Saturday, December 1, 2012
The Great Thanksgiving
Communities do many things: support, nurture, annoy, complicate, love. I've seen examples of all of these during my time here. On my little YAGM island in Soweto, the complications can loom larger than other positive aspects and make it hard to see the beauty all around me. Thankfully, our program had a retreat over Thanksgiving that motivates the title of this blog and brought 'Gratitude' to the front of my mind (as Rachel has beautifully tattooed on her arm).
We had a wonderful time in Pietermaritzburg and Lesotho, but even before the retreat, Alex and Jen visited me in Soweto. Our three placements are wildly different, and I was blessed to have them around for a couple days to show them the sites and sounds of South Africa's largest township. They reminded me of so many blessings I've had handed to me and friendships I've built around here, and I couldn't help but smile at the wonder on their faces around every turn. On our final night before the larger group retreat, we sat outside and talked while they marveled at constant internet access and the success of our gardening project (which I fail to appreciate even though I see it every day outside my window). I hope to return the favor of a fresh perspective when visiting them in the near future.
My new favorite thing about communities are the different lenses that every person brings to the equation in processing the world. I lament quite frequently that I'll never fully understand the people here because I didn't spend the first 23 years of my life as a black kid roaming the streets in the aftermath of apartheid. It's a barrier that I'll never fully overcome, as much as my academic mind wishes to find a book to explain it to me. But in reflecting and talking with the YAGMs, I realized that the homogeneity of our skin color didn't make our stories as similar as I would have expected, just as my life experiences aren't as distancing in Soweto as I make them out to be. I have so much to learn everywhere, and it's precisely because there's vast difference in the world. Life would be boring if I knew everyone before I met them, and the barriers I was seeing are looking more like invitations to bond and learn. It's what makes stories interesting and powerful. Also why it's so painful to watch the news sometimes when people can't connect because of these differences.
Another thing that community impacts is control. When we were cooking our Thanksgiving meal, I worked really hard not to hover over everything that was happening in the kitchen. You can ask anyone at Tessa's house though, I was definitely stressed. This was for two reasons. One, I really wanted everything to turn out delicious for our group and I found myself making stuffing and carving the turkey (two rather important things I've never done before). Secondly, and more surreptitiously, I realized how attached I am to the way things happen in my family for Thanksgiving. It's my favorite part of the holidays. I love the way my family does Thanksgiving, and as I watched dishes being whipped up differently than I would have done them (while sweating over my potential failure), I was hurting that I couldn't hold on to the comfort of normalcy. Then something amazing happened…everything turned out absolutely delicious. Nothing went wrong despite all my worrying. In fact, I played a much smaller role than my ego would like me to think. And even better, I got to taste life from other traditions, and everyone had something special to contribute. It's impossible to compare to any other Thanksgiving I've had, but it really was a Great Thanksgiving. Not just from the awesome food, but the people, the conversation, the many gifts around, everything about it was incredibly special.
And so I left with a new understanding of this year of service, new goals in mind, and deeper friendships than I had mere days ago. Life looks greener, just like the bus ride through the countryside after two months of rainy season. The paintbrush I tried to use on the world is looking far too thick and dusty brown in color. And the lame metaphors I'm using are running out, similar to the negativity that started at the end of my 'honeymoon' period when I recognized the messiness of the months ahead while getting more attached here.
I hope your stateside Thanksgivings were as blessed as mine, and I wish everyone happy and safe holidays.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Pix on Pix on Pix
Hello again from the Rainbow Nation! Internet was out for a while after lightning fried our router. Sorry if I've been slow to respond to any communications...now you know. I've also been super busy the past couple weeks with events both random and planned. To start off, here's a picture of Venus and Serena Williams talking to the youth and parents of Soweto about working hard, supporting the next generation, and finding passion. It meant a lot to have them come out and hit with both able and disabled kids. My neighbor's daughter Makola got to play with them!
Cop cars providing security just outside the center where I live! The courts are a two minute walk away.
Yum...here grilling is called having a braai. Below is an awesome mix of burgers, steak, and boerwors. This particular event was on the night after seeing the Williams sisters. It was incredibly fun and a great way to get people together on a Saturday evening for good fun and community bonding.
Here's the crew: Me, Phillip, Fumani (who makes many later appearances), Bongi (our next door neighbor's niece who will be getting her matric and heading to varsity next year), Makola (the tennis star), Julius, and Siyabonga (Bongi's cousin)
Here we are the day after starting a garden project which was conceived at the braai. The tree on the right has since been whittled down into future braai wood, but is proving difficult to remove from the ground. Also, we had to take a break to allow a mother mouse to move her squealing babies after we disturbed her nest during our digging and chopping. Hopefully I'll have future pictures of a bountiful crop, but I think we've missed the spring planting season and might have to wait out summer for the fall.
On Saturday Nov 10, I was the MC at the annual DAM Gala Dinner which is a fundraiser for our Orphans and Vulnerable Children program. It was slightly intimidating getting up in front of everyone and suddenly becoming the point person for a chaotic but star studded evening. Especially since I volunteered to MC at the final planning meeting the Thursday before (which coincidentally was also the first planning meeting I attended). Luckily I had a good support crew.
We had amazing latin dancers, an excellent boy's choir, hip hop dance stars, and a local celebrity speaker come out to entertain the guests. More than 300 people showed up! Considering I was naked in the shower when the thing actually started (since I was working all day to prepare the hall, get the DJ's equipment, and prepare the waiters) every thing turned out very well. This first picture is of my favorite table (because 11 is my favorite number). We really worked hard to do the hall up nice. All the work was worth it knowing proceeds support the kids I work with on a daily basis to feed, teach, and befriend.
Here I am looking fly for a white guy with Fumani (my self proclaimed South African mother) at the event.
Here we are on Monday after working all day Sunday and half of Monday to clean up the hall and tear down all the beds we set up for guests to spend the night. Luckily DAM sponsored a braai to thank us for all the work we put in.
Loving this place and looking forward to reuniting with my other SA YAGMs in a week at our first retreat. You can look forward to pictures from the Drakensberg Mountains and Lesotho.
We had amazing latin dancers, an excellent boy's choir, hip hop dance stars, and a local celebrity speaker come out to entertain the guests. More than 300 people showed up! Considering I was naked in the shower when the thing actually started (since I was working all day to prepare the hall, get the DJ's equipment, and prepare the waiters) every thing turned out very well. This first picture is of my favorite table (because 11 is my favorite number). We really worked hard to do the hall up nice. All the work was worth it knowing proceeds support the kids I work with on a daily basis to feed, teach, and befriend.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Missionary Poems
Tangerine Girl
She speaks as a tangerine
Sweet, juicy, crisp
She speaks as a tangerine
Small seeds bear fruit
Outer skin worth peeling
Bright in a dull room
Little, hard to grasp
Color of the sun
On a warm summer night
Tangy when tongued
Delightful when drunk
Succulent when sucked
She longs for a pineapple
Wants to be a pear
What she should be:
Herself
------------------------------
Hold On
Over and yonder and
round the next bend
Is the promise of mercy
on this I depend
For life rarely shows me
that which I seek
And so I must wait
as I have every week
Great longing for action
from God in this world
See death greed corruption
into the void hurled
Sometimes it is painful
i so often miss
All that I hope for
sweet promise of bliss
Sweet sliver of mercy
if you I should find
I'll be deeply thankful
my pain might unwind
I try to be patient
and slow to get mad
At a world that has evil
And makes me so sad
We're slaves to injustice
we know it's unfair
God says on each head
that he loves every hair
We're part of one body
we're part of one soul
Yet Broken Heart Pieces
are hard to make whole
Wholeness and Goodness
and Kindness are here
If each one would
deeply into himself peer
But changing is hard
we are all weak
And so I must wait
as I have every week
For a world that is gracious
a world that is kind
Hold on to the dream
that mercy I'll find
There's hope for tomorrow
There's hope in my heart
I'll work with great care
Til this world I depart
She speaks as a tangerine
Sweet, juicy, crisp
She speaks as a tangerine
Small seeds bear fruit
Outer skin worth peeling
Bright in a dull room
Little, hard to grasp
Color of the sun
On a warm summer night
Tangy when tongued
Delightful when drunk
Succulent when sucked
She longs for a pineapple
Wants to be a pear
What she should be:
Herself
------------------------------
Hold On
Over and yonder and
round the next bend
Is the promise of mercy
on this I depend
For life rarely shows me
that which I seek
And so I must wait
as I have every week
Great longing for action
from God in this world
See death greed corruption
into the void hurled
Sometimes it is painful
i so often miss
All that I hope for
sweet promise of bliss
Sweet sliver of mercy
if you I should find
I'll be deeply thankful
my pain might unwind
I try to be patient
and slow to get mad
At a world that has evil
And makes me so sad
We're slaves to injustice
we know it's unfair
God says on each head
that he loves every hair
We're part of one body
we're part of one soul
Yet Broken Heart Pieces
are hard to make whole
Wholeness and Goodness
and Kindness are here
If each one would
deeply into himself peer
But changing is hard
we are all weak
And so I must wait
as I have every week
For a world that is gracious
a world that is kind
Hold on to the dream
that mercy I'll find
There's hope for tomorrow
There's hope in my heart
I'll work with great care
Til this world I depart
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Who Needs Accompaniment?
