A Baptism

Two weeks ago I had the privileged of baptizing four young men. They wanted to publicly display their commitment to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This was a pretty special moment for me as I have walked with all of them in their spiritual journey. For three of them, I walked closely with them for three years, since their journey with Christ began.

I’ve never had the privilege to walk with young men like this before. Before coming to South Africa and had spent 7 to 8 years doing one to two year commitments in the Middle East, attending college, and working at home. These guys I have known since 2005 and have followed their lives up to this point. It has definitely been something special to see how God has been able to use me to help shape and encourage these young men.

Our group is made up of five with four of them baptized two weeks ago and the other to be baptized in the next month. They all live in the township of Soshanguve and very close to each other. They come from families that have very little financially, but God doesn’t them this way. He sees them as warriors for His Kingdom and His purposes. My journey with these guys starts back in January 2007 as I began mentoring one guy, Tshepo. Within a few weeks he had invited his friends and the group was formed.

In the first weeks, each guy came to me and shared how he had never thought reading the Bible and talking about God could be cool and how his life lives have changed drastically. Feelings of hate and anger were being replaced with love and joy. Instead of starting fights at school, new friendships were formed with classmates. Instead of ignoring God, looking for God became a habit. And so began their journey into the heart of God.

Over the past three years I’ve been able to walk with them through their struggles and joys, their wounds and triumphs. And it’s culminated in them being baptized.

The baptism was held at a camp where we had a men’s retreat. There was no body of water available for baptism, so I borrowed a small kid’s pool. But it still wasn’t big enough for them to be fully submerged so Johannes and I dunked their heads completely under one at a time. It was a moment they won’t forget as they moved forward in their walk with God.

My new friend Sylvia

Here’s a story about my good friend Sylvia.  She grew up about 4 hours away in a more rural village and then her family moved to the township of Mamelodi outside of Pretoria. Now, with her husband and family, Sylvia lives in Block KK, Soshanguve.  I met her about four months ago that is when she began sharing her story and her heart.

For a long time Sylvia has had a heart for God and while living in Soshanguve her heart for God has led her to start caring for her neighbors.  It first began about three years ago when a baby girl was brought to Sylvia’s house.  The baby was three months old but was so malnourished it only looked about 1 month old and her skin was starting to rot and become infected.  The most rotten parts of her skin were her private parts.  This baby was living with some distant relative but totally neglected and ignored.  Sylvia couldn’t stand by and do nothing.  She did her best to contact social services to in order to find help, but like many people in this country, Sylvia only met social workers who were only concerned about their position and did nothing to help the community.  Many promises were made that came back empty.  Sylvia encountered this country’s inadequate social welfare system.  The government is filled with people only appointed because of their connections instead of their ability to provide the service they were hired to do.  (I have run into this problem many times during my 4 years in South Africa.)

Well, Sylvia decided to take matters into her own hands if the government was going to fail.  She contacted several people who might be willing to help.  Through this she was able to get free donations of food and clothing to help some.  She went door to door in her Block to survey those who needed help but wasn’t receiving any.  She found 54 orphans from 22 families that were in need and received no help from the government.  She took four of these orphans into her home doing the best she could.  She told her story to Rianna, the woman she works for as a domestic worker, and Rianna took it upon herself to help.  Eventually Sylvia and Rianna made it on the Nation’s Talk Radio Station to share their story and frustration in the lack of basic social service.

It was soon after this that I met Sylvia and knew walking with her was what God was calling me to do.  So I started by listening and praying.  Colletta joined with me in this venture and we began visiting families and encouraging Sylvia.  So far, we’ve helped Sylvia begin a community garden and we are working with her to get a piece of land to build to community center/safe house in order to support those in great need.  This will not be a short process, but in the end we hope it will have a long lasting impact.

And I have to admit that the hurdles we have to overcome and move past can sometimes seem discouraging to me, but Sylvia is always there with a positive attitude and a trust in God that keeps me encouraged.

Doug

A Daughter Stolen but Found

Getting to know Granny’s family over the past several years I found out about Granny’s oldest daughter, Dumazile.  She was stolen from Granny several years ago, 33 years ago to be exact.  Dumazile was Granny’s first born.  She was stolen by Granny’s step-mother when she was only seven years old.  Dumazile was later given to a woman, Pombagile, to be raised as her own daughter.

All these years, Granny has desired to be reunited with Dumazile, but all attempts failed and she really had a hard time having any hope that she might one day be reunited with her missing daughter.

Granny shared this story with me last year, I felt God asking me to strongly commit to do what I can to help reunite this mother and daughter.  So for the past months we as a family have been praying and seeking out contacts and resources to help us locate and find Dumazile.  Over the past month through the help of the police and multiple family contacts we were able to find place where Dumazile was.  I was told we have an exact town, street address, and street number to find her.   I was told she was living in Greytown, about 700 kilometers away, and that we could find her there.

So this past Friday at 4pm the family, Barbara, and I set out for the night drive to Greytown.  I was hoping the trip would be 6 to 8 hours.  But like most plans, things change and it ended up taking 11 hours and we didn’t arrive to Greytown until 3am Saturday morning.  Whatever little sleep I was able to get abruptly ended at 5am as the family didn’t want to wait any longer to go the local police station and find the exact location where Dumazile was staying.  Well, this ended up leading us to a different police station in a smaller village about 1 hour away.  And from there we waited about 2 more hours until the police were ready to escort us to Dumazile.

