Sandra’s Wedding Reception

One of the things that I have been really grateful for here in South Africa is the opportunity to teach English. It's often a really big challenge and more times than not I find myself with no real idea what I am doing, realizing that my own knowledge of the English language is quite limited. Despite all things, it has definitely been an overall positive experience (even after very over whelming classes). Part of this reason has to do with my students, all of whom are immigrants from the DRC. They are always eager to learn and even if I am not always the most helpful, I think we're getting somewhere.

I especially like my one student named Sandra (who is actually only about three years older than me). Being one of the few (and sometimes only) female in my class, I am always delighted to see her when she walks in to class, dressed very nicely, with a new hair style and a sheepish grin on her face, that she uses to apologize for being late.

This past Friday, I had the opportunity to go with Christine and her two daughters, Annika and Lydia, to Sandra's "wedding reception." Sandra and her husband have technically been married for awhile. They had their traditional ceremony in the Congo months ago, but last Friday were finally able to become registered as a married couple in South Africa.

Being at the party was definitely a memorable experience, although we didn't do a whole lot while we were there. We arrived at the party close to five (although the invitations we got said 3:30. This was probably my first true taste of "African time." Things run slower than North American "time" in South Africa, but it really isn't that extreme. Congolese time, however, was a whole other story. Surprisingly, the slower time didn't bug me – someone who is typically prone to be "clock oriented." This probably had to do with the fact that I was currently skipping the beginning of the Mega Youth Camp, and thus was happy to be anywhere but there). I sat with Annika and Lydia for awhile, ate some snacks, and had some small talk conversations with a few of the people already there as we waited for the bride and groom to arrive at the house. They came, eventually. I think it was probably close to 6 before they actually showed up. When they did, they stood out by their car for awhile until all of us came and greeted them. We then proceeded to "dance" them into the main sitting area. (Dance is a very loose word here. Basically we lined up in groups of two behind the bride and groom and slowly walked behind them, stepping to the right and left with the rhythm of the music being played. (Sorry for not knowing how to else describe it). After that we took our seats again and watch Sandra and Adolph dance. Eventually supper was served, although I am pretty sure it was another hour after they arrived that we were able to eat. There was a ton of food there including chicken, fish, two different tubs of rice (and I do mean tubs), a cabbage salad-type dish, and this African dish that is basically just cooked cornmeal. It was all really nice. (Since we have Congolese neighbors, I am pretty sure I've had more Congolese food than I have had "traditional South African" food – or Zulu food). We left shortly after we were done eating, but Christine informed me that gatherings like this would go really late into the evening. Actually, I was a little bit sad to leave. The place had a great atmosphere and it was so "chill." Plus, I got out of part of the camp – so definitely an awesome evening all around.

Praise Habit

The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived. – Thomas Merton

Last month, I received a "Christmas" package from my sister – inside it, tons of delightful items (my sister is the best), including David Crowder's book Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi. I was psyched to read this book. I really like David Crowder's stuff – which is usually different then "typical" praise and worship music (whatever that means), especially his latest CD, Church Music. I guess I've been reading too many "profound" books lately because I was definitely surprised at how random this book is most of the time. (I guess I shouldn't have been surprised since David Crowder is crazy). But actually, it was a good read, especially if it gets its own blog post, hey?

This book spoke about how Praise is a habit that we were intended to have – like breathing or eating or sleeping. Praise is something that is natural because we were made by a relational Creator God. And that God is everywhere. In the breath we breathe, under rocks, in our skin, and in our love. I really liked the end, which summed it all up: Praise is a response.

"Praise happens when there is revelation, and there is revelation waiting for us around every bend, in places we would not suspect. Our task is to live with eyes wide open to God's greatness because when we see the imprint of the Creator, our insides will swell with devotion, our hearts will erupt with thankfulness. You will live, breathe, and radiate praise. The habit isn't learning how to praise; it is in reminding yourself who to praise. It is a remembering who you are. It is remembering of your identity."

I really liked this passage, especially since I have a really hard time here at BCI trying to fit in – trying to experience God in the same way that "everyone else does." When really, that is stupid because God has already given me the notion of how to praise God. It is very much a part of who I am, like my own heartbeat. Often, here I have been surprised by God in so many different, unexpected places – most of them outside the walls of the church. I have been learning a lot about what it means to praise God with my entire Life, not just my voice, singing along to Hillsong on Sunday mornings.