Accompaniment is the backbone of the YAGM program. The Bread and Butter if you will. In South Africa maybe the Magwenyas and Special. Naturally it's time for me to reflect on this concept.
The scene: I get back home around 10pm after dinner with my neighbor, Philip, and his fellow German missionary Nicole. She's visiting Soweto for the weekend as she's volunteering in Joburg this year. My roommate's cousins are spending the night and a little girl is wide awake in our flat while her mother sleeps and the guys are at the park. I'm tired, but she wants to play so I start trying to talk with her in English. Success minimal. I show her the kitchen and living room while she bounces around listening to me and saying things that almost make sense. She's fascinated by an empty salt shaker, annoyed that I turn the TV off. We go into my room, I show her my electric toothbrush. She sees my pajamas on my bed and folds them. Then she makes my bed while talking to herself (probably admonishing me). How old are you? Three fingers go up, she looks confused then adds two to make five, subtracts one, so maybe she's four. I show her how to count in English. A glance to the toothbrush. She turns it on and starts singing into it. I sit down on the newly made bed as she puts on a dance show. Now it's my turn to sing into the brush, okay now we're brushing our teeth. Back to the kitchen, she pours herself a bowl of Kellogg's and a glass of milk while I simply watch, amazed. She's nearly self sufficient. I pull back the covers on my bed well after midnight as she sits down with her cereal and turns on the TV. Okay, children need accompaniment, and it doesn't always make sense.
Next scene: I stand over a patch of carrots, lamenting that all the leaves are dead after transplanting them two weeks ago. My supervisor comes up and I show him the situation. "You must have faith Kyle, the old shoots die while the roots adjust to the new soil. Soon this whole patch will be green and I'll tell the kids you helped plant their food." A week later new growth. I look out my window now and see a green garden. I need accompaniment when my faith is low.
Third scene: The other German missionary, Julius, leaves his basket in the middle of the store while we go down an aisle for milk. We come back and his basket is gone. We search, but cannot find it. We were almost done. He's tired after visiting another missionary in Pretoria over the weekend. Earlier, we couldn't find a place at the mall to get his hair cut. It takes an extra hour to gather his groceries again. One of his bar codes isn't working at the checkout counter, so they call someone to fix it. Then the checkout machine crashes as he tries to pay. People behind him are restless. We've been here for three hours. My jokes are running low as I've been working to keep the mood light. Finally we're outside. I reach into my bag and open the garlic rolls I just bought, offering one to Julius. We take a bite and his face lights up. They're amazing. "Kyle, this roll just saved the whole trip, thanks." Hm, missionaries need accompaniment? All I have to do is share a roll?
Final scene: Julius and I are on a 30 minute walk home after taking the wrong taxi and overshooting our destination. A man comes up to me and asks for 2 Rand, as many people do here. I ask him where he's headed. He says home, along the same street as me, so we walk together. I find out he's 27 and lives with his grandmother, sister, and niece. He's walking home from his job as a car-park where today he made R5 during 9 hours of work. It was a slow day. Not even enough to afford the R7 taxi home. He'll get home at 9:30pm (2 hours from now) if he keeps walking and takes a dangerous shortcut. Tomorrow his day starts at 7am. He's saving to become an electrician. It costs R9,000 to take the classes. He hopes to save R3,000 by the end of the year. He's making R600/month. I encourage him to keep working hard, saving, and stay off drugs and cigarettes. He says yes sir. He's thin, spending only R200 a month on food so he can save. I give him the money, wishing I could do more but knowing that I too must eat. There are many empty hands here. He walks off into the night. I pray he holds his job. I pray he holds his dream of a better life. I pray he finds safe passage and food at the end of his journey. Tired men need accompaniment, and sometimes it's not easy.
I came here to accompany, to give of myself, and more specifically to work on the issue of AIDS. My understanding of accompaniment is evolving, and so my definition of giving of myself is changing while my attachment to saving the world from HIV is fading. There's 'AIDS fatigue' here. The messages have become a broken record and there's less fear as people can live on ARVs. There's still plenty of room for education, but I'm sensing that AIDS talk is not what the community wants right now. So I'm shifting gears.
I say thank you for protecting me to the night watch guard who wishes to be with his family at home. I say keep working hard to the car-park who didn't earn enough money to get home. I say okay to an impromptu electric toothbrush concert in my home. I say have a garlic roll to the tired missionary far from home. And I have faith that the carrots will grow.
In the end, we all need somebody to lean on. Because everyone needs accompaniment.
The scene: I get back home around 10pm after dinner with my neighbor, Philip, and his fellow German missionary Nicole. She's visiting Soweto for the weekend as she's volunteering in Joburg this year. My roommate's cousins are spending the night and a little girl is wide awake in our flat while her mother sleeps and the guys are at the park. I'm tired, but she wants to play so I start trying to talk with her in English. Success minimal. I show her the kitchen and living room while she bounces around listening to me and saying things that almost make sense. She's fascinated by an empty salt shaker, annoyed that I turn the TV off. We go into my room, I show her my electric toothbrush. She sees my pajamas on my bed and folds them. Then she makes my bed while talking to herself (probably admonishing me). How old are you? Three fingers go up, she looks confused then adds two to make five, subtracts one, so maybe she's four. I show her how to count in English. A glance to the toothbrush. She turns it on and starts singing into it. I sit down on the newly made bed as she puts on a dance show. Now it's my turn to sing into the brush, okay now we're brushing our teeth. Back to the kitchen, she pours herself a bowl of Kellogg's and a glass of milk while I simply watch, amazed. She's nearly self sufficient. I pull back the covers on my bed well after midnight as she sits down with her cereal and turns on the TV. Okay, children need accompaniment, and it doesn't always make sense.
Next scene: I stand over a patch of carrots, lamenting that all the leaves are dead after transplanting them two weeks ago. My supervisor comes up and I show him the situation. "You must have faith Kyle, the old shoots die while the roots adjust to the new soil. Soon this whole patch will be green and I'll tell the kids you helped plant their food." A week later new growth. I look out my window now and see a green garden. I need accompaniment when my faith is low.
Third scene: The other German missionary, Julius, leaves his basket in the middle of the store while we go down an aisle for milk. We come back and his basket is gone. We search, but cannot find it. We were almost done. He's tired after visiting another missionary in Pretoria over the weekend. Earlier, we couldn't find a place at the mall to get his hair cut. It takes an extra hour to gather his groceries again. One of his bar codes isn't working at the checkout counter, so they call someone to fix it. Then the checkout machine crashes as he tries to pay. People behind him are restless. We've been here for three hours. My jokes are running low as I've been working to keep the mood light. Finally we're outside. I reach into my bag and open the garlic rolls I just bought, offering one to Julius. We take a bite and his face lights up. They're amazing. "Kyle, this roll just saved the whole trip, thanks." Hm, missionaries need accompaniment? All I have to do is share a roll?
Final scene: Julius and I are on a 30 minute walk home after taking the wrong taxi and overshooting our destination. A man comes up to me and asks for 2 Rand, as many people do here. I ask him where he's headed. He says home, along the same street as me, so we walk together. I find out he's 27 and lives with his grandmother, sister, and niece. He's walking home from his job as a car-park where today he made R5 during 9 hours of work. It was a slow day. Not even enough to afford the R7 taxi home. He'll get home at 9:30pm (2 hours from now) if he keeps walking and takes a dangerous shortcut. Tomorrow his day starts at 7am. He's saving to become an electrician. It costs R9,000 to take the classes. He hopes to save R3,000 by the end of the year. He's making R600/month. I encourage him to keep working hard, saving, and stay off drugs and cigarettes. He says yes sir. He's thin, spending only R200 a month on food so he can save. I give him the money, wishing I could do more but knowing that I too must eat. There are many empty hands here. He walks off into the night. I pray he holds his job. I pray he holds his dream of a better life. I pray he finds safe passage and food at the end of his journey. Tired men need accompaniment, and sometimes it's not easy.
