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.