Anyway, those are just some reflections I wanted to share this morning, while Joshua Radin sings softly and banana bran bread cools on the counter.

Praise is the culmination of our enjoyment of anything – C. S. Lewis

Weekends are the worst

They are.

And I cannot believe I am saying that. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of weekends. It's a very nice ideology – but most of the time they end up being even busier than week days. I have found that this is true not only in this current context that I found myself in. Weekends at Bluffton sucked too, though for many different reasons. Typically, when Thursday night comes around I start to dread all the crazy stuff that we have going on during the upcoming weekend. And we always have something. Needless to say, I have a difficult time trying to have a good attitude and take one day at a time.

This is how I was feeling coming into this past weekend. However, (insert some type of fanfare here), I found a lot of gems this weekend that I hadn't expected to come about.

1. On Friday, for some reason my environment club that I also volunteer at got cancelled so I expected to be in the office for the whole of the afternoon. However, before lunch Christian (our Congolese neighbor/friend/practically housemate) asked me if I would help him with the daunting task of mowing BCI's property. At first I wasn't too thrilled, but I agreed and found myself an hour later push mowing the lawn around the church. And guess what? It was awesome. I forgot how much I enjoy mowing and since I have to be in the office and in front of a computer most of the time, it was a nice change of pace. Plus, I am trying to incorporate more exercise into my life and I was pumped to walk around with this crazy push mower for roughly four and a half hours. Conclusion? I think I am going to try and help Christian with this project every week – even on Fridays when I do have A Rocha club.

1.5. This one is a secret so don't tell. (Ha. Well not really). Basically I skipped half night of prayer in the evening and finished the short story I was writing instead. I pretty much punched out this story in about a week and a half. It feels so nice to actually finish something again.

2. I was dreading Saturday with all of my heart. Here is why. The church was having a "leader's conference" for all the New Zion Ministry churches (the overarching church that BCI is a part of). And due to bad communication (again), I am still not exactly sure if we were really expected to be at this thing. Basically it was just like church all day on Saturday. During the first session, I scribbled something on my paper, poked Gabby, and made her read it. The note read "secret plan of secretiveness?" Translation: Want to skip the next session? (I realize I am completely incriminating myself by posting this part. Gabby nodded and then a few minutes later I wrote another note that said "Essence?" (Essence is this café that is nearby that is completely magical in so many ways). At that the deal was done. So during the tea break, Gabby and I took off for our favorite spot in PMB and had a delightful lunch complete with coffee and good conversation. It was very much needed. I don't necessarily mind being here, but when BCI demands so much of our time and energy, it is definitely nice to step out of a moment or two and take a much needed break. I definitely found that this weekend.

3. On Saturday evening the five of us headed over to Malcolm and Lyndle's house (a young couple from the church – Malcolm is also the bookkeeper/ general rock star for BCI, so we see him every day). It was awesome. We had dinner first and then played a Karaoke game on the PS2 (similar to guitar hero except with singing of course). Even though I generally hate stuff like that (hate scale 6/10), after we all stopped caring, it was a blast. We laughed a lot, which was much needed too.

As I was reflecting on this weekend in my journal on Sunday evening I realized how ridiculous it was to dread the weekend as much as I did. It's often easy for me to get overwhelmed and distracted from being the moment. My brother-in-law, Jeron, likes to tell me to "be like Scooter." Scooter is their dog. You would think I would take offense to this, but I don't simply because he is just trying to remind me to be like Scooter, who, like every trained dog, doesn't have a care in the world, but rather lives completely in the present. That is definitely a hard thing to do for me – but something that I want to work at for sure.

If you can’t stand the heat*…

Oh no you don't. Don't you dare finish that sentence.

You may be wondering why I stopped you in mid thought. Well, my friends, it's for your own good. Lately, my team and I have started doing something ridiculous – well even more abnormally weird than all the strange stuff we already do. I am not sure how it started but carefully hung on our fridge at the manse is a chart that reads "Pun Points" Here is the basic break down.

First, of course, is the Puns. If say a pun in your everyday conversation than you get 2 points

Second is the contextual quoting. If you use a quote from a song or a movie that fits in perfectly with the conversation you are having than you get 1 point. (You can't just belt out movie quotes, because we do that all the time. It has to make sense within the normal pattern of the conversation.