I came here to accompany, to give of myself, and more specifically to work on the issue of AIDS. My understanding of accompaniment is evolving, and so my definition of giving of myself is changing while my attachment to saving the world from HIV is fading. There's 'AIDS fatigue' here. The messages have become a broken record and there's less fear as people can live on ARVs. There's still plenty of room for education, but I'm sensing that AIDS talk is not what the community wants right now. So I'm shifting gears.
I say thank you for protecting me to the night watch guard who wishes to be with his family at home. I say keep working hard to the car-park who didn't earn enough money to get home. I say okay to an impromptu electric toothbrush concert in my home. I say have a garlic roll to the tired missionary far from home. And I have faith that the carrots will grow.
In the end, we all need somebody to lean on. Because everyone needs accompaniment.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Picture Time
I'm working on a newsletter right now, so I'm saving some pictures for that, but I have many to share. Below I've captured a couple shots from heritage day, a couple from the Credo Mutwa Cultural Village at the base of Oppenheimer Tower, and one of the gym I box at during weeknights. The days are getting warmer and sunnier heading into summer, which I enjoy. I just have to make sure to grab the sunscreen since I know about skin cancer stats from Texas 4000 and the sun seems exceptionally intense here. Enjoy!
This is me hanging out with a few people from Reach Out South Africa, the group I was at heritage day with. My mentor, Evelyn, invited me along to a march and performances put on by her church. On the left is a traditional Sotho outfit, in the middle is Mpho, and on the right is a Tswana outfit (I think). Far right is goofy ole my with my awesome free flag. So far I have failed at getting it to stick to the wall with duct tape. More drastic measures are needed. And I was interviewed by the guy holding the mic beam since I was the only white dude in attendance.
These are some traditional Zulu dancers. Amazing athleticism, incredible power, and very entertaining. I have a video, but it's a bit too big to share, I think this photo captures it pretty well as they are about to slam their feet down to the quick beat of a bass drum.
This is Coach on the left and Buhle on the right. Buhle just won his fight in Joburg last weekend and is a rising 18 year old boxer. Sessions in the ring with Coach are always exhausting. As you can see the facilities are quite nice, and amazingly I get to train for free. We always pray after working hard together and I really enjoy the community at the gym (even when the workouts are brutal).
On the left is Mother Earth. In her lap sit two boys fighting over penis size as an example of the triviality many human arguments. Just below them, a young girl prays for peace. In the middle is the Father Creator with four faces, one for each cardinal direction (or races of the earth, I was unclear from the explanation). To his right, the bird-man is their son. I'm pretty sure this comes from African tradition, but it could just be Credo Mutwa's artistic interpretation (he's a shaman). Either way I think it's interesting how it parallels the Trinity.
I will forever be captured by the way light shines through leaves. One of my favorite pictures I took in El Salvador was a similar view. As you can see, this heritage site is a nice little oasis in the middle of the city.
This is an elephant mosaic on the main office building.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Making One Thing Count
My days either seem to go at a 100 km/h or 2. I'm kind of all over the place right now, so I'm working on finding balance (but loving my placement). Tuesday through Thursday are crazy...I go to football training, then run home, shower up and go out on Home Based Care rounds, come back and eat quickly before helping out in the kitchen for a couple hours for the OVC/After School Program, after that I go to boxing training for a couple hours...dinner and repeat. The only aberration is if we have a training session, as happened last Thursday when we learned about income budgeting and South African insurance. The next four days are usually much slower, but sometimes even more busy if I get invited to a wedding or cultural festival.
I guess finding balance can be equated with finding contentment. Coming here to serve, I always want to be helping or doing or caring. Sometimes though, the events I'm at just need me on the sidelines for a few hours supporting. Other times, I must recharge my battery individually. I'm not always good at allowing myself to do this. Most of the time, my recharging comes in the form of reading books, email discussions about faith and life with other friends/YAGMs, or cooking a good meal. I sometimes think to myself, 'Why am I not doing more?...I could just be doing this in Austin' but I've seen the fruits of personal time manifest themselves in many ways. Some days, I only accomplish one thing (which can be frustrating) but I'm learning to make that one thing count.
On Saturday, one of my patients had a birthday. She's a wonderfully strong lady at 71, but she just had an 8 inch brain tumor removed at the beginning of the year. The care and devotion her daughter puts into looking after her is something that resonated with me when I met their family last Tuesday. I knew I had to bring them a cake on Saturday to celebrate that she survived the past year. The open door policy here is something I'm working to get comfortable with. In the States, most meetings are scheduled. Here, everyone encourages me to pop by whenever. Also, talking and texting are expensive on a missionary budget, so dropping by is something that just has to happend to build relationships.
Saturday morning was rainy and cold. It got nice for a window of a few hours in the afternoon. However, I was in the middle of my South African economics book and started making excuses for staying in. 'It's late, they're probably having their own party...they don't need me.' This internal monologue was motivated from fear about using the open door policy, and worry that my meager cake offering wouldn't be well received. Eventually I bargained with myself to just drop the cake off and jet (I already bought the thing the day before, so I might as well deliver it). God had other plans. Side note: South African weather is very finicky. One can experience all four seasons in a single day. It has already hailed twice here and it's spring! This is exacerbated by Soweto residing on a hill at around 1750 meters above sea level.
Carrying on, I hit the weather window perfectly around 5pm. Gray clouds were rolling in as I made the 5 minute walk, and it was giving credence to my decision to deliver and dash. I got to their house, walked through gate, knocked at the door, then let myself in. The first thing I got were warm smiles and kind welcomes that thawed the chill the weather was putting on my heart. The daughter (a spry 49 with three kids to look after in addition to her mother) relayed that her mother was very happy to see me. She'd been asking about me ever since the last visit. Okay, now I had to stay and chat because these people were just too darn nice. Five minutes into our conversation, as granny was finishing up her cake slice, it started hailing. It was really coming down, made even more intimidating by the reverberation off the metal roof. I originally thought I was trapped, but really I had just been freed to take the time our relationship deserved. We wound up having a great talk that lasted well over an hour, and will make me a much better care giver to their family in the future.
I often worry about the inadequacy of my gifts, or fear rejection. Finally though, I forced myself to let go of that and just do the nice thing I'd been planning. One thing I know about myself, it's safer for me to internalize things and pat myself on the back for wishing others well. If it wasn't the weather, I would have made excuses for something else. I didn't come to South Africa to be passive or to leave with regret. The thing I held onto in bringing my gift was the following truth I came to during reflection: "Nearly every regret I have in life is related to something mean I did to another person, or something nice I could have done but didn't." I only accomplished one thing on Saturday, but it was a very wonderful experience. It was born out of the busyness of working and meeting people during the week. But it was brought to fruition by the stillness of reflection and recuperation. Next step will be learning to release negativity such as regret and worry, but I'm happy with my progress so far. I look forward to carrying out more small acts with great love in the future (maybe Mother Teresa was on to something after all).
I guess finding balance can be equated with finding contentment. Coming here to serve, I always want to be helping or doing or caring. Sometimes though, the events I'm at just need me on the sidelines for a few hours supporting. Other times, I must recharge my battery individually. I'm not always good at allowing myself to do this. Most of the time, my recharging comes in the form of reading books, email discussions about faith and life with other friends/YAGMs, or cooking a good meal. I sometimes think to myself, 'Why am I not doing more?...I could just be doing this in Austin' but I've seen the fruits of personal time manifest themselves in many ways. Some days, I only accomplish one thing (which can be frustrating) but I'm learning to make that one thing count.
On Saturday, one of my patients had a birthday. She's a wonderfully strong lady at 71, but she just had an 8 inch brain tumor removed at the beginning of the year. The care and devotion her daughter puts into looking after her is something that resonated with me when I met their family last Tuesday. I knew I had to bring them a cake on Saturday to celebrate that she survived the past year. The open door policy here is something I'm working to get comfortable with. In the States, most meetings are scheduled. Here, everyone encourages me to pop by whenever. Also, talking and texting are expensive on a missionary budget, so dropping by is something that just has to happend to build relationships.
Saturday morning was rainy and cold. It got nice for a window of a few hours in the afternoon. However, I was in the middle of my South African economics book and started making excuses for staying in. 'It's late, they're probably having their own party...they don't need me.' This internal monologue was motivated from fear about using the open door policy, and worry that my meager cake offering wouldn't be well received. Eventually I bargained with myself to just drop the cake off and jet (I already bought the thing the day before, so I might as well deliver it). God had other plans. Side note: South African weather is very finicky. One can experience all four seasons in a single day. It has already hailed twice here and it's spring! This is exacerbated by Soweto residing on a hill at around 1750 meters above sea level.
