gaborone

this place is the real africa. i know that cape town is in africa, and we experienced some incredibly african things there. but for some reason, botswana is really africa. i wake up in the morning and smell africa. i stand outside and feel africa. it is in my very spirit.
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i am tired. i am a little homesick. i am slightly annoyed by most of the people on the trip. but i know these things are only a passing phase on this journey. i am experiencing god in new and fantastic ways. i am seeing god work in the lives of women who are taking control of their destinies. i met dr. musa dube. she is one of the most inspiring people i have ever encountered.
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i can't wait to get home, but i really don't want to leave either.
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t.i.a.
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this. is. africa.

bittersweetness

today was a day of goodbyes. this morning we sent the belmont athletic team off to joburg and then on to the usa. then we spent our last day in cape town. i am incredibly sad to be leaving. encountering this place for a second time has been absolutely magical. i have been continually reminded of how much i love it here. and i will definitely be back again. whatever it takes.

but tomorrow brings with it the excitement of a new place. botswana will be fantastic and life-changing. i can feel it. however, there will most likely be limited internet access, so this may be my last blog for a while. if that's the case, i hope all of you have a great week and a half, and i will talk to you all when we return. blessings from mama afrika!

a dirty tradeoff

i went to church at masiphumalele this morning for the second time in my life. and for the second time i was moved as no other church service has ever moved me in the states. for some reason the joy and freedom with which they worship is profoundly variant from the way we choose to worship in the united states. it makes me wonder why i have to go to africa to experience it.

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this trip has turned out to be an incredible struggle...in a good way. last night i spent time talking to my friend chris about the purpose of this trip. i am unique on this trip in that i have been here before. there was no shock factor for me walking the streets of ocean view and masiphumalele. yet because of that i have had to process through a new, deeper level on this encounter. again i find myself believing that i could live here. and i don't say that idly. god is moving here, around me, in me, and through me. and even all my theological schizophrenia is able to find reconciliation with that fact.

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it is, in essence, a dirty tradeoff. i have to come to africa for three weeks to make discoveries that seem elusive back in the states. yet i grow to love the place so much that returning home seems an unbearable burden. but i also miss home. so there is no good clean way to fit all the pieces together...and i am growing to understand that i probably wouldn't want them to fit together anyway.

quite a day

It is impossible to truly visit Cape Town without taking time to play tourist at Table Mountain. This natural world wonder is a giant flat-top mountain that can be reached one of two ways: (1) hiking or (2) cable car. We all opted for the cable car and enjoyed a wonderful hour on top looking out over the city center (downtown). The views were indescribably breathtaking, and the shear magnitude of Table Mountain left everyone with a sense of awe.
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From Table Mountain we made our way to the District Six museum. District Six was a community of mixed races and religious traditions that lived peacefully together until the mid-1940s. At that point, the dominant white minority (and the perpetrators of Apartheid) forced this community into barren lands outside the city. This event was what instigated much of the poverty problem that exists in Cape Town today. The museum was unbelievable. Our group had the opportunity to move about the building taking in the stories of those affected by the District Six expulsion.
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We moved from the museum to Table Bay where we caught the ferry to Robben Island, the location of an infamous prison. This prison was the home of Nelson Mandela for nearly two decades during the anti-Apartheid struggle. Mandela was not the only political prisoner held here. In fact, myriad political positions were represented in the Robben Island prison showing that the crime being punished was race and not political ideology.
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After a full day, we grabbed dinner at "Mama Africa." EVERYONE dug right into the traditional South African cuisine. We had everything from Springbok and Kudu (both antelopes) to ostrich and crocodile. We all had a fantastic time. I know that we appreciate your continued prayers for safety. It is hard to believe that we leave for Botswana in just a few days. Love to all of you back home from all of us here!

the icon of st. george

today we visited the cathedral of st. george the martyr in the city center. this was the cathedral where desmond tutu performed his duties as archbishop of south africa. it was an incredible experience. in the courtyard of the church is a labyrinth. i spent time walking the labyrinth in prayer, focusing my prayers on south africa, the people on our trip, the upcoming summer, and my new roommates. it was a beautiful act, and it was one i had never before experienced. there are three stages of the walk. the purgation is the first part, performed on the inward spiral. this is where you let go of all the details of life. it is a spiritual catharsis. this is followed by illumination, or the time spent in the center of the labyrinth. it is a place of meditation and prayer. the return through the spiral is the union. this walk is represenative of rejoining the higher work your soul is reaching toward. it was incredible.

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inside the cathedral i came upon the icon of st. george. it was a small painting of the saint. below it were candles to be lit and a small prayer hung on the wall. it read:

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prayer at the icon of st. george

gracious god,

stretching out your hand of

protection over st. george our patron;

stretch out your hand to protect and

bless all who are hiv positive and

living with aids.

empower us to overcome the dragon

of stigma and fear and to embrace

our own woundedness.

we ask this through jesus

who overcame sin and death for

us and now reigns with you in glory.

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i was moved to tears while praying this prayer. it was a complete spiritual experience. i felt the presence of the holy spirit there with me in that moment of lighting a candle for all those affected by hiv/aids. as the tears fell down my face, i bowed my head in extended prayer, lifting up all those we had encountered and all those we would not encounter. i felt connected to my brothers and sisters in south africa. i felt connected to god. it is a shame that we have forgotten the traditions of our church like sacred prayers and labyrinths. there is immeasurable worth in this practices. and i got to experience them in a powerful way today.

quick update

don't have time for much this morning, but yesterday was incredible. i'll write more on that later. today we're heading to learn-to-earn, a south african social entrepreneurship experience. after that we're going to streetwires. check out the website. love to all of you back home!

struggling with the dissonance

it is interesting to be approaching this trip to africa from a completely different perspective from last year. there is very little shock factor for me. this has been exceedingly helpful for my daily processing, but it has also be a bit of a hindrance. you see i keep finding myself analyzing every situation that i encounter. this has led to myriad discoveries about how i view a.i.d.s. relief and the organizations with which we are working. i won't go into all that right now, but suffice it to say the struggle has been difficult.

