Preface: This is really jumbled and scattered and it has some really horribles things written about in it, but it is what I have been through today and these last 2 weeks. I and what I believe am a work in progress so please bare that in mind. I have not processed enough to have real thoughtful, coherent politically, theologically sound arguements, yet, but I will. I will!!!


Today was possibly the hardest of all the days I have been here and tomorrow I leave to come home. I am so glad! I don't think I want to see anymore. I can not believe the world inwhich we live in. I can not believe the things i saw today...these were not things that were done in the past but things that are happening right now. I strolled through informal settlements and townships today. These are largely black families that reside in these areas, mostly because the government during the "struggle" placed them here. Now families move to bare patches to ground in a city beside the highway and build their homes. These homes were worse than anything I have seen on ASP. And ASP has some true devastation. The homes were built out of cardboard, wood, tin, plastic tarps. In one of these rooms today while the cardboard roaf dripped above there was a small three month old baby sleeping on its bed sucking its thumb. There might be fifteen buckets outside for a community of thousands to use...the city empties these buckets 2 xs a week. I say rooms the size of my washroom with three beds for six persons to sleep in. People were selling their wares outside there homes and I could not bring myself to barter with them..."$4 for a wooden elephant...No problem". Then after eating lunch in downtown Cape Town where I sat infront of the most destitute, impoverished street woman I have seen we went to SHADE, a United Methodist ministry here for woman and children. There we met woman who have come to SA after fleeing the Congo. Hey told us there stories of why they fled. Then before we knew it they were flashing pictures of their stories on powerpoint. Pictures none of us were prepared to see, many of us wished we could have looked away. Pictures of soldiers with decapitated heads at their feet, happy to have slain the people. Pictures of children murdered while they slept. Pictures of woman being mutilated...female circumcision. Pictures of childen on the brink of death due to starvation. Let me tell you it is different seeing these for real versus on a movie or commercial asking for donations. These families took these pictures to help show others what is going on in the world.
One of the most interesting things we hav ALL experienced here in SA is how interested foreigners are in the US presidental elections. Everyone here wants to talk to us about our country, their preception of us and how they hope and need us to be a leader. I have been realized what an impact the US has on the world, but we do. And let me tell you, the perception right now is that we have squandered the power, reputation and ability we once had to speak out against injustice. People here are afraid of us in many ways. They are afraid we will do something to hurt them. They have said we are afraid the US will want our resources and come take them from us. They are afraid we will continue to turn a blind eye to things happening here, like the Congo. They are afraid the money we allocate for Africa will continue to not be able to make it to free health clinics here that pass out birth control, because in Africa the places that pass out birth control also offer abortions. Our politics the last 8 years has not allowed these agencies to receive funding because we don't want to give money to someplace that also offers abortions to women. So instead of providing measures to stop unwanted pregnancies we teach abstinence...in a country where violent acts against women such as rape are rampent. I am dumbfounded. I am angry. I am disgusted at how in such a amazing country as the USA we have somehow turned inward on ourselves and live in this bubble that doesn't want or let ourselves see the hurt and pain in the world. We live so isolated and don't even realize the ramifications of our actions and non actions in the world. Here they talk about how much food we consume and how Africans don't understand how we can order so much when we can never eat it all. We are wasteful they say, and they are right. They say we are consumers and they are right.
But they also believe we can change the world if we would but choose to. We can help empower the weak and seek to make heard the voice of the oppressed. We are only given power inorder to give it those who have none. I am ready to come home to hide from some of this again. I need a break from all I have seen. I need to see my healthy, beautiful children with their bright future. I need to walk in my safe neighborhood and not be asked for money or food when I step out my door. But I need not stay there too long. I need to bring these stories with me. I don't want to not know anymore. I don't want to be ignorant of the worlds sickness. I want to help shine light onto the places we need the grace of Christ most and see if God can still work some miracles.

Me on top of Table Mountain!!!

Home in 4 days...YEAH!!!

