Do you believe in me? - the event

Last night's event was beautiful. Thank you. Thank you to Steelcase and Design Vox for the amazing space... it was perfect and cozy and bright and had such a great feel. Thank you to Johnny and Jenny who, again, worked really hard to create a great evening. Thank you to all who brought food and flowers and candles and drinks and who helped. As always, this is every one's story because we are all a part of it in our own way.

I really wanted to create an evening highlighting hope - bringing out stories of people who are stepping out and realizing they have something to give. Remember my story about the cl inc guy a few weeks ago? That's really where this started. With a realization that even in this crazy poverty that we actually quit our jobs, gave away our furniture and moved across the country to serve into... even in that space... there are amazing people giving of themselves in the best kinds of ways. And it gets me thinking that everyone... even us... have something to give - and by giving that something, whatever it is, we can make the world a little better, a little sparklier.




I promised a few of you that I'd put a link up to the online gallery we were hosting last night. so you can hop on and order any images - photojournalistic portraits from last night (and a couple new ones) - I also put up there some african animals (my favorite... the giraffes at sunset or that cheetah that actually smiled at my camera like a five year old cheesing it up) and there are also some beautiful images from new york, spain, morocco, italy - they are available for a limited time in many sizes - shipped right to your house. And, as always, the purchase of any of these images, actually supports us and continues to provide a way for our family to keep on living in South Africa - loving on the people in the informal settlement we get to be involved with.





http://www.grandriverimaging.com/traceimages

event code:: 73804-believe

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a new way to connect with us

We are so pleased to have just finished the process of partnering with CTEN, based out of Kerrville, TX. CTEN caught our attention because of its deep desire to come alongside regular people, just like us, who have partnered with local churches all over the world to minister into the place God has called them to join. They provide not only a 501c3 funding flow through for us... but also pastoral care, advice on all those things we just aren't acquainted with in the world of missions, and the security of a well established organization behind us. You can find them online at www.cten.org/ to read more about their ministry and the heart that we think closely matches ours.... And when you are finished browsing through all their projects and pages, you can also click on our cute little profile- You follow the link on the navigation bar that says... missionaries... then click into Africa.. and look, there we are! There is a button right there in our online profile to set up a one time or monthly donation with direct banking or you can even use your credit card (for a small fee on our end). How fabulous and easy is that?
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And of course there is still the opportunity to sit down at your kitchen table and write a check out to directly benefit our ministry in South Africa at Emthonjeni Community Centre's. Those checks can be made out to CTEN(designate them to our family somehow with an attached note or in the memoline) and mail them to:
CTEN

PO Box 291307

Kerrville, TX 78029-1307

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We continue to be so grateful for the way we all work together to make this world a better place. You are a part of what is happening in the South African community of Zandspruit. You create our ability to live there and work there. We have no income other than the generosity of our family and friends.
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We totally know that it is a terrible time financially for so many people across the globe and in our own circle of friends.. But we trust that God is speaking directly to many of those who have been in this journey with us to provide for our living and ministry expenses and even for our additional needs like school tuition for the kids. People who will literally allow us to continue this beautiful work here in Johannesburg. We can't do it unless we are all doing it together... and right now we are struggling. We are going to ask you to take a deep breath and look into your life. See if you don't feel a pulse to be a part of this amazing place by supporting us in our time here.

the line of food

I am loving my daily phone conversations with Billy. Technology is this amazing thing that makes it possible for me to be walking around my sister's neighborhood in Michigan, talking on the phone to my sweetheart in Africa - as close as a local call.



I'm living in a duality right now... fully loving being here in Michigan. i take a drive through Easttown and think about how great it would be to just be back here enjoying a simple life again. The kids would go to school and have friends and we could get a big clumsy dog and take her on walks to the park and we'd have normal people reponsibilites and our family and friends and church right in our backyard. Then i think about Zandspruit and how much i love it there. i love
the energy and the activity and the color and the voices and the deep African accents. I love the music and the people gathering in front of spaza shops or front doorways and i love my dear , dear friends. I love the work we do and the photojournalistic opportunties I've had and the consistant sunshine. I love the opportunity to live into people's lives... to visit amazing places... to explore deep spaces in our hearts and lives. I truly love South Africa and almost all of our life there. And then I just get so exhausted about thinking through everything i love in both places and confused about having to say 'no' to one to be in the other... that i lie down in bed for a while or take an aimless walk... or call billy and listen to his stories of the day and hang up more muddled with this duality than ever.



