Help Needed

With any new station in life comes a least a little bit of apprehension. In moving to South Africa this week, I have certainly experienced this. Leaving familiar surroundings is never easy – I think it’s simply part of our nature to become attached to what’s comfortable. And of course there is an inevitable sadness that comes with separation from family and friends.

However, if one is going to reside in a foreign country for a year, it’s hard to beat Cape Town. It’s simply one of the most beautiful places on earth. With the mountains or the sea, or sometimes both, filling every view, it’s a spectacular setting in which to live and work.

More importantly, there is much work to be done. If you are familiar with this part of the world, or if you’ve read this blog in the past, then you know that South Africa suffers from a host of social and economic troubles, including extreme poverty, HIV/AIDS, domestic abuse, alcohol and drug addiction, and more. When I returned to the U.S. after a two-month stay in late 2008, I kept thinking of Jesus’ words to His disciples in Luke 10:2 – “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

That prayer was one of the motivating factors in my decision to return here. There is so much need in South Africa, but not enough workers to tell people of God’s love and ability to transform and heal lives. Interestingly, last Sunday – a day before I departed – I received a message from a Facebook group I belong to called “Pray for South Africa.” The message: “The harvest in South Africa is great … let's pray for labourers!” followed by the aforementioned passage from Luke. I have no doubt God was speaking to me through that message (yes, apparently even God uses Facebook), to confirm His call for me to come here.

So here I am, and I now have two extremely full and rewarding days of ministry behind me. I’m working in Red Hill, an informal settlement of maybe 1,000 or so people, located on a mountainside south of Cape Town. The area school kids are on winter holiday, so Living Hope is conducting Holiday Club, similar to what we would think of as a vacation Bible school or camp in the U.S. I love hanging out with the children of Red Hill, and it was an awesome experience to come back after being away for seven months and have a lot of kids remember me. I was also really encouraged to see how much some of the kids have matured and become better behaved (and believe me, bad behavior is common in a community where many kids don’t get a lot of love at home).

These kids give me a lot of laughs, and the best one so far came from an extremely bright (and polite) fifth-grader named Bayanda. He was peppering me with questions about life in the U.S. when the subject somehow turned to Michael Jackson. He had heard there was a memorial in L.A. and he apparently knew about the lottery system that thousands went through to gain entry.

“All those people got tickets just to see him rot,” Bayanda said. That kid has no idea just how perceptive he is.