Third is penetration points, which somehow managed to be 2 points. If you use this word correctly in a sentence than you are awarded the points.

Forth is twisted clichés (i.e. Gabby once said that she "hasn't fallen too far from the apple" although this was purely accidently, she got points anyway). If take a cliché and change it for the better you get 1 point.

And finally, if you use a regular cliché, like the one I started in my title of this blog than you get docked 3 points. Yeah. It's been rather rough and all of us are hurting pretty badly because of clichés. You don't actually realize how many you use in everyday conversation. Well, not us. Not anymore.

And yesterday at supper Kyle proposed the idea that we start rating stuff when we say we "hate" or "love" things. For example, I love that shirt (5/10) or I love my family (10/10).

So who knows how long these things will stick around but we have managed to have elaborate conversations about who should or should not get points and how much we love things on a scale from 1-10. (Jesus is 11). Regardless, I thought it was worth mentioning.

 

*This start of a cliché should in no way influence my points because I didn't finish it and I was using it as an illustration. Besides, it's freaking hot here so it works on that level too.

The privilege of cleanliness

The more I live in the manse, the more I realize how being "clean" is a privilege.

I didn't really realize how much of a clean freak I can be before I joined Radical Journey. At home with the 'rents, my bedroom generally is fairly cluttered (though never to the point of disastrous) and at school Jille and I were fairly messy people, but hey man, a small dorm is easy to mess up. Besides, we cleaned it once a week.

But then I came here and no matter what I do, I cannot keep the manse clean at all. It's so frustrating. There are days when I just want to walk out of the house in frustrating and never look back, while other days I can deal with it fairly well. My team gives me a lot of grace, especially when we clash with ideas of what needs to be cleaned and when. But I guess that's life living in an "intentional community" as we all try to hold things more loosely.

Yet, yesterday we were reprimanded for the state of the manse – that not keeping it tidy was a reflection of our work ethnic and hearts. Wow. I could've packed up my bags and left, especially after finding out that our living space may or may not be subjected to weekly inspections. (Talk about a huge cultural clash right here). It's not like I haven't been trying to keep this place in order, it just that the state of the manse is already dilapidating and we hectically busy with other things that most of the time the last thing I want to do when I get back is clean something that will be just as dirty literally one single hour later. Anyway, living here has got me wondering that if we think "poor people" tend to be "more dirty" than those from "upper classes" (excuse the generalizations), maybe it's not their own fault. The areas they live in, what is available to them, and how much time they time they have too all factor in.

Well, it's not that profound, but I was thinking about these things as I scrubbed the floor this evening, knowing, full well, that tomorrow morning it will be back to the way it was before. Oh well, I sit tonight, content that the house is cleaner, for the moment.

Super Bowl Monday

I never anticipated coming to South Africa and watching so much American football. Okay, well I guess it isn't a whole lot – especially compared to all those awful Ohio State games I had to sit through with my friends at Bluffton. Those were at least college games though. As far as the NFL goes, the only time I ever watch football is the Superbowl and usually my reasoning for that is just because someone is having a party and I don't want to miss out on that. And then I came here, and since I live with Constance and Kyle – two over the top football fanatics, we've made solid attempts to be at people's houses during the replaying of several NFL games on ESPN.

This Monday, however, was different. Connie and Kyle opted to stay up all night and watch the live game at 3am at a friend's house, while the rest of us went over to Andrew and Karen Suderman's house this morning to have brunch and watch the game. The sole fact that we were watching football at 9:30 in the morning was memorable enough, but regardless, the whole event was pretty outstanding.

(Okay, first of all, I have to mention that Kyle and Connie are our main drivers. Tim and Gabby only have their learners in Canada, thus aren't "legal" to drive here. And me? Well, if you have been reading my blog, you might know that I hate driving standard (it's not even the fact that I'm driving on the left side of the road anymore, but the stupid clutch), so I've hardly been contributing to driving us places at all. However, I finally have started to conquer my fears in order for the three of us to become more independent/ get the chance to watch the super bowl since we didn't want to be crazy and stay up all night long just for football). And guess what! I survived. Okay, that's hardly surprising, but even though I stalled out a few times, and had to have Gabby (who knows how to drive standard back home) tell me when to downshift sometimes, I did it. Andrew and Karen live at least a 5-10 minute drive away from the manse, so I am very proud of myself. Hooray! Am I comfortable with it? Absolutely not, but it's at least a start).

