Victimized

South Africa has a huge problem with crime. The country has great numbers of unemployed people, and they are hungry and desperate. There are also countless souls addicted to various substances, and they too will do anything to feed their habit. None of this excuses crime; it’s just an observation on the state of things. Hunger and substance abuse aren't the only reasons behind crime, but they play a significant role.

I knew all this when I arrived here and I see it in the headlines every day. I try to be vigilant, to watch my back wherever I go, but I often wondered if I would make it an entire year without being victimized. I didn’t.

Yesterday my laptop was stolen. From a homeless center. While I was in the next room teaching a Bible study. My car was vandalized a few years ago, and just like back then, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. The interesting thing is, the Bible study was on Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and in particular His instruction to turn the other cheek and love our enemies.

I was trying hard to do that, but I must confess: I was (to quote Larry the Cable Guy) “madder than a one-legged waitress at the IHOP.” Like Linus’s security blanket, my laptop was familiar and comfortable and it went everywhere with me. It’s not that I’m into high-tech gadgetry – it’s just that it was the storehouse for a lot of work and photos and music that were dear to me. Fortunately I had run a backup to an external drive in September, so I won’t lose too much information.

Really, the most painful part of all this is the circumstances under which it happened. I’m 99 percent sure I know who did it, a guy who had been coming to the shelter for the past week or so. He was helping out in the kitchen and seemed like a nice enough guy, but he was also extremely quiet and no one really knew much about him. In hindsight, I think he had been watching me work on Thursday morning, which meant he saw me put the laptop in my backpack and store the pack under a desk and behind a chair. The thief only took the laptop, so whoever took it knew exactly where to look for it.

On the positive side, a lot of the other homeless and “street people” at the shelter were livid and have rallied around me. One guy even vowed that I would see the thief again, "when he’s in the hospital.” (I had to remind this fellow about the loving-your-enemy thing we had just discussed.)

The bigger issue here is the same thing that’s at the heart of every crime and conflict, the source of all the bad news we hear about on a daily basis. It’s the age-old attitude of “me first.” Somebody wants something for themselves, because self is who every one of us naturally seeks to serve. It’s simply played out in various ways through every individual, some worse than in others.

Jesus turned that thinking on its head and said God’s design for living is “God first, others first.” As Matthew recorded it, “Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22: 37-39).

In the wake of such a disheartening turn of events, I pray that my actions will match my profession to believe this.

Help Needed

I haven’t mentioned Living Hope’s need for additional funding in a while, but I hope anyone who reads this doesn’t take that as an indication that all the support has been raised. It has not.

But rather than move to discontinue the Life Skills education program in 2010, the Living Hope trustees have decided that everyone throughout the organization will take a pay cut so that the LSE staff can indeed continue with their vital work. The thinking is that Living Hope is a family, and when one part of the family suffers, everyone suffers and rallies to help those most affected.

Still, to keep Life Skills alive even with the across-the-board pay cut, more outside funding is needed. To learn the background behind this shortfall, please see my blog entitled “At a Crossroads,” located at http://ps121trekker.blogspot.com/2009/08/at-crossroads.html. For more details on becoming a partner in this venture, see http://www.livinghope.co.za.

Mama Pat

Every year Living Hope hosts dozens of volunteers from various parts of the world and for various lengths of time. Many of them are younger – at present we have seven under age 30, plus a 33-year-old, plus me, at 41 the old man of the group. And then we have Pat Ball, aka Mama Pat, who watches over us all.

Pat is a sweet, caring, God-fearing woman from Asheville, North Carolina. She's given nearly four years of her retirement years serving with Living Hope. When I came to Cape Town the first time, in September 2007, Pat was the volunteer coordinator. We had spent the previous six months emailing about details of my church’s impending mission trip. When I finally arrived, I felt like I had known her all my life. I remember her introducing me to a South African friend of hers at church one Sunday and the woman looked at Pat and said, “He talks funny like you!”

Indeed, Pat has a great Southern accent, which is just one of the many hospitable attributes that make the rest of us volunteers feel at home. Pat is now the executive assistant to Living Hope’s general manager, but she believes her calling is also to serve as mother to the volunteers, particularly the younger ones (and me – this wonderful woman has even offered to iron my clothes, a task I loathe with every fiber of my being).

So Mama Pat opens her home to us with a standing invitation to drop in anytime. She offers counsel, prayer, and whatever other comfort and encouragement is necessary. She’s currently leading a Thursday night Bible study, which is a great blessing to us because of her knowledge of God’s Word and her graceful way of communicating it. And did I mention she irons my clothes?

I greatly miss my dear mother back home – as I’m sure my fellow volunteers do with their own families – so I’m grateful for this very special lady we call Mama Pat.

Contrasts

Cape Town’s many mountain peaks offer breathtaking views of the peninsula and surrounding waters. They also reveal just how close some of the area’s richest and poorest are to one another.

In the foreground of the above photo, multimillion-dollar estates – complete with pools, tennis courts and horse stables – grace the village of Noordhoek. Not more than a mile or so across the wetlands is the township of Masiphumelele (it’s the dense cluster of homes just beyond the water in the far left of the photo). Masi is home to some 25,000 to 30,000 people crammed into tiny brick homes and aluminum shacks.

Viewing this scene from the top of 2,400-foot Noordhoek Peak, I was reminded of something I posted on this blog when I was here a year ago. I’m posting it again, because it certainly still applies:

Cape Town is a land of juxtaposition. A homeless center next to a stunning seascape. A shantytown on a mountaintop. People in despair alongside people with hope.

