Hello!
Below I've posted on this blogs all of the emails that I sent from South Africa. Unfortunately they've forced my teammates' posts farther down - check out those, too! I would always love to hear from you and share more about going to South Africa.
For the Kingdom-
Carl
Monday, August 27, 2007
South Africa: Final Thoughts
Sent on August 22, 2007
Hi everyone,
I arrived back in the States on August 12, and have found the transition to be very comfortable. Though I would have been happy to stay longer in South Africa, I am just as happy to be back with my family and seeing my brother off to college before spending September at Stanford and the next academic year in England. This is my last email to you all, and I'll leave you with some reflections on my time in South Africa. I also am posting some photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/cwerickson .
Unfortunately, I wrote way too much for one letter, so guess what! It's choose your own adventure time. For reflections on cultural differences and the potential of Africa, skip just below to " A." For the most important thing that I learned in Africa, go to "B."
----------------------------------------
A
As I settled in back home in Milwaukee, I had a strong sense that my home here in Wisconsin is not so far from Khayelitsha or Cape Town. It's not just that it amazingly only takes a bit over a day to get from here to the southernmost part of Africa. Rather, Africa does not seem to be so far away because now, when I am in Milwaukee, I can picture the world as a single place that contains both my home and South Africa. It's hard to explain much more, but Martin Luther King Jr.'s saying comes to mind: "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
Working in the townships each day in Africa was tremendously refreshing. It took some time for me to get used to sharing my faith, but the other activities like physical labor, playing and doing Sunday school with the kids, and spending time with the local people that work with African Leadership, were immediately uplifting. Though it was an adjustment from my very self-controlled Stanford life, there was so much freedom in letting the long-term missionaries plan out my day, leaving me only with responsibility to obey and use my hands and voice. Singing! Everyone sings there, and especially in the rural Transkei area, many know how to harmonize through learning by example. The singing, and the very Spirit-centered worship and prayer, gives all of the visitors great strength.
At the same time, there are elements of the Xhosa culture and history that make for difficulties, both between missionaries and the Xhosa people, and in their own struggles to live in the world. For example, Xhosa people tend to have an event-based sense of time, while westerners tend to quantify it. This requires us, especially Germans like our leader Simon, to learn patience. More importantly, we learn to open up our day to God's plans instead of concealing it within our own plans. People of different cultures can learn a lot from differences - God creates beautiful children, and even if they're foreign to each other, they're still brothers and sisters.
One more difficult cultural difference is, to stereotype and oversimplify, that Xhosa tend to expect that gifts or other actions done once be done regularly and broadly. Pastor Ohm described this as "and again" culture. Because of this, the only thing that we are able to give away are snacks to the kids after Sunday school - and we have to make sure that no one gets two, otherwise everyone demands two. Another example that demonstrates the cultural trend more generally is that long term missionaries whose ideas change over time are confronted with confusion and resistance. Thus we cannot follow the command to give to the poor naively: the question that the missionaries constantly confront is how the gospel can be put into practice; how they can most efficiently serve the people. At the same time, missionaries learn so much. The flip side of these apparently negative cultural traits include such traits as that people give to their neighbor without hesitation. If a family is without food, their neighbor will give them what they need. Really.
The picture of Africa in many of our minds is that of the "dark continent." There are some reasons for this. For example, the Korean missionaries that we were with noted that the Korean church became very strong very quickly after the first missionaries arrived around 100 years ago, but that Africa, though it has hosted missionaries for much longer, has not developed such a strong church. In their view, this corresponds with African cultures being much less vulnerable to westernization than Korean culture. This part of why they seek to build up the church in Africa through a ministry developed by looking at the people with the eyes of Jesus, and not looking at them with their own eyes. African Leadership is an "indigenization ministry," truly intended for African leadership.
At the same time, the fact that Africa is the "dark continent" is the reason that the people who work with African Leadership, as well as people like me who visit, have so much hope. We have so much hope because Cape Town, and South Africa, and all sorts of places in Africa have suffered and are suffering from poverty, racial injustice, disease, and hopelessness. And does not God promise that the first will be last, and the last will be first? The place that the world considers dark is the place through which the world may most readily come to see the light.
We hope for the young children that we taught in Sunday schools to someday come to America to build up our church. For we in America are familiar with poverty, racial injustice, and despair. I told high school classrooms about the parts of my city Milwaukee, the poverty-stricken black areas, in which I would not be caught dead after dark. On the plane from Cape Town to London Heathrow, the two South Africans in the seats next to me told me that they would never go into Khayelitsha because of their fear. See, we're not so different. All nations and peoples stand equally under God, and we need each others' support in Christ to build God's Kingdom.
I thank the Lord for all of your support and would love to share more with you about Africa personally, via email or otherwise. My final prayer request is for the expansion of the Kingdom of God in Cape Town, the world, and our own lives.
For the Kingdom!
Carl
------------------------------------
B
The most important lesson I have learned from my time in South Africa is that if the Kingdom of God is the Christian answer to the meaning of life and of history, then I should act and think accordingly. Pastor Ohm teaches two things that are necessary to fulfill this meaning: Kingdom perspective and commitment.
Having a Kingdom perspective involves what I would describe as a "worldview conversion." A Kingdom perspective is a worldview that interprets the world in terms of the teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the present and coming Kingdom of God. I'll try to describe just a bit of what the world looks like with this perspective. Say I am doing something banal like sitting down to dinner with my family. How am I looking at the people around me? Well, Jesus Christ has reconciled me to God, making me a son of God. And the people around me are children of God too. We have eternal life together. How much joy is there in that! How much easier is it to be gracious to them when we are conscious of the dimension of eternity in our daily lives!
The world tells us lots of corrupt things about how to look at other people, for example, that we should compare ourselves to others, take comfort in how we are better than them, and hate both them and ourselves for how we are worse. But actually, they are both sinners and beloved children of God, as we are. If we are in Christ, then we are both building the same Kingdom, God's, and not building jealous and warring kingdoms of our own. This is how a Kingdom perspective allows us to see other people: we look at people, and ourselves, with the eyes of Jesus. That is how we know who we are.
This perspective has to be asserted over and against what the world tells us, because the world is persistent with lies such that having more money and property is a capital-G good thing. It's not like I need to be remembering in every moment that Jesus died for us, but I should at least remember it sometime. This is the purpose of the African Leadership mantra, "For the Kingdom!" We have to remind ourselves that everything we do each day is either for the Kingdom, or for naught.
The second thing necessary to live according to God's Kingdom is commitment. There is a commitment to open oneself to the Kingdom perspective, but the Kingdom does not come about merely by interpretation. Action is needed. But what to do? The stereotypical dilemma at Stanford is, "I want to change the world, but there's so many options for the next step that I can't decide." I've seen people become upset at God for not clearly revealing what his calling is for them. But why ask for a calling? When we believe in Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit, we already have power and authority. All that is needed is commitment to bring about God's Kingdom in the ways that he sets before us. The commitment of the Xhosa people that we worked with was probably the example that I learned most from. Imagining myself in the position of the translators that repeated our sometimes awkward words into their neighbor's tongue left me in awe of their courage.
Commitment like that sounds quite foreign and frightening to me at first, but I gradually got used to the fact that it is possible. For commitment to God's Kingdom doesn't mean abandoning my old life. Even if one goes though an relatively concrete experience of being born again, new life in Christ doesn't destroy the old life, but rather is its redemption. It means that what I do, which for much of my time in the coming years will be the study of mathematics, is for the Kingdom. I study Mathematics for the Kingdom. There are so many opportunities to work for the Kingdom in the university. I'm blessed to have had this time among people in South Africa who taught me to be dedicated to looking at the big and little things in my life as opportunities to build God's Kingdom.
So I need a Kingdom perspective and a commitment. I may sometimes think that I am still lacking. For where am I going to get the strength to do these things? Well, this goes back to one of my first emails. I was happy to be going to South Africa because I was tired from all of the things I did at Stanford. I considered my activities to be worthy ways of serving God, but my schedule could take the place of God as my master, and wear me down. One thing I may have been missing is knowledge of the assurances that I have when when I work for God's Kingdom. When I try to build my own Kingdom, I have only my own strength to go on. But when I work for God's Kingdom, the Holy Spirit gives me strength. And since God's Kingdom is in God's hands, failures don't count against me - they're just signs to repent perhaps, and work in a different way, though that may be hard to accept. I'm very thankful for this newfound sense of the Holy Spirit that I bring back from Africa.
I thank the Lord for all of your support and would love to share more with you about Africa personally, via email or otherwise. My final prayer request is for the expansion of the Kingdom of God in Cape Town, the world, and our own lives.
For the Kingdom!
Carl
Hi everyone,
I arrived back in the States on August 12, and have found the transition to be very comfortable. Though I would have been happy to stay longer in South Africa, I am just as happy to be back with my family and seeing my brother off to college before spending September at Stanford and the next academic year in England. This is my last email to you all, and I'll leave you with some reflections on my time in South Africa. I also am posting some photos at http://picasaweb.google.com
Unfortunately, I wrote way too much for one letter, so guess what! It's choose your own adventure time. For reflections on cultural differences and the potential of Africa, skip just below to " A." For the most important thing that I learned in Africa, go to "B."
------------------------------
A
As I settled in back home in Milwaukee, I had a strong sense that my home here in Wisconsin is not so far from Khayelitsha or Cape Town. It's not just that it amazingly only takes a bit over a day to get from here to the southernmost part of Africa. Rather, Africa does not seem to be so far away because now, when I am in Milwaukee, I can picture the world as a single place that contains both my home and South Africa. It's hard to explain much more, but Martin Luther King Jr.'s saying comes to mind: "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
Working in the townships each day in Africa was tremendously refreshing. It took some time for me to get used to sharing my faith, but the other activities like physical labor, playing and doing Sunday school with the kids, and spending time with the local people that work with African Leadership, were immediately uplifting. Though it was an adjustment from my very self-controlled Stanford life, there was so much freedom in letting the long-term missionaries plan out my day, leaving me only with responsibility to obey and use my hands and voice. Singing! Everyone sings there, and especially in the rural Transkei area, many know how to harmonize through learning by example. The singing, and the very Spirit-centered worship and prayer, gives all of the visitors great strength.
At the same time, there are elements of the Xhosa culture and history that make for difficulties, both between missionaries and the Xhosa people, and in their own struggles to live in the world. For example, Xhosa people tend to have an event-based sense of time, while westerners tend to quantify it. This requires us, especially Germans like our leader Simon, to learn patience. More importantly, we learn to open up our day to God's plans instead of concealing it within our own plans. People of different cultures can learn a lot from differences - God creates beautiful children, and even if they're foreign to each other, they're still brothers and sisters.
One more difficult cultural difference is, to stereotype and oversimplify, that Xhosa tend to expect that gifts or other actions done once be done regularly and broadly. Pastor Ohm described this as "and again" culture. Because of this, the only thing that we are able to give away are snacks to the kids after Sunday school - and we have to make sure that no one gets two, otherwise everyone demands two. Another example that demonstrates the cultural trend more generally is that long term missionaries whose ideas change over time are confronted with confusion and resistance. Thus we cannot follow the command to give to the poor naively: the question that the missionaries constantly confront is how the gospel can be put into practice; how they can most efficiently serve the people. At the same time, missionaries learn so much. The flip side of these apparently negative cultural traits include such traits as that people give to their neighbor without hesitation. If a family is without food, their neighbor will give them what they need. Really.
The picture of Africa in many of our minds is that of the "dark continent." There are some reasons for this. For example, the Korean missionaries that we were with noted that the Korean church became very strong very quickly after the first missionaries arrived around 100 years ago, but that Africa, though it has hosted missionaries for much longer, has not developed such a strong church. In their view, this corresponds with African cultures being much less vulnerable to westernization than Korean culture. This part of why they seek to build up the church in Africa through a ministry developed by looking at the people with the eyes of Jesus, and not looking at them with their own eyes. African Leadership is an "indigenization ministry," truly intended for African leadership.
At the same time, the fact that Africa is the "dark continent" is the reason that the people who work with African Leadership, as well as people like me who visit, have so much hope. We have so much hope because Cape Town, and South Africa, and all sorts of places in Africa have suffered and are suffering from poverty, racial injustice, disease, and hopelessness. And does not God promise that the first will be last, and the last will be first? The place that the world considers dark is the place through which the world may most readily come to see the light.
We hope for the young children that we taught in Sunday schools to someday come to America to build up our church. For we in America are familiar with poverty, racial injustice, and despair. I told high school classrooms about the parts of my city Milwaukee, the poverty-stricken black areas, in which I would not be caught dead after dark. On the plane from Cape Town to London Heathrow, the two South Africans in the seats next to me told me that they would never go into Khayelitsha because of their fear. See, we're not so different. All nations and peoples stand equally under God, and we need each others' support in Christ to build God's Kingdom.
I thank the Lord for all of your support and would love to share more with you about Africa personally, via email or otherwise. My final prayer request is for the expansion of the Kingdom of God in Cape Town, the world, and our own lives.
For the Kingdom!
Carl
------------------------------
B
The most important lesson I have learned from my time in South Africa is that if the Kingdom of God is the Christian answer to the meaning of life and of history, then I should act and think accordingly. Pastor Ohm teaches two things that are necessary to fulfill this meaning: Kingdom perspective and commitment.
Having a Kingdom perspective involves what I would describe as a "worldview conversion." A Kingdom perspective is a worldview that interprets the world in terms of the teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the present and coming Kingdom of God. I'll try to describe just a bit of what the world looks like with this perspective. Say I am doing something banal like sitting down to dinner with my family. How am I looking at the people around me? Well, Jesus Christ has reconciled me to God, making me a son of God. And the people around me are children of God too. We have eternal life together. How much joy is there in that! How much easier is it to be gracious to them when we are conscious of the dimension of eternity in our daily lives!
The world tells us lots of corrupt things about how to look at other people, for example, that we should compare ourselves to others, take comfort in how we are better than them, and hate both them and ourselves for how we are worse. But actually, they are both sinners and beloved children of God, as we are. If we are in Christ, then we are both building the same Kingdom, God's, and not building jealous and warring kingdoms of our own. This is how a Kingdom perspective allows us to see other people: we look at people, and ourselves, with the eyes of Jesus. That is how we know who we are.
This perspective has to be asserted over and against what the world tells us, because the world is persistent with lies such that having more money and property is a capital-G good thing. It's not like I need to be remembering in every moment that Jesus died for us, but I should at least remember it sometime. This is the purpose of the African Leadership mantra, "For the Kingdom!" We have to remind ourselves that everything we do each day is either for the Kingdom, or for naught.
The second thing necessary to live according to God's Kingdom is commitment. There is a commitment to open oneself to the Kingdom perspective, but the Kingdom does not come about merely by interpretation. Action is needed. But what to do? The stereotypical dilemma at Stanford is, "I want to change the world, but there's so many options for the next step that I can't decide." I've seen people become upset at God for not clearly revealing what his calling is for them. But why ask for a calling? When we believe in Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit, we already have power and authority. All that is needed is commitment to bring about God's Kingdom in the ways that he sets before us. The commitment of the Xhosa people that we worked with was probably the example that I learned most from. Imagining myself in the position of the translators that repeated our sometimes awkward words into their neighbor's tongue left me in awe of their courage.