We arrived at Karen and Andrew's around 9:15, cinnamon rolls and Tim Horton's coffee in hand, ready for the celebration. Phil and Christine arrived shortly after and we all enjoyed a hearty brunch of egg, bacon and cheese biscuits, yummy fruit, and coffee and juice. (We saved the rolls for "dessert" during halftime). Phil and Christine were cheering for the Saints, while the rest of us sided with the Colts, which made things way more interesting. Cheering against Phil is always an adventure. I don't think I've ever been more into football then this morning. Wow. It was a good game. And even though they lost, I am pretty sure that I might be on my way to become a Colts fan (on more of an authentic basis that is. I decided to cheer for them today based entirely on the fact that I'm from the Midwest and might live in Indiana someday in the near-ish future. Well, that and Payton Manning). The game still got over after four hours of airtime, despite the fact that none of the American commercials (or barely any commercials at all, besides stupid, repetitive ESPN highlights), were shown. But I am definitely okay with that. Super bowl commercials are extremely overrated, especially considering how much a company will pay for a short 30 seconds.

All in all, I'm pretty sure that this Super bowl experience has probably been the best thus far, and by far, the most memorable. Besides, it's killer hot today and the Suderman's have AC in part of their house. Aha! Score!

Weekend Happenings

So if you are expecting anything deep from this blog, you won't find it here. But I had a really great weekend (for once) and thought that I should blog about it because I am sure that people think that I am depressed all the time here. So here you go world, it is not true. I do like it here – even if it still is only occasionally still. But hey, that's a step forward, right?

For the sake of not dragging this blog out with meaningless details, I am just going to make a list of all the happenings.

We had dance practice on Saturday morning. Yes. Dance practice. Gabby, Connie (yes we actually got Connie to start dancing – halleluiah) and I have joined the church's contemporary dance group (or more like the "not the hip-hop" dance group). It's been awesome. We are actually dancing this coming Wednesday and Sunday. I forgot how much I love dancing. Okay, that's a lie. I never forgot but it's great to be back in it even if I don't always know what I am doing. It's been a lot of fun, not just because of the dancing factor but also because the group we dance with is completely awesome.

Saturday evening, Tim, Gabby and I went with James and Joan Alty, Andrew and Karen Suderman, and three of the MCC SALTers we met at retreat, Andrew, Felicia, and Kendra, went to the Hexagon theatre at the University of KZN. It was a "bring your own dinner" dinner theatre so James and Joan brought in this awesome chicken dinner for all of us. The play was a murder mystery but it was also only a two person act. At first it was like "uh, what's happening" since they were playing all these different characters and told a lot of South African jokes that I didn't understand. But in the end, I was very impressed. The acting was excellent and they even involved the audience. During one of the intermissions, our job was to figure out who we thought was the murder and why. Then all of the tables had to go around and guess. It was really fun. Plus, the atmosphere was excellent, the company amazing, and the hot chocolate Gabby and I bought, delightful. After the theatre we all headed to the Alty's for coffee and dessert so a cultured evening all around.

On Sunday we got out of the skit we were supposed to do back in November again, but only for the first and second services. (score). Even though we had to do the skit for the youth service, and it was so mediocre, we did get to see Abie and the Bri-brother's lip-sync act again. It's awesome. So all worth it, I guess.

On Sunday evening we had the RJ event: Chili night for a bunch of our friends (mainly most of our "contemporary dancers"). It was aMazing! Tim made the chili con carne, Connie made the vegetarian option, and I made a white chicken chili (it was so good!) We ate dinner outside and then when we came back inside (due to the lack of lighting and the threat of rain) a random dance party busted out. Oh man. This might have been my first "I love being here" moment. So big day for me.

Okay, Monday counted as the weekend since we worked extra on Friday. So in the late morning we met Ian Caister (who we met during the North American Thanksgiving when we went to his parent's house) and a bunch of his friends in Durban and went to the beach for a few hours. It wasn't sunny or very hot, but it was actually very nice. Plus on our way out of PMB we grabbed donuts at Spar, so yes, excellent. As a person who needs contacts outside of BCI and PMB, this was a very much needed break.

Well those are the highlights.