Carrying on, I hit the weather window perfectly around 5pm. Gray clouds were rolling in as I made the 5 minute walk, and it was giving credence to my decision to deliver and dash. I got to their house, walked through gate, knocked at the door, then let myself in. The first thing I got were warm smiles and kind welcomes that thawed the chill the weather was putting on my heart. The daughter (a spry 49 with three kids to look after in addition to her mother) relayed that her mother was very happy to see me. She'd been asking about me ever since the last visit. Okay, now I had to stay and chat because these people were just too darn nice. Five minutes into our conversation, as granny was finishing up her cake slice, it started hailing. It was really coming down, made even more intimidating by the reverberation off the metal roof. I originally thought I was trapped, but really I had just been freed to take the time our relationship deserved. We wound up having a great talk that lasted well over an hour, and will make me a much better care giver to their family in the future.
I often worry about the inadequacy of my gifts, or fear rejection. Finally though, I forced myself to let go of that and just do the nice thing I'd been planning. One thing I know about myself, it's safer for me to internalize things and pat myself on the back for wishing others well. If it wasn't the weather, I would have made excuses for something else. I didn't come to South Africa to be passive or to leave with regret. The thing I held onto in bringing my gift was the following truth I came to during reflection: "Nearly every regret I have in life is related to something mean I did to another person, or something nice I could have done but didn't." I only accomplished one thing on Saturday, but it was a very wonderful experience. It was born out of the busyness of working and meeting people during the week. But it was brought to fruition by the stillness of reflection and recuperation. Next step will be learning to release negativity such as regret and worry, but I'm happy with my progress so far. I look forward to carrying out more small acts with great love in the future (maybe Mother Teresa was on to something after all).
Monday, September 17, 2012
Song and Prayer
I whole heartedly love and believe in the power of music. Music is all around me in Soweto. It comes in the form of house music bass bumping through my walls on the weekends, choir performances in church, or Outkast playing through phone speakers as people excitedly share their US music with me. The culture, emotions, hopes, dreams, faith, etc. of a place are all bound up in music and it's something I will reflect on and try to share more as the year progresses. I wanted to quickly share this song as it resonates so perfectly with me and explains the journey I'm on. Here it is. I do not feel helpless or blue at the moment, but the lyrics, thought progression, and tone of his voice hit me every time I listen.
Also, the following prayer was shared via Rachel's blog. She's working at a creche near Pretoria and they sing it every morning. I'll let you go find her blog on the YAGM family page to read more about her time in her own words.
“Father we thank you for the night.
And for the pleasant morning light.
For rest and food, and love we pray,
And others – make them well today.
Help us to do the things we should,
To be to others kind and good.
In all we do, in all we say,
To grow more lovely every day.”
Also, the following prayer was shared via Rachel's blog. She's working at a creche near Pretoria and they sing it every morning. I'll let you go find her blog on the YAGM family page to read more about her time in her own words.
“Father we thank you for the night.
And for the pleasant morning light.
For rest and food, and love we pray,
And others – make them well today.
Help us to do the things we should,
To be to others kind and good.
In all we do, in all we say,
To grow more lovely every day.”
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Settling in Soweto
Hello everyone. Thanks for sticking with me on this blog. This last week has been very busy traveling to and then getting settled in Soweto. The first couple of days were absolutely overwhelming with the combination of reading about all the operations at DAM, shopping in a grocery store by myself, watching it hail in single digit (Celsius) weather, trying to meet/learn names of everyone, and feeling like a fish very very far from any body of water. I'll try to hit some highlights for you in recent days that have seen me far more functional in the community than I was at the start. And, I just realized that I need to take some pictures to help back up my stories. It's a hard balance to strike because I don't want to seem like a tourist running around with my camera but I also need to share with y'all. Here are some orientation photos from Pietermaritzburg to sate your appetite.
On Friday, I jogged to the Oppenheimer tower with a kid named Tshepo. The sh just makes an S sound, and the T in front means you start the S sound with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. He speaks Sotho (pronounced SOO-too), as do most of the people at DAM. I was originally going for a jog since I was feeling cooped up, but I ran by him on my way out of DAM and he told me he wanted to take me somewhere. He proceeded to show me around the cultural village at the base of the tower, then took me to the top. There was a great view of the city as the tower rises probably 8 stories above the trees on a hill in the middle of Soweto. That evening I watched a stand up comedy skit by Trevor Noah which, in addition to being hilarious, taught me a surprisingly large amount about South African culture.
On Saturday, I crashed a wedding. Okay, maybe a slight overstatement, but Elias (my flatmate who works at DAM) and the two German volunteers, Julius and Philip, were the only people I knew in a rather intimate setting of about 60 people. To make things slightly more awkward (though everyone was incredibly welcoming) I was expressly brought to the head table with the bride and groom at the luncheon afterwards. Things loosened up overtime, and I met some Lutheran Youth League members who invited me to a street bash that evening. I had a great time learning to dance the Sushi to South African house music.
FYI, if you attend a church service in South Africa, bring a snack and some water as a precaution. Though the 5 hour service didn't feel nearly as long as it was, I was physically exhausted by the end because I only ate a banana in the morning and I forgot my water bottle. The service was wonderful though. All the songs are a cappella, and in Zulu, and everyone has them memorized somehow. I get to sway along and enjoy the music but I hope to learn a few over time, maybe in a choir! There was a lunch afterwards which was a huge benefit, and then I watched (and participated for a song) as the Youth League mass choir practiced for another hour after church and the lunch.
Monday was a recovery day of laundry and reading, then the fun really started on Tuesday. I'm now working with the Home Based Care (HBC) crew in the mornings and the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)/after school program in the afternoons. If I can find time, I'll also help produce the newsletter and website content.
With HBC, I get to walk around Soweto visiting homes of patients of all ages, making sure they're taking their medicine, checking up on them, and supporting them with house cleaning or doctor visits as necessary. With OVC, I'm helping find opportunities for the kids to get out into the community with zoo visits or health awareness days when those opportunities arise. Mostly though, I chop vegetables as necessary to cook their afternoon meals, let them touch my beard and hair, and do handstands to keep them entertained. Really though they do far more entertaining with their smiles and nicknames for me. I'm also watching them practice the performances they're working on for an October gala to be held at the Central Diocese.
Two more paragraphs I promise, I've gotten excited about everything coming into place in the last couple of days. Outside of DAM, I met some nice locals named Moeti and Hloks who, in addition to bringing me out to their soccer games, have promised to show me the town in the coming year. They were good friends with the last YAGM here and I know we'll have a great time as the year progresses. Also, I'm training with Julius and four other guys at a boxing gym up the road. I've wanted to try boxing training for a while to see what it's like and because, quite frankly, it looks freaking cool in the movies. The coach is a great speaker to keep everyone pumped up at the end of grueling practice sessions (my forearms hurt typing this post right now) but we work hard and then pray after every session which is a nice tie in to the YAGM program.
And, finally, I just realized that the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) will be held in South Africa this year. The final match is at the World Cup stadium in Joburg, so hopefully I can find a way to get in the gate for that match, or at least an earlier one in the tournament. More info here if you're curious.
On Friday, I jogged to the Oppenheimer tower with a kid named Tshepo. The sh just makes an S sound, and the T in front means you start the S sound with your tongue on the roof of your mouth. He speaks Sotho (pronounced SOO-too), as do most of the people at DAM. I was originally going for a jog since I was feeling cooped up, but I ran by him on my way out of DAM and he told me he wanted to take me somewhere. He proceeded to show me around the cultural village at the base of the tower, then took me to the top. There was a great view of the city as the tower rises probably 8 stories above the trees on a hill in the middle of Soweto. That evening I watched a stand up comedy skit by Trevor Noah which, in addition to being hilarious, taught me a surprisingly large amount about South African culture.
On Saturday, I crashed a wedding. Okay, maybe a slight overstatement, but Elias (my flatmate who works at DAM) and the two German volunteers, Julius and Philip, were the only people I knew in a rather intimate setting of about 60 people. To make things slightly more awkward (though everyone was incredibly welcoming) I was expressly brought to the head table with the bride and groom at the luncheon afterwards. Things loosened up overtime, and I met some Lutheran Youth League members who invited me to a street bash that evening. I had a great time learning to dance the Sushi to South African house music.