So we are now in Cape Town. It is a beautiful city city underneath Table Mountain which we will go up on tomorrow if the weather is good.

Pictures are from the last few days.
1.Hot air balloon safaris
2 Shot of the land
3 White Rhino
4 Who I miss most!!!!!!


5 Disctrict 6- which is where 35,000 "coloured" persons were made to relocate from there long time homes into far off designated areas where they would live according to their "classified, determined" race, in order that whites might demolish and take over the area. This is a picture of a map that a Methodist church has on its floor that allowed people who were removed to come into the church and write their names on the map where they had lived. It was there way of helping them to reclaim what they had lost...I found my family name amongst all the names of the displaced families.
6 Leper Graveyard on Robbin Island where it has been used for hundreds of years a a prison and isolation area...beginning with persons with skin conditions considered lepers.
7 Cape Town on Atlantic ocean heading to the island.
8 Zebra in the road...posing :)
9 My lion shot :) YEAH!!!

Today we began at 5:30am with our fist game drive. My camera battery holder fell off and was lost so that I had to hold the battery in with the same hand I shot with. I ran out of tape in the cam corder and I got a terrible nose bleed...even with all that I managed to spot 6 or 7 of the animals we saw...everyone says I have a gift for seeing the animals...oh and I didn't even have my glasses on :) Within the first five minutes I spotted elephants (my favorite). We think we may have even have seen a lion very far off. So even though it began rough with all that happened to me it ended well...I even found my battery lid to the camera in the room...whew!!! I am trying to decide if I want to take a safari in a hot air balloon...it is quite expensive, but possibly a once in a life time opportuntiy...also many are aware I am NOT a risk taker and they go quite high in the sky. SO I am a little afraid.
The animals are a nice break from all the thinking and squalling we have been doing. Yesterday i sat through one of the most convicting, excellent sermons I have heard. Hopefully I am getting a copy of it before I leave. It was about how we can be so double minded...wanting to please GOd and wanting to please the world. Loving money and loving Jesus. The preacher even said in the sermon," i confess, I do truly want to preach a good sermon for Christ and the kingdom, but I also want to preach well so that you will think I am a good preacher." You could hear a guteral sigh from our row...as we are all preachers who identified well with that example. It also touched me on a different level of feeling doubleminded about wanting to do two things well...be a good mother and be a good minister.

Steve I wish you were here. Seeing the animals would be so much fun with you. Where we are staying is nice enough to be a honeymoon spot. Great food, and nice facilities. I am trying hard to take good pictures for you. I keep thinking that if I can take nice enough pictures, then that is what we can frame for our wall art in the den. I really miss you not being here...we must come again. The babies in due time would enjoy this as well. It is really exciting looking for animals. The predators are hard to find though cause they sleep and hide in shade during the day. We will go out tonight to see if we can spot them.

I'll write more when I get some more time. Glad to be here, but i can't wait to get home!!

" It is said that no one truly knows a nation until pne has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones...And South Africa treated its imprisoned African citizens like animals.| Nelson Mandela







So today we went first to Constitutional Hill which now houses the highest court in SA. It resides on the same spot as Old Fort Prison which hosues thousands of crimals, political activiest and such...Ghandi and Mandela are two of the most famous. Most people there were not even guilty of a crime. This prison ran up until 1983. They did horrible things to prisoners. Not letting them shower for months. Making them eat only rice soup, which it the water you cook your rice in. Requiring them to strip naked, jump up and down and bend over to show they were not hiding anything inside themselves. With the adoption of South Africa's new constitution they have abolished capital punishment. They have stated 8 reasons which I do not have with me so I will post them later. It is profound the way this country now values human diginity in all of us...even the worst.
After this we went to The Cradle of Humankind...this is where the oldest remains of humanoids have been found...3.5 billion years old. It was quite fascinating. And finally we went tonight to an outrageous outlandish bizzare play. It was quite entertaining simple because of the silly nature of it.
We go to church in the morning and then head to the bush to spent some days with the wildlife here in SA. I can't wait!!!