The police escorted us primarily because they were concerned of a possible family fight breaking out because of a daughter being gone for 33 years.  Even though we didn’t feel the police escort was needed for this reason, we were glad they showed us the way because Dumazile was in one of the most remote villages I’ve ever been in.  She was living somewhere up in the mountains where there are only small Zulu huts spread across the landscape.  This area of South Africa is so remote with no electricity or water or food.  I honestly don’t know how they survive. (The police didn’t actually know where she was at, they only knew the general area of mountains.)  After an hour and a half of negotiating slippery, muddy roads and stopping several times with the police for them to ask the locals if they had ever heard of Dumazile or her family name, we found a small boy who knew where Pombagile lived.

So we followed his instructions and walked up a narrow path to a small white home on the top of one mountain.  It was the home of Pombagile.  This led to a series of discussions and finally to myself and others setting out in our microbus to find our way to Dumazile’s house which was another half hour drive away.  Dumazile returned with us to Pombagile’s home where everything was explained.  All of us were very anxious to know what Dumazile’s reaction would be.  To our delight, she received the news well.  She remembered being taken when she was 7 years old, but never knew the full story.  She had always thought her real mother had given her away because she wasn’t wanted, she didn’t realize she was stolen from her mother.  She was so grateful to meet her real mother after so many years and she never expected to actually meet her sisters that she never knew existed before.  It was a joyous reunion for all of us.

 

Although the visit was short, it was wonderful.  For me, I know it’s one of the most significant events I’ll ever have the opportunity to be a part of, let alone play such a significant role in making it happen.

 

Well, the way home was a night drive of 14 hours that included a flat tire, a dead battery, and the loss of brakes on the back tires but we all made it home by 6am on Sunday.  And I got some good sleep after driving all the way home except for 2 of the hours.
Reflecting on the experience, all of us could easily see how much God was with us leading the way.  And Dumazile has already called Granny twice in the three days since the weekend and she has desires to move to Soshanguve sometime in the future. I ask that you continue to pray for this family as it is the beginning of many new things for them.

Mr. Nice Guy

This past week our community welcomed a couple that led us through a time looking at the deep issues of our hearts. It was based on writings by John Eldredge if you’re familiar with him.

One of the things we talked about is the “nice” syndrome that seems to permeate our Christian culture. It seems that at many times the Christian life is all about “niceness.” Nice people go to church. Spiritual people are always nice. And the true quality of your life is determined by how nice you are. The nicer the better.

Well, I spent the first 20 years of my life trying to live up to this ideal. And I was pretty good at it. I was never known as a rebellious child at home. At school, I was well liked and got good grades. At church, I memorized lots of Bible verses and got Gold Stars for attendance. Oh, I seemed to be admired by many and I was walking the straight and narrow. I was going to be a Nice Christian for Jesus. I was well on my way to achieving the complete lifestyle of “niceness.” If I would have stayed on this track, by now I would have a “nice” job that I wouldn’t really care for, have a “nice” wife and both of us would raise our “nice” kids in a posh suburb where it’s always quiet, people drive the actual speed limit, and the grass is always cut to the perfect length.

But something in me changed when I had the opportunity to travel to the Middle East. I was there on a short-term missions team and I got a glimpse of what it means to live a “Radical” life for Jesus. Then two years later I was invited to lead a team back to the Middle East. And it was different than what I’ve ever experienced before. It was like a covert, special ops mission. And it felt like our team might have entered a James Bond movie. (Of course our weapons were slightly different.) We traveled across borders carrying multiple passports so that our previous locations wouldn’t be detected. We traveled into terrorist-controlled territories; spent time in a bomb shelter until the bombs subsided. In one country, we were followed by police from city to city. Two government spies followed our every move leaving one of our hotel rooms and later they stopped us to interrogate us.

Whoa! How cool is that! And in taking my team through all of this we came away with our mission accomplished. This is the way to live! More than any other time in my life, I felt this is what I’m made for. So long Mr. Nice Guy. A Radical life for Jesus is way more appealing.

Now I’m in South Africa on an adventure of a different kind. NieuCommunities provides me the freedom to explore and discover. I’m able to test and see what church can look like without all the buildings, traditions, formulas, and rules that can get in the way of understanding the essence of the Church. I get to discover the message of Jesus in cultures vastly different than my own. It’s like a spiritual Lewis and Clark journey up the Missouri River.

Even though I still fight the tendency to retreat back to Mr. Nice Guy, I’m so glad I left that life and started a different journey. The Real Life I’m experiencing now is so much better than the one of my previous ambitions that resembled living in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.

Jewish Roots

As the Easter weekend has passed by for us, we took time to reflect on the Jewish roots of our faith especially as they relate to the central event of our faith, Christ’s death and resurrection.

I’ve lived in Israel for a couple of years and I’ve appreciated both the Jewish and Arab expressions of faith that I’ve experienced. Surrounding the events of Easter, the Jewish Passover envelopes the full significance of what Christ was doing during that Passion Week. So this past Thursday, our community took time to have a Passover meal and reflect on its significance not only for Jewish faith, but ours as well.

The Passover meal, although a huge Jewish feast, is not a meal with the most scrumptious food you can think of. Some of the food you would prefer not eat. Parsley dipped in salt water or bitter herbs is usually not appetizing, but each piece of food and each drink has special significance as it relates to the Hebrews exodus from Egypt over 3,000 years ago. And as we move through the meal, we can see how the entire Passover meal is meant to remember the Hebrews’ “salvation” out of Egypt, but we also see (and taste) the meal calling God’s people to remember God’s promises yet to be fulfilled, which we can see being fulfilled by Christ.

What if other Jewish practices and feasts were observed? How much of our faith would have fuller meaning and significance if the Church would take time to understand its mother faith? Or maybe we could just start by actually studying the Old Testament valuing its significance?

I hope each of you have more and more chances to experience the fullness of our faith found in God’s commands to the Hebrews long ago.