living grace

To begin this introduction, Living Grace is a part of a bigger organization called Living Hope, which is founded on a desire for the church to reach out by taking a holistic approach that effects spiritual, physical, economic and political change in the people of the Cape Peninsula of South Africa. There are a few different branches of Living Hope, but Living Grace in particular is the homeless & addictions ministry, which focuses on feeding the homeless, counseling the broken, clothing the naked, and recovery/job placement.

We spend every Wednesday morning at Living Grace. Each weekday morning at 815 they serve breakfast to a maximum of 50 people. Everything is free provided that you sit through the worship songs and morning devotion before you eat. They do the same at lunch at 1230. Half of our team gets there before breakfast, sometimes we do the devotion (basically a 5-10 minute mini-sermon), and then sit with the people while they eat. After they leave, we stay and help because Wednesday is when they receive their biggest shipment of the week (a local grocery store donates food). We help them sort out what is useable, wash all the produce, chop the veggies, prepare the bread, and do any odd jobs that need doing. Midway through the morning the other half of our team comes and takes over. They continue on with the veggie preparation, and stay through the afternoon devotion (again, we sometimes do this ourselves), and leave after lunch once everyone is gone.

At first, I was struggling with the whole idea of this ministry, because sometimes I don't think the most effective way of really helping people is making them sit through a sermon. For instance, in the US, lots of kids are forced to go to church and bribed with ice cream on Sunday afternoon, but they end up forgetting or resenting church later in life. Again, this was a case of outreach just not feeling as good as I thought it would. Plus it was sort of a surprise, because when we did community lunch back in Auckland, it was much more focused on relationships than on anything religious. We ate with the people, sat with them around tables, talked with them, and sometimes got to pray with them. But at Living Grace, it is highly focused on getting people fed. And saved. We sit in rows (not convenient for talking), we don't eat with the people, and after nearly every devotional, they sort of have an altar call. You've probably heard this kind of thing before - you know the whole "You could die today! If you died today, where would you spend eternity?".... which, I know, it's true - - but I personally don't think it's effective, and ultimately, I don't think it's the reason that people should decide to follow Jesus. If that's your only motivation - fear -I don't think it will be sustainable. It's not fully acknowledging who God is. It's worshipping Him because He can save you from going to hell, not because He is worthy of that praise and it is simply the honor He's due.

This is something I've learned/thought a lot about over the course of DTS - that we shouldn't worship God just for what He can/has done for us, but rather for who He is. Yes, He has done some incredible things for all of us - but what if He stopped? What if you went through some really hard times? Would your faith hold up then?

We heard a sermon a few weeks ago from a guy who is in the midst of some hard times like this, and it was the best sermon I've heard since being on DTS. One of the things he talked about that really stuck in my mind was about the famous missionary Hudson Taylor. He said that Taylor had a scroll on either side of his bed that read, in Chinese characters, "Ebenezer" and "Jehovah Jireh". The word Ebenezer refers to a passage in 1 Samuel 7 where the Israelites defeat the Philistines, after Samuel has offered a sacrifice. Realizing that God aided them in the battle, Samuel puts up a stone in memorial and names it Eben-Ezer, which means "stone of help" and as Samuel places the rock down, he declares "Till now the Lord has helped us". So this word Ebenezer has come to signify the way God has been faithful in the past. As for Jehovah Jireh, is the name that Abraham gave to the place where God asked him to sacrifice Isaac. He named the land after God gave him a ram to sacrifice instead, and it means "God will provide". So, these two words - one a recollection of past faithfulness, and the other a sure hope of things to come - describe the place where we spend our lives as Christians. We are often hanging in the balance between knowing that God has been faithful in the past, and knowing that he will provide in the future. And that land in-between is scary, and can be painful and difficult, but because of the poles on either side, even when it's shaking, we know it is stable ground. Anyway, that was a really complicated story and is mostly just my stream-of-consciousness thought process, and is only loosely related to Living Grace - - - so let's get back on track.

As the weeks have gone on, I have realized that what they're doing there is a good thing because they are filling a real need that these people have. And they are able to do it every weekday! Breakfast and lunch. I find that really impressive. They are there, every day, making this happen. I mean, if we all sat around and criticized every ministry that we see, nothing would ever get done. So while I would maybe do things differently, I can't say I've started any homeless ministries recently, so I should probably do less judging of people who have and more just being obedient and just helping them. All in all, I am learning a lot from helping out at Living Grace. It's definitely challenging me to think deeper, and I feel good that we can help out with a ministry that's providing so much for Muizenberg, so I'm glad we've gotten involved there.

sibongile

I'll start the introduction to our ministries with Sibongile - a day & night care center for children with cerebral palsy. It is located in one of the nearby townships, Khayelitsha. There are townships all over South Africa - they are informal settlements, people would call them "shanty towns" in the US - some parts of the townships have proper houses while other parts have shacks made of corrugated metal. They are generally known to be very dangerous (we had to have an escort with us the first time we went in), but it's where the majority of people live here and there aren't very many other options for the inhabitants. Khayelitsha is one of the largest townships in South Africa with a population of over 500,000 with 80% unemployment and it stretches as far as your eye can see.

