an end. Before we left the Ten Thousand Homes ministry, we decided to leave the families we stayed with and also the children at the orphan feedings with pictures that we took of them during our time here. How wonderful to see their eyes light up by finding their picture on the wall! The importance of a picture within these communities is amazing because to them a portrait of themselves means "I am somebody. I am seen and not overlooked." However, once again, our team realized that we did not only bring something to the community but most of all, we learned from them. Our motto has become "seek to understand before you seek to be understood."


Even though we all have been so blessed by our time here in White River, there have also been downsides and dangers. One day at the base, we found a snake in the girls' room - a Green Mamba! The locals told us that, if it had bitten us, we would have probably had time to scream before we had died...
Another time, robbers came to the base at night and stole all of our toiletries out of the bathroom building - including jewelry and medications. However, up to that point Kristina and I had needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of every single night... just this particular night, we did not wake up and thus did not end up accidentally running into the robbers!
Once again, we are aware that God is with us and has kept us protected all this time. This realization is not for us to start feeling invincible and make naive decisions - but only to realize how much we depend on God and how much we are to worship and praise him.

Please keep us in our prayers as we leave Ten Thousand Homes now and are about to start our ministry in Capetown with Community Transformations (http://www.followthereids.com/about/community-transformations/).

Our Time in Swaziland

The kitchen

The "backyard"

I do not think that I am exaggerating when I say that our week in Swaziland was life-changing. For five days, we were part of the family of Petros and Elizabeth. The loving couple decided to open up their house to orphans and love them like their own children. By now, they are the parents of 15 children and they are considering taking in another child. During our time with them, I asked several times but I never found out which ones of the children were actually their “own.” However, I have realized something much more striking: The culture here does not actually separate their own children from their siblings’ children or their grandchildren etc. If they live in the same house, they are part of the family and that is all that matters. So if there is no such differentiation in this family, who am I to try to bring in this Western separation between “immediate family,” “adopted children,” and “relatives”? So eventually, I stopped asking such unnecessary questions.

Plastering :)

The sad thing is that all of the adopted children in Petros’ and Elizabteth’s family actually come from their extended family – most of them from Elizabeth’s sisters and brothers that have passed away over the years. At some point, she had 10 siblings – now there are only 5 left. Swaziland has a population of 1.2 million --- and 200 000 of them are infected with HIV; that means about 17% of the country. The sad visible results are that the death of loved ones is part of the everyday life in Swaziland, leaving behind thousands of orphans.

Laundry

During our time with the family, our PhotogenX team helped with the yard work (who would have ever thought that we would have to burn a field instead of mowing it?!), helped finish the façade of their house, and most of all spent time with the kids. Even though the family is so strong in their love for each other and for the Lord, there is not much time for individual attention for each member in such a large family. From the moment we arrived and I smiled at one of the girls getting out of the taxi, this girl, Tibusiso, grabbed my hand and followed me around whenever possible. I realized that for me, it had been a simple smile. For her, it must have meant the world to be the first one to be smiled at by this white lady (me) who came from a different place of the world that she will probably never be able to see. It is amazing for me to understand that sometimes even the little things we do might have a great impact on somebody else. That’s why we need to live intentionally.

The bathroom

For the five days in Swaziland our team also learned to live without running water, without a flushing toilet, without electricity and without silverware. What holds the family together are not any luxurious possessions but the daily family dinners around the fire and the nightly good-night prayers. There is so much that we can learn from this humble style of living. On the last day, we wanted to give back some of the blessings we had received: our whole team (also the guys!) had spent several days knitting scarfs for each one of the kids! And even though it seemed like a small gesture after all, we received thankful eyes and great big smiles for it!