Environment Impact

Yesterday embodied irony. Why? Well, yesterday I succeeded in killing the environment, but also tried to salvage it at the same time. I guess we all do this every day, but I was definitely made aware of it in evident ways.

Yesterday was my first real day of volunteering with A Rocha, the Christian based environment group. (Thanks to Christine and her knowledge that I need to get out of BCI more often, I am helping them with some of their environment clubs they host in schools). We had "club" with only four boys at an all boy's school who were absolutely adorable, despite the fact that they were very distracted. We had them read little books about "reducing, reusing, and recycling." Afterwards, we were supposed to come up with ideas of how we can practically do all three at the school. Well, practical was the main issue. My favorite part was when Jason said, "We should just have the dinosaurs eat all the waste." I know he wasn't dead serious but I am not exactly sure how much of a joke he was making. Regardless, it was awesome. I didn't do a whole lot, but hopefully, once I start feeling more comfortable I can really connect with the kids and have a great time with them. I really appreciate the fact that there isn't very many in the club. I never know what to do with large groups of children. It's way too overwhelming.

On the flip side, I spent the rest of my Friday making manuals for the "school of leader's" program that BCI does for leader's training. It took forever. And I mean forever. I made copies in the morning, when I got back from A Rocha, and then in the evening too. Just to give you an idea of how ridiculous this was, I probably used about 5 reams of paper and didn't get out of there until close to 11. Awful. Mostly it was a shame how much paper and ink I was wasting. Most people just chuck these books after they are done with them despite the fact that we have a recycle bin in the church.

So. It was a pretty interesting day.  

Fast Reflections

It's been more than a week since the BCI church wide fast ended, so it's about time that I posted about this.

First of all, let me begin by saying that isn't necessarily something I chose to do. I know, I know, that's horrible. Basically when it comes down to it, the real reason I was fasting was because everyone else was. I had no particular thing I was trying to pray about during the week, nor was I completely sure why the church as a whole was fasting besides the fact that the church always does this during the first of the year.

Secondly, let me also say that I wasn't completely hardcore about the fast either. Gabby and I chose to eat only one meal a day, compared to the liquids only that is more popular.

Thirdly, let me say that it completely sucked. I knew very well (even before going into this) that the reason I was doing this was terrible. Plus, who likes giving up food? Also, our week last week was particularly crazy – even more than usual. Our mornings tended to be fairly different from our normal schedule. So guess what? I think I prayed less when I was on my fast. Yikes. I did have one good day of prayer but other than that I spent most of the fast being frustrated, hungry, and completely exhausted.

I believe that I hit one of my lowest points during this fast last week. I remember one evening when I was sitting on my bed (instead of sleeping) journaling out my rage at God, the church, and mostly, myself, and wondering in particularly, what in the world I am doing wrong. That evening must have helped a lot because the next day was a whole lot better. And maybe the point of this fast for me ended up being that it broken me even farther down in order for God to restore me, to bring me back up. Even though I know my emotions still roam on their own a lot and that some days are still a huge challenge, I did come to this conclusion. I am no longer going to let my experience with God be confined by the institution that is the church. When I keep doing that – putting God in a box, or worse, letting the church put God in a box for, I keep coming back to the same wall of guilt that I cannot get past. I need to be free from that.

I also was reading The Shack this past week too. And although I think that the writing is fairly mediocre, I found a lot of treasures in this book. There is a point in the story where the main character, Mack, hangs out with Jesus. The two lay on their backs by the lake, watching the stars. And there was no pressure to pray in tongues, or to fall on the floor but instead Jesus was right there, next to him. And although this is a fictional story, it stirred up inside of me this real desire. That's what I want – to be able to hang out with Jesus, no pressure, just complete acceptance. Later on in the story, the "papa" character who embodies God (an African-American women, which is awesome) tells Mack when he is feeling guilty, "Guilt'll never help you find freedom in me [God] The best it can do is make you try harder to conform to some ethic on the outside. I'm about the inside." This part of the story really spoke volumes to me during a really low point here (and maybe my life) especially in the context of this church where I feel like I am not doing things "right."

Well, I don't know if I have any more "profound" thoughts as a result of this past week. All I know is that God can be found in the most unexpected places and even if I am not doing things "correctly" according to BCI's standards, I am fully accepted by God. So if I needed to not eat for a whole week to figure that out – I guess, so be it.

Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes of his shoes; The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Prosperity

On Wednesday morning, Phil and Christine came over to chat with us and with coffees/hot chocolates in hand we hung in the living room and talked about Prosperity gospel and the African church. (They had previously given us two articles to read prior to this meeting). This conversation has been a long time coming, especially after the infamous New Year's Eve service at BCI and I realize that from my Western perspective really doesn't understand where South Africans are coming from in this aspect.