So, that's just to give you an idea of the setting. But now some information about Sibongile:

-It was started by a local woman named Nomasango Xabanisa. She had a daughter named Sibongile (which in Xhosa means "thanks") who had CP, and in the Xhosa culture they see disability as a really negative thing, so when children are born with disabilities they are cast out and forgotten. But Nomasango believed in something different - - she knew that we are all created in God's image and deserve to be loved and cared for. So she started taking children in from the community little by little. Over time, this grew into the organization that we are now volunteering for that employs 12 full time "mamas" that care for the children, and houses about 30 children currently. Although Nomasango lost her little girl, she is now doing SO much for the children in Khayelitsha who have no other option. So that's why we go - - to help the mamas and to play with the children who don't get much affection or attention (the mamas are very busy).

Sibongile started out in a "container", literally, a shipping container - here's something to give you an idea:

But after much-needed funding, they now have 2 proper houses in the township. So our team has split up - 4 of us go to Sibongile II and 4 to Sibongile III, 2 times per week. When we go, we play with the children who live in each house. In the US, children with cerebral palsy usually see doctors often and do physical therapy daily. However, here in South Africa, with limited resources and less than ideal medical coverage, these children see a doctor maybe once per month, and the caregivers aren't trained to do any sort of physical therapy. So we have struggled to really know what to do, and to feel like we are helping. That was really difficult in the beginning, just feeling like, okay, we're playing with these kids, but we're not totally sure if they're even enjoying it because they don't respond a whole lot. But it has gotten better because the kids have gotten to know us more and we've gotten to know their likes/dislikes as well. It was also a struggle in the beginning because the mamas were a bit wary of us, but they too have warmed up to our group. One of the mamas, Dudu, is especially fond of us now and she called me "baby" multiple times today (so sweet!). She also tried to find me a boyfriend, but don't worry I informed her I am a kept woman.

When we went today, we met the physiotherapist who is here for a 6 week stint. We told her we'd like to learn some more about how to help the kids with exercises, etc. So she told us a little bit and said she would make us a list of simple exercises, maybe with some pictures, so we can know what to do in the future. Most of the things she told us today were very easy though. For instance, Liyabona, one of the boys that I play with often, has no head control. So she said we should lay him down, and when his head falls to one side, put my face in front of his and move slowly to try to get him to follow me. So yes, everything is continuing to get better each time we visit.

Other than that, there are some really sweet moments that we get to have when hanging out with these kids. One of my favorite things has been holding Choumani, one of the little boys who actually can talk, letting him playing this little toy drum and making up songs together. Mostly we just repeat "alleluia" over and over with different notes each time, and it's so much fun watching him smile and sing. Just anytime we can make the kids smile is so rewarding. One day I learned that Liyabona will just smile automatically when I make kiss noises, so I spent about half an hour just doing that. It's the simple but sweet things that make the difference.

a much needed update

So, yes, in case you were wondering, I am still alive. I'm so sorry to not have posted in a while, but I guess you could say I've been going through an extended period of writer's block. And apparently time flies when you're a struggling writer. Next monday will mark the fifth week of our outreach, which is insane considering that we only have 11 weeks total here in South Africa. We are nearly halfway through?!? Honestly though, this is the first week where I've really felt clarity about things, so at least you ALL didn't get dragged along through the emotional roller coaster I've been riding on these past couple of weeks. Also, if it makes you feel any better, I realized today that I also have not plucked my eyebrows in the past 4 weeks either, so it's not just posting I'm terribly behind on. Maybe it's inevitable that things just fall to the wayside when you live in a foreign country. But not after today. I have already plucked my eyebrows, and now that my vision is no longer impaired, I'm writing this post. (Sorry, I'm shamelessly using sarcastic humor to try to win back my blog followers)...

Okay! So you're probably all wondering what in the world I've been up to for the past month. It's sort of a lot to condense, so for now, I'll just fill you in on why I've been hesitant to write, and then for the next week, I will post blogs about each of the ministries that we're working with. After explaining everything we're doing, I'll conclude with some of the things I've learned so far on the trip, and after that I'll get back to "normal" postings just updating you on anything exciting that happens! It's quite a lofty plan I know, but I want to just commit to doing it so that everyone gets the full story.

The story goes like this:

Last year, an outreach team from Auckland came here to Muizenberg. Because they had been here last year, we all felt really confident about our time here and what we'd be doing. We thought things would already be rolling, and we could sort of just pick up where that team left off last year. But, when we got here, we hit a few roadblocks.