FYI, if you attend a church service in South Africa, bring a snack and some water as a precaution. Though the 5 hour service didn't feel nearly as long as it was, I was physically exhausted by the end because I only ate a banana in the morning and I forgot my water bottle. The service was wonderful though. All the songs are a cappella, and in Zulu, and everyone has them memorized somehow. I get to sway along and enjoy the music but I hope to learn a few over time, maybe in a choir! There was a lunch afterwards which was a huge benefit, and then I watched (and participated for a song) as the Youth League mass choir practiced for another hour after church and the lunch.
Monday was a recovery day of laundry and reading, then the fun really started on Tuesday. I'm now working with the Home Based Care (HBC) crew in the mornings and the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)/after school program in the afternoons. If I can find time, I'll also help produce the newsletter and website content.
With HBC, I get to walk around Soweto visiting homes of patients of all ages, making sure they're taking their medicine, checking up on them, and supporting them with house cleaning or doctor visits as necessary. With OVC, I'm helping find opportunities for the kids to get out into the community with zoo visits or health awareness days when those opportunities arise. Mostly though, I chop vegetables as necessary to cook their afternoon meals, let them touch my beard and hair, and do handstands to keep them entertained. Really though they do far more entertaining with their smiles and nicknames for me. I'm also watching them practice the performances they're working on for an October gala to be held at the Central Diocese.
Two more paragraphs I promise, I've gotten excited about everything coming into place in the last couple of days. Outside of DAM, I met some nice locals named Moeti and Hloks who, in addition to bringing me out to their soccer games, have promised to show me the town in the coming year. They were good friends with the last YAGM here and I know we'll have a great time as the year progresses. Also, I'm training with Julius and four other guys at a boxing gym up the road. I've wanted to try boxing training for a while to see what it's like and because, quite frankly, it looks freaking cool in the movies. The coach is a great speaker to keep everyone pumped up at the end of grueling practice sessions (my forearms hurt typing this post right now) but we work hard and then pray after every session which is a nice tie in to the YAGM program.
And, finally, I just realized that the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) will be held in South Africa this year. The final match is at the World Cup stadium in Joburg, so hopefully I can find a way to get in the gate for that match, or at least an earlier one in the tournament. More info here if you're curious.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Single Stories
Hi All, I’ve been searching for the first couple of days to figure out what to write about beyond just telling stories of new people, new lands, and a new life. I found it on Tuesday when we listened to this TED talk. I’d watched Chimamanda Adichie speak a couple months ago, but it contained even more power in country and in the context we watched it. I highly encourage you to either watch it now, or after reading this blog post.
Digging below the surface story is one of the main reasons I’m on this trip. I want to learn ways to create deeper, more authentic, and more powerful bonds with people. Humans are incredibly deep and rich creatures with complexity worthy of exploration. The word that comes to mind for me in exploring this concept is holistic. One must take care of the whole person for them to be well and functional, and this is an amalgam of many life experiences. Hearing the full story is incredibly important, but also hard to find when battling personal biases, media biases, political biases, and all external factors that try to inform what must needs be a unique and personal relationship.
This is also intimately tied to history. Without understanding how and why people are wired from historical experiences, it is hard to fully appreciate where someone is coming from. History is a definite weakness of mine coming to South Africa, and something I’ve worked to discuss frequently in my first week. Even this can lead to problems. For example the continent of Africa is more than HIV/AIDS, the people of South Africa are more than apartheid, and the USA is more than a consumerism and money. The issues are so deep and numerous that I’m thankful to have a full year to explore the culture and people of Soweto, because this will afford me the time and space to connect deeper and more intimately with my community. Things will not (and must not) be rushed, and my purpose as I currently see it is to liberate the stories and find the discussion necessary to enrich the lives of those around me.
I recognized that through my lens, the concept of a single story reared its head in the form of HIV/AIDS. Learning that I would be serving in an AIDS ministry had me wired to this discussion. I read a couple books detailing the devastation this disease caused to the continent, and it was all I thought about. I attended an AIDS advocacy conference in Washington DC it was so important to me. At the beginning of orientation, we spoke with a leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in South Africa (ELCSA) youth league, and Tessa (my country coordinator) asked him what he thought were the three biggest issues ELCSA was dealing with. AIDS was not one of them. I realized at that point that I had been telling myself a single story about how I would be functioning in my future community. Or that he could be telling his own version of a single story. Opening myself up the reality of many issues with differing priorities for each person is rather daunting, but realizing this truth was necessary. There are so many more stories and layers of issues worthy of exploration that I’m now even more excited for what I may find in the coming year.
Tessa’s husband Jon had a very good analysis of the value of the video link I provided above. The three reasons he recognized as to why this is relevant are
1. To acknowledge one’s own struggle with seeing the single story
2. To challenge the lens by which one sees the world
3. To recognize the power of story telling
Maybe this can open the way to discussion in emails you send me, or maybe it will just challenge you to reflection, but I encourage you to seek out how you tell or see single stories in your life. How does this affect the way in which you form relationships, or even who you form relationships with? What methods can you take to reach beyond the single story to find deeper connection with strangers, friends, or even family members?
Digging below the surface story is one of the main reasons I’m on this trip. I want to learn ways to create deeper, more authentic, and more powerful bonds with people. Humans are incredibly deep and rich creatures with complexity worthy of exploration. The word that comes to mind for me in exploring this concept is holistic. One must take care of the whole person for them to be well and functional, and this is an amalgam of many life experiences. Hearing the full story is incredibly important, but also hard to find when battling personal biases, media biases, political biases, and all external factors that try to inform what must needs be a unique and personal relationship.
This is also intimately tied to history. Without understanding how and why people are wired from historical experiences, it is hard to fully appreciate where someone is coming from. History is a definite weakness of mine coming to South Africa, and something I’ve worked to discuss frequently in my first week. Even this can lead to problems. For example the continent of Africa is more than HIV/AIDS, the people of South Africa are more than apartheid, and the USA is more than a consumerism and money. The issues are so deep and numerous that I’m thankful to have a full year to explore the culture and people of Soweto, because this will afford me the time and space to connect deeper and more intimately with my community. Things will not (and must not) be rushed, and my purpose as I currently see it is to liberate the stories and find the discussion necessary to enrich the lives of those around me.
I recognized that through my lens, the concept of a single story reared its head in the form of HIV/AIDS. Learning that I would be serving in an AIDS ministry had me wired to this discussion. I read a couple books detailing the devastation this disease caused to the continent, and it was all I thought about. I attended an AIDS advocacy conference in Washington DC it was so important to me. At the beginning of orientation, we spoke with a leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in South Africa (ELCSA) youth league, and Tessa (my country coordinator) asked him what he thought were the three biggest issues ELCSA was dealing with. AIDS was not one of them. I realized at that point that I had been telling myself a single story about how I would be functioning in my future community. Or that he could be telling his own version of a single story. Opening myself up the reality of many issues with differing priorities for each person is rather daunting, but realizing this truth was necessary. There are so many more stories and layers of issues worthy of exploration that I’m now even more excited for what I may find in the coming year.
Tessa’s husband Jon had a very good analysis of the value of the video link I provided above. The three reasons he recognized as to why this is relevant are
1. To acknowledge one’s own struggle with seeing the single story
2. To challenge the lens by which one sees the world
3. To recognize the power of story telling
Maybe this can open the way to discussion in emails you send me, or maybe it will just challenge you to reflection, but I encourage you to seek out how you tell or see single stories in your life. How does this affect the way in which you form relationships, or even who you form relationships with? What methods can you take to reach beyond the single story to find deeper connection with strangers, friends, or even family members?
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Orientation Reflection
First, I'd like to share with y'all a cool google map of our South Africa placement sites! Shout out to Tessa (my country coordinator) for putting this together.
Orientation has been a roller coaster that was at times overwhelming, and at times underwhelming, but very powerful. Cool, that last sentence literally described a roller coaster after telling you it was a roller coaster...great start. We've shared vulnerability in telling our stories, sadness in reflecting on wealth distribution and spending on weapons, joy in dancing and singing during worship, pain in saying goodbye (again), excitement for the road ahead. Heady concepts of wealth, privilege, power analysis, and cultural deconstruction were discussed for hours. Surprisingly the talk on insurance and policies left me the most content. The more I tried to wrap my head around things, the less I wanted to, because, quite frankly, heads aren't very flexible.
Mostly I'm struggling with finding balance. We've spent so much time in reflection with such little action, but we're headed to a year of action which may leave little space for reflection. There is importance in both, but they can feel mutually exclusive. How do I live intentionally without losing the ability to release my inner monologue and live in the moment? Eventually I have to do something, but just thinking about things is so much safer. If I'm not doing something, who is?...or who will?...but am I doing the right thing? HOW DO I QUESTION MYSELF LESS? It's hard to convey laughter over the internet, but know I started chuckling after typing that last question.