I think the most important thing that I learned is how Africans view life: everything is spiritual. In fact, prayer can shape material realities.

We read a chapter from Philip Jankin's book The New Face of Christianity and I thought I would share this quote.

A religion that speaks only to man's soul and not his body is not true. Africans make no distinction between the spiritual and the physical. If the gospel you are preaching does not speak to human needs, it's useless.

In our Western perspective, I find it really easy to not assume that God relates to all our aspects of our lives. This sounds terrible, but think about it. We have tons of medical help (well maybe not in the States. ha), we generally know where we're going to get food, we have tons of self-help books to instruct us of how to get out of debt. It's easy to get lost in the beast and not realize that we're giving God the passenger seat.

I think that what I've learned in this whole thing is that Africans know what it means to pray in faith for all aspects of their lives. It's definitely something that I can learn from.

During this meeting, I also realized that the worst form of prosperity gospel is an export of the US. Big shocker there. Ugh. What an unfortunate thing. It makes me sick thinking that the type of Christianity that often colonized our imaginations is from the States. This is a big problem all around the world when thinking God will bless us actually cheapens grace. When a self-center approach to wealth takes the place of a God centered approach then we are in trouble. When we don't use our blessing to bless others – to be in community- than we aren't demonstrating who Jesus is anymore.

Anyway, I feel like this blog is rather incoherent but those are just some thoughts I wanted to share.

Two additional things that I realized (once again) at this meeting? 1. That Phil and Christine might be the coolest people I know. And 2. I love sitting around and discussing articles. I am definitely going to grad school/seminary at some point in my life. Yes please.

Umfolozi Park

This past Monday, I found myself wedged into the back of a "van" (the SA term for a truck with an enclosed bed) with four other sweating individuals. But as Connie liked to remind us, this was part of the "authentic African" experience- whatever that is supposed to mean. Although we were extremely hot, tired, and really dehydrated and hungry, it pretty exciting. Part of this was because we were on our way to Hluhluwe Umfolozi Park – the only formal conservation in KwaZulu-Natal (PMB's Provence) where the "Big Five" can be found. (The Big Five being elephants, water buffalo, leopards, lions, and rhinos). Our friend from church took us all to spend go on a night drive and stay the night – hunting, especially for the lions.

It was pretty incredible to find myself sitting in a huge green truck as the African sun set and slowly faded the landscape around me into darkness. The air was cool and everything was quiet, minus the rumble of our truck. A few people were previously selected to hold spotlights on different sides of the vehicles and for the next 3 hours we searched, sitting very attentive, and waited. Tim liked to remind us that "we are actually on an African safari." And indeed, Tim, we were. I never thought I would ever get to do something like that.

Well, we didn't see any lions, or any predators actually, which was a little disappointed, but it was still really fun. But actually by the time we headed back to PMB on Tuesday we saw tons of zebras, millions of impala (stupid deer-like creatures that are everywhere!) and similar deer creatures, hares (which I thought were really stupid, and people got really excited for one that we had to stop for so it could cross the road), wildebeests (which apparently are the most lame animals who get kicked out of their pack and then have to go hang out with the impala), giraffes, water buffalo (those things are TANKS. Yikes), mongooses, one hyena, one little genet (this little wild cat that is spotted and so cute, and actually are hard to spot, so that was exciting), and finally, my favorite, elephants!! We didn't get to see very many elephants nor did we see them for very long. We happened to spot a group crossing the river. Wow. It was incredible. South Africa, what a cool place, where else can you find elephants and penguins? (Penguins are my ultimate favorite animals. They live in Cape Town and I am NOT leaving until I get to see them).

Elephants? Check. Getting out of PMB? Check.

What a good time.

You are not alone in the desert

Those words have been echoing in my head a lot these past few days. When we were on retreat, Simon, one of the SALTers, shared this with us during the evening when all of us short-term folks were invited to share. Although I don't really remember the rest of what he had to say about that phrase that was given to the SALTers when they first got here, the phrase has stuck with me ever since.

You are not alone in the desert.

It is currently the middle of January and things are feeling rather dry. There are days when I just want to crawl into bed and give up. Today is one of those days. This month is one of those months.

You are not alone in the desert.

It is funny how I can constantly be surrounded my people and feel completely alone. It's devastating how I can stand in church, where people are clearly deep in the emotion of Christ and I am wondering around, feeling nothing but frustration and anger.

You are not alone in the desert.

If any of you have been following my teammates' blogs than you'll know that BCI has started intense praying session every weekday, including regular Monday night prayer, 5am prayer Tuesday-Thursday, and a half night of prayer on Friday nights. For someone who has been struggling with going to church lately, this has been rather torturous. It isn't really mandatory – but it also feels kind of like when your mom tells you that she won't tell you what to do, but it's strongly implied what you should be doing. So if you don't do it, you feel bad about it forever. Monday evening prayer is typically good (and some days I even get more out of that time than a regular Sunday morning service), but everything else has been a hit and miss thus far. I did manage to go to one of the early morning prayers. Boy, was that a struggle on several different levels. Despite how tired I was when we got back, I didn't go back to bed. Instead, I found more holiness and closeness to God when I did the morning dishes in the manse listening to David Crowder Band then I did walking around the sanctuary trying to find words to say.