First of all, the team last year did a lot of investigative work about brothels in the area, but it was too intense and they made a decision that we definitely wouldn't do it again this year. So, I think we underestimated what a difference that would make in our schedule. They were doing it multiple hours per week, which left us with those hours to fill with something else, which we didn't do before arriving.

Secondly, the communication between us and our contacts here was not the best in the world. We thought we'd be getting trained for the anti-human trafficking demonstrations right away, but it turns out many of the Justice ACTs staff were on vacation, so we just got it - - yesterday. And the van we were supposed to rent was broken indefinitely... leaving us with no vehicle for the first 2 weeks we were here.

Third, the first 3 weeks we were here was summer vacation. So we couldn't call schools to set up the anti-human trafficking presentations because no one was there to answer the phones. And again, most of our contacts weren't back to work yet. So we just struggled so much with finding things to do for the first few weeks. We had all the desire - every day we were eager to get out and do something, but it felt like there were just impediments everywhere we turned - we needed training to do this, or we had to wait a week to start that... and all I could think was "We are a group of 9 able-bodied missionaries who REALLY want to help people. And we can't find anyone. In AFRICA." and the irony just killed me.

So, we spent a lot of time in the beginning trying to fill up our schedule. And it seemed like each thing we did just felt much less awesome than I had expected it to. I will go into more detail about each one when I describe them in my next posts, but in general it just felt like, what's the point of what we're doing? Is this worthwhile? Is this what being a missionary is like? Am I accomplishing anything? Lots of questions in my mind. And I am a thinker, often an over-thinker, so my brain was just fried for a while. Not to worry though.... some answers have come through! Follow along these next couple of days and all will be revealed!

Days 4 and 5 of the Adventure

Soooo, you get to here from the lesser half of the future Mr. and Mrs. Norris for this post.

Day 4: Kirstenbosch / the Mount Nelson

So Kirstenbosch was an afternoon fit for the Stooges. We had a late start, but it was the first pretty day in the last few, so we decided to attempt to hike table mountain. Plus we had heard that there were some trails that started within the national botanical gardens at Kirstenbosch...two birds, one stone. Aaaanyway, we were super low on gas, but i kept wanting to push it. Then I had decided to not bring my wallet because every radio station assured us we were going to be mugged, beaten, drawn and quartered on table mountain. Thus I only had a little bit of cash in my pockets. After entering the park, we only had a little money left. Since we were planning on hiking from the gardens, I thought it a good idea to buy a trail map of table mountain. First, the map was way more expensive than expected and the lady had to give us a ten percent discount so I could afford it. Second, the map revealed that we had bitten off way more than we could hike as it would take 3.5 hrs to get from kirstenbosch to the flat area of table rock...ONE WAY! Third, I now had no more money in case we ran out of gas. After about ten minutes of freaking out, we decided to ask the kind lady who had kindly given me a 10% discount to kindly give us a refund for our kind map, so we could at least drive home. With that settled, we decided to at least enjoy the gardens for the afternoon.

As you might imagine and the pictures suggest, it was ridiculous. Not only were the gardens beautiful and absolutely huge, they were on the side of the table mountain range, thus providing some rather amazing views of capetown as well as the range itself. We took the trail that ran up toward the table mountain trails. In my desire to always find adventure, we decided to hike a few minutes up the beginning of skeleton's gorge (the name should have been a red flag). On about step 35 or so, Chels came several inches from stepping on a snake, so we promptly returned to the comfort and safety of the paved walkways of the gardens. And yes, I would have sucked out the poison and then bitten the snake to give it a taste of its own venom.

Anyway, the gardens were as amazing as advertised. We then made our way back--low gas and all--to capetown, changed, and walked to the Mount Nelson, an old colonial hotel that serves afternoon tea. Afternoon tea you say? Mundane, huh. NOPE. So you get an unlimited amount of 30 different loose leaf teas along with a buffet of finger foods and desserts that were absolutely incredible. We spent an hour and half indulging in the amazing food and washing it down with delicious teas (I think we tried the Mount Nelson blend and some sort of Russian tea, both of which were stellar). No real big stories to report other than it had the nicest men's bathroom I've ever entered and I almost vomited from the amount of food we ate.

We were both full and tired after our long day in the sun, so we laid low that night and fell asleep watching a movie.