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on a lighter note, god has provided such a blessing through the community with which we are working this week. "ocean view" is such a unique place. at first i was concerned that i would not be returning to "red hill," the township i worked with last year. but what an incredible place "ocean view" has turned out to be! the life skills educators are incredible, and the children are reminding me exactly how ridiculous my life is...and i see this as a good thing. i am so concerned with my appearance and my belongings that i forget that which matters most. today i had on dirty clothes (i'll get back to that in a minute), my hair was grotesque, and my mountain-man beard is coming in nicely. and i didn't care. people were taking pictures everywhere, and i thought to myself, i am not here to care about how i look in those pictures. i am here to connect with these kids. it was wonderful.

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about the dirty clothes...i worked an industrial-quality weed-whacker today and help clean up about a half-acre of land with overgrown grass. oh man. i can never say in good conscience that i do not care about power tools. i love them. i have never felt so much raw power in my hands before. and i kept thinking, i NEED one of these. so my clothes and face and hair were and absolute mess by the time we got to "ocean view" this afternoon. i was COVERED in grass, and it was amazing.

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i am falling in love with south africa all over again. even though this experience is totally different from that of last year, that simply has made it rich in totally different ways. this group of students has a dynamic unlike anything i have encountered. i have found myself hanging out with members of the mens' and womens' basketball teams. i'm cutting jokes with andy wicke. i'm playing mafia with mick hedgepeth. i'm cracking jokes in the middle of the night with drew hanlen. these are things i never in a million years thought i would ever do. this shared experience has allowed doors to open that i never thought would be possible. it moves my soul...and it also means that there is no way i am missing any home basketball games next year.

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all of this to say that after only two full days here, this trip has already been worth it. i do miss home though. funny enough i really miss my roommates. yet i am nowhere near ready to be back...and odds are i won't be ready when i do come back. but i am learning that this is okay.

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***again, i am sorry for the lack of pictures. when i get an internet connection (and time) to adds some, i will go back and do so...lots of pictures already!!!***

like being home

this morning we drove around and looked at all of the different ministries that living hope is connected to. we started at the clinic in capri and worked our way through masiphumalele, capricorn, ocean view, and muizenburg. it was incredibly exciting to see the gutters we hung last july at the capri clinic still up and operational. the two buildings they had cleared land for last summer were completed! what a difference a year makes. it really does feel like being home as i greet friends like jenks, mandy, and mike. i cannot wait to see what god has in store for me this year.

well...i'm off to eat lunch now. love to all of you back home.

finally here

hey everyone. just thought i would let you know that we are safely here in cape town. tonight we are chilling at the team house. i will try to post a longer blog tomorrow. i've got to tell you that my bed is going to feel INCREDIBLE tonight. i am having an awesome time getting to know the other guys on the trip. i will do my best to give a better update tomorrow! love to all of you.

here we go

it is 8:50am here in nashville, and i am slowly waking up. two and a half hours from now i will arrive at the nashville airport to meet my team. i have spent the last two days trying to wrap my mind around the fact that i am going back to south africa. it quite literally blows my mind, and to be honest, i am having a difficult time believing it is true. i won't believe it until i am sitting safely on my (18 hour) flight out of washington on my way to johannesburg. then it's just a short flight from joburg to cape town.

i have also had to continually remind myself that this trip will be vastly different than last year. for one, we will be in ocean view and not red hill this year. i didn't realize that until last night, and it made me kind of sad. i am not worried about it because i wanted a different experience this year. however, i had it in my mind that i would maybe get to see pastor clayton, mama zuleka (though i had heard that she was on the eastern cape with her ill father), shawn, hopi, ronald, and so many others. but this is how it is, and i will jump in at ocean view just as i did in red hill.

with this being a service learning/study abroad trip, the dynamics will be very different as well. yet for me, i think my purpose is going to be the same as of any global outreach trip with belmont. my goal is to go and support the already existing organization (living hope) and to provide encouragement. i know that there is so much more that i can learn from these people than i can teach them. so my heart is open. i have my rand (money) from last year so that i will be ready to go once we land.

i also have all the texts for the two classes this trip encompasses. for both "questions that matter" and "third-year writing" we are reading things fall apart by chinua achebe. in addition to that for "questions that matter" we are reading tracing the footsteps of god by c.s. song. third-year writing texts include country of my skull by antjie krog, kaffir boy by mark mathabane, and no future without forgiveness by desmond tutu. so, basically, i have a ton of reading to do. i also have to keep a journal for each class which i am actually pretty excited about. it means that my trip will be completely chronicled from two different perspectives the entire time because each journal requires different things. those journals will most likely make up a good bit of this blog.

well, i've wasted enough time on here this morning. my flight leaves at 1:13pm. africa, here i come.

one week

that's right. one week from today i will be on a plane heading back to africa. i'll be spending almost two weeks of the trip in cape town, south africa. the last part of the trip will be in gaborone, botswana. since belmont isn't doing a dedicated blog to this trip this year (as far as i know), i am going to do my best to update this blog throughout my trip. (take a look at mine from last year)

so make sure you check in here to see how the trip is going. i probably won't be able to upload pictures, so let me go ahead and set that expectation. however, i'll dedicate a whole blog to pictures (and maybe even add them in to the daily blogs) once i get back. so, here we go!

belmont in africa 2009
may 17 - june 6