You are not alone in the desert

I actually got something out of the sermon today, which might have been the first time since being here. But I was reminded that Jesus gives us vision. Vision to get out of the desert, and I believe that will happen. Eventually. But it's just getting there that gives me trouble.

You are not alone in the desert

I really have nothing profound to say other than I am grateful for that phrase and the truth found in it lately.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Your courts above…

Menno Goodness

This past week was exactly what I needed – a little bit of Mennonite goodness, complete with the feeling of being absolutely covered with community.

On Sunday, January 3^rd, we headed down to Shelly Beach (the actual name of the town) to participate in the Mennonite Retreat for all the Mennonite workers in the country. Although this was a time to debrief with one another and to process what God is doing in this cross-cultural setting, it was a whole lot of fun. Since I don't have any specific stories, I thought I would just make a list again of all the highlights.

The Skogheim Christian Conference Center was a pretty sweet place. It was just a "typical" camp center but the property was large enough that I went running almost every morning! Okay, so I hate running, but I have been working on that – or I was until I came here and became a captive to the BCI property. So it was good to get back out there and actually exercise once again.

Okay, I have to give the food its own category because it was great. We always had two-three courses, even at breakfast. The soups at this place were so excellent. Plus, sometimes we would just sit around the tables long after supper was cleaned up and just chill and talk, which is one of the things I miss the most about Bluffton, so it was good to do that again.

Surprisingly enough, I enjoyed the debriefing time we had together. Usually our talks were just in the mornings and sometimes in the evenings, so they weren't too long. But it was helpful to hear what everyone else's perspectives were about experience God in a different culture, especially since all these MCC/MMN people all knew what they were doing. We were given a space to share our experience as well, and even though that meant I cried a lot, it was still really good to get things off my chest.

Since we only had things in the mornings and the evenings, we had free time all afternoon! So we spent our time hanging out by the pool, playing Dutch Blitz and Ultimate Frisbee, and taking great naps.

Also included in this retreat were the MCC SALTers (who are generally around our ages and are working with different organizations in South Africa for about the same time period). They were a great group of people, and even though they loved to have long talks about hockey (they were all Canadian), they were still a lot of fun.

Hymns!! Hooray for singing hymns again. Ask me about this and I will just start smiling. It was so good for my soul (plus, it wasn't Hillsong, so what more could I ask for?)

Shelly Beach is, of course, a coastal town, so one day we did nothing but packed up and headed to the ocean. It was insanely windy, so much in fact that most people didn't last there very long. Regardless, going to the beach is always a highlight for this kid who grew up in Illinois.

One afternoon we were supposed to go "hiking." Instead, we a bunch of us opted to go to this used bookstore we saw in town. So we all came back to Skogheim with lots of books (mostly Agatha Christie's for me) and frozen yogurt we got at this crazy place called "Clementine's"

Our retreat really ended Saturday morning after breakfast, but someone we decided to drag it out as long as possible. After checking out we all hung around in the parking lot forever, while we waited for the MMN people to talk about some "official business" and James went uptown to get his tire fixed. When we finally did leave the conference center, we MMN people decided to prolong the ending even more. We headed to the mall and ate lunch at RJs (thanks to MMN). So we definitely milked this for all it was worth.

Well, those are the highlights. I know being Mennonite is way more than something that is "ethnic," but it's unreal how much connection I feel with this community, even when I don't even know the people very well. I am especially grateful for all the support that all the MMN/MCCers continue to give us day after day. This retreat definitely highlighted that for me.

And tomorrow we head back to work, which is going to be unbelievably hard. BCI has seemed to become even more intense in the few days that we were gone and I like being on holiday for roughly 3 weeks.

Oh well, I guess all good things must come to an end.

Happy holidays

Yes. South Africans know how to take holidays. Not only do we get to celebrate Christmas, but since this is also the summer season, things here are extra chill. This past week the office has been closed so my teammates and I find ourselves on an actual holiday! It's been really relaxing and I wish this week could have stretched on forever. Shoot. I could nothing all the time and be completely content. (Okay, maybe not, but who hasn't had those thoughts during vacations)?

So what have been up to since we aren't working? Well, a lot actually. Here are some of the highlights from this past week

• All this holiday season, Thandi has been arranging for us to go to church people's house for suppers. It's been incredible. We've had a lot of Indian food, so how could it not be a good time? But seriously, it's been great actually getting to know more people in the church and kicking back and just having a good time with each other – no strings attached.
  