Day 5: Christmas Eve

Apart from being an absolutely gorgeous day, Christmas Eve was our day to transition from the Fire and Ice to our really awesome guest house in Camps Bay. As a farewell, we ate our last full spread breakfast buffet. Afterward, we packed up, made sure everything was out of the room, took a few pictures and made our way down to the mighty Getz....to find that said vehicle had a flat tire. It had been low a few days prior so we put some air in it, but apparently whatever leak it had finally wielded a deadly blow. We ran our bags back upstairs, got a one hour extension on our room and headed back to the garage. In keeping with my manly duties, I changed the tire in all of fifteen minutes, thanks to about as simple a set up as I have seen. Chelsea of course took pictures and sent them to our families, which of course landed them in the hands of everyone i knew. This was all well and good until I came to find out that all of the recipients were shocked at my ability to change a tire. So all in all a great boost for my self confidence. I will note that it took us an hour from when we saw the flat to having everything loaded into the new rental car (the blue steel edition of the Getz).

With the car situation handled, we made our way over the mountain to the Atlantic House in Camps Bay. Needless to say, five star guest houses are both very nice and well staffed. The people that ran the desk were so welcoming and accommodating. They made us dinner reservations for the two nights we were there, served as the cook staff for breakfast, booked other hotel reservations for other guests....a class organization all around. As we were getting the low down on our room, she explained the purpose of the small blue box with a black button on the key ring. "In case of emergency" pressing the button would bring men with guns to the rescue. All I will say is that ADT is a totally different company in the US than in South Africa.

After getting settled we walked down to the gorgeous beach for a few hours of tanning, reading and napping. It was incredible. Plus, the twelve apostles area of table mountain behind us was shrouded in low lying clouds, which made for a surreal picture. After walking back and changing, we drove down to the Codfather, for what would prove to be our best meal of the trip. Its a small restaurant with a huge case of raw fresh seafood. You pick out whatever you want, which you pay for by weight, they cook it in their blend of spices, along with a few sides and bring it all out with in a single skillet and amazing dipping sauces. Our extremely helpful waiter helped us decided on a giant tiger prawn, butter fish, king fish and one other i can't remember. Either way, it was incredible. We also enjoyed good sushi as an appetizer, a great white wine also recommended by said waiter and watched the beginnings of the evening sun. We were also the only diners in the restaurant as it was only 430 when we went to dinner, which added to the fun.

We headed from there to century city, an oddly gigantic crop of nice shops and car dealerships west of the city center, for a christmas eve service at the Hillsong church of Capetown with Chelsea's Norwegian friends, Mickel and Hanna and his family. It was great to finally sing christmas songs and really celebrate the season in South Africa. Plus I got saved!! Apparently in a large church, if the pastor asks you to raise your hand for blessing, you'd better be paying attention the whole time or you may end up with a guy handing you a Bible, for what he thinks is the first time. Either way, it was great to worship with them and the rest of the people there.

We drove them back to their hotel, headed back to ours and called it a night. But not before watching CHRISTMAS VACATION!! I of course brought it along as my must watch christmas movie. I'm pretty sure Chels wanted to kill me, but I made her stay awake the whole time so we could watch the whole thing together.

I will admit it will stand out as the most memorable Christmas Eve of my relatively brief life thus far.

days 2 and 3 of the james and chelsea blogs

Day two of our trip was the Winelands drive, which was a lot of fun and absolutely beautiful. We stopped at Durbanville Hills, a winery just west of Cape Town, and tasted some of their wine. James, not really a wine drinker, was happy to do the wine tasting with me (I’m sure he would have rather done scotch or beer tasting), so to appease both of us, we also ordered this fantastic charcuterie plate. It had fun meats and cheeses and a bread roll cutely wrapped up with paper and twine. I’m convinced that anything with twine is 10 times cuter automatically.

We continued on and drove through Stellenbosch and Franschoek, two more wine-producing areas, which are absolutely beautiful and speak for themselves in the photos. It was Land Before Time-esque, and we just had so much fun enjoying all the beauty and being amazed around each corner.

After the long day’s drive, we decided to just pick up some Nando’s around the corner on Long St., and relax. I think we actually fell asleep around 9, still a bit jet-lagged, not to mention tourist-tired (my term for the exhaustion that results from being constantly slightly lost and jamming way too much into each day).

For day three, we decided to check out Boulder’s Bay (to see the penguins), and headed down the famous Chapman’s Peak drive. We stopped a few places along the way – in Noordhoek village to get a beer – James saw a picture of a frog drinking a beer and decided we had to stop. Although when we went inside, there was no beer on the menu and it was quite awkward actually, but we asked and they did have some. We randomly watched gymnastics while drinking our awkward beers, but it was a little adventure and we had fun. Other than that, we did lots of stopping to take pictures of the scenery. Although the weather was not the best, everything is still gorgeous, and the clouds make the mountains look a bit more majestic in my opinion.

Highlight from today: stopping at Hout Bay for fish and chips at the famous Mariner’s Wharf. Not only did we have some amazing fish and chips (the best I’ve had), we got the added benefit of seeing some wild seals playing in the harbor. I was quite fascinated and could have watched them for hours – they are really funny creatures. The cape seals are known for being very fuzzy, something I never thought of seals being.

The recap will continue soon...