Don't worry, I'm not questioning my YAGM service. I think I danced the craziest when we finished our sending ceremony last night, because I'm ready to take action. These are questions I'm trying to figure out for the future, to create a paradigm by which I have a consistency in interacting with the world. I'm at the beginning of an experiment. The issues must be raised and hard questions must be asked, but at times I've felt we've ended with so many questions I can't even remember where we started. Even as I ask these questions I have no answers for you because everything is so big, and I've only recently opened my eyes. I guess I'll just share a poem that brings me some comfort, and hopefully over the course of this yearlong journey following God's mission I will find some answers. If I do I will surely write about them.
Passover Remembered
Alla Bozarth-Campbell
Orientation has been a roller coaster that was at times overwhelming, and at times underwhelming, but very powerful. Cool, that last sentence literally described a roller coaster after telling you it was a roller coaster...great start. We've shared vulnerability in telling our stories, sadness in reflecting on wealth distribution and spending on weapons, joy in dancing and singing during worship, pain in saying goodbye (again), excitement for the road ahead. Heady concepts of wealth, privilege, power analysis, and cultural deconstruction were discussed for hours. Surprisingly the talk on insurance and policies left me the most content. The more I tried to wrap my head around things, the less I wanted to, because, quite frankly, heads aren't very flexible.
Mostly I'm struggling with finding balance. We've spent so much time in reflection with such little action, but we're headed to a year of action which may leave little space for reflection. There is importance in both, but they can feel mutually exclusive. How do I live intentionally without losing the ability to release my inner monologue and live in the moment? Eventually I have to do something, but just thinking about things is so much safer. If I'm not doing something, who is?...or who will?...but am I doing the right thing? HOW DO I QUESTION MYSELF LESS? It's hard to convey laughter over the internet, but know I started chuckling after typing that last question.
Don't worry, I'm not questioning my YAGM service. I think I danced the craziest when we finished our sending ceremony last night, because I'm ready to take action. These are questions I'm trying to figure out for the future, to create a paradigm by which I have a consistency in interacting with the world. I'm at the beginning of an experiment. The issues must be raised and hard questions must be asked, but at times I've felt we've ended with so many questions I can't even remember where we started. Even as I ask these questions I have no answers for you because everything is so big, and I've only recently opened my eyes. I guess I'll just share a poem that brings me some comfort, and hopefully over the course of this yearlong journey following God's mission I will find some answers. If I do I will surely write about them.
Passover Remembered
Alla Bozarth-Campbell
Pack nothing.
Bring only your determination to serve
and your willingness to be free.
Don't wait for the bread to rise.
Take nourishment for the journey, but eat standing.
Be ready to move at a moment's notice.
Do not hesitate to leave your old ways behind -
fear, silence, submission.
Only surrender to the need of the time -
love justice and walk humbly with your God.
Do not take time to explain to the neighbors.
Tell only a few good friends and family members.
Then begin quickly, before you have had time
to sing back into old slavery.
Set out in the dark.
I will send fire to warm and encourage you.
I will be with you in the fire, and I will be with you in the cloud.
You will learn to eat new food
and find refuge in new places.
I will give you dreams in the desert
to guide you safely to that place you have not yet seen.
The stories you tell one another around the fires in the dark
will make you strong and wise.
Outsiders will attack you, and some follow you
and at times you will get weary and turn on each other
from fear, fatigue and blind forgetfulness.
You have been preparing for this
for hundreds of years.
I am sending you into the wilderness to make a new way
and to learn my ways more deeply.
Some of you will be so changed by weathers and wanderings
that even your closest friends will have to learn your features
as though for the first time.
Some of you will not be changed at all.
Some will be abandoned by your dearest loves
and misunderstood by those who have known you since birth
who feel abandoned by you.
Some will find new friendships in unlikely faces,
and old true friends as faithful and true
as the pillar of God's flame.
Sing songs as you go,
and hold close together.
You may at times grow confused
and lose your way.
Continue to call each other by the names Ive given you
to help remember who you are.
Touch each other,
and keep telling the stories.
Make maps as you go,
remembering the way back from before you were born.
So you will be only the first of many waves
of deliverance on the desert seas.
It is the first of many beginnings -
your Paschaltide.
Remain true to the mystery.
Pass on the whole story.
Do not go back.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Adventure Everywhere Part 2
Carrying on with the previous tale, I returned from Central America very satisfied and a little tired. Since I got back on a Tuesday night, it was a quick turn around to hop into a car for a 24 hour drive to Wyoming on Thursday evening, but it worked out. Driving straight through was much less difficult than I was expecting, maybe because of adrenaline, as my first real backpacking experience would be in Grand Teton National Park! I went with some good friends from college, and by the time we rolled back into town a week later, my car stank but our time together was amazing.
The days got into the mid 80s but the evenings were nice and cool, overall the weather was perfect. Our original route required climbing gear for snow, which we didn't have, so we followed a trail mapped out for us by a park ranger, and we she did quite well with her suggestions. Starting off, we put in about six miles on Death Canyon Valley. The next day we popped up to Death Canyon Shelf which had a beautiful look out onto the valley we had just hiked. Even on our new route, we had to cross snow a couple times in July!
Here we all are on top of the shelf.
We continued on to Marion Lake, and I completed my backpackers right of passage by skinny dipping in a snowmelt lake. It was cold. We decided to hike straight out 13 miles after spending the night at the lake because my buddy got confused between hot chocolate and oatmeal while counting out our food. Our options were a two full days of hiking on 20 hot chocolate packets and a family sized mac and cheese, or one epic day of hiking followed by dinner at a classy italian joint in Jackson. We chose the glorious feast and were not disappointed.
I have so much more I could say about the bonding on the trip, learning to fly fish, barely avoiding an intense thunderstorm, petting wild marmots, and a bear wrecking a camp a couple miles from us, but I need to carry on. After another 24 hour drive to get one of the guys back for his friend's wedding, I had a full two days to get ready for the ELCA national youth gathering in New Orleans (the theme of the summer was quick turnarounds!).
I went in with zero expectations, and was completely blown away by how amazing the event was. My role was as a Servant Companion. We led congregations from all over the US on service projects throughout New Orleans. After training, I worked with a congregation from West Fargo at a kids camp, and my other project was with a group from Colorado deconstructing a blighted house. My group of servant companions was so fun to connect with, and it was great to see other young adults and high school kids connected with the church. Over 30,000 people attended the gathering, including 10 YAGMs! The compassion, understanding, and openness of the event was impressive, and I was thankful for my time there. It's really hard to put the experience into words, but it was very moving, and helped affirm my connection with the ELCA even though at times I struggle with my faith. Here's a picture of these beautiful people.
From NOLA, I flew on to Washington DC to advocate with a social justice group called RESULTS. Their main focus is ending poverty at home and in the world at large, but with the International AIDS conference taking place on Capitol Hill at the same time, they focused on HIV/AIDS issues this year. It was a great preparatory experience for my service. It will be incredibly powerful when I can look the members of the community I'll be serving in the eye and say 'I've sat with my senators and congressmen and done my best to give you a voice'. Our focus was on making sure the US honors its commitment to the Global Fund to fight HIV, Tuberculosis (TB), and Malaria. Many of the people we talked with from Texas were supportive of our cause, and I have every reason to believe that we will at least fund this program for the next year. The Global Fund is important because it provides antiretrovirals to people infected with HIV, helps communities test for TB (the leading killer of people infected with HIV), educates and provides resources to prevent malaria, and a host of other activities all over the world.
I was able to meet two very inspiring people while in DC. First was Carol, a single mother living with HIV and working in a regional community outreach program in Zambia. Her husband died from AIDS when her kids were young, and her health began deteriorating a couple years later. She was on her deathbed a couple times, but was able to pull through with the help of ARVs provided by the Global Fund. Her energy and commitment in spite of all that she lost because of HIV made me excited to work in Soweto, but also sad that we live in a world where we do not lift up more of our global neighbors. Her kids are at University now, and I'm happy they were able to grow up with such a loving mother. I also got to meet the Princess of Africa, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, while at the conference. She's done great work as a UN goodwill ambassador, and her documentary is wonderful. I don't have a link to the full video, but the trailer is on her website. A picture of us...she's from Soweto!