Commitment like that sounds quite foreign and frightening to me at first, but I gradually got used to the fact that it is possible. For commitment to God's Kingdom doesn't mean abandoning my old life. Even if one goes though an relatively concrete experience of being born again, new life in Christ doesn't destroy the old life, but rather is its redemption. It means that what I do, which for much of my time in the coming years will be the study of mathematics, is for the Kingdom. I study Mathematics for the Kingdom. There are so many opportunities to work for the Kingdom in the university. I'm blessed to have had this time among people in South Africa who taught me to be dedicated to looking at the big and little things in my life as opportunities to build God's Kingdom.
So I need a Kingdom perspective and a commitment. I may sometimes think that I am still lacking. For where am I going to get the strength to do these things? Well, this goes back to one of my first emails. I was happy to be going to South Africa because I was tired from all of the things I did at Stanford. I considered my activities to be worthy ways of serving God, but my schedule could take the place of God as my master, and wear me down. One thing I may have been missing is knowledge of the assurances that I have when when I work for God's Kingdom. When I try to build my own Kingdom, I have only my own strength to go on. But when I work for God's Kingdom, the Holy Spirit gives me strength. And since God's Kingdom is in God's hands, failures don't count against me - they're just signs to repent perhaps, and work in a different way, though that may be hard to accept. I'm very thankful for this newfound sense of the Holy Spirit that I bring back from Africa.
I thank the Lord for all of your support and would love to share more with you about Africa personally, via email or otherwise. My final prayer request is for the expansion of the Kingdom of God in Cape Town, the world, and our own lives.
For the Kingdom!
Carl
South Africa: Serving our Neighbors
Sent on August 6, 2007
Dear friends and family,
It was a rainy day down here in South Africa, causing us to abandon our plans to put up the walls of a church and rest a bit. So here I am writing to you!
Dear friends and family,
It was a rainy day down here in South Africa, causing us to abandon our plans to put up the walls of a church and rest a bit. So here I am writing to you!
After spending almost three weeks down here, I've managed to get a marginal idea of what is going on in African Leadership, the mission organization through which I and many other missionaries work here. Things have become normal! I did not suffer much culture shock, but only lately have my surroundings and daily routine seemed routine. As I wrote in my first letter on my way to Africa, I was looking forward to the blessing of being able to work for God's Kingdom without having to think and plan the details – the "busyness" of university life. Each day here, short term missionaries like me do what we are bid. It is busy in the sense that I work a good deal, but not busy in that I am always putting pressure on myself to keep up with a large number of self-imposed commitments. And it is great! It is easier here to serve just one master, the Lord.
In my prayer letter that I sent out in May, I listed what my activities here would be. Teaching children Bible stories, doing construction and door-to-door evangelism, traveling to a rural area for a week, and several other things. And all of these things for the Kingdom of God. This list ended up being pretty accurate. But as one might imagine, these ways are a small part of the ministry that African Leadership does, and give only the smallest idea of what the day-to-day concerns of the missionary are. They fit into a larger framework of guiding concepts and central ministries that, together, make up African Leadership.
Because of our history, the word "missionary" can carry an imperialistic tone. We may think that a missionary is a person that seeks to give other people something that they don't have, or prompts other people do something that they would not otherwise do. While some activities of African Leadership may look like this in part, what defines African Leadership is its mission to strengthen the local church in native communities all over Africa. I am most familiar with the ministry led by Pastor Ohm in Cape Town, so I'll describe what is happening here. In Cape Town, African Leadership's mission rests on two "pillars": pastoral training and children's ministry.
Pastoral training is a critical part raising up the local church because very basic knowledge necessary for leading a congregation is lacking among pastors in Khayelitsha. There are hundreds of churches, but most are house churches that are led by whomever arises as the best speaker. They may not even have bibles available. African Leadership seeks to give pastors basic biblical and pastoral training so that they can effectively make God's Kingdom real in their communities. To this end, it operates African Theological College within Khayelitsha. It encourages and provides initial support to its graduates whether they lead a church or serve in other worthy ways.
Because of our history, the word "missionary" can carry an imperialistic tone. We may think that a missionary is a person that seeks to give other people something that they don't have, or prompts other people do something that they would not otherwise do. While some activities of African Leadership may look like this in part, what defines African Leadership is its mission to strengthen the local church in native communities all over Africa. I am most familiar with the ministry led by Pastor Ohm in Cape Town, so I'll describe what is happening here. In Cape Town, African Leadership's mission rests on two "pillars": pastoral training and children's ministry.
Pastoral training is a critical part raising up the local church because very basic knowledge necessary for leading a congregation is lacking among pastors in Khayelitsha. There are hundreds of churches, but most are house churches that are led by whomever arises as the best speaker. They may not even have bibles available. African Leadership seeks to give pastors basic biblical and pastoral training so that they can effectively make God's Kingdom real in their communities. To this end, it operates African Theological College within Khayelitsha. It encourages and provides initial support to its graduates whether they lead a church or serve in other worthy ways.
Children's ministry is critical to extending God's Kingdom in Khayelitsha because most people that are Christians were exposed to the Christian message as a child. Thus African Leadership supports a great deal of preschools and Sunday School programs. Almost every day for our team includes some sort of singing, dancing, and bible teaching with children. We will also be participating in the high school ministry, which has brought us into high school classrooms to speak about some sort of concept of character from a Christian perspective.
As a short term missionary here, it quickly becomes apparent to me that the native leaders that African Leadership seeks to raise up are the center of the ministry. These kinds of leaders are the people that I work with most, at least ideally. Short term missionaries like me can serve in the ministries that these people are running; for example, our team is going to speak in high schools for the next two days. This is a ministry coordinated by both missionaries and a native guy.
Pastor Ohm told us about one missionary that worked for many years in a foreign land, left for a year, and found nothing of his work left. Thus when we say that we want to raise up leaders, we really mean it. Pastor Ohm notes that he wants to make sure that he chooses people to support that, for example, do not always listen to him. The missionary, in his words, is like a spare tire and African Leadership is a ministry of "indiginization." The key phrase in all of this is "for the Kingdom!" The Kingdom is God's, and so each missionary must not be trying to build his/her own Kingdom, but helping all brothers and sisters in Christ to build the Kingdom. This is how we as missionaries fulfill the command to love one's neighbor as one's self - we serve our neighbors by enabling them to serve others.
I suppose I've given a shot here at writing down what some of the big ideas on the missionary side of things are. Maybe once I'm back in the States I'll have time to write down some of the characteristics of the culture and situation here in Africa and in South Africa that influence what difficulties there are to overcome and what I have experienced.
Lately our work for the Kingdom has been in the form of speaking in high schools, constructing a church, playing with the children and doing Sunday school at the construction site, and doing evangelism in the area of that church. In all of this I've been blessed with a closer grasp of the Holy Spirit - otherwise, what words do I have to share with people? So you can pray in this my last week in South Africa for:
-The Spirit to be active in our ministries, for example, as we speak in high schools tomorrow;
-For my daily work to be always for God's Kingdom, and not can for my own (it's so easy to compete, etc).
For the Kingdom!
Carl
South Africa: The Other Side of the World
Sent on July 30, 2007
Greetings!
Greetings!
I'm blessed with a few minutes to sit down and update you on the work that my friends and I are doing for God's Kingdom in South Africa.
Late last night we returned to Cape Town after spending one week in the Transkei region of South Africa, in the villiage of Gulandoda relatively near Engcobo (in case your looking for something you can find on a map). The time we had in Transkei was a new experience for us. Our days consist of a morning devotion followed by some milled corn for breakfast, then about four hours of evangelism in various nooks in the large valley we stayed in (we began to make light of the phrase "just over the hill" to describe any one of our destinations), a lunch of fried bread, bible stories and songs with the children in a nearby church in the afternoon, then a church service around sunset (it being winter here), and then dinner. The conditions were spartan and foreign, but comparable to tent camping, though we stayed in a normal building instead of tents. The people that we stayed with - the Nositile family, I believe - provided us amazing hospitality.
A few anecdotes and thoughts:
-In huts, the men generally sit on one side and the women on the other. After a few days, this stopped being foreign, and we got used to "talking to the men and looking at the women" and vice-versa, I would suppose. We did, of course, bridge the divide often.
-The people we visit suffer outwardly more than the people I am usually around. Diseases of many sorts cause problems in these rural areas, not near to the medicine that I am usually surrounded by. There are also great problems with family conflicts or brokenness, and with envy between neighbors and relatives.
-On Thursday night during dinner, the family saw grass fire in the valley out the window. So David, Eric, Simon, and I grabbed wet towels and joined the men and boys of the family in fighting the fire. Fire is a real force of nature! It made me understand how we sometimes see it in nature specials on TV or movies: there we hear the sound and see the flames, but in the valley we felt the wind and heat. But a wet towel is amazingly effective against a grass fire! It consumed many acres, though. We pray that it was not too damaging to people's posessions, and give praise that no houses were damaged. However, that fire began in high winds that persisted for the second half of our time in Transkei, and did damage some houses.
-The people that we met and spoke to are very different from ourselves. How can we bridge the gap between our different forms of faith? How can we forge a meaningful connection with people that we want to share God's love with, in less than an hour? I think that the blessing that I gathered from encountering this question in Transkei is that God does the work for us. We can take joy in God's love for us, and take the risk of opening our mouths in the power of the Spirit to say what words we are given. Then we can pray that God will complete our work. I think that this is the most important thing so far in South Africa: I have seen that my faith doesn't depend on my own strength, but in my trust.
-How much do we depend on the translators! To communicate with people whom we evangelize, our hosts, etc. We are very thankful for their presence and partnership.
-The Xhosa people that we are minstering to in Cape Town and Transkei are exceptionally hospitable people to strangers, even just passing by. I'm very thankful for this.
I would love to write more, but my relatively short internet time was taken up by managing business back in the States. However, I think that our daily activities may abate slightly, giving way to writing to you back at the mission house and bringing the message to the internet cafe to send it off. I look forward to writing to you again whether it's in that more coherent fashion or not. But even more, I am excited to work for the Kingdom in the coming days leading up to my return to the states on August 12. The only prayer request that comes (quickly!) to mind as far as this Transkei work is that God would not forsake the people that we were with. We also pray that God would send rain to grow the small seeds that we planted, but even more important is that he be compassionate to these people whom we came to love and help them to overcome the problems that I described above.
For the Kingdom,
Carl
South Africa: Hitting the Ground
Sent July 22, 2007
Dear Friends,
Dear Friends,
Greetings in Christ from Cape Town!
Unfortunately my time to write to you is brief, but I it's important that I share some of this past week with you. After arriving in Cape Town on Wednesday morning, I have spent each day fully immersed in in working for God's Kingdom with the Xhosa people in Khayelitsha with my friends from Stanford, and our team leader Simon Schmid from Germany. To make this message compact, I'll resort to writing in lists.
These are the things that we have done:
-Morning devotions: each morning we either head into African Theological College (ATC) or meet with all the residents of the mission house we currently live in, and one person will share their reflections on some passage of scripture.
-Various forms of physical labor: We worked to maintain church and preschool buildings in Khayelitsha. We reinforced a foundation and built a fence.
-Evangelism: Twice, we have divided into various groups, with other missionaries working with our team, to go into the areas around a church that a Korean missionary started in Khayelitsha. The people are very open to speaking with us, and we talk about who we are, why we are here, and often read from the Bible and pray for them.
-Going into numerous preschools: We spend time with kids, sing with them, and do crafts project that teach Bible stories.
-Worship time: we attended an inaugural youth worship yesterday, sang to the Lord with various people that came to a soup kitchen for a long time.
-Sharing our stories with a multi-racial Baptist church outside Cape Town that has connections to African Leadership.
-Other opportunities to share personal testimonies or scripture reflections.
-Sleep: After a long day of work, it is easy to fall asleep and wake up feeling tremendously privileged to be able to be alive for another day serving others.
Here are a few things I have learned:
-Saying that we are all one in Christ isn't just idle talk. "Evangelism" can be a scary word in America, but it is not scary when we remember that evangelism is good news, the gospel - in fact, "good news" is what the root word behind "evangelism" means. The main part of the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord, the part that we speak about and enact most as we share with people so far is that we are one in Christ. As Paul writes, "neither Jew, nor Greek," etc. One man that we visited was almost speechless with happiness when we sang to praise the Lord in his language when we visited his house. As he said, white people never even come near where he lives. I hope that I can open my heart to joy as much joy from the Lord when I hear the Xhosa people singing songs in my language that we brought from our Christian fellowship at Stanford - because as brothers and sisters in Christ, we stand equally in need of encouragement, equally able to give to each other. This is because we are all part of the one Kingdom.
-The Xhosa people who have become involved with African Leadership are the center of all the ministry here. Missionaries are like a spare tire: what those who lead the mission here desire is the serve the people here and equip them to serve the Lord - that they would become leaders. As short term missionaries, we mainly work as extra hands in the ministries that these leaders run.
-I am blessed by this time here. I have learned a great deal from the people that I meet in Khayelitsha: I can see the joy that they experience in prasing the Lord, and reaching and working with them has added new growth to my generally rather intellectual faith.
-As Paul says in Romans 5:20, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. The widespread hopelessness in Khayelitsha comes from the weight of sin, but the new light of hope that I have seen from them is a great encouragement to me.
Next: Tomorrow we will travel to the rural Transkei area where the Xhosa people are originally from. We will be there for some time. I look forward to sharing with you about this soon.
Here are some things that you can pray for if you wish:
- What we do here is a very small thing, but let us all pray that it will be like a mustard seed (Matthew Ch 13), especially with the children in the preschools.
- Pray for the Xhosa people that work with us, like those who translate when we do evangelism or those who will accompany us to Transkei. I know, as I said above, that their role is very important, but I have not yet developed a sense of that pressures that accompany this importance.
- Pray for our team leaders Simon and David Scudder as we head into the Transkei area.
- Thank God for giving me the blessings of "full-time" work for one master - my prayers of the last letter that I would be able to serve one master have been answered.
Blessings,
Carl
South Africa: Halfway There
Sent July 17, 2007
Hello everyone,
I now find myself in Terminal 4 of London Heathrow airport, where I have resided today. With a scheduled twelve-hour layover, I've had a great opportunity to get some reading and emailing done, including writing and sending this message. I'm almost to South Africa, and very excited about hitting the ground there.
Such a twelve-hour period has certainly been rare in my past few months. Usually, even after graduating, my time can sometimes appear to be filled with a clutter of activities. Jesus was speaking about money when he told us that "No servant can serve two masters," but I've found in those words a lesson that includes a warning about becoming a slave to the pursuit of wealth, but goes a good deal farther. These words point to the continuous danger of neglecting our duty of singular dedication to God. (as an aside, for Jesus word's to make sense, one must first realize that one always serves some master) Many masters in this world demand our dedication, and even those unambiguously good creations of God, human friendship, for example, can descend under the weight of sin to becoming masters to us, usurping the place of God. Sometimes, the desire to fill my time with many activities can become a cruel master to me. Though these activities are generally great things like hanging out with friends, this problem can still happen.
My flight schedule has been all over the place, from delaying it for an illness, to having the illness treated and going on the original schedule, to having that flight canceled and being rebooked to Thursday, to then finding a Monday departure that has in fact brought me to Heathrow today. During the times when I thought I had gained a few extra days back at home, I was thinking about what to do. "Wow, I won't be rushed to send out a first prayer email... I'll sit back and get some reading done... I can pray more deeply in preparation for my travels." And then, when the flight got pushed earlier again, it seemed that I was back to the normal, faster pace. When this first happened was when I saw this cruel master a bit more clearly, and wrote about it in our blog. And since then, I have come to hope for God to be more fully my one master during this time in South Africa.