Pictures
1. Isolation cells. The one with the metal door open was used for torture and believed to be inhabitated by a ghost
2. Barbed wire even covered the top of the prison
3. The skeletal remains found in SA of humanoids through our present day form.
4. Me standing infront of the talk grass...you can see how easily a lion could hide in this tall grass without being seen. There were antelope up on the hill above me.

A child in Soweto

Today was a hard day. We went to Soweto, which is a township outside of Johannesburg. There are over 4 million people living there largely in poverty. It was a stark difference from the Nelson Mandella square we shopped in the night before that was possibly the largest shopping mall I have been inside. Today I met a woman named Carol who was a part of the June 16, 1976 uprising that began to turn the tide on aprtheid. She was 13 then. She among 15000 other students led a march through the streets of Soweto to protest the schools being forced to teach in the Afrikans langauge. For them it was the language of their oppressors. Things turned violent when the police opened fire into the crowds and rioting lasted for days and months even. Many children were killed. She was there in the march that day. Now she runs a clinic for children who are orphaned by AIDS. There parents died from AIDS and now many of the eldest children ages 11-17 are caring for the rest of the their siblings. She is helping them and over 310 household and 2000 children now call me their "Mama". Many of these children also are HIV positive. She has sacrificed so mush in order to help these children. She says so often they just want to talk about "what hurts inside". She says she loves these "children of the soil" as much as she loves "the children of her loins". This was very challenging to think about.
I felt very selfish and guilty for only caring for my two. And then at the same time I as I listened to the cost she has paid for loving all of them with such a passion I wondered if the cost was more than one ( me in particular) should bare. So it is the constant struggle to me about what we cling to most tightly. And when is it the right and possibly healthy time to let go of somethings in order to pick up others, which may not serve "you" as much as they may serve the greater good.

Much to think about and my brain and heart hurt.

Hello from Johannesburg South Africa!!! The internet connection is painfully slow . Today was our first full day here and already it is such a powerful and emotional journey. Today a United Methodist pastor here in SA, but who also recently pastored a UMC church in Jackson Mississippi spoke to us about racial reconciliation and true integration of blacks and whites. He spoke about how after living for 4 years in the South he could see that even though 40 years ago we wrote laws to desegregate yet we are still very segregated..."This is where white people live, and this is where black people live. This is where white kids go to school and this is where black kids go to school. This is where white people shop and this is where black people shop." It really touched me because this is so true. He spoke about how we can have dieing churches of the same denomination across the street from each other but they will not join together in order to be a live vibrant church. He challenged us to consider the idea that a white man or woman could serve a black church or vice versa. I wept through much of his talk and they say tomorrow is the emotional day. I brought tissue paper here after learning in Israel that not all countries keep toliet paper handy, but i now realize the tissue paper will be for me running nose and watery eyes. Our history in the USA and particularly the south mirros much of what we have here. SA prayer they said has become that in 40 years of ending apartheid they will have come farther than where we are as a country.
On a lighter note, I have eaten some really good food. I tried Biltong- beef jerkyish, droewors- Slim Jimish, Samoosa- which I Love, is fried meat wrapped in a bread in the shape of a triangle, and Cook's Sista- not sure how to spell that, but a sweet syrupy fried bread and I had the best passion fruit ice cream!!!

Pictures are of me in front of the hotel SunnySide Park where we are staying and of me on a South African street in Pretoria surrounded by Jackaranda plants and a huge monument telling the Africaners story here.

The people have been so kind and I love the African understanding of "ubuntu" which is that we can only be or understand our humanity through recognizing others humanity. This is what has enabled so many to forgive the tremendous sins that took place here.
There is much hospitality here...I see now why Cheve is so generous and hospitable...its in her culture!!!


Much to learn here! Thanks to those of you helping me be here by loving my kids and teaching classes for me while I am gone!! XOXO