• The carpenters who work right outside our door are on holiday too, thus it has been incredibly peaceful around the manse.
  
• On Wednesday we went to Midmar Dam with Phil and Christine's family, Malcolm and Lyndel (from church), and the Caister family (Phil and Christine's old neighbors – we went to their house for Thanksgiving). It was such a relaxing day. We had a picnic, played in the water and got a game of ultimate Frisbee going. That was probably my favorite thing we've done this break.
  
• On Thursday, the Toohey family took us to Durban to go Ice Skating. Yes. That's right. Ice Skating in Africa – never thought I would ever do that. Afterwards we headed to the beach for a little bit. What a strange, but awesome, combination of things to do.
  
• Saturday was probably one of my favorite days of this week (although they are all good, so it's hard to make that comparison). We got up this morning and headed over to this field near the church to play ultimate Frisbee with a group of people from youth. It. Was. Awesome. I am so glad I got over my fear of playing at Bluffton and just did because, dang it, I love that game more than I ever had before. We play it a lot here, which makes me so happy. We played three games and practically swam in the nasty humidity. Afterwards we headed to Eden's house to cool off in her pool, which turned into a game of water volleyball. Then we played janga, ate lunch crazy late and then proceeded to watch two movies. Oh man, what a great day. But the real exciting part is that I feel like we're starting to make real friends here. Ah, yes. Finally.
  

So the moral of this story? I could be on holiday forever. :-)

Blessing

There I sat, in the auditorium of BCI on New Year's Eve – waiting, hoping, and praying that this wasn't the real topic of the sermon.

"Please, God, no"

Five minutes into the sermon I knew that I all my waiting was in vain.

The sermon title? "God wants you rich."

Yep. I couldn't believe my ears. This was really happening and I had to sit through it.

"Okay," I thought, "Keep an open mind. Maybe this isn't really what I think it's going to be about."

But I was wrong. And as the beat of the prosperity gospel hit harder than it has ever had before, tears started pouring down my face as I listened to the unmistakable words that if you are a "good Christian" than God will lift you out of poverty. But more than that, God will make his people a people of great wealth. Literally.

Really? That's a pretty bold statement considering the neighborhood we live in – or even the country we live in where hundreds of people live with the reality of the broken system leftover from Apartheid.

This brings me to the real reason I am writing this blog: my "report" on Jesus for President for the RJ blog. Ironically, I was reading this book as we got "deep" into the heart of the December series on "Blessing." Once again I feel completely convicted by this book, but unlike the last time I read it, I do not have the Bluffton community surrounding me to try and think of practical ways to apply what we've read. Here, it's completely the opposite. It seems to me that BCI would disagree with everything Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw have to say, especially after we were told that looking to Jesus in terms of wealth is taking the bible out of context. I left the States to get out of this "God Bless America" context for awhile and found myself trapped in a similar situation. As we keep wringing people's wallets for this massive tent we keep asking for Blessing and by blessing we mean money.

Shortly after this December series started I read this section in Jesus for President and I couldn't help myself. I have to quote it here.

In Hebrew the imperative "Bless!" occurs only thirty out of several hundred times the verb barak ("to kneel" - as before a king)appears. Of those thirty occurrences, the majority are liturgical exhortations to "bless the Lord" appears mostly in the Psalter. In other words, the act of blessing is most often directed toward heaven, not solicited from it! Only four times in the entire Hebrew scripture tradition do we find requests in the imperative for divine blessing. Even more interesting is the use of Blessing in the New Testament. Of the forty-one appearances of the Geek verb eulogeoo (speaking a good word), only twice do we find it in the imperative mood. In neither case does it involve God. It does, however, involves us – and our enemies… The lesson is unmistakable: we would do much better to ask God's blessing on the world and to bless God by loving out enemies.

So often we do things that make sense to us and ask God to bless our actions and come alongside our plans, rather than looking at the things God promises to bless and acting alongside of them. For we know that God's blessing will inevitably follow if we are with the poor, the merciful, the hungry, the persecuted, the peacemakers. But sometimes we'd rather have a God who conforms to our logic than conform our logic to the God whose wisdom is a stumbling block to the world of smart bombs and military intelligence (pp 199).

Okay, I guess I should clarify some things. I do believe that God did not intend for people to go hungry or to die because of lack of medical treatment, etc but I believe that God has already provided the means for which to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and care for the sick: the church. During this New Year's Eve service, the scripture that was used was from 2 Corinthians 8:9. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that you through is poverty might become rich" We completely ignored the fact that the rest of the verse here is talking about meeting each other's needs and being like the early church right after Pentecost. If we become rich in the same way the world becomes rich than how does that make us different? How can we bless the world and God if we are exactly the same?

Needless to say, I think I felt my heart breaking that evening.

Jesus, I am tired of ignoring you…