And so I am ready - because I trust that God will make me ready - to step into what I have described to some, lately, as a bit of a void. I don't know what things will look like, except that some things aren't like here, and I don't know what precisely I will be doing day to day. But I trust that it is worthy. I recognize the need for God to grow me in his ways, and am blessed to have this time to directly serve the one master. I hope to gain eyes to see in South Africa the ways that God has blessed me in the past few weeks and in my time in South Africa, and to carry these things into the future.
That's a lot of stuff about me, but I ask God's blessing upon the two halves of my journey: me, and the world as I encounter it in South Africa. But now, one half of this is a void to me. I look forward to describing it to you! Because the Kingdom of God emerges out of the encounter between the gospel and the world.
Here's a quick list of stuff that you can pray if you wish, in light of all this:
For the Kingdom,
Carl
Hello everyone,
I now find myself in Terminal 4 of London Heathrow airport, where I have resided today. With a scheduled twelve-hour layover, I've had a great opportunity to get some reading and emailing done, including writing and sending this message. I'm almost to South Africa, and very excited about hitting the ground there.
Such a twelve-hour period has certainly been rare in my past few months. Usually, even after graduating, my time can sometimes appear to be filled with a clutter of activities. Jesus was speaking about money when he told us that "No servant can serve two masters," but I've found in those words a lesson that includes a warning about becoming a slave to the pursuit of wealth, but goes a good deal farther. These words point to the continuous danger of neglecting our duty of singular dedication to God. (as an aside, for Jesus word's to make sense, one must first realize that one always serves some master) Many masters in this world demand our dedication, and even those unambiguously good creations of God, human friendship, for example, can descend under the weight of sin to becoming masters to us, usurping the place of God. Sometimes, the desire to fill my time with many activities can become a cruel master to me. Though these activities are generally great things like hanging out with friends, this problem can still happen.
My flight schedule has been all over the place, from delaying it for an illness, to having the illness treated and going on the original schedule, to having that flight canceled and being rebooked to Thursday, to then finding a Monday departure that has in fact brought me to Heathrow today. During the times when I thought I had gained a few extra days back at home, I was thinking about what to do. "Wow, I won't be rushed to send out a first prayer email... I'll sit back and get some reading done... I can pray more deeply in preparation for my travels." And then, when the flight got pushed earlier again, it seemed that I was back to the normal, faster pace. When this first happened was when I saw this cruel master a bit more clearly, and wrote about it in our blog. And since then, I have come to hope for God to be more fully my one master during this time in South Africa.
And so I am ready - because I trust that God will make me ready - to step into what I have described to some, lately, as a bit of a void. I don't know what things will look like, except that some things aren't like here, and I don't know what precisely I will be doing day to day. But I trust that it is worthy. I recognize the need for God to grow me in his ways, and am blessed to have this time to directly serve the one master. I hope to gain eyes to see in South Africa the ways that God has blessed me in the past few weeks and in my time in South Africa, and to carry these things into the future.
That's a lot of stuff about me, but I ask God's blessing upon the two halves of my journey: me, and the world as I encounter it in South Africa. But now, one half of this is a void to me. I look forward to describing it to you! Because the Kingdom of God emerges out of the encounter between the gospel and the world.
Here's a quick list of stuff that you can pray if you wish, in light of all this:
- For full health in Africa;
- For the blessings in experiences of yet unknown culture to overcome the challenges in these experiences;
- For my heart to serve God and His Kingdom during this time;
- And for the Kingdom to remain within me after I return.
For the Kingdom,
Carl
Thursday, August 16, 2007
South Africa Letters
I just put up (on this blog) all the prayer letters I had sent out over the past couple weeks while in South Africa. Enjoy!
Also, I'm thinking of starting a short email list for people who may be interested in staying up-to-date with what goes on in my life--not that it's an important life, but prayer letters for "normal life" seem like a good idea to me. ;)
Also, I'm thinking of starting a short email list for people who may be interested in staying up-to-date with what goes on in my life--not that it's an important life, but prayer letters for "normal life" seem like a good idea to me. ;)
South Africa: Concluding Thoughts
Dear Family & Friends,
After over 30 hours of travel, I'm sitting in my uncle's house in sunny California writing this email on my laptop. I no longer have to worry about spending too much time writing an email and having to pay for it (really, someone else paid for it--but at least now he won't be beating down my back ;-) )! What that means is that (lucky) you may have to endure many pages and addenda to our adventures in Cape Town and the Eastern Cape--or just a lot of musings about the experience in general.
There are a couple gaps that I wanted to fill in about the last couple days in Transkei (Eastern Cape) and also relate to you about the final days we spent in Cape Town. I put them into sections because I realize that this email will be quite long; feel free to skip around.
The Fire.
The fire Simon (our team leader / mentor), David, Carl, and I helped put out in Gulandoda is one of our great trip memories. After a day of evangelism, Sunday school, and a church service, we had finished up dinner and were in the mood for some sleep. The night was winding down and conversation in our hosts' hut was coming to a close. The girls on the team--Panayiota, Beth, and our translators: Andiswa, and Beauty--had finished serving a round of tea. One of our hosts got up to look outside and started gesturing. I looked out and saw a bright flame on the opposing hill. I thought to myself, "Wow, that's kind of pretty at night." But then our translators mentioned something about a fire and the tata (Xhosa for an older man) of the house hurriedly grabbed a couple old shirts and ran out. We were told that the fire threatened the fields of our host family and the father had rushed out with a couple of the younger kids to put out the flame. David rushed to our hut to grab a couple gloves, and one of the mothers handed him a couple old t-shirts. Carl, in a moment of sheer genius, decided to employ his towel to beat out the fire (when it was wet, he could put out more flames than anyone else on our team). I, on the other hand, was handed an empty rice sack, and Beth was kind enough to hand me her headlight.
I ran to catch up with the rest of the team, and David had already gotten his t-shirts wet in the nearby river. I didn't know where it was so he took my rice sack to try and get it wet and, giving me a wet t-shirt, told me to go ahead. When we reached the blaze, I wasn't sure what I thought. It was big, but I figured that if it wasn't big--it wouldn't be fun to put out. I wasn't sure what to do, having never been taught what to do in case of a fire except follow the glowing "exit" signs and--if I had caught on fire--to drop, roll, and something (scream for help, I suppose?). We're not really taught to run into fires; we mostly run from them when they threaten our homes. So, clearly, Stanford graduates aren't prepared to fight brush fires. Two of the kids waltzed nonchalantly up to the nearest flame and started whacking it with their old t-shirts. And, not knowing what else to do, I followed suit. David came back with the rice sack and explained that it couldn't hold water, so I'd just have to whack the fire really hard to be effective. With enough people beating the fire, we finally cleared a path to the field and headed out there.
When the team made it to the field, it was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, and it was too dark to find a way into it. A flame was threatening one corner of the field, so we threw our t-shirts and rice sacks over the wiring and just climbed over the fence. Here, we split into groups of two to handle the fire in different places. Carl and I traveled to the corner and started to put out the flame. Fortunately for us, the field was fallow and the remaining stalks were sitting so far apart from each other that the fire needed intense wind to really do substantial damage to the field. The real trouble was the dry grass that surrounded the field. Those caught on fire quickly and burned intensely if the winds picked up. Carl and I happened to arrive when the winds took over, and the fire was too intense for us to handle. We decided to let it burn and pull out some grass further down the path where it would run out of fuel. Then, we'd attack it there (yay for strategic planning?). Carl's towel was amazingly effective at putting out the grass fire, and it was intensely satisfying to see a single swoosh of his towel put out a large area of fire. I'd beat down the little, simmering flames with my rice sack after Carl had finished punishing the mother flame.
We finished the corner, and Carl headed off to find the others. I was busy making sure the smaller fires were contained and couldn't harm the field anymore. When I had finished, I lost sight of the team and wandered around on the hill until I saw them fighting another fire on the other side of the hill. To give you some sense of where we are: standing at our hosts' hut, his field (and the fire we saw) was at the top of the hill. We had run up one side of the hill to reach the field and had now gone down the other side, so that you couldn't see us if you were standing at our hosts' hut. We were at least a 5-10 minute walk from the hut now. The winds had picked up the flames, and they were approaching some huts in another village nearby (on another hill--in the Eastern Cape, everything is just "over the hill"). Thankfully, the villagers had come out to defend their houses. I turned my attention to another fire threatening another field, and with Carl and Simon, we put it out.
Now the kids came running back to us and told us to go back: we had done enough work. But the fire was still raging intensely in the valley below, and, in its all-consuming beauty, rolled menacingly towards another village. The fire out-paced us, so there was little we could do for them. They would have to fend for themselves.
On our way back, David commented that it was funny that, here, in the Eastern Cape, the girls learned to serve tea (the girls later said that there was really no learning involved), and the boys learned to fight a fire. We had a light laugh. But we were in for more laughter when we made it back to the huts and could see ourselves. I had burned a small hole in my jacket and caught part of it on a barbed wire. Carl's towel was completely black. And David's face was covered in ashes. We took some pictures and washed our faces. Then we saw our dirty hands and washed our hands. After washing our hands, we decided we were clean enough and got ready for bed. But more surprises were in store for us, and when we took off our shoes, what were previously pristine, white, cotton socks were now gray and black. In the two weeks at South Africa, I have managed to completely destroy two pairs of socks--one by running on asphalt and the other by putting out a fire. We took off our socks and washed our feet. And then we noticed that the smoke had gone up our pant legs and our entire legs were covered in smoke. David's leg looked like he was wearing black tights. So we scrubbed ourselves as best we could, laughed about it, and relished in our accomplishment for the day.
The next day, the tata complimented us, saying we were like soldiers out in the field of duty. The entire hill was burnt, but his field remained. I think we all swelled with a little bit of pride--city-slickers putting out a fire.
Okay, now I feel I've done adequate justice to the fire-fighting. :-D I could come up with something profound to say about fighting fires; but at the end of the day, the experience was simply unique and fun--people struggling against the elements as best they can. ;-)
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
After we got back to Cape Town from Transkei on Monday, the team took some time to rest before visiting the local "Learn to Earn." Learn to Earn is a ministry started by a Baptist missionary who desired to provide affordable skill training for the people in Khayelitsha so they could either find jobs or start their own businesses. It was very encouraging to see the awards they had won from the local city and read news articles about the impact they were having on the populace in Khayelitsha. After that visit, we went to the Internet cafe where I wrote my last email.
Monday night. We were finally able to meet with the last member of our team--Andrea--who had arrived while we were still at the Eastern Cape. She had been working with another team, but was finally able to start working with us. She surprised us all with her announcement that she had become a temporary German citizen for five days. The story goes that she lost her passport at the Frankfurt airport and had to become a German in order to stay in the country. After she did that (without speaking a word of German), she was able to go to the US embassy and get an emergency passport. It was by far the funniest travel delay story on our team. Except for David and me, every member of our team has had travel delays.
On Tuesday, we all took a break from work and visited the local sights of Cape Town, seeing the African penguins, the Cape of Good Hope, and the tourist waterfront in the city. We also visited an AIDS ministry called Living Hope. Unfortunately, I ate something weird for lunch and had stomachaches during the whole Living Hope presentation, so I don't remember much. What I do remember is that AIDS is a stigmatized disease in the Cape Town area, yet 1 in 4 people have it. The treatment provided by Living Hope is the latest in AIDS treatment--which the South African government subsidizes--and it is possible for the people who live with AIDS to have normal, healthy lives thanks to this medicine. The greatest trouble, however, is overcoming the social stigma that comes with having AIDS. Living Hope does more than help AIDS patients: they treat tuberculosis and have clinics in nearby communities. They also have after-school programs for young kids, and a soup kitchen for the homeless in the nearby town.
We closed out Tuesday with a waterfront steak dinner that had a spectacular view of Table Mountain.
On Wednesday, David and I got our bags ready for the airport, but before we left, we went with the team to a high school in Khayelitsha to teach a couple classes. With our full six-man team, we taught the high schoolers about obedience--starting out by playing Simon Says, moving to a brainstorm about what obedience is, then acting out the story of Abraham and Isaac, moving into a short discussion of how obedience can be difficult, and closing with song. The high schoolers were shy to speak to us in English, but they enjoyed our stories and especially the song at the end. One class demanded an encore performance, and we sang for them again. In fact, we sang so much that morning, that David's voice was too weak to speak much with me on the flight back to the States. After lunch and after entertaining the high school with our songs, David and I said our goodbyes to the team and left for the airport for our long journey home.
Thoughts and What Next?
On the plane, I finally had some time to write down some of my thoughts. I'd like to share a couple of them with you here.
First, translators and culture. I was extremely grateful for our translators who worked hard to translate our thoughts and ideas into a different language. It's truly a blessing and gift to be able to speak the Gospel in more than one language--and the task of translation is no easy one (trust me, I've tried before). But a person who knows different languages can be a great (practical) blessing to the body of Christ, allowing those who don't speak the same language to communicate and worship together. However, this train of thought makes me wonder how the experience or knowledge of multiple cultures can be a blessing to the church. While it's obvious what sorts of practical advantages a bilingual person might offer, what about someone who experiences and bridges two different cultures? Churches in America seem to be divided by culture--and yet culture certainly ought to be praiseworthy. But how does culture fit or "work" in the body or in the Kingdom? I have no pat answers; but the question floats around in my head.
Second, inequality. It seems that wherever there are people, there will always be some form of power struggle and a lot of jealousy and envy involved. Someone will always "have" more of something, the others will be jealous and either try to obtain it for themselves or grumble at not being able to obtain it. Even if everyone made the same income, we'd find some way to separate ourselves from others--and really, it's just our hearts at work. We want to be special, to be someone worthwhile and someone different from everyone else. And while the differences may be petty, they can still be the source of jealousy or envy. For example, in Khayelithsa, we may find it petty that anyone would be envious of a school with a fence, yet members of the community where we built the fence didn't like the fact that we helped the preschool build a fence but didn't build one for each member of the community. As petty as that sounds, I'm sure that certain American jealousies are silly as well. It just seems that where there are people, because of our differences, we can all too easily find reasons to oppress someone else in our minds--and when we've done it in our minds, we've taken the first step toward the act. But when we consider our differences in light of God's glory, the differences between us measured with the difference between God and man become too tiny to mention. And if Christ bridged the gap between God and man, surely he can bridge the difference between man and man.
Third, evangelism. I briefly mentioned this in my previous email, but I'll restate it here. I often wonder if we can be "irresponsible" missionaries--if preparation betrays a "distrust" of God--or if "trusting God" gives us the license to say anything that comes to mind. There are obvious extremes, but it's a struggle to find the Biblical balance. At one point in the trip, I was so frustrated by the usage of "trust God" that the phrase no longer meant anything to me besides a formality and many of the thoughts I have coming out of this trip revolve around the question of "trusting God." So much of our Christian culture is bound up in the words we use that I wonder if it may be worthwhile to do away with the words and start afresh to truly appreciate the meaning behind the formality.
In any case, the trip has been a good experience, giving me a deeper appreciation of God's Kingdom and forcing me to think more deeply about issues of "being Christian." I do hope and pray that the seeds we planted in South Africa will bear fruit in due time. As for now, I will spend the next couple days adjusting to jet lag and then return to work. Who knows what the future holds? :-D
Prayer Requests.
