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.