This other day he told me the story of Emthonjeni last Sunday. A couple of guys met with him a while ago saying they were planning a feeding scheme for a specific day - both to celebrate an Indian festival and to remember a wife that had died. They asked if Emthonjeni would be open to let them operate the day from our campus. On Sunday they came... with enough food to provide a meal for 2,500 people - and send them each home with a large food parcel. People amaze me. People absolutely amaze me.
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it's fall in Michigan

(Charlie pulling himself up to the box of honeycrisps to take one huge apple in his little hands and sink his six teeth into the fresh skin - only to set it back into the box and take another huge apple into his little hands and sink his six teeth into that one until all the apples on the top layer have one tiny bite out of them.)

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once upon a time we crunched through autumn leaves, filling our lungs with fresh, crisp air and said " when we come back to visit Michigan from Africa, we shall always come in October."
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Unwittingly, somehow that was to come true.
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Maybe God just knows that October in Michgan equals peace in my spirit. A landscape of trees blazing into color almost before our eyes - smell of earth mixed with chai tea - air that stirs up vibrancy and awareness as it fills your lungs - pumpkins, apples, hand knit hats and fingerless gloves - hay rides, cramming in the last trips to the playground before winter drives us inward - Over the Rhine and Rosie Thomas and Sufjan Stevens - Walks along the river downtown past the blue bridge, following trails in the woods, acorns and busy squirrels and bright yellow school buses - scouring the shelves of the library for a book to curl under your favorite blanket with- the sun, low in the sky, shooting through the brooding darkness overhead, throwing everything into a brilliant versions of their own color that you just can't capture so you must stay and soak it into your heart and mind for as long as possible.
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Now autumn in Michigan has the added association of being home and surrounded by family and dear friends. Finding myself shocked and delighted every day by how big my favorite children have grown. Slipping into old friendships as easily as my favorite hoodie. Lunch at Marie's - chips and salsa and mexican food - the best curry fried rice ever - cherry french sodas at Kava - fountain dr pepper. Indulging in all that makes Michigan so dear. The people who make my hometown so dear. Worshiping in my church - throwing my head back and singing until my heart spills open - of loosing myself in something large and living and beautiful... and then sitting again, catching my breath to hear teachings that swirl into my soul - bringing out bigger ideas, fuller understandings, richer visions of who God is.
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I'm glad to be home. Even in the ache of missing Billy and Madyline. Even in the joy of all we love in South Africa, in NW Johannesburg, in Zandspruit and Emthonjeni. There is just something about Michigan in October that fills the deepest places in my spirit.

my beautiful friend - Jane

Feeling quiet today after a long week - good week - hard week. A week of self discovery and hope in the future. A week of being overwhelmingly dissapointed with some people and then turning around to be dripping with great joy by others. A week filled with the promise of more and yet knowing that what it is already is enough.... and being certain that all that it is - good and bad- is held firmly, tenderly, in the palm of God's hand.
Feeling quiet today... so instead of trying to unpack - I'll give you this picture of my dear friend, Jane. It's a beautiful picture. She's a beautiful friend.

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this is seriously good lunch

Billy has been talking about this little butchery inside Zandspruit for months now... I drive past it all the time, it's right along the road heading in to Emthonjeni. From the front side, it just looks like a butchery to me. But, oh, step inside and that is where you will find the magic.

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Order a serving of pap (maizemeal cooked till it is perfectly thick and sticky) a sauce or two ... I don't even know how to spell chakalaka... but it is my favorite and I could eat the tomatoe curry sauce every day and not get tired of it.... and then choose your meat. Fresh meat laid out neatly in the coolers , just waiting for the guys out behind the shop to grill it up for you on the open braai pit

From there it's all family style and messy fingers - there are no need for forks as you make a perfect little bowl with the sticky pap... pressing down a nice deep indentation with your thumb and then scooping up sauce. I had my camera and didn't want to have to keep washing my hands every time I saw a perfect moment to photograph... so I kept stealing Billy's perfect bites - I'll have to practice my little bowl crafting before we go next time, it looks easy but I have a suspicion it is the kind of thing there is an art to or you'll loose all your pap into the sauce. I'll let you know.