I do have a couple prayer requests, if you would like to continue to pray for the team and for me.
* While David and I have returned, four members of our team--Andrea, Beth, Carl, and Panayiota--are still in South Africa. Please pray for their ministry and their fellowship with one another.
* David heads off to the Trinity Forum Academy in a couple weeks; pray for the challenges (intellectual and spiritual) he'll face and pray for his fellowship with the other kids at Trinity.
* I will return to work (however mundane that sounds); please pray for the challenges that I'll face in wrestling to find God's Kingdom within my work, for continuing maturity in the faith, and pray as I adjust to a new season in life.
Thank you all for your prayers these past few weeks--they have been heard and answered. Continue to pray for the rest of the team and pray for me, as "mission" work never really ends. On another note, I may send out pictures / videos in a future email.
God Bless,
Eric Chu.
After over 30 hours of travel, I'm sitting in my uncle's house in sunny California writing this email on my laptop. I no longer have to worry about spending too much time writing an email and having to pay for it (really, someone else paid for it--but at least now he won't be beating down my back ;-) )! What that means is that (lucky) you may have to endure many pages and addenda to our adventures in Cape Town and the Eastern Cape--or just a lot of musings about the experience in general.
There are a couple gaps that I wanted to fill in about the last couple days in Transkei (Eastern Cape) and also relate to you about the final days we spent in Cape Town. I put them into sections because I realize that this email will be quite long; feel free to skip around.
The Fire.
The fire Simon (our team leader / mentor), David, Carl, and I helped put out in Gulandoda is one of our great trip memories. After a day of evangelism, Sunday school, and a church service, we had finished up dinner and were in the mood for some sleep. The night was winding down and conversation in our hosts' hut was coming to a close. The girls on the team--Panayiota, Beth, and our translators: Andiswa, and Beauty--had finished serving a round of tea. One of our hosts got up to look outside and started gesturing. I looked out and saw a bright flame on the opposing hill. I thought to myself, "Wow, that's kind of pretty at night." But then our translators mentioned something about a fire and the tata (Xhosa for an older man) of the house hurriedly grabbed a couple old shirts and ran out. We were told that the fire threatened the fields of our host family and the father had rushed out with a couple of the younger kids to put out the flame. David rushed to our hut to grab a couple gloves, and one of the mothers handed him a couple old t-shirts. Carl, in a moment of sheer genius, decided to employ his towel to beat out the fire (when it was wet, he could put out more flames than anyone else on our team). I, on the other hand, was handed an empty rice sack, and Beth was kind enough to hand me her headlight.
I ran to catch up with the rest of the team, and David had already gotten his t-shirts wet in the nearby river. I didn't know where it was so he took my rice sack to try and get it wet and, giving me a wet t-shirt, told me to go ahead. When we reached the blaze, I wasn't sure what I thought. It was big, but I figured that if it wasn't big--it wouldn't be fun to put out. I wasn't sure what to do, having never been taught what to do in case of a fire except follow the glowing "exit" signs and--if I had caught on fire--to drop, roll, and something (scream for help, I suppose?). We're not really taught to run into fires; we mostly run from them when they threaten our homes. So, clearly, Stanford graduates aren't prepared to fight brush fires. Two of the kids waltzed nonchalantly up to the nearest flame and started whacking it with their old t-shirts. And, not knowing what else to do, I followed suit. David came back with the rice sack and explained that it couldn't hold water, so I'd just have to whack the fire really hard to be effective. With enough people beating the fire, we finally cleared a path to the field and headed out there.
When the team made it to the field, it was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, and it was too dark to find a way into it. A flame was threatening one corner of the field, so we threw our t-shirts and rice sacks over the wiring and just climbed over the fence. Here, we split into groups of two to handle the fire in different places. Carl and I traveled to the corner and started to put out the flame. Fortunately for us, the field was fallow and the remaining stalks were sitting so far apart from each other that the fire needed intense wind to really do substantial damage to the field. The real trouble was the dry grass that surrounded the field. Those caught on fire quickly and burned intensely if the winds picked up. Carl and I happened to arrive when the winds took over, and the fire was too intense for us to handle. We decided to let it burn and pull out some grass further down the path where it would run out of fuel. Then, we'd attack it there (yay for strategic planning?). Carl's towel was amazingly effective at putting out the grass fire, and it was intensely satisfying to see a single swoosh of his towel put out a large area of fire. I'd beat down the little, simmering flames with my rice sack after Carl had finished punishing the mother flame.
We finished the corner, and Carl headed off to find the others. I was busy making sure the smaller fires were contained and couldn't harm the field anymore. When I had finished, I lost sight of the team and wandered around on the hill until I saw them fighting another fire on the other side of the hill. To give you some sense of where we are: standing at our hosts' hut, his field (and the fire we saw) was at the top of the hill. We had run up one side of the hill to reach the field and had now gone down the other side, so that you couldn't see us if you were standing at our hosts' hut. We were at least a 5-10 minute walk from the hut now. The winds had picked up the flames, and they were approaching some huts in another village nearby (on another hill--in the Eastern Cape, everything is just "over the hill"). Thankfully, the villagers had come out to defend their houses. I turned my attention to another fire threatening another field, and with Carl and Simon, we put it out.
Now the kids came running back to us and told us to go back: we had done enough work. But the fire was still raging intensely in the valley below, and, in its all-consuming beauty, rolled menacingly towards another village. The fire out-paced us, so there was little we could do for them. They would have to fend for themselves.
On our way back, David commented that it was funny that, here, in the Eastern Cape, the girls learned to serve tea (the girls later said that there was really no learning involved), and the boys learned to fight a fire. We had a light laugh. But we were in for more laughter when we made it back to the huts and could see ourselves. I had burned a small hole in my jacket and caught part of it on a barbed wire. Carl's towel was completely black. And David's face was covered in ashes. We took some pictures and washed our faces. Then we saw our dirty hands and washed our hands. After washing our hands, we decided we were clean enough and got ready for bed. But more surprises were in store for us, and when we took off our shoes, what were previously pristine, white, cotton socks were now gray and black. In the two weeks at South Africa, I have managed to completely destroy two pairs of socks--one by running on asphalt and the other by putting out a fire. We took off our socks and washed our feet. And then we noticed that the smoke had gone up our pant legs and our entire legs were covered in smoke. David's leg looked like he was wearing black tights. So we scrubbed ourselves as best we could, laughed about it, and relished in our accomplishment for the day.
The next day, the tata complimented us, saying we were like soldiers out in the field of duty. The entire hill was burnt, but his field remained. I think we all swelled with a little bit of pride--city-slickers putting out a fire.
Okay, now I feel I've done adequate justice to the fire-fighting. :-D I could come up with something profound to say about fighting fires; but at the end of the day, the experience was simply unique and fun--people struggling against the elements as best they can. ;-)
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
After we got back to Cape Town from Transkei on Monday, the team took some time to rest before visiting the local "Learn to Earn." Learn to Earn is a ministry started by a Baptist missionary who desired to provide affordable skill training for the people in Khayelitsha so they could either find jobs or start their own businesses. It was very encouraging to see the awards they had won from the local city and read news articles about the impact they were having on the populace in Khayelitsha. After that visit, we went to the Internet cafe where I wrote my last email.
Monday night. We were finally able to meet with the last member of our team--Andrea--who had arrived while we were still at the Eastern Cape. She had been working with another team, but was finally able to start working with us. She surprised us all with her announcement that she had become a temporary German citizen for five days. The story goes that she lost her passport at the Frankfurt airport and had to become a German in order to stay in the country. After she did that (without speaking a word of German), she was able to go to the US embassy and get an emergency passport. It was by far the funniest travel delay story on our team. Except for David and me, every member of our team has had travel delays.
On Tuesday, we all took a break from work and visited the local sights of Cape Town, seeing the African penguins, the Cape of Good Hope, and the tourist waterfront in the city. We also visited an AIDS ministry called Living Hope. Unfortunately, I ate something weird for lunch and had stomachaches during the whole Living Hope presentation, so I don't remember much. What I do remember is that AIDS is a stigmatized disease in the Cape Town area, yet 1 in 4 people have it. The treatment provided by Living Hope is the latest in AIDS treatment--which the South African government subsidizes--and it is possible for the people who live with AIDS to have normal, healthy lives thanks to this medicine. The greatest trouble, however, is overcoming the social stigma that comes with having AIDS. Living Hope does more than help AIDS patients: they treat tuberculosis and have clinics in nearby communities. They also have after-school programs for young kids, and a soup kitchen for the homeless in the nearby town.
We closed out Tuesday with a waterfront steak dinner that had a spectacular view of Table Mountain.
On Wednesday, David and I got our bags ready for the airport, but before we left, we went with the team to a high school in Khayelitsha to teach a couple classes. With our full six-man team, we taught the high schoolers about obedience--starting out by playing Simon Says, moving to a brainstorm about what obedience is, then acting out the story of Abraham and Isaac, moving into a short discussion of how obedience can be difficult, and closing with song. The high schoolers were shy to speak to us in English, but they enjoyed our stories and especially the song at the end. One class demanded an encore performance, and we sang for them again. In fact, we sang so much that morning, that David's voice was too weak to speak much with me on the flight back to the States. After lunch and after entertaining the high school with our songs, David and I said our goodbyes to the team and left for the airport for our long journey home.
Thoughts and What Next?
On the plane, I finally had some time to write down some of my thoughts. I'd like to share a couple of them with you here.
First, translators and culture. I was extremely grateful for our translators who worked hard to translate our thoughts and ideas into a different language. It's truly a blessing and gift to be able to speak the Gospel in more than one language--and the task of translation is no easy one (trust me, I've tried before). But a person who knows different languages can be a great (practical) blessing to the body of Christ, allowing those who don't speak the same language to communicate and worship together. However, this train of thought makes me wonder how the experience or knowledge of multiple cultures can be a blessing to the church. While it's obvious what sorts of practical advantages a bilingual person might offer, what about someone who experiences and bridges two different cultures? Churches in America seem to be divided by culture--and yet culture certainly ought to be praiseworthy. But how does culture fit or "work" in the body or in the Kingdom? I have no pat answers; but the question floats around in my head.
Second, inequality. It seems that wherever there are people, there will always be some form of power struggle and a lot of jealousy and envy involved. Someone will always "have" more of something, the others will be jealous and either try to obtain it for themselves or grumble at not being able to obtain it. Even if everyone made the same income, we'd find some way to separate ourselves from others--and really, it's just our hearts at work. We want to be special, to be someone worthwhile and someone different from everyone else. And while the differences may be petty, they can still be the source of jealousy or envy. For example, in Khayelithsa, we may find it petty that anyone would be envious of a school with a fence, yet members of the community where we built the fence didn't like the fact that we helped the preschool build a fence but didn't build one for each member of the community. As petty as that sounds, I'm sure that certain American jealousies are silly as well. It just seems that where there are people, because of our differences, we can all too easily find reasons to oppress someone else in our minds--and when we've done it in our minds, we've taken the first step toward the act. But when we consider our differences in light of God's glory, the differences between us measured with the difference between God and man become too tiny to mention. And if Christ bridged the gap between God and man, surely he can bridge the difference between man and man.
Third, evangelism. I briefly mentioned this in my previous email, but I'll restate it here. I often wonder if we can be "irresponsible" missionaries--if preparation betrays a "distrust" of God--or if "trusting God" gives us the license to say anything that comes to mind. There are obvious extremes, but it's a struggle to find the Biblical balance. At one point in the trip, I was so frustrated by the usage of "trust God" that the phrase no longer meant anything to me besides a formality and many of the thoughts I have coming out of this trip revolve around the question of "trusting God." So much of our Christian culture is bound up in the words we use that I wonder if it may be worthwhile to do away with the words and start afresh to truly appreciate the meaning behind the formality.
In any case, the trip has been a good experience, giving me a deeper appreciation of God's Kingdom and forcing me to think more deeply about issues of "being Christian." I do hope and pray that the seeds we planted in South Africa will bear fruit in due time. As for now, I will spend the next couple days adjusting to jet lag and then return to work. Who knows what the future holds? :-D
Prayer Requests.
I do have a couple prayer requests, if you would like to continue to pray for the team and for me.
* While David and I have returned, four members of our team--Andrea, Beth, Carl, and Panayiota--are still in South Africa. Please pray for their ministry and their fellowship with one another.
* David heads off to the Trinity Forum Academy in a couple weeks; pray for the challenges (intellectual and spiritual) he'll face and pray for his fellowship with the other kids at Trinity.
* I will return to work (however mundane that sounds); please pray for the challenges that I'll face in wrestling to find God's Kingdom within my work, for continuing maturity in the faith, and pray as I adjust to a new season in life.
Thank you all for your prayers these past few weeks--they have been heard and answered. Continue to pray for the rest of the team and pray for me, as "mission" work never really ends. On another note, I may send out pictures / videos in a future email.
God Bless,
Eric Chu.
South Africa: Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water
Dear Family & Friends,
It's been over one week since my last email. Our team has been in Transkei (also known as the Eastern Cape) doing evangelism and teaching work for an entire week.
The people who live in Khayelitsha have traditionally moved here from the Eastern Cape to find better living opportunities, so we went out there to see what life is like there. It was a very long bus ride, approximately 14 hours. After getting off the bus, we met with two of the local pastors--Mama Silvia and Masakane--who then packed us into a taxi to drive an hour out to the place we were staying--Gulandoda. When I say "packed" into a taxi, I mean we were packed. The taxi was a little truck with a canopy out back. Three people (including the driver) sat in the front, and the team (five people) sat in the back. Our luggage was fastened on the roof of the canopy and the miscellaneous groceries we had bought for the week were thrown in to the back along with the people. David's guitar rested in the pile somewhere. While it wasn't so bad driving around in the city, once we hit the coutryside, the gravel road did not make for a comfortable ride--but we had a lot of fun bouncing around in the back of the truck with groceries at our feet and a guitar floating around in the "stuff" somewhere. We also occasionally peered out back to make sure our luggage hadn't fallen off the roof of the taxi.
Upon arriving at our host's house, we were given a great welcome. The kids came running out to help us move stuff to our rooms and the family members invited us to tea after we'd gotten settled in. Our hosts lived in a mud-brick hut with thatched roofs (covered with tin to provide shielding from the rain) and fairly poor ventilation. They had built another little hut to its side for the mission teams that drop by. There isn't much of a toilet or bathroom--you basically do all you need to do outdoors. The view from the house was gorgeous, however, overlooking a valley of dry, golden grass spackled with a couple lonely trees. On the other side of the valley was a set of mesas, dotted with villages and more of the wonderful, golden grass. Behind us, a forest rose up into the mountains that overlooked the house. It was almost like living in Yosemite, except less green--more gold. The sunsets from the house were even more magnificent, with the sun falling behind the mountains and filling the golden valley with a light shade of fire orange and then pink and dark red. We happened to arrive aroud the time of a full moon, so the nighttimes were equally beautiful and well-lit. Our flashlights came into very little use. Even though it seemed so beautiful, the valley was very dry and the area was in the middle of a winter drought--so fires in the valley were fairly common.