I was thankful to be home after my travels. On the first day back, we went to Schlitterbahn as a family, and I had the most fun there that I have in years. The next week I worked with my parents leading VBS at our church, which left the week after that for getting ready with doctors visits, immunizations, and my birthday. To those who sent me birthday presents, thank you for your kind cards and well wishes. It was a great summer to seek closure with some old friends, learn more about and connect deeper with the ELCA, and spend time with my family. Next post will update you on my time in Chicago at YAGM orientation.
The days got into the mid 80s but the evenings were nice and cool, overall the weather was perfect. Our original route required climbing gear for snow, which we didn't have, so we followed a trail mapped out for us by a park ranger, and we she did quite well with her suggestions. Starting off, we put in about six miles on Death Canyon Valley. The next day we popped up to Death Canyon Shelf which had a beautiful look out onto the valley we had just hiked. Even on our new route, we had to cross snow a couple times in July!
I went in with zero expectations, and was completely blown away by how amazing the event was. My role was as a Servant Companion. We led congregations from all over the US on service projects throughout New Orleans. After training, I worked with a congregation from West Fargo at a kids camp, and my other project was with a group from Colorado deconstructing a blighted house. My group of servant companions was so fun to connect with, and it was great to see other young adults and high school kids connected with the church. Over 30,000 people attended the gathering, including 10 YAGMs! The compassion, understanding, and openness of the event was impressive, and I was thankful for my time there. It's really hard to put the experience into words, but it was very moving, and helped affirm my connection with the ELCA even though at times I struggle with my faith. Here's a picture of these beautiful people.
I was able to meet two very inspiring people while in DC. First was Carol, a single mother living with HIV and working in a regional community outreach program in Zambia. Her husband died from AIDS when her kids were young, and her health began deteriorating a couple years later. She was on her deathbed a couple times, but was able to pull through with the help of ARVs provided by the Global Fund. Her energy and commitment in spite of all that she lost because of HIV made me excited to work in Soweto, but also sad that we live in a world where we do not lift up more of our global neighbors. Her kids are at University now, and I'm happy they were able to grow up with such a loving mother. I also got to meet the Princess of Africa, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, while at the conference. She's done great work as a UN goodwill ambassador, and her documentary is wonderful. I don't have a link to the full video, but the trailer is on her website. A picture of us...she's from Soweto!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
I'm in Chicago!
Today was the day ladies and gentlemen. I was very flattered my little brother and sister woke up at 4:30 to say bye. Fewer tears were shed than I was expecting (as in none) but I take this as a good sign. There has been so much support from my family, it's been absolutely wonderful. My dad has been on board from day 1, and my mom and I had some really good conversations recently about this service and I know they're both excited for me. I could see it in their faces this morning, and it just helped confirm that this is the right time for all of this to happen. Since they're probably reading this, I love you guys.
Basically I slept through my flights since I got less than four hours of sleep last night. Nothing special, I'm kind of a pro at this whole travel thing by now. Here's our little YAGM shanty town in the airport, waiting to be picked up from baggage claim.
Oh and since I haven't shared a picture of the YAGM family yet...here you go. A couple of these people declined their placements, but they were still part of the discernment journey. As you will see from future photos, I was significantly less hairy here.
Reuniting with everyone (especially my South Africa peeps) has been great. Our Midway bus arrived earlier than the O'Hare bus to the Lutheran Theological Seminary Dorms, so we had a good amount of time to chill and throw my disc around. Interesting how a piece of plastic spinning through the air can attract people and make quick friends. Only sad part of the day was that the box of YAGM t-shirts I designed and had printed for everyone was lost during the flights. But, I just received a call that they'll be delivering it tonight! This is good news since I also threw my winter fleece in the box instead of carrying it with me.
Dinner was a tasty mix of fruit, shish-kebabs, and rice. They also got me a piece of oreo cake since my birthday was two days ago. Worship was powerful as always. Still working on questions of faith and where I stand in the spectrum of certain beliefs, but I know this is the right place to work on all that. I'm consistently amazed at the level of musicianship in YAGM. People will just sit down and play the piano or sing beautiful notes and think nothing of it. There are at least 10 guitars and a couple of mandolins here. Very inspiring group of people to be among. Anyway I'm off to bed since my feet have gone numb while writing this post.
There's a website worth sharing with y'all called ELCA Global Links They post monthly about missionary activity, and you'll see a post from the country coordinator for YAGMs in Malaysia which is actually a link to a link to a pdf, but worth checking out.
Basically I slept through my flights since I got less than four hours of sleep last night. Nothing special, I'm kind of a pro at this whole travel thing by now. Here's our little YAGM shanty town in the airport, waiting to be picked up from baggage claim.
Dinner was a tasty mix of fruit, shish-kebabs, and rice. They also got me a piece of oreo cake since my birthday was two days ago. Worship was powerful as always. Still working on questions of faith and where I stand in the spectrum of certain beliefs, but I know this is the right place to work on all that. I'm consistently amazed at the level of musicianship in YAGM. People will just sit down and play the piano or sing beautiful notes and think nothing of it. There are at least 10 guitars and a couple of mandolins here. Very inspiring group of people to be among. Anyway I'm off to bed since my feet have gone numb while writing this post.
There's a website worth sharing with y'all called ELCA Global Links They post monthly about missionary activity, and you'll see a post from the country coordinator for YAGMs in Malaysia which is actually a link to a link to a pdf, but worth checking out.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Adventure Everywhere Part 1
Here's a quick rundown of what I did this summer, and a highly abbreviated, but awesome, set of pictures to describe it. First I drove up to Colorado to watch the UT Men's Ultimate Frisbee program play in the college national championships. Watching the team get tenth and knowing I could have been out there playing if I was still in school was tough, but it was great supporting all the friends from my time there.
Next my family took a highly relaxing and much needed vacation to South Padre Island. Many great days of drunken revelry (oops wrong trip), I mean bocce ball and Apples to Apples were had. We go there every year but it's always fun and this time was particularly nice.
Next I jetted down to Honduras and El Salvador for two weeks with my good friend Collin and his buddy Koby. Excellent conversations were had about life. We're all at interesting transitional points in our lives and our intersection was definitely one of fate. Here's a description of how we planned the trip:
*Phone rings 3 weeks before the trip, Kyle answers*
Collin: "Hey Kyle, I've called some other people but they're all busy with life and I know you're waiting to ship of to South Africa, wanna go to Central America for a couple weeks?"
Kyle: "Sure, what's the cost?"
Collin: "Under $2,000"
Kyle: "I'm in"
*Koby joins 5 days before we leave after hearing about it during pick up basketball*
While in Honduras, we saw wondrous Mayan ruins at Copan Ruinas,
ate some delicious local food,
released a pregnant boa constrictor into the wild,
ate termites, swam with a whale shark in Utila, and generally had an amazing time. I would like to focus on the whale shark. It was the most awe inspiring thing I've ever seen. At 20 feet long, it was merely an adolescent, but still impressive. There are distinct scenes of it rocketing up alongside our boat while I peered over the edge, it rolling to show me its stomach, and me swimming in its wake that I will never forget. I swam the hardest I could with fins on and wasn't equal to the challenge of keeping up with five effortless tail flicks of this sea monster. In my last post I mentioned no regrets, but I really wish I'd had an underwater camera to share the brilliance.
Carrying on, it was a sad day when Koby had to leave us in Honduras, but Collin and I continued on to El Salvador. We stayed in a beautifully painted town called Juayua and toured a protected forest. Here we are after repelling down a waterfall, no safety waivers required!
My favorite meal of the trip was on this hike. We ate some incredibly tasty food on the cheap the whole time, but our guide packed in a fresh feast that hit the spot perfectly after our long hike. Fresh avocado, papaya, tomatoes, boiled eggs, pineapple...everything had a level of flavor I've never tasted before. I was too busy eating to remember a photograph haha. From there we continued on to Barra de Santiago and spent time surfing on the beach in the buff, reading good books, throwing the frisbee, and enjoying life.
Oof this post is getting long, I've had too much fun this summer! I'll carry on in part 2 with tales from Grand Teton National Park, New Orleans, Washington DC, and scuba certification. I depart Austin for Chicago in t-minus 8 hours. Absolutely amazing. Here's the packing, box of t-shirts will be dropped before heading to South Africa
Next my family took a highly relaxing and much needed vacation to South Padre Island. Many great days of drunken revelry (oops wrong trip), I mean bocce ball and Apples to Apples were had. We go there every year but it's always fun and this time was particularly nice.
Next I jetted down to Honduras and El Salvador for two weeks with my good friend Collin and his buddy Koby. Excellent conversations were had about life. We're all at interesting transitional points in our lives and our intersection was definitely one of fate. Here's a description of how we planned the trip:
*Phone rings 3 weeks before the trip, Kyle answers*
Collin: "Hey Kyle, I've called some other people but they're all busy with life and I know you're waiting to ship of to South Africa, wanna go to Central America for a couple weeks?"
