Out of Africa

I arrived home Saturday evening after over 36 hours on a plane. First leg was from Jo-burg to Dakkar (had to look that one up on my airmap) where we refueled and had a thorough search by French authorities. Next came the Senegal to US leg where I saw the sunrise over DC. After clearing customs, rechecking my luggage, and scrambling for some caffeine I boarded what I thought would be my final leg. Not so fast, African adventurer! Count on turbulent Texas weather to detour us from DFW to Austin. My original landing time of noon-ish ended up being closer to 7:00 PM, but I got to have a Mexican food fix in the capital and view the sunset over Big-D when I finally arrived. Home at last and welcomed by an adoring husband who didn't mind waiting around the airport all afternoon. Now to soak in my own tub and rest horizontally in my own bed ...

Homeward Bound

In about three hours I leave Living Waters Campsite to head to the Jo-burg airport. I'll be flying nearly 18 hours the first leg, then another couple hours to arrive at home Saturday afternoon. Talk about jet-lag! It's an eight hour time zone difference between home and South Africa. That means it should take me at least eight days to recover (1 day per hour). Basically, I'll be worthless next week. It's been a truly incredible and humbling experience being in South Africa among believers from all over the world. I hope that I can find words to describe this experience in a way that is understandable to everyone. The body of Christ has been so evident. The southern shift of Christianity is indeed a reality.

Thanks for reading my blog. I'll be emailable next week.

Fat Cake

During dinner tonight I discovered my favorite South African food. The delicacy is called "vet koek" in Afrikaans, which translates as "fat cake". You guessed it. It's fried. Vet koek is donut like in texture, but not sweet--unless you load it with peanut butter and syrup like I did on the second one. My first vet koek was served like a sloppy joe. The filling was beef, corn, green beans, carrots in a savory sauce. Mmm mmm good!

Helping non native-English speakers learn

We said “good morning” in nearly 10 languages in our group of 20. English is not anyone’s FIRST language. For some in the group, English is their third or even fourth language. And I’m supposed to speak/teach in a way that these folks can learn!? Talk about needing prayer!

South Africans are accustomed to hearing British English, but American English is a different story altogether—except maybe in the movies. Texan English is really foreign.

Our trio of trainers is not merely dumping information. We have used numerous group activities and exercises moving folks around. The dissemination of information via a lecture or a PowerPoint presentation is not what is needed, though our training trio has implementing some of that. I keep hearing what John, our training guru, stressed last week as we prepared curriculum: “Other people’s knowledge is just information. It only becomes your knowledge when you do something with it.”

Living Waters

The Christian “campsite” where the partnership training is occurring this week is appropriately named “Living Waters.” It’s much more of what I expected Africa to be—thatched roof buildings in lush green surroundings. There’s even a peacock strutting around the property. The room I’m sharing with a lady from Canada is quite basic. There are three steel bunk beds, so we’ve spread out a bit. The room reminds me of Girl Scout Camp or places I’ve taken groups GA’s. We’re managing just fine. No screens on the windows, and only one large fluorescent light to illuminate both the bedroom and the bathroom, but we’ve got a soft bed, clean sheets, hot and cold water, and electricity. No complaints.

Breaking Dividing Walls

We began our training sessions today. There are 10 of us trainers representing 8 countries and around 60 trainees from Africa and beyond. The majority of trainees are South Africans, but there is a good representation from elsewhere—over 20 countries. It is always an exhilarating and humbling experience worshiping with believers from various cultures. One of the songs we’ve been singing contains the lyrics, “We will break dividing walls.” Pray that is truly so. What Martin Luther King stated about American churches (“The most segregated places in America are in our churches on Sunday mornings”) is a gross understatement for Africa. Racial divides run deep within this culture. We conducted an exercise last night where participants were required to work in groups to reach a consensus. Right in front of my face, I saw black South Africans ignored by the Afrikaaners. Our training team is asking the Lord to begin chipping away at the dividing walls this week.

Pilanesberg National Park

Spectacular outing today! Thirteen of us loaded into a mini-bus at 6AM for the two hour drive to Pilanesberg National Park. As we ate our breakfast of grilled cheese sandwiches, sausage links, and pears, we dreamed of the wildlife we’d come upon in the reserve. The circular layout of the Pilanesberg can be traced to prehistoric times when a volcano erupted and the mounds of cooled lava evolved into little hills. We spotted fish eagle, waterbuck, zebras with babies, impalas. blue wildebeest, an ostrich, a warthog, several hippopotamus heads (couldn't get them to come up out of the water), giraffes with babies, endangered steenbok, white rhinoceros, a black backed jackal, and tsessebes (but not on a bun!) It was an awesome four hours.