During our time there, we had the same schedule every day. We'd wake up aroud 7am, have morning devotions with Mama Silvia, Masakane, and our host family. Then we'd hike out to the nearby villages with our translators (Beauty and Andiswa) and visit various huts. Afternoon would roll around and we'd have an amazing lunch (they made very good food for us), rest a little, walk up to the church that sat behind the house and teach a short Sunday school for the children. Then, come 6 pm, we'd have a nighttime service, eat dinner, and call it wraps for the day.
On the day we arrived, we kept the schedule light and only held a midday Sunday school for the children. We told them the story of Jesus and Zaccheus and made a craft related to the story and sang songs. The plan for the week was to tell various stories about Jesus and end with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. We told them the story of Jesus and Zaccheus, Jesus feeding the 5000, Jesus calming the storm, Jesus washes his disciples feet, and Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. Each Sunday school lesson had a craft attached to it, and the kids were always very excited to do the crafts. They were even more excited to sing the songs and even stayed after Sunday school just to sing with David on the guitar!
We had arrived on Tuesday and kept the day very light, adjusting to the environment (learning to go to the bathroom outside, etc. ;-) ) and taking in the view as well as our hosts' hospitality. They had food ready on time and were very happy to serve us in any way possible. On Wednesday, Beth finally arrived from the United States and our six-man team was at last five-man full. We were also blessed with the presence of another translator--Andiswa--who had kindly taken a week off from her summer break to help us out. She goes to school in the US on a South Africa scholarship.
On Wednesday, we started our evangelism in Gulandoda and visited various huts. Beth and I traveled on a team with Beauty, our translator, and Mama Silvia. We had time to visit two huts, both with single moms, taking care of their children. The visit to the first hut struck me the hardest. The mom lived with her daughter and mother--so a family of three generations under one roof. Her husband had recently left her, her daughter was having stomach pains (and they feared pregnancy), and the grandmother was too weak to walk. She had to take care of the house and the family by herself. I didn't know where to start, but I explained why we were in her village and offered words from Scripture to comfort her (from 1 Corinthians 1 and Psalm 23). She told us that no one in the village had bothered to take care of her or see how she was doing; they mostly ignored her--and this was the first time anyone had bothered to see how she was. Mama Silvia talked to her briefly, and she and her family gave their life to Christ on the spot. I left her with a Xhosa Bible that day, hoping that it might offer some comfort and peace. We visited her again before we left and found that she was doing much better (the grandmother had gone out for a walk!)--for that, I praise God.
The other days of evangelism eventually took their toll on me, especially as I began to feel less and less prepared--that since arriving in South Africa I have been thrust about left and right without a sense of direction. We would never know what was planned for us the next day until the day of--and sometimes, we'd find out only hours beforehand. Every missionary is in a hurry to get from A to B (driving in excess of 120 km/h--90mph) and none of our tasks would be very well-defined. We'd be told to evangelize, but not told how or even informed of the situation of the people. Instead, we'd be told to trust in the power of God and His Word to speak to the people. While I don't doubt that God is strong in my weakness, I wonder if there's such a thing as irresponsible missions--where "trust God" becomes the excuse to be unprepared in various circumstances. Eventually, doing evangelism in Gulandoda for a week without having an ounce of knowledge about the people that live there, their culture, and their lifestyle, I had to wonder if our work was "For the Kingdom" at all. I'm struggling with human responsibility and God's sovereignty.
Well, I just accidentally wiped my email (and Gmail only saved up to here :( ), so I will cut it short here and hopefully fill you all in later. But the short of it is that there was a brush fire on Thursday and the guys helped put it out (it was a lot of fun!), Friday we had freak winds and rain, and Saturday we had wind and dust--so, all in all, during our stay in Gulandoda, we had experienced all the elements!
I will leave you with a short lists of prayer requests:
* David and I head back to the States in a couple days. Please pray for safe travels.
* The team's been pushed pretty hard, and we're all sick. Pray for our health.
* And pray for me as I wrestled with the concept of evangelism and God's role as well as ours in it.
I hope you are all well, and I miss you all,
Eric Chu.
It's been over one week since my last email. Our team has been in Transkei (also known as the Eastern Cape) doing evangelism and teaching work for an entire week.
The people who live in Khayelitsha have traditionally moved here from the Eastern Cape to find better living opportunities, so we went out there to see what life is like there. It was a very long bus ride, approximately 14 hours. After getting off the bus, we met with two of the local pastors--Mama Silvia and Masakane--who then packed us into a taxi to drive an hour out to the place we were staying--Gulandoda. When I say "packed" into a taxi, I mean we were packed. The taxi was a little truck with a canopy out back. Three people (including the driver) sat in the front, and the team (five people) sat in the back. Our luggage was fastened on the roof of the canopy and the miscellaneous groceries we had bought for the week were thrown in to the back along with the people. David's guitar rested in the pile somewhere. While it wasn't so bad driving around in the city, once we hit the coutryside, the gravel road did not make for a comfortable ride--but we had a lot of fun bouncing around in the back of the truck with groceries at our feet and a guitar floating around in the "stuff" somewhere. We also occasionally peered out back to make sure our luggage hadn't fallen off the roof of the taxi.
Upon arriving at our host's house, we were given a great welcome. The kids came running out to help us move stuff to our rooms and the family members invited us to tea after we'd gotten settled in. Our hosts lived in a mud-brick hut with thatched roofs (covered with tin to provide shielding from the rain) and fairly poor ventilation. They had built another little hut to its side for the mission teams that drop by. There isn't much of a toilet or bathroom--you basically do all you need to do outdoors. The view from the house was gorgeous, however, overlooking a valley of dry, golden grass spackled with a couple lonely trees. On the other side of the valley was a set of mesas, dotted with villages and more of the wonderful, golden grass. Behind us, a forest rose up into the mountains that overlooked the house. It was almost like living in Yosemite, except less green--more gold. The sunsets from the house were even more magnificent, with the sun falling behind the mountains and filling the golden valley with a light shade of fire orange and then pink and dark red. We happened to arrive aroud the time of a full moon, so the nighttimes were equally beautiful and well-lit. Our flashlights came into very little use. Even though it seemed so beautiful, the valley was very dry and the area was in the middle of a winter drought--so fires in the valley were fairly common.
During our time there, we had the same schedule every day. We'd wake up aroud 7am, have morning devotions with Mama Silvia, Masakane, and our host family. Then we'd hike out to the nearby villages with our translators (Beauty and Andiswa) and visit various huts. Afternoon would roll around and we'd have an amazing lunch (they made very good food for us), rest a little, walk up to the church that sat behind the house and teach a short Sunday school for the children. Then, come 6 pm, we'd have a nighttime service, eat dinner, and call it wraps for the day.
On the day we arrived, we kept the schedule light and only held a midday Sunday school for the children. We told them the story of Jesus and Zaccheus and made a craft related to the story and sang songs. The plan for the week was to tell various stories about Jesus and end with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. We told them the story of Jesus and Zaccheus, Jesus feeding the 5000, Jesus calming the storm, Jesus washes his disciples feet, and Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. Each Sunday school lesson had a craft attached to it, and the kids were always very excited to do the crafts. They were even more excited to sing the songs and even stayed after Sunday school just to sing with David on the guitar!
We had arrived on Tuesday and kept the day very light, adjusting to the environment (learning to go to the bathroom outside, etc. ;-) ) and taking in the view as well as our hosts' hospitality. They had food ready on time and were very happy to serve us in any way possible. On Wednesday, Beth finally arrived from the United States and our six-man team was at last five-man full. We were also blessed with the presence of another translator--Andiswa--who had kindly taken a week off from her summer break to help us out. She goes to school in the US on a South Africa scholarship.
On Wednesday, we started our evangelism in Gulandoda and visited various huts. Beth and I traveled on a team with Beauty, our translator, and Mama Silvia. We had time to visit two huts, both with single moms, taking care of their children. The visit to the first hut struck me the hardest. The mom lived with her daughter and mother--so a family of three generations under one roof. Her husband had recently left her, her daughter was having stomach pains (and they feared pregnancy), and the grandmother was too weak to walk. She had to take care of the house and the family by herself. I didn't know where to start, but I explained why we were in her village and offered words from Scripture to comfort her (from 1 Corinthians 1 and Psalm 23). She told us that no one in the village had bothered to take care of her or see how she was doing; they mostly ignored her--and this was the first time anyone had bothered to see how she was. Mama Silvia talked to her briefly, and she and her family gave their life to Christ on the spot. I left her with a Xhosa Bible that day, hoping that it might offer some comfort and peace. We visited her again before we left and found that she was doing much better (the grandmother had gone out for a walk!)--for that, I praise God.
The other days of evangelism eventually took their toll on me, especially as I began to feel less and less prepared--that since arriving in South Africa I have been thrust about left and right without a sense of direction. We would never know what was planned for us the next day until the day of--and sometimes, we'd find out only hours beforehand. Every missionary is in a hurry to get from A to B (driving in excess of 120 km/h--90mph) and none of our tasks would be very well-defined. We'd be told to evangelize, but not told how or even informed of the situation of the people. Instead, we'd be told to trust in the power of God and His Word to speak to the people. While I don't doubt that God is strong in my weakness, I wonder if there's such a thing as irresponsible missions--where "trust God" becomes the excuse to be unprepared in various circumstances. Eventually, doing evangelism in Gulandoda for a week without having an ounce of knowledge about the people that live there, their culture, and their lifestyle, I had to wonder if our work was "For the Kingdom" at all. I'm struggling with human responsibility and God's sovereignty.
Well, I just accidentally wiped my email (and Gmail only saved up to here :( ), so I will cut it short here and hopefully fill you all in later. But the short of it is that there was a brush fire on Thursday and the guys helped put it out (it was a lot of fun!), Friday we had freak winds and rain, and Saturday we had wind and dust--so, all in all, during our stay in Gulandoda, we had experienced all the elements!
I will leave you with a short lists of prayer requests:
* David and I head back to the States in a couple days. Please pray for safe travels.
* The team's been pushed pretty hard, and we're all sick. Pray for our health.
* And pray for me as I wrestled with the concept of evangelism and God's role as well as ours in it.
I hope you are all well, and I miss you all,
Eric Chu.
South Africa: Pressed for Time
Dear Family and Friends,
I am pressed for time and must attempt to summarize the past couple days as quickly as I can, since we're sitting in an Internet cafe, and I'm trying to save money. ;-) (Even though I'm not really paying for it.)
When I last sent an update, we had finished putting in poles for a fence around a preschool in Khayelitsha. I don't think I did justice to the whole endeavor, but I will try to in this email. On Wednesday, Carl Erickson arrived from the States and was immediately whisked away to the preschool. Meanwhile, David, Panayiota, and I had just gotten up at the mission house and were ready to throw on our backpacks and finish up the fencing work. One of the missionaries with us suddenly yelled for David and me, we ran outside (David wisely put on his shoes, and I ran outside in my socks) to see him pushing a car, trying to get it started. (By the way, I've learned a great deal about cars here, because the missionaries use old, run-down manual transmission vehicles and do what they can with them--including driving at speeds of approximately 100 mph. Apparently, for the missionaries here, time in the car is wasted time. My American sensibilities tell me, "Well, if we don't get there in one piece, what *can* we do anyway?") We push it down a hill. Nothing. We push it down another hill. Still nothing. And before I know it, I'm running along in my socks and pushing this car to the mechanic. And my white socks are now plastered in black--asphalt, dirt, rubber, whatever stuff is on the ground on the roads here. Mom, I'll clean it up before you see it. ;)
Anyway, because of the little car problem, we end up being late and Carl's been waiting a couple hours. But when we finally all meet up, it's a grand ol' Stanford reunion as we're all happy to see each other once again. But we're quickly thrown in the fray once again. At this point, David and I have gotten good at mixing cement and making concrete to use to keep the poles stuck in the sand (if you're ever thinking about remodeling your house and need some concrete--David and I will do it for free. ;) ). It's an awful lot of fun, and Carl heartily joins in the fun proclaiming to us all, "I love manual labor!" At the end of the day, we've got rock-solid fence posts planted in the sand around the preschool and have begun to string the actual fence around the posts--but, alas, we don't quite finish. We decide to return on Thursday and finish up the job.
For the rest of the day, we spent some time evangelizing in another part of Khayelitsha. Simon (our German friend) and I decided to go without a translator and try evangelizing in English. We were mostly rejected by the locals, but it gave me a taste of just how easily language divides people. With a translator, the locals were much more inclined to talk to us. But we did manage to talk to a couple of men. They asked us to pray for them--for their safety. It never really struck me just how deeply the men here fear for their lives. If they're not looking for jobs, they're looking out for their backs. While it's fairly safe in the daytime, at night, Khayelitsha is fairly dangerous. The government reports that, on average, roughly 2 people die (are murdered?) a day in Khayelitsha. For those concerned about my safety, just know that we're usually there in the daytime and in a large group. Besides, God protects us. ;-)
On Thursday, we spend the morning helping out at a soup kitchen one of the ladies started up. It wasn't quite what I expected. I thought we'd go and serve some food; instead, we ended up being part of a worship session. The African people here are so passionate in their worship! When one song rolls to a close, someone will start another song; and maybe someone else will dance. And whenever I think the singing's finally ended, a new song will start. There are plenty of requests for English songs, and David quickly exhausts his repertoire. But we all have a jolly good time singing songs and praying for a good hour or two--quite different from the more rigid structure of worship in the States. Here, most everything is spontaneous--except combustion. ;)
In the afternoon, we head to the preschool and finish up the fence, reinforcing it with some wire and taking the time to admire our work. We also hold a mini-Sunday school for the kids, telling them the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 3?) as well as making crafts with the kids. There were over 50 little kids there--believe me, it was chaotic. I think we all have a new found appreciation for preschool and elementary school teachers. Oh--and to add to the chaos--we decide to hand out snacks to the kids. Trying to create order out of chaos without understanding very much Xhosa beyond "Hello" and "Thank you" is quite the challenge. David resorted to his foreign language knowledge base (the part of his brain where he stores information about every other language except English) and started yelling, "Aqui!" (Spanish for "Here!") to get the children to stay put. Needless to say, the rest of us had a good laugh.
On a more serious note, I have to wonder if we're really helping with the kids. It's hard for us to communicate to them precisely why we're there (they see us more like giant playthings) and when it comes to candy, there are a hundred little voices chanting, "Gimme my snacks. Gimme my snacks." And while we'd like to please the kids, do we not spoil them just a little by acquiescing to their demands? I was also frustrated with our inability to set some ground rules with the children. While we were playing outside, a couple of the boys got into a fist fight. One of them ended up with a swollen bump on his head and cried out loud--very loud. I took them aside and scolded them in English (thankfully, our translator--Beauty--was there to translate); but, in reality, I was more frustrated with our irresponsibility, which was more a result of an inability to communicate more than anything. Granted, the children respond to any provocation mostly by fighting and pushing (since they don't know any better), but I wonder if our work here, while good, isn't completely thought out at times. Or maybe I'm just too used to the "way things are done" back in the US.
Thursday night, we dropped by another Bible study for a soccer team. Panayiota shared her testimony to the group, and Carl shared a couple verses from the Bible. And that wrapped our Thursday.
On Friday, we were scheduled to play soccer with the teams, but it burst out raining in the skies. We kept things light on Friday, reinforcing one of the other preschools (there's like 28 of them in Khayelitsha) with tires filled with sand. We use old tires to build a sort of support structure around the building and fill it with sand to keep the sand from blowing away. Again, Carl spoke our thoughts: "I love manual labor!"