Kyle: "Sure, what's the cost?"
Collin: "Under $2,000"
Kyle: "I'm in"
*Koby joins 5 days before we leave after hearing about it during pick up basketball*
While in Honduras, we saw wondrous Mayan ruins at Copan Ruinas,
Carrying on, it was a sad day when Koby had to leave us in Honduras, but Collin and I continued on to El Salvador. We stayed in a beautifully painted town called Juayua and toured a protected forest. Here we are after repelling down a waterfall, no safety waivers required!
Oof this post is getting long, I've had too much fun this summer! I'll carry on in part 2 with tales from Grand Teton National Park, New Orleans, Washington DC, and scuba certification. I depart Austin for Chicago in t-minus 8 hours. Absolutely amazing. Here's the packing, box of t-shirts will be dropped before heading to South Africa
Monday, August 13, 2012
Patterns, Value, and Vulnerability
Yay birthday post! Okay enough tomfoolery, down to business.
For the uninitiated, I'll be going to South Africa to work for a year as a missionary with the Diakonia AIDS ministry. The program is run through the ELCA and is called Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM). I'm kind of behind on blogging and I only know for sure I have unlimited internet for the next week, so I'll try to post once a day until I leave the US on August 22nd. This first post is dedicated to why I'm going. Next will be what I've been doing this summer. After that I'll probably post about arriving in Chicago. Then I'll post a little more about what I know of my mission and then a few more updates (hopefully with a picture from a Chicago ballpark!) Without further ado...my reflection on why I'm going:
There are three fundamental things which brought me to YAGM: patterns, value, and vulnerability. All of us establish patterns in our life: what we eat, who we eat with, where we go, how we greet each other, etc. My life as a Christian was guided by patterns. Worship is a highly patterned experience. I became good at going through the motions of memorizing various creeds, songs, Bible verses, etc. It was comforting, but empty. I had so many other patterns dominating my life from school to work to practice to friends, that my investment in faith rarely extended beyond the patterns of Sunday worship. I was out on a boat controlled by autopilot in the currents of life. Until recently, I didn't see the value of propelling my little boat of faith, of exploring my spirituality. Breaking my patterns.
An important concept in business is return on investment. Depending on the time/money/energy you put in, something of greater financial value should come out. Energy and resources spent on school should lead to greater opportunity for wealth down the line. A bank investing in oil should see the price of a barrel increase. Lobbying politicians should lead to more favorable legislation. The value I sought to extract from life conformed to these ideas in almost all I did. My investments sought the financial and achievement values of the traditional American experience. Even faith can have value for the wrong reasons. My faith has often had value for me in appeasing my parents, in volunteering to make me feel better about myself, or in praying for personal gain. All too frequently faith is used for persecution instead of freedom, barriers instead of bridges, and judgment instead of acceptance.
So where is the good news? You know, that little area of the sermon notes you had to fill in for confirmation? The good news is in change. It is in discernment; a conscious decision to commit to a different plan, to the plan laid out by Jesus. A plan greater than oneself, but that requires the presence of each individual to create the whole. This is the African concept of Ubuntu. Until recently, I haven't been fully present in my own life because I haven't been honest with who I am and what I want to accomplish. Thus, I have missed out on community. In fact, I think community is the biggest thing I'm missing and the biggest thing I crave. I am here because I've recognized that my value system was flawed. My patterns didn't involve listening with an open mind and sharing with an open heart. I didn't see the value in every person I met. I'm here to break my patterns and change my values by creating a community with each one of you and with the world at large.
This change fundamentally requires a commitment to vulnerability. Vulnerability is rooted in humility and sharing one's story, then receiving stories from others. In this definition of story, I mean everything. Not just the facts about addresses and accomplishments and jobs, but deeper: hopes, dreams, fears, failures, loves, everything. I've had a filter on my life that didn't allow me to give and share freely and it was suffocating. But it was safe, and I wasn't vulnerable...life was muted. I haven't opened myself to this until recently, so it is an ongoing endeavor. That's why I'm here.
I sincerely hope this post doesn't sound too critical, judgmental, or negative. For me, this post is the most hopeful I've been in quite sometime. Also, these are simply the conclusions I've reached for myself, and they require me to go on this mission trip at this point in my life. Every person comes to a different set of truths and conclusions with the information presented to them, and all are given different gifts to share with the world. I'm so thankful for the family and friends I've had accompanying me thus far, but a deeper, more global craving has awoken in my heart. I regret nothing in the past so long as I get to where I want in the future. Nothing that has happened in my life up to this point can be completely untangled from who I am, what I'm doing, and the motivations for such action. Know that you, dear reader, will be in my thoughts and prayers as I serve the community of Soweto, South Africa through the Diakonia AIDS ministry. Namaste.
For the uninitiated, I'll be going to South Africa to work for a year as a missionary with the Diakonia AIDS ministry. The program is run through the ELCA and is called Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM). I'm kind of behind on blogging and I only know for sure I have unlimited internet for the next week, so I'll try to post once a day until I leave the US on August 22nd. This first post is dedicated to why I'm going. Next will be what I've been doing this summer. After that I'll probably post about arriving in Chicago. Then I'll post a little more about what I know of my mission and then a few more updates (hopefully with a picture from a Chicago ballpark!) Without further ado...my reflection on why I'm going:
There are three fundamental things which brought me to YAGM: patterns, value, and vulnerability. All of us establish patterns in our life: what we eat, who we eat with, where we go, how we greet each other, etc. My life as a Christian was guided by patterns. Worship is a highly patterned experience. I became good at going through the motions of memorizing various creeds, songs, Bible verses, etc. It was comforting, but empty. I had so many other patterns dominating my life from school to work to practice to friends, that my investment in faith rarely extended beyond the patterns of Sunday worship. I was out on a boat controlled by autopilot in the currents of life. Until recently, I didn't see the value of propelling my little boat of faith, of exploring my spirituality. Breaking my patterns.
An important concept in business is return on investment. Depending on the time/money/energy you put in, something of greater financial value should come out. Energy and resources spent on school should lead to greater opportunity for wealth down the line. A bank investing in oil should see the price of a barrel increase. Lobbying politicians should lead to more favorable legislation. The value I sought to extract from life conformed to these ideas in almost all I did. My investments sought the financial and achievement values of the traditional American experience. Even faith can have value for the wrong reasons. My faith has often had value for me in appeasing my parents, in volunteering to make me feel better about myself, or in praying for personal gain. All too frequently faith is used for persecution instead of freedom, barriers instead of bridges, and judgment instead of acceptance.
So where is the good news? You know, that little area of the sermon notes you had to fill in for confirmation? The good news is in change. It is in discernment; a conscious decision to commit to a different plan, to the plan laid out by Jesus. A plan greater than oneself, but that requires the presence of each individual to create the whole. This is the African concept of Ubuntu. Until recently, I haven't been fully present in my own life because I haven't been honest with who I am and what I want to accomplish. Thus, I have missed out on community. In fact, I think community is the biggest thing I'm missing and the biggest thing I crave. I am here because I've recognized that my value system was flawed. My patterns didn't involve listening with an open mind and sharing with an open heart. I didn't see the value in every person I met. I'm here to break my patterns and change my values by creating a community with each one of you and with the world at large.
This change fundamentally requires a commitment to vulnerability. Vulnerability is rooted in humility and sharing one's story, then receiving stories from others. In this definition of story, I mean everything. Not just the facts about addresses and accomplishments and jobs, but deeper: hopes, dreams, fears, failures, loves, everything. I've had a filter on my life that didn't allow me to give and share freely and it was suffocating. But it was safe, and I wasn't vulnerable...life was muted. I haven't opened myself to this until recently, so it is an ongoing endeavor. That's why I'm here.
I sincerely hope this post doesn't sound too critical, judgmental, or negative. For me, this post is the most hopeful I've been in quite sometime. Also, these are simply the conclusions I've reached for myself, and they require me to go on this mission trip at this point in my life. Every person comes to a different set of truths and conclusions with the information presented to them, and all are given different gifts to share with the world. I'm so thankful for the family and friends I've had accompanying me thus far, but a deeper, more global craving has awoken in my heart. I regret nothing in the past so long as I get to where I want in the future. Nothing that has happened in my life up to this point can be completely untangled from who I am, what I'm doing, and the motivations for such action. Know that you, dear reader, will be in my thoughts and prayers as I serve the community of Soweto, South Africa through the Diakonia AIDS ministry. Namaste.
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