Township

I wanted to talk about what we’re doing in Red Hill a little bit today. I realized that I’ve been telling stories from our days off etc and not so much been relaying what is happening on site. It’s said that things move slowly in Red Hill, and it’s true. There are 4 or 5 weeks left for us to be here in Cape Town and we haven’t seen that much “happen” per say. This really isn’t a discouraging thing – not to me at least. God has his own timing and we're being faithful to do what we are hearing Him say - so we're in His will.

There are now 7 of us on a team working in Red Hill. I personally wish that we could do more practicals for and with people, but we are somewhat limited as far as thought line of thought goes. We are trying to organize a pretty cool event right now. There is a movie called “Beat the Drum” that talks about AIDS awareness and debunks myths and misunderstandings surrounding the condition. There is a huge stigma surrounding people with AIDS. They lose their friends, no one talks to them, they can’t get a job and (if these things didn’t get the point across) are treated universally as out casts. Fear motivates that conduct. Fear of getting AIDS I mean. Beat the Drum talks about aids testing, how to avoid AIDS and how to get help if you do have it. Apparently there are a significant amount of people who have contracted AIDs in South Africa. Please note that I am not trying to demean this wonderful country in any way – just stating a fact. All that to say; we are trying to set up a way to show the movie in the township and have a free testing clinic if people want to get tested.

We are walking around meeting people and starting conversations about God. We have all felt the artificiality of this – not that it’s bad, just not natural. It’s not hard to bring conversation to the topic of God etc etc because we stick out like a sore thumb – white people in a shack town with no residents of that color and apparently the only Caucasians to come here come with a church group or something. Oh well. The M.O. we’re working under is to find somebody who is not a Christian or following Christ closely and who is spiritually hungry. We ask if that person is interested in doing a Bible study and if they are we teach them how we tend to do Bible studies, i.e. how to lead one. (I say “tend to do” because there are so many ways to do a Bible study or tell someone about Jesus.) We then go with them and do a Bible study with their friends and hopefully see these guys and gals fall in love with the person of Jesus and follow him just from what they see in the scriptures. The idea is that it’s not us, the foreigners, leading the group because when we leave the group will more than likely stop meeting.

We want to show the love of God in practical ways. Red Hill is a remote place with no running water. So there are big water retainers outside of the community that are supposed to be kept filled to be used by all of the residents, but sometimes are left empty. We have been able to bring some water to a couple of people we are working with who did not have any in reserve or were (according to them) did not have a lot of money for water from the store. We have done this once or twice. We have plans to help shore up a shack but we need to locate some lumber etc. It is very very windy in Cape Town for most of the year. We are trying to be wise with what we give and to whom we give such help to because, frankly we are poor students without a lot of financial backing to give aid on a large scale and people always love to take advantage of the Americans. Just a fact of life. Suffice we do a lot of prayer with people for practical needs like jobs and are seeing those prayers being answered.

My man TR leaves tonight. He has spent something like two weeks with and has been a huge blessing. He has been an awesome sounding board for our dreams and an open ear to the plans we have for the future ready with wise advice and/or a word from God on it. To give and example and to hint at the next post, TR helped me and a friend process the possibility of taking a team to Japan for our outreach months.

All that to say things are going well here, we are trusting for a revolution in Red Hill, God is starting to put dreams on the student's hearts and we all love our new friend TR.