For the remainder of the day, we stayed indoors, painting at yet *another* preschool. We decorated the inside with giant flowers and grass and butterflies and fish and ocean waves and numbers and letters and shapes and rainbows and all happy things that make children fly when sprinkled with pixie dust. Because of the rain, the soccer game was canceled, and we took our time creating a fabulous work of art indoors. Carl might have dumped a bucket of golden paint all over himself, but we all had a good laugh out of it. Panayiota might have painted the nicest butterfly. I might've put paint on my foot to make footprints on a wall. And David, well, let's say that I'm grateful that he can at least use a paint brush to paint the wall instead of himself. ;-) All in all, Friday was restful, even though it was full of manual labor.
Come Saturday, we had the busiest schedule by far. Splitting into two teams (Panayiota and I, David and Carl), we went to help with some of the Sunday schools in Khayelitsha, singing songs with the kids and telling Bible stories. Panayiota and I had a smaller group of kids than the ones we worked with on Thursday. I took a couple videos of them (hopefully we can upload them in the future) singing songs and playing games. They're so full of energy! I'm used to shy, Asian kids that hide behind tables and chairs--not quite used to the African kids that dance like there is no tomorrow. If you think a recent Stanford engineering graduate is "young and hip," then even I--the young and hip--couldn't keep up with the moves those kids were showing! It was fun!
(And now I'm running even shorter on time, so I'm going to blaze through the rest of this....)
For the rest of Saturday, we joined in a netball tournament and shared some testimonies at a youth group service. (Told ya, I'm running short on time ;-) ). We also did some more evangelism.
Over dinner on Saturday, Pastor Ohm shared with us a bit. He'd been sharing every day after dinner, but the sharing on Saturday struck me a bit--probably because it is so close in time to today, so I remember it--but also because a part of me disagreed with what he had to say. We talked about the Christian's potential to reach many people; but the angle Pastor Ohm took rubbed me the wrong way. I think, in general, I am tired of people telling me, "You're special! You can make a difference in the world!" It's not because I don't believe them, but it's because it fuels too much of my ego. Mission work suddenly becomes *my* work; our success suddenly becomes *my* success. I'm sure Pastor Ohm had good intentions in encouraging us and reminding us that we have the opportunity to reach many, many people--but I too easily steal God's work and treat His Kingdom as mine. And, especially in the US, I too often thinking I'm more important than I really am.
Well, to keep the email short, I'll sum up today.
We went to one of the local churches to share what we were doing in the area and to encouarge them to get involved with African Leadership. The pastor invited us over to his house to have lunch, and we had a grand old time. We then headed to Table Mountain to look out around the area. We also threw a frisbee off the top to see how far it could go. :-D
My apologies for the email cut short, but here is a list of things to continue prayer for.
* We are headed to Transkei tomorrow to do evangelism and play with the kids. Pray for our relationship with the community there.
* Pray for the trip to Transkei tomorrow. It's a car trip that's over 12 hours long.
* Pray for the safety of Beth and Andrea's arrival. Beth will meet us in Transkei on Tuesday.
* Pray for my heart and mind as I wrestle with the issues of missions and the missionary attitude--and also as I wrestle with some of my past experiences with "missionaries" in Taiwan (I wish I had time to explain, but I'm sorry, I don't).
One of these days, I will sit down and organize these thoughts into something more coherent instead of a time-limited stream-of-consciousness.
Miss you all,
Eric Chu.
I am pressed for time and must attempt to summarize the past couple days as quickly as I can, since we're sitting in an Internet cafe, and I'm trying to save money. ;-) (Even though I'm not really paying for it.)
When I last sent an update, we had finished putting in poles for a fence around a preschool in Khayelitsha. I don't think I did justice to the whole endeavor, but I will try to in this email. On Wednesday, Carl Erickson arrived from the States and was immediately whisked away to the preschool. Meanwhile, David, Panayiota, and I had just gotten up at the mission house and were ready to throw on our backpacks and finish up the fencing work. One of the missionaries with us suddenly yelled for David and me, we ran outside (David wisely put on his shoes, and I ran outside in my socks) to see him pushing a car, trying to get it started. (By the way, I've learned a great deal about cars here, because the missionaries use old, run-down manual transmission vehicles and do what they can with them--including driving at speeds of approximately 100 mph. Apparently, for the missionaries here, time in the car is wasted time. My American sensibilities tell me, "Well, if we don't get there in one piece, what *can* we do anyway?") We push it down a hill. Nothing. We push it down another hill. Still nothing. And before I know it, I'm running along in my socks and pushing this car to the mechanic. And my white socks are now plastered in black--asphalt, dirt, rubber, whatever stuff is on the ground on the roads here. Mom, I'll clean it up before you see it. ;)
Anyway, because of the little car problem, we end up being late and Carl's been waiting a couple hours. But when we finally all meet up, it's a grand ol' Stanford reunion as we're all happy to see each other once again. But we're quickly thrown in the fray once again. At this point, David and I have gotten good at mixing cement and making concrete to use to keep the poles stuck in the sand (if you're ever thinking about remodeling your house and need some concrete--David and I will do it for free. ;) ). It's an awful lot of fun, and Carl heartily joins in the fun proclaiming to us all, "I love manual labor!" At the end of the day, we've got rock-solid fence posts planted in the sand around the preschool and have begun to string the actual fence around the posts--but, alas, we don't quite finish. We decide to return on Thursday and finish up the job.
For the rest of the day, we spent some time evangelizing in another part of Khayelitsha. Simon (our German friend) and I decided to go without a translator and try evangelizing in English. We were mostly rejected by the locals, but it gave me a taste of just how easily language divides people. With a translator, the locals were much more inclined to talk to us. But we did manage to talk to a couple of men. They asked us to pray for them--for their safety. It never really struck me just how deeply the men here fear for their lives. If they're not looking for jobs, they're looking out for their backs. While it's fairly safe in the daytime, at night, Khayelitsha is fairly dangerous. The government reports that, on average, roughly 2 people die (are murdered?) a day in Khayelitsha. For those concerned about my safety, just know that we're usually there in the daytime and in a large group. Besides, God protects us. ;-)
On Thursday, we spend the morning helping out at a soup kitchen one of the ladies started up. It wasn't quite what I expected. I thought we'd go and serve some food; instead, we ended up being part of a worship session. The African people here are so passionate in their worship! When one song rolls to a close, someone will start another song; and maybe someone else will dance. And whenever I think the singing's finally ended, a new song will start. There are plenty of requests for English songs, and David quickly exhausts his repertoire. But we all have a jolly good time singing songs and praying for a good hour or two--quite different from the more rigid structure of worship in the States. Here, most everything is spontaneous--except combustion. ;)
In the afternoon, we head to the preschool and finish up the fence, reinforcing it with some wire and taking the time to admire our work. We also hold a mini-Sunday school for the kids, telling them the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 3?) as well as making crafts with the kids. There were over 50 little kids there--believe me, it was chaotic. I think we all have a new found appreciation for preschool and elementary school teachers. Oh--and to add to the chaos--we decide to hand out snacks to the kids. Trying to create order out of chaos without understanding very much Xhosa beyond "Hello" and "Thank you" is quite the challenge. David resorted to his foreign language knowledge base (the part of his brain where he stores information about every other language except English) and started yelling, "Aqui!" (Spanish for "Here!") to get the children to stay put. Needless to say, the rest of us had a good laugh.
On a more serious note, I have to wonder if we're really helping with the kids. It's hard for us to communicate to them precisely why we're there (they see us more like giant playthings) and when it comes to candy, there are a hundred little voices chanting, "Gimme my snacks. Gimme my snacks." And while we'd like to please the kids, do we not spoil them just a little by acquiescing to their demands? I was also frustrated with our inability to set some ground rules with the children. While we were playing outside, a couple of the boys got into a fist fight. One of them ended up with a swollen bump on his head and cried out loud--very loud. I took them aside and scolded them in English (thankfully, our translator--Beauty--was there to translate); but, in reality, I was more frustrated with our irresponsibility, which was more a result of an inability to communicate more than anything. Granted, the children respond to any provocation mostly by fighting and pushing (since they don't know any better), but I wonder if our work here, while good, isn't completely thought out at times. Or maybe I'm just too used to the "way things are done" back in the US.
Thursday night, we dropped by another Bible study for a soccer team. Panayiota shared her testimony to the group, and Carl shared a couple verses from the Bible. And that wrapped our Thursday.
On Friday, we were scheduled to play soccer with the teams, but it burst out raining in the skies. We kept things light on Friday, reinforcing one of the other preschools (there's like 28 of them in Khayelitsha) with tires filled with sand. We use old tires to build a sort of support structure around the building and fill it with sand to keep the sand from blowing away. Again, Carl spoke our thoughts: "I love manual labor!"
For the remainder of the day, we stayed indoors, painting at yet *another* preschool. We decorated the inside with giant flowers and grass and butterflies and fish and ocean waves and numbers and letters and shapes and rainbows and all happy things that make children fly when sprinkled with pixie dust. Because of the rain, the soccer game was canceled, and we took our time creating a fabulous work of art indoors. Carl might have dumped a bucket of golden paint all over himself, but we all had a good laugh out of it. Panayiota might have painted the nicest butterfly. I might've put paint on my foot to make footprints on a wall. And David, well, let's say that I'm grateful that he can at least use a paint brush to paint the wall instead of himself. ;-) All in all, Friday was restful, even though it was full of manual labor.
Come Saturday, we had the busiest schedule by far. Splitting into two teams (Panayiota and I, David and Carl), we went to help with some of the Sunday schools in Khayelitsha, singing songs with the kids and telling Bible stories. Panayiota and I had a smaller group of kids than the ones we worked with on Thursday. I took a couple videos of them (hopefully we can upload them in the future) singing songs and playing games. They're so full of energy! I'm used to shy, Asian kids that hide behind tables and chairs--not quite used to the African kids that dance like there is no tomorrow. If you think a recent Stanford engineering graduate is "young and hip," then even I--the young and hip--couldn't keep up with the moves those kids were showing! It was fun!
(And now I'm running even shorter on time, so I'm going to blaze through the rest of this....)
For the rest of Saturday, we joined in a netball tournament and shared some testimonies at a youth group service. (Told ya, I'm running short on time ;-) ). We also did some more evangelism.
Over dinner on Saturday, Pastor Ohm shared with us a bit. He'd been sharing every day after dinner, but the sharing on Saturday struck me a bit--probably because it is so close in time to today, so I remember it--but also because a part of me disagreed with what he had to say. We talked about the Christian's potential to reach many people; but the angle Pastor Ohm took rubbed me the wrong way. I think, in general, I am tired of people telling me, "You're special! You can make a difference in the world!" It's not because I don't believe them, but it's because it fuels too much of my ego. Mission work suddenly becomes *my* work; our success suddenly becomes *my* success. I'm sure Pastor Ohm had good intentions in encouraging us and reminding us that we have the opportunity to reach many, many people--but I too easily steal God's work and treat His Kingdom as mine. And, especially in the US, I too often thinking I'm more important than I really am.
Well, to keep the email short, I'll sum up today.
We went to one of the local churches to share what we were doing in the area and to encouarge them to get involved with African Leadership. The pastor invited us over to his house to have lunch, and we had a grand old time. We then headed to Table Mountain to look out around the area. We also threw a frisbee off the top to see how far it could go. :-D
My apologies for the email cut short, but here is a list of things to continue prayer for.
* We are headed to Transkei tomorrow to do evangelism and play with the kids. Pray for our relationship with the community there.
* Pray for the trip to Transkei tomorrow. It's a car trip that's over 12 hours long.
* Pray for the safety of Beth and Andrea's arrival. Beth will meet us in Transkei on Tuesday.
* Pray for my heart and mind as I wrestle with the issues of missions and the missionary attitude--and also as I wrestle with some of my past experiences with "missionaries" in Taiwan (I wish I had time to explain, but I'm sorry, I don't).
One of these days, I will sit down and organize these thoughts into something more coherent instead of a time-limited stream-of-consciousness.
Miss you all,
Eric Chu.
South Africa: Not Even a Week
Dear Friends and Family,
I've been in South Africa (Cape Town, to be exact) for a little over two days now. David and I flew in together, and Pastor Ohm, Simon, and Angela picked us up from the airport. Angela is one of the long-term missionaries living in the mission house. She came from Brazil and has been here since February. Simon flew down to South Africa from Germany specifically to help lead the Stanford team and our work here. For the past two days, Simon, David, and I have been working closely together with the people in Khayelitsha. Before going into details, let me say, again, just how wonderful and sweet it is to be able to work with people from, literally, all over the world. Simon has built a great friendship with David and me over the past couple days.
Once David and I arrived safely at the mission house in Cape Town Sunday night, we met another team of short-term missionaries from Canada. They're either from Vancouver or Toronto. There are so many teams from Canada that I cannot keep them straight! Anyhow, this group of high-school students was headed to Transkei (another town about 12 hours away by car) the next day. So we took the best opportunity to talk to them and hear their experience so far. Afterwards, with over 24 hours worth of traveling under my belt, I was glad to lay my back down on a bed and call it a night and slept soundly that night.
Come Monday morning, we were taken to the local Bible college, where the local staff of African Leadership met for early morning devotions and to share prayer requests. We were then whisked away to a local preschool. I imagined the usual American preschool with the nice playground, pristine facilities, and all the jazz we think children need. But when we got there, the building blew my mind away. It was built out of metal sheets, nailed to wooden boards for support. The wooden boards were planted firmly in the ground. There were no lights; no running water. The preschool was one giant room--a giant shade made of metal, if you want to call it that. The walls were painted by amateurs (by the kids and other short-term missionaries, I suppose). And, to top it all off, the structure sat in the sand. Apparently, the entire town of Khayelitsha is a sandy beach. Try building a town that houses over 1 million people on that kind of soil! I think it's a feat of engineering, but maybe it's just from sheer force of will. So, here I am, first day in South Africa, inside a preschool that's a far cry from the American preschool standing on a structure sitting atop a sand dune--whatever happened to building on the rock, right? And yet the little children were so happy that day! David led them in a couple rounds of song and told them a Bible story. I was caught completely off-guard, thinking that Monday would be orientation; but, instead, we were thrown in the fray. The children here are so precious and so innocent! Maybe it's not the building that makes the preschool, but the children inside that make it the preschool.
Later that day, David and I got a glimpse of the other side of life for these kids. We went with one of the local pastors to visit his aunt. This lady raised a couple children single-handedly, and her son was her treasure. She was telling us the story of how he cooked soup for her. When he found that the soup wasn't as flavorful as he had liked, he left the house to go and buy more meat for the soup. But then he never came back. He was murdered on his way home; her neighbors had come to inform her that her son was lying, covered in his own blood, out on the street. She was the one to go outside and, as the authorities came to take away his body, close his eyes and close his mouth. It was a heart-wrenching story to listen to. It is hard enough for a mother or father to see their children pass away; I can only imagine the grief of a parent when his or her child is murdered in the streets. And to be the one to close his eyes and shut his mouth--to be only minutes away from the killing. It is almost evil in its rawest incarnation.
And I was asked to pray for this woman. Needless to say, I was at a loss for words.