There’s so much that’s hard to look upon. A homeless family (parents with two kids) showed up Thursday too late for lunch. Not a scrap of prepared food was left, but “Auntie Joan,” the dear woman who helps run the Living Grace homeless center, managed to find some bread and rice to send them away with. In Red Hill, we learned that a man hanged himself last week, leaving a family behind. Another family had recently adopted a child when the adoptive mother suddenly died of an asthma attack.

It’s easy to become discouraged. But we also meet people like Craig, a 21-year-old who was caught in the crossfire of a gunfight six years ago and is in a wheelchair for life. He has a home nearby, but he comes to Living Grace every day to help out. He has a sweet spirit and an ever-present smile and the love of God in his heart. He could easily be angry at God, but he’s not.

Steven Curtis Chapman has a song called Yours. Substitute Cape Town for some of the places mentioned and you have a picture of the suffering in this part of the world, and the comfort we try to take in knowing God is still in control:

I walk the streets of London
And notice in the faces passing by
Something that makes me stop and listen
My heart grows heavy with the cry
Where is the hope for London?
You whisper and my heart begins to soar
As I'm reminded that every street in London in Yours

I walk the dirt roads of Uganda
I see the scars that war has left behind
Hope like the sun is fading
They're waiting for a cure no one can find
And I hear children's voices singing
Of a God who heals and rescues and restores
And I'm reminded that every child in Africa is Yours

And its all Yours, God, Yours, God
Everything is Yours
From the stars in the sky
To the depths of the ocean floor
And its all Yours, God, Yours, God
Everything is Yours
You're the Maker and Keeper
Father and Ruler of everything
It's all Yours

And I walk the sidewalks of Nashville
Like Singapore, Manila and Shanghai
I rush by the beggar's hand and the wealthy man
And everywhere I look I realize
That just like the streets of London
For every man and woman, boy and girl
All of creation
This is our Father's world

And its all Yours, God, Yours, God
Everything is Yours
From the stars in the sky
To the depths of the ocean floor
And its all Yours, God, Yours, God
Everything is Yours
You're the Maker and Keeper
Father and Ruler of everything
It's all Yours

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

A few weeks ago I stopped at a convenience store to get a bottle of water. A TV behind the counter was showing a report on the recent wedding of Bryan Habana, a star player for the Springboks, the South African national rugby team.

“It’s just not right,” the clerk said as I paid for my drink. “Excuse me?” I replied. “It’s not right,” she said. “Whites and non-whites should not marry.”

Habana, you see, is coloured – that is, he's a native South African of mixed heritage – and his new wife is white. And that clearly did not sit well with the white store attendant.

I’m not naïve enough to think everyone has moved past such prejudices. Even among my own circle of friends, I know certain individuals who would agree with this woman. But it’s still troubling to encounter such blatant racism face to face.

On Friday night I attended a dance performance at Ocean View, a township of several thousand coloured people. As I watched the performers – from elementary school-age children all the way up to young adults – I was greatly impressed by their considerable talent and happy to know they are getting opportunities to develop it. I was also saddened to think about all the parents and grandparents who lived under Apartheid rule and, rather than being encouraged to develop their talents, were essentially told, “You’re no good and you’ll never amount to anything.”

Yesterday I got another view of South Africa's Apartheid past, thanks to a visit to Cape Town's District Six Museum. District Six had been a neighborhood of freed slaves, merchants, artisans and immigrants, but early in the 20th century they began to be removed under white rule. In 1966 the neighborhood was declared a “White Group Area” and the real demolition began, with homes and businesses being bulldozed. By 1982 more than 60,000 people had been forcibly removed from this once-vibrant community, and sent to outlying areas with far less desirable living conditions.

And it was all because they had different-colored skin and were considered “inferior.” Today it seems inconceivable that people behaved so despicably. Yet we all know that racism still exists and is far from being eradicated. I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know this: God made every one of us in His image and He did not intend for anyone to feel superior over another because of his or her skin color.

Death

There’s a guy named Christopher who comes to the Living Grace homeless facility on a fairly regular basis. I’m not sure if he has a place to stay or if he actually lives on the street, but whatever the case, his life is difficult.

Christopher has a vision problem and does not see well. His girlfriend, Laverne, went everywhere with him and was his “eyes” on the street. Tragically, Laverne was walking somewhere last Friday evening and was struck and killed by a drunk driver. She and Christopher had been at Living Grace for lunch just that afternoon. It’s been a shock to everyone there this week.

The good news is that recently Laverne had come forward during the morning devotion at Living Grace and prayed to receive Jesus as her Savior. So she’s in His presence right now, free of the pain of this world and rejoicing in her eternal life.

To us who remain, her sudden death is a sobering reminder of the fleeting nature of this life. We think, “It can’t happen to me.” But it can, and it will, one way or the other. Physical death is inevitable and we don’t know the hour when it’s coming.

Jesus told the story of a rich man who decided he would build bigger barns to store his crops. “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years,” the man told himself. “Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”

God’s response: “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” (Luke 12:19-20)

Please join me in praying for Christopher as he copes with the pain of losing someone so close to him. And if you don’t know Jesus as your Savior – please don’t delay the decision to ask him into your heart and forgive your sins.

Table Mountain High

One of many things that makes Cape Town so special is 3,600-foot Table Mountain. The city is nestled right at its base, giving it one of the world’s great backdrops for a major metropolis. The cable car ride to the top is a major tourist attraction and a lot of fun. But to me it’s even more fun to skip the cableway and hoof it up. You feel overwhelmed by the surroundings and you’re fighting gravity every step of the way, which makes the views so much more worthwhile.