We are so amazingly blessed by our friendships here. Good friends. When we arrived a year and a half ago, we wondered if we would ever truly fit in. I'm not saying we completely do now... there is so much to continue learning and sometimes we stumble through it... but we are loved and we love back - oh, so deeply. And we are thankful for everyday moments like lunch that are special because of who we are sharing them with. Well, that and the chakalaka.

...do you believe in me?

We took a walk through Zandspruit this wee, intentionally with my camera slung around my neck. I go into the community often, but rarely take my camera... just to be sensitive. But I really wanted to show you the beauty and rich culture inside the mini-city we spend most of our time invested in. So we made a date and took a stroll

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Along the way, Jane started talking to this guy... he was sitting along the wall outside the clinic... reading out of a paperback novel... out loud.

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Somewhere in his journey, he decided to look seriously at the question what can I do to make the world better? And came up with the answer... "I can read".

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So most days he sits outside the clinic walls and reads through the fence to the people waiting for their turn to see the doctor. To help take their mind off their waiting, to take their mind off their illness.

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Whether anyone is actually listening or not, he is reading. Sometimes out of a book, sometimes the bible, sometimes a newspaper. He just sits and reads through the fence. And I actually think that it's pretty sweet.

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It got me thinking about offering what we have. And about looking inside ourselves to realize that what we have is truly enough to offer.

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Last night, I got a phone call that http://www.citizenshirt.com/ has offered to print up a limited run of tshirts for the big yard sale/bake sale/ community party fundraiser that is happening tomorrow morning at Johnny and Jenny's house to help raise some money to keep us here doing what we do - with all that has happened in the last few months, we are dangerously low - although it's been cool to see God continually put it on people's hearts to support us and carry us through these couple of months. Anyway... CITIZENSHIRT offered to print up some tshirts to donate to the yard party/sale.... and let us design them!

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I took out this image of the guy at the clinic... swirling around in my brain as it had been... and started to think that no matter what the world around him thinks about this guy... he believes in himself. He believes that there is something good in him that is worth sharing... and by sharing that something good - the world somehow becomes better. He must, if he didn't , he wouldn't come sit in the dirt for a few hours each day to read out loud at the clinic.

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Spotting that goodness in others, and in ourselves.. is so vital. Giving a fair chance... believing in each other - in goodness, in potential, in decent opportunities for education, health care, access to the basic necessities of life. Do I believe he has it inside him to to succeed if only given the chance? Do I believe he is worth it? Do I believe in myself enough to see that I can offer my meager self and make the world a better place?

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This is a work in progress... and essay that is still tumbling around my brain... but for now, a limited number of Tshirts will be available at the big yard party/sale fundraiser tomorrow -

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... and I'd love your thoughts on what it means to believe in some one's humanity, their potential, their opportunities. To believe in them.

moving day -

(this post has been ammended - apparently I was mistaken, the occupants were not being moved for RDP housing to be built

... but rather to widen a road boarding the township. )

this week 75 families in Zandspruit are getting new homes. Well, at least their homes are being moved and they are getting new yards and a new neighborhood. The government has decided to widen one of the main roads bordering the informal settlment and these houses need to be moved in order to make room for the extra lanes. Today was moving day... literally moving day. Teams came in with crowbars and trucks to tear down the existing shacks to clear the strip of land.. The families were all given a small square of dirt at a nearby field to rebuild on their own ... using the rubble from the deconstruct. We watched as the trucks threw pieces down on the ground in big piles. I wondered if they took care to keep things straight... like a puzzle. You have a much better chance of putting it together if you at least know you are starting with all the right pieces.

Emthonjeni decided to take the money from the last yard sale we hosted and use it to buy bread, jam, peanut butter and juice concentrate. We built mountains of sandwiches, filled a rubbermaid tub with juice and headed down to the field to feed the new occupants and their friends who had come to help them construct a home out of the scraps.

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Billy, Thabo, Sabata and Jaco noticed one family who had no one working with them. Their belongings piled up in the dirt, poles boards and corrugated tin lying in a heap while the husband was beginning to dig post holes. The guys offered to pitch in... and soon were seeing the frame emerge together.

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Tonight, there are 75 families in homes they tore down and re-constructed in a few hours work. There are 5 port-a-johns, two big blue water tanks and no electricity. There are new neighbors to get familiar with, new routes to take home from one edge of the settlement to a plot deep inside on the other end, new gardens to plant. Establishing all over again from scratch. Hoping the walls fit. For these 75 families, it is a part of their reality, to be stable, but not really... I hope they sleep well tonight.

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