Khayelitsha is not a town with many opportunities for the little kids who go to preschool here. What awaits them after education and adolescence is a life of crime, drugs, and premarital sex. Their families are often single-mother families; their houses are little shacks made out of metal; their streets are made of sand; their toilets are communal, shared with their neighbors; their water, in a touch of grace, is the cleanest in the area--but they have to pump it themselves. The little kids are just as innocent (maybe even more innocent!) than the children in the United States; but without the opportunities afforded to us, their lives are cut short from their potential. The disparity between the rich and poor sickens me. And, yet, it is so hard to love the poor and the less fortunate! The white South Africans here drive around in BMWs, Benz's, and Audi's--and not one of them sets foot in the poor, black neighborhood. Though apartheid is over, the damage it has done will take much longer to undo.
The vision of African Leadership is to exact change on a small scale--starting with the children, giving them opportunities for education (with the preschool) and keeping the adolescents off the streets by giving them a place to play soccer or netball (netball is a cross between ultimate frisbee and basketball). Through these avenues, the Gospel will be preached to the youngsters, who then take Christ into their homes. And slowly, but surely, as an entire generation is transformed, the nation will be, too.
On Tuesday, Panayiota, another member of team, flew in safely, and we picked her up from the airport. We spent the day digging holes for fence posts to protect one of the preschools in Khayelitsha. The children were excited to see us working and joined in with the work. At the end of the day, we had brand, spanking-new fence posts solidly planted in the sand. For those who have been to Palo Duro, imagine that kind of work, but repeated 10+ times. :-D I had great fun digging.
This evening, I had the opportunity to share a short part of my testimony with the boys that are part of the soccer ministry here. I told them about Daniel from Tien-Wei. He's a blind and deaf boy in Taiwan who has profoundly affected me and some of my closest friends because, despite the reality of who he is--blind, deaf, disabled--he burns with a bright passion for Christ. I spend my life seared by my own pride, trying to make people know me--but Daniel shared Christ to everyone he came in contact with. I encouraged the boys here--that even if they may think their lives are going nowhere--they can change the world with a passion for Christ and for God's Kingdom. David shared a short message from Matthew about worrying, and our translator, the boy's Bible study leader, gave an altar call at the end. Many of the boys came to Christ then.
Please pray for them.
* Pray for the young boys of Khayelitsha, who have accepted Christ, that they may shine brightly in this community--that even though the town is built on sand, these boys may be the generation of solid rock the community needs.
* Pray for the young children (the preschoolers) here who don't have the plethora of "American" opportunities and their families. Pray for their salvation and the role they will play in God's Kingdom.
* Thank God for the safe travels of Panayiota--her flight was delayed on the way here.
* Continue to pray for safe travels--Carl's flight was delayed as well, but he is currently on the plane.
* Pray for the rest of our work here, as the team finishes building the fence and as we continue to interact with the youth here.
* Finally, please pray for the old lady whose son was murdered. I don't know how to pray for her, but I trust the Holy Spirit does. ;)
I miss you all very dearly,
Eric.
PS. I hope this email isn't sitting in the spam-box again. :-D
I've been in South Africa (Cape Town, to be exact) for a little over two days now. David and I flew in together, and Pastor Ohm, Simon, and Angela picked us up from the airport. Angela is one of the long-term missionaries living in the mission house. She came from Brazil and has been here since February. Simon flew down to South Africa from Germany specifically to help lead the Stanford team and our work here. For the past two days, Simon, David, and I have been working closely together with the people in Khayelitsha. Before going into details, let me say, again, just how wonderful and sweet it is to be able to work with people from, literally, all over the world. Simon has built a great friendship with David and me over the past couple days.
Once David and I arrived safely at the mission house in Cape Town Sunday night, we met another team of short-term missionaries from Canada. They're either from Vancouver or Toronto. There are so many teams from Canada that I cannot keep them straight! Anyhow, this group of high-school students was headed to Transkei (another town about 12 hours away by car) the next day. So we took the best opportunity to talk to them and hear their experience so far. Afterwards, with over 24 hours worth of traveling under my belt, I was glad to lay my back down on a bed and call it a night and slept soundly that night.
Come Monday morning, we were taken to the local Bible college, where the local staff of African Leadership met for early morning devotions and to share prayer requests. We were then whisked away to a local preschool. I imagined the usual American preschool with the nice playground, pristine facilities, and all the jazz we think children need. But when we got there, the building blew my mind away. It was built out of metal sheets, nailed to wooden boards for support. The wooden boards were planted firmly in the ground. There were no lights; no running water. The preschool was one giant room--a giant shade made of metal, if you want to call it that. The walls were painted by amateurs (by the kids and other short-term missionaries, I suppose). And, to top it all off, the structure sat in the sand. Apparently, the entire town of Khayelitsha is a sandy beach. Try building a town that houses over 1 million people on that kind of soil! I think it's a feat of engineering, but maybe it's just from sheer force of will. So, here I am, first day in South Africa, inside a preschool that's a far cry from the American preschool standing on a structure sitting atop a sand dune--whatever happened to building on the rock, right? And yet the little children were so happy that day! David led them in a couple rounds of song and told them a Bible story. I was caught completely off-guard, thinking that Monday would be orientation; but, instead, we were thrown in the fray. The children here are so precious and so innocent! Maybe it's not the building that makes the preschool, but the children inside that make it the preschool.
Later that day, David and I got a glimpse of the other side of life for these kids. We went with one of the local pastors to visit his aunt. This lady raised a couple children single-handedly, and her son was her treasure. She was telling us the story of how he cooked soup for her. When he found that the soup wasn't as flavorful as he had liked, he left the house to go and buy more meat for the soup. But then he never came back. He was murdered on his way home; her neighbors had come to inform her that her son was lying, covered in his own blood, out on the street. She was the one to go outside and, as the authorities came to take away his body, close his eyes and close his mouth. It was a heart-wrenching story to listen to. It is hard enough for a mother or father to see their children pass away; I can only imagine the grief of a parent when his or her child is murdered in the streets. And to be the one to close his eyes and shut his mouth--to be only minutes away from the killing. It is almost evil in its rawest incarnation.
And I was asked to pray for this woman. Needless to say, I was at a loss for words.
Khayelitsha is not a town with many opportunities for the little kids who go to preschool here. What awaits them after education and adolescence is a life of crime, drugs, and premarital sex. Their families are often single-mother families; their houses are little shacks made out of metal; their streets are made of sand; their toilets are communal, shared with their neighbors; their water, in a touch of grace, is the cleanest in the area--but they have to pump it themselves. The little kids are just as innocent (maybe even more innocent!) than the children in the United States; but without the opportunities afforded to us, their lives are cut short from their potential. The disparity between the rich and poor sickens me. And, yet, it is so hard to love the poor and the less fortunate! The white South Africans here drive around in BMWs, Benz's, and Audi's--and not one of them sets foot in the poor, black neighborhood. Though apartheid is over, the damage it has done will take much longer to undo.
The vision of African Leadership is to exact change on a small scale--starting with the children, giving them opportunities for education (with the preschool) and keeping the adolescents off the streets by giving them a place to play soccer or netball (netball is a cross between ultimate frisbee and basketball). Through these avenues, the Gospel will be preached to the youngsters, who then take Christ into their homes. And slowly, but surely, as an entire generation is transformed, the nation will be, too.
On Tuesday, Panayiota, another member of team, flew in safely, and we picked her up from the airport. We spent the day digging holes for fence posts to protect one of the preschools in Khayelitsha. The children were excited to see us working and joined in with the work. At the end of the day, we had brand, spanking-new fence posts solidly planted in the sand. For those who have been to Palo Duro, imagine that kind of work, but repeated 10+ times. :-D I had great fun digging.
This evening, I had the opportunity to share a short part of my testimony with the boys that are part of the soccer ministry here. I told them about Daniel from Tien-Wei. He's a blind and deaf boy in Taiwan who has profoundly affected me and some of my closest friends because, despite the reality of who he is--blind, deaf, disabled--he burns with a bright passion for Christ. I spend my life seared by my own pride, trying to make people know me--but Daniel shared Christ to everyone he came in contact with. I encouraged the boys here--that even if they may think their lives are going nowhere--they can change the world with a passion for Christ and for God's Kingdom. David shared a short message from Matthew about worrying, and our translator, the boy's Bible study leader, gave an altar call at the end. Many of the boys came to Christ then.
Please pray for them.
* Pray for the young boys of Khayelitsha, who have accepted Christ, that they may shine brightly in this community--that even though the town is built on sand, these boys may be the generation of solid rock the community needs.
* Pray for the young children (the preschoolers) here who don't have the plethora of "American" opportunities and their families. Pray for their salvation and the role they will play in God's Kingdom.
* Thank God for the safe travels of Panayiota--her flight was delayed on the way here.
* Continue to pray for safe travels--Carl's flight was delayed as well, but he is currently on the plane.
* Pray for the rest of our work here, as the team finishes building the fence and as we continue to interact with the youth here.
* Finally, please pray for the old lady whose son was murdered. I don't know how to pray for her, but I trust the Holy Spirit does. ;)
I miss you all very dearly,
Eric.
PS. I hope this email isn't sitting in the spam-box again. :-D
It's Go Time!
Dear Friends and Family,
I leave for San Francisco airport in a couple hours to snooze a bit in the airport and catch a very early morning flight to New York, where I will meet up with David Scudder. We'll be flying out to South Africa together, meeting the rest of the team there, and beginning our work. Of course, it would be a mistake to think that the Kingdom work begins there, when it's started here all along. We've each been individually preparing arts and crafts material as well as trying our hand at basic Xhosa phrases. I'll admit that I haven't committed most of them to memory, so I'm sure I'll learn a good deal more when I'm in South Africa.
Am I excited to be going? Sure, but I'm certainly apprehensive as well, as I feel ill-prepared in many ways.
The past couple weeks, in addition to preparing for South Africa, I've been trying to get into the groove of full-time work and the life of a post-graduate. For those of you who have been on that path, you know what it's like--and for those who are looking forward to it, well, let's just say that there is much to learn. It's like being a freshman in college all over again. Granted, the first day's excitement takes me back to the first day of school, but the excitement wears off when the rubber meets the road, as I try very, very, very hard to put on the best act I've done so far--and play the part of an adult. The responsibilities are many, the expectations burdensome, and the confusion is endless--not to mention they never had a "New Adult Orientation" for me. ;-)
When my family moved to Taiwan, the transition from American culture to Chinese culture was rough; but the transition from high school to Stanford was even more turbulent. And I suspect that this transition won't be any easier, given that I've grown too comfortable with academia and I have a distinct dislike of dealing with the sundry minutiae of life. (Just because I'm an engineer doesn't mean I like details :-D). Not to mention that I still don't know what I want to do (when I grow up ;-) ). But I try and recall those who have come before me into adulthood and their silent rites of passage--unnoticed, unwritten; and those that struggled to gain a foothold or waited the proverbial forty years to fulfill their dreams. Some have slogged it out with sheer willpower, others with brainpower and hard work; still maybe more "got lucky" and managed to meet the right people. God has been faithful with each one of them--from my parents, to my parents' friends, to my friends' parents--and, while I continue to play the actor, wondering if enough acting will make it reality, I am wholly convinced that God remains faithful as He says in His word.
So when people ask me if I'm ready for South Africa, I'd have to say, "Sure, but only because God is faithful." I'm utterly ill-prepared, swamped by the thoughts of growing up, sometimes haunted by missteps I've made along the way, and definitely in the wrong frame of mind to be of use to any earthly king. But I'm not the king and I don't call the shots, so I'm going. God is stretching my faith and challenging my life--and it's not as easy as it seems on TV ;-). Growing up and missions isn't something I can handle on my own; it must be done with the support of community. And I would not be going to South Africa without your support (likewise, I doubt I'd grow up without your support ;-) ). I know you're cheering me on; we are in this journey together.
If you have some time this week, please pray for the following.
(1) My friend David Scudder will be leading the team when we're in South Africa. Pray for his discernment in sticky situations, wisdom with leadership, and eloquence with the good news.
(2) The team is flying in to South Africa on different days. Please pray for the safety of our travels; I often take long, international flights for granted, but our safety is the mercy of God.
(3) It's winter in South Africa (for those that are curious, Wikipedia has a nice article about seasons), and I'm not sure how California weather has spoiled us. Pray for our physical health and that, whether sick or healthy, the Gospel could be shown through us.
(4) Since we're in a different culture and learning a different language, pray for humility and persistence in learning the culture and language.
(5) As I've mentioned, I'm extremely distracted with the usual post-graduation thoughts and the "what am I doing with my life" phase. Pray for trust in God's sovereign hand and hardship to stretch my understanding of Him.
(6) And, lastly, pray that the team would have fun! Too often we think of missions as a "duty" that we forget that there is joy involved as well; I'm far too guilty of this myself. ;)
I hope that each of you are doing well, whether on the East Coast, the West Coast, the deep South, the Midwest, Canada, Taiwan, or maybe China. This mission is truly a global endeavor. Send me an email update, I'd love to hear from you individually.
Finally, our team has set up a blog at http://sajourneys.blogspot.com/. Depending on our Internet access, we may update it with pictures. ;)
For the Kingdom,
Eric Chu.
I leave for San Francisco airport in a couple hours to snooze a bit in the airport and catch a very early morning flight to New York, where I will meet up with David Scudder. We'll be flying out to South Africa together, meeting the rest of the team there, and beginning our work. Of course, it would be a mistake to think that the Kingdom work begins there, when it's started here all along. We've each been individually preparing arts and crafts material as well as trying our hand at basic Xhosa phrases. I'll admit that I haven't committed most of them to memory, so I'm sure I'll learn a good deal more when I'm in South Africa.
Am I excited to be going? Sure, but I'm certainly apprehensive as well, as I feel ill-prepared in many ways.
The past couple weeks, in addition to preparing for South Africa, I've been trying to get into the groove of full-time work and the life of a post-graduate. For those of you who have been on that path, you know what it's like--and for those who are looking forward to it, well, let's just say that there is much to learn. It's like being a freshman in college all over again. Granted, the first day's excitement takes me back to the first day of school, but the excitement wears off when the rubber meets the road, as I try very, very, very hard to put on the best act I've done so far--and play the part of an adult. The responsibilities are many, the expectations burdensome, and the confusion is endless--not to mention they never had a "New Adult Orientation" for me. ;-)
When my family moved to Taiwan, the transition from American culture to Chinese culture was rough; but the transition from high school to Stanford was even more turbulent. And I suspect that this transition won't be any easier, given that I've grown too comfortable with academia and I have a distinct dislike of dealing with the sundry minutiae of life. (Just because I'm an engineer doesn't mean I like details :-D). Not to mention that I still don't know what I want to do (when I grow up ;-) ). But I try and recall those who have come before me into adulthood and their silent rites of passage--unnoticed, unwritten; and those that struggled to gain a foothold or waited the proverbial forty years to fulfill their dreams. Some have slogged it out with sheer willpower, others with brainpower and hard work; still maybe more "got lucky" and managed to meet the right people. God has been faithful with each one of them--from my parents, to my parents' friends, to my friends' parents--and, while I continue to play the actor, wondering if enough acting will make it reality, I am wholly convinced that God remains faithful as He says in His word.
So when people ask me if I'm ready for South Africa, I'd have to say, "Sure, but only because God is faithful." I'm utterly ill-prepared, swamped by the thoughts of growing up, sometimes haunted by missteps I've made along the way, and definitely in the wrong frame of mind to be of use to any earthly king. But I'm not the king and I don't call the shots, so I'm going. God is stretching my faith and challenging my life--and it's not as easy as it seems on TV ;-). Growing up and missions isn't something I can handle on my own; it must be done with the support of community. And I would not be going to South Africa without your support (likewise, I doubt I'd grow up without your support ;-) ). I know you're cheering me on; we are in this journey together.
If you have some time this week, please pray for the following.
(1) My friend David Scudder will be leading the team when we're in South Africa. Pray for his discernment in sticky situations, wisdom with leadership, and eloquence with the good news.
(2) The team is flying in to South Africa on different days. Please pray for the safety of our travels; I often take long, international flights for granted, but our safety is the mercy of God.
(3) It's winter in South Africa (for those that are curious, Wikipedia has a nice article about seasons), and I'm not sure how California weather has spoiled us. Pray for our physical health and that, whether sick or healthy, the Gospel could be shown through us.
(4) Since we're in a different culture and learning a different language, pray for humility and persistence in learning the culture and language.
(5) As I've mentioned, I'm extremely distracted with the usual post-graduation thoughts and the "what am I doing with my life" phase. Pray for trust in God's sovereign hand and hardship to stretch my understanding of Him.
(6) And, lastly, pray that the team would have fun! Too often we think of missions as a "duty" that we forget that there is joy involved as well; I'm far too guilty of this myself. ;)
I hope that each of you are doing well, whether on the East Coast, the West Coast, the deep South, the Midwest, Canada, Taiwan, or maybe China. This mission is truly a global endeavor. Send me an email update, I'd love to hear from you individually.
Finally, our team has set up a blog at http://sajourneys.blogspot.com/. Depending on our Internet access, we may update it with pictures. ;)
For the Kingdom,
Eric Chu.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Back From The Deep South
Hello friends,
I am now back in America, safe and sound from all the travels. And now I'd like to fill you all in on the rest of my time in South Africa.
After spending the first week in Khayelitsha, we got on the overnight bus for a 14-hour ride to the rural region of Transkei. Arriving at our bus stop, we were then piled into the back of a truck with all our luggage and groceries for the week (Eric was literally buried in food) and set out for Gulandoda, the small village, where we were based. It wasn't until we had almost arrived at our destination that I realized we were staying at the same house where I had stayed last year - it was really fun seeing the Qotoyi family again and being incredibly blessed by their hospitality. And adding to the fun, our fifth team member, Beth Wilkins, arrived while were in Gulandoda, joining us with Andiswa, a local translator who is studying social work at university in the States.
Our days in Gulandoda soon found a regular rhythm. In the mornings, we would walk "over the hill" (the all-encompassing term for distance in Transkei) to another village, where we would visit homes - meeting families, reading with them from Scripture, and praying for them. In the afternoons, a flock of kids would converge on the small hillside church, and we would hold Sunday School with songs (always with lots of dancing), crafts, and Bible stories from the life of Jesus. Then, each evening we would have a service in the church. I was struck in these services by the focus on testimony - they place great importance on proclaiming to each other how God had worked and is working in their lives.
Our most exciting moment in Transkei came unexpectedly one night when we saw a fire break out on the hill, and we soon realized it was burning the fields of the Tata we were staying with. (Tata is the Xhosa word for Father or Mister). The Tata ran out with boys and we quickly followed, grabbing blankets and sacks and dashing off toward the hill of fire, dipping our blankets in a stream as we crossed over. Following the Tata's lead, we began to beat the fire into the ground with our blankets, extinguishing it bit by bit. Stroke after stroke, praying to God to cut back the wind, slowly the ring of fire began to die. Eventually, the Tata called us in - enough - his fields were safe, and there was no more we could do, but the fire raged on, carried by the wind far across the valley.
Returning to Cape Town, we finally connected with our last team member, Andrea Romero. Together, we visited two excellent ministries which partner with African Leadership: Learn to Earn and Living Hope. Learn to Earn provides job training and job placement in Khayelitsha. In a place where unemployment is at 80%, this is a huge opportunity for ministry. As one staff member there told us, each job found affects not only the worker but also the 7 or more family members dependent on that worker for resources. Living Hope provides medical care and counseling for people with AIDS. They put a lot of effort into privacy - though South Africa has a very high percentage of people with AIDS, it is still highly stigmatized. The government subsidizes ARVs (drugs to control the effects of AIDS), but people will not take them because of the stigma attached. It was cool to see the power of God's people working in their different gifts for his Kingdom. Pursuing God's Kingdom is a varied task, and all of the ministries we encountered bring it to bear in a different way: African Leadership through evangelism, discipleship, and leadership training; Learn to Earn through job training and fighting poverty; and Living Hope through caring for the sick and dying.
The trip came to an end in a rush. Our last day, we visited one of the local high schools, where once a week, African Leadership takes over all six classes of freshman Life Skills and teaches on different character traits. We taught on Obedience, using Simon Says and the stories of Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac, and Jesus' obedience to death. After playing guitar and singing my voice out with the students during lunch hour, Eric and I hugged the team goodbye and got on a plane for the long journey home.
Overall, it was great being back in South Africa, seeing again people that I loved and the ways that God is working. It was a very different experience than last year - the two weeks went very fast, and helping to lead the team made the trip a much harder experience as I wrestled with my own prides and insecurities about that. But God was good to us, and he refreshed my desire to live for his Kingdom, to trust in his promise that I am his son, a son of the King, and he offers me the joy of participating in the work of my Father. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10). I look forward to trying to live this out God's Kingdom in Maryland this fall.
If you're still reading, thank you! And thank you all for your prayers and your notes! If you want to keep reading, check out the stories from the other team members at http://sajourneys.blogspot.com. I encourage you to keep Pastor Ohm and African Leadership in your prayers - if you would like to receive Pastor Ohm's prayer letter, let me know, and I can add you to his list. If you would like to get more involved in any of the ministries in South Africa, I encourage you to check out their websites (and feel free to send me questions): African Leadership ( www.africanleadership.org.za), Learn to Earn (www.learntoearn.co.za), and Living Hope (http://www.livinghope.co.za ).
And now, for the Kingdom!
David
I am now back in America, safe and sound from all the travels. And now I'd like to fill you all in on the rest of my time in South Africa.
After spending the first week in Khayelitsha, we got on the overnight bus for a 14-hour ride to the rural region of Transkei. Arriving at our bus stop, we were then piled into the back of a truck with all our luggage and groceries for the week (Eric was literally buried in food) and set out for Gulandoda, the small village, where we were based. It wasn't until we had almost arrived at our destination that I realized we were staying at the same house where I had stayed last year - it was really fun seeing the Qotoyi family again and being incredibly blessed by their hospitality. And adding to the fun, our fifth team member, Beth Wilkins, arrived while were in Gulandoda, joining us with Andiswa, a local translator who is studying social work at university in the States.
Our days in Gulandoda soon found a regular rhythm. In the mornings, we would walk "over the hill" (the all-encompassing term for distance in Transkei) to another village, where we would visit homes - meeting families, reading with them from Scripture, and praying for them. In the afternoons, a flock of kids would converge on the small hillside church, and we would hold Sunday School with songs (always with lots of dancing), crafts, and Bible stories from the life of Jesus. Then, each evening we would have a service in the church. I was struck in these services by the focus on testimony - they place great importance on proclaiming to each other how God had worked and is working in their lives.
Our most exciting moment in Transkei came unexpectedly one night when we saw a fire break out on the hill, and we soon realized it was burning the fields of the Tata we were staying with. (Tata is the Xhosa word for Father or Mister). The Tata ran out with boys and we quickly followed, grabbing blankets and sacks and dashing off toward the hill of fire, dipping our blankets in a stream as we crossed over. Following the Tata's lead, we began to beat the fire into the ground with our blankets, extinguishing it bit by bit. Stroke after stroke, praying to God to cut back the wind, slowly the ring of fire began to die. Eventually, the Tata called us in - enough - his fields were safe, and there was no more we could do, but the fire raged on, carried by the wind far across the valley.
Returning to Cape Town, we finally connected with our last team member, Andrea Romero. Together, we visited two excellent ministries which partner with African Leadership: Learn to Earn and Living Hope. Learn to Earn provides job training and job placement in Khayelitsha. In a place where unemployment is at 80%, this is a huge opportunity for ministry. As one staff member there told us, each job found affects not only the worker but also the 7 or more family members dependent on that worker for resources. Living Hope provides medical care and counseling for people with AIDS. They put a lot of effort into privacy - though South Africa has a very high percentage of people with AIDS, it is still highly stigmatized. The government subsidizes ARVs (drugs to control the effects of AIDS), but people will not take them because of the stigma attached. It was cool to see the power of God's people working in their different gifts for his Kingdom. Pursuing God's Kingdom is a varied task, and all of the ministries we encountered bring it to bear in a different way: African Leadership through evangelism, discipleship, and leadership training; Learn to Earn through job training and fighting poverty; and Living Hope through caring for the sick and dying.
The trip came to an end in a rush. Our last day, we visited one of the local high schools, where once a week, African Leadership takes over all six classes of freshman Life Skills and teaches on different character traits. We taught on Obedience, using Simon Says and the stories of Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac, and Jesus' obedience to death. After playing guitar and singing my voice out with the students during lunch hour, Eric and I hugged the team goodbye and got on a plane for the long journey home.
Overall, it was great being back in South Africa, seeing again people that I loved and the ways that God is working. It was a very different experience than last year - the two weeks went very fast, and helping to lead the team made the trip a much harder experience as I wrestled with my own prides and insecurities about that. But God was good to us, and he refreshed my desire to live for his Kingdom, to trust in his promise that I am his son, a son of the King, and he offers me the joy of participating in the work of my Father. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10). I look forward to trying to live this out God's Kingdom in Maryland this fall.
If you're still reading, thank you! And thank you all for your prayers and your notes! If you want to keep reading, check out the stories from the other team members at http://sajourneys.blogspot.com. I encourage you to keep Pastor Ohm and African Leadership in your prayers - if you would like to receive Pastor Ohm's prayer letter, let me know, and I can add you to his list. If you would like to get more involved in any of the ministries in South Africa, I encourage you to check out their websites (and feel free to send me questions): African Leadership ( www.africanleadership.org.za), Learn to Earn (www.learntoearn.co.za), and Living Hope (http://www.livinghope.co.za ).
And now, for the Kingdom!
David
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Halfway there
Greetings!
In my last post I talked about becoming a bit ill before my planned departure last Saturday and the events and reflections that ensued. I healed very promptly and have had no problems with the illness, but since I now find myself in London Heathrow Airport on Tuesday, clearly things did not go "to schedule."
After waiting in Chicago for a while, everyone on my flight found out that it was cancelled for the day, because of a mechanical failure. The best I could rebook was a Thursday departure. So, "Alas, five less days, this is almost what happened anyway," was what I thought. Then I called the airline on Sunday night, and they had a ticket leaving on Monday - so I took it.
This all took a good deal of figuring out schedules and organizing, but after taking care of my illness, I had settled a bit more into not worrying and simply letting myself arrive in Cape Town when God will have me arrive. Things do seem to go on his schedule. Not worrying doesn't mean that I forget what I'm trying to do and how to go about it, but it does mean that I do it by turning to God's strength.
For the Kingdom,
Carl
In my last post I talked about becoming a bit ill before my planned departure last Saturday and the events and reflections that ensued. I healed very promptly and have had no problems with the illness, but since I now find myself in London Heathrow Airport on Tuesday, clearly things did not go "to schedule."
After waiting in Chicago for a while, everyone on my flight found out that it was cancelled for the day, because of a mechanical failure. The best I could rebook was a Thursday departure. So, "Alas, five less days, this is almost what happened anyway," was what I thought. Then I called the airline on Sunday night, and they had a ticket leaving on Monday - so I took it.
This all took a good deal of figuring out schedules and organizing, but after taking care of my illness, I had settled a bit more into not worrying and simply letting myself arrive in Cape Town when God will have me arrive. Things do seem to go on his schedule. Not worrying doesn't mean that I forget what I'm trying to do and how to go about it, but it does mean that I do it by turning to God's strength.
For the Kingdom,
Carl
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Which master am I serving, again?
Wow, the day is finally here. I'm mostly packed, looking forward to a good night's rest and a new day when I'll hop on the plane to Cape Town. Things have been a bit hectic in the last day, and so I don't have my email list put together (thus I'm writing here first). But it has been a blessing and I would like to share it with you.
Graduation and times since have been a blast: wonderful times with family, from going from this to that graduation activity with my parents and brother to spending time at the house that my dad's cousin built in the northern California redwoods. After that I spent some time hanging around the Stanford area while house-sitting, seeing friends that I might not have otherwise seen because of the rush of the end of the year. Now it's the end of two weeks back home in Wisconsin, where I've enjoyed the 4th of July festivities on our block, caught up with high school friends in Madison, and rested in the comfort of home.
That's all quite a mouthful, right? Lots of fun stuff - but the danger is that it can just be stuff, and the light of how God is active in it can become dim to my eyes.
Jesus was speaking about money when he told us that "No servant can serve two masters," but I've found in those words a lesson that includes a warning about becoming a slave to the pursuit of wealth, but goes a good deal farther. These words point to the continuous danger of neglecting our duty of singular dedication to God. Many masters in this world demand our dedication, and even those unambiguously good creations of God, human friendship, for example, can descend under the weight of sin to becoming masters to us, usurping the place of God. Then how much more can human creations become our masters!
This morning, I was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection. Enduring the symptoms was a concerning event, but it was certainly not painful or dramatic. However, it put these plans to do work in South Africa into question. For a while, it seemed that I should change my ticket; then not. Finally a rosy prognosis appeared, and I started packing for tomorrow's flight.
In the time when I thought that I would leave this Wednesday instead of tomorrow, I was thinking about what to do. "Wow, I won't be rushed to send out a first prayer email... I'll sit back and get some reading done... I can pray more deeply in preparation for my travels." Later, after reaching the conclusion that I should leave tomorrow, I was packing relatively hurriedly because of the lost time from the doctors appointments and extra tests. Back to the normal, faster pace. And then I realized that I have fallen into serving a poor master, the desire to fill my life with activities and live in terms of the interesting instead of the sacred. Don't get me wrong: my times relaxing in northern California or enjoying meals with friends weren't unworthy things to do with the life God has given me. But I saw a bit more clearly that the busyness of the last few months became in some ways a cruel master, and partially took the place of the joy that God gave me in doing all of those things.
And so I am ready - because I trust that God will make me ready - to step into what I have described to some, lately, as a bit of a void. I don't know what things will look like, except that some things aren't like here, and I don't know what precisely I will be doing day to day. But I trust that it is worthy. I recognize the need for God to grow me in his ways, and am blessed to have this time to directly serve the one master. I hope to gain eyes to see in South Africa the ways that God has blessed me in the past few weeks and in my time in South Africa, and to carry these things into the future.
Sounds a lot like it's all about me, eh? Well, there are two things that I ask God's blessing upon in this journey: me, and the world as I encounter it in South Africa. But now, one half of this is a void to me. I look forward to describing it to you! Because the Kingdom of God emerges out of the encounter between the gospel and the world.
Here's a quick list of stuff that you can pray for in light of all this:
- For consistent healing of my ailment;
- For the blessings in experiences of yet unknown culture to overcome the challenges in these experiences;
- For my heart to serve God and His Kingdom during this time;
- And for the Kingdom to remain within me after I return.
For the Kingdom,
Carl
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)