We finished our tour around the Johannesburg suburbs and made arrangements to take a train to Cape Town where we’re spending our last couple of days before returning to Nairobi. The train ride was 26 hours long winding through small towns, farm land and cities on an ever southwesterly track until we finally reached the last stop–Cape Town.
Here’s our trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town in pictures:
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…another report on what we’re eating. Every place we go, there’s always something new to try. However, most of what we’ve been eating here is similar to what we’d eat at home in the US.
I can honestly say that I’ve been really excited about eating two things–cheese and cereal. Laugh if you so choose… Can we get these in Nairobi? Yes, but… the milk doesn’t taste quite the same, cereal is very expensive so we rarely buy it, and the selection of affordable cheese is much better in South Africa. I’ve not seen any cottage cheese in Nairobi, at least not the same as I would eat at home. I’ve had a bowl of cereal pretty much every day since we arrived–the best Cornflakes, Rice Krispies and Cheerios I’ve had in months! And, the cottage cheese I had for lunch one day–to die for!! 
Jeff, on the other hand, is excited about meat. South Africa is known for it’s good beef, so we had to go out for steak once. Mmm…cow…your sacrifice was not in vain! The steak was excellent.
We like to try local soft drinks (soda). There are the usual Coke and Sprite, but we passed those by for Appletiser, Grapetiser, Peartiser, Bitter Lemon, Stoney and Iron Brew–all local sodas. The first three taste like you might assume–like apples, grapes and pears. Bitter Lemon and Stoney are similar to some sodas we get in Nairobi. Iron Brew tasted a bit like Dr. Pepper. Do you know what else is popular here that we rarely see at home anymore–Tab. We saw lots of Tab in the grocery stores.
Last Saturday we visited a flee market in a town called Irene (I-ree-nee). Amongst all the crafts and second hand items was a food area. We sampled some cheese and Salomi, but bought some fresh doughnuts and a bottle of Hill Billy’s Chili Sauce. This one was called Pain. We’ll have to try it when we get back home.
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We’ve been in Johannesburg, South Africa this week attending a workshop called Funding the Family Business. It’s a clever title for a workshop about how God funds his work…or, in other words, how a ministry staff person (couple or family) develops a team of financial and prayer partners to support their ministry. This workshop has been run in several locations in Africa, and our African colleagues have found it useful in raising their own financial and prayer support. So, this time some of our South African colleagues were able to attend as well as staff from Mozambique, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Colombia (via Texas), Canada…and us…the only Americans. Our course leaders came from Ireland, Madagascar, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
We were invited to come because knowing how our African colleagues are promoting their personal ministries will help me when I meet with Wycliffe organizations here about promoting their corporate ministries. It’s best when both a husband and wife are participate, so Jeff got to come along, too. He put his skills to use helping some workshop participants with their computer problems in the midst of our classes.
In our organization most staff, including us, are able to serve because of generous gifts and faithful prayers. Each single person or family unit has their own team that gives and prays, which in turn directly impacts their ability to be able to follow God’s call and serve in their ministry roles. Without that team of prayer and financial supporters, they, like us, aren’t able to serve. We took time to reflect on how God has taken care of us during these last few years through his people (including some of you that read this blog! ). It really is a privilege to be able to serve as we have, and we are so thankful to our prayer and financial supporters for your part in our ministry. We wouldn’t be here doing what we’re doing without you.
We spent time in the course looking at the historic pattern of this kind of partnership between senders and go-ers. This model of the Church sending out workers and then providing for those workers through financial gifts and prayer has roots in both the Old and New Testaments. In the OT the Levites were set apart by God for his service and the other tribes in Israel provided for their needs (Numbers 18:8-32). In the NT Jesus and his disciples “traveled from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God,” and several women (Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Chuza and Susanna) provided them with financial support (Luke 8:1-3). We also know that Paul received financial support from churches for his ministry (Phil 4:14-16), and that others did, too (1 Corin. 9:3-12).
The whole group participated in several role plays, which were generally done in small groups. We were the lucky ones that kept being called on to do demonstrations for the whole group to watch. We got nick-named the default couple in honor of that continuous role. This picture was of us doing a role play of a meeting with a potential financial supporter. When we were initially raising our support, we had lots of meetings like this; however, even though we’ve had some experience, we learned a lot in this course, and might approach these types of meetings a little differently in the future.
It’s been a good week of meeting new people, reviewing some things we knew and learning new things. Now that the course is complete, we get to spend a little extra time in South Africa on holiday (vacation).
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All photos in this post by Zeke Du Plessis
Jennie and Zeke visited a Chinese church in Nairobi on Sunday. The pastor of this church, Melody, is supported by Jennie’s home church in Taiwan. She’s ministered to both to Kenyans and Chinese in Kenya for more than 20 years. The Chinese community in Nairobi is growing, which is why Melody now pastors a church for the Chinese in Nairobi.
She invited all of us to visit a school that her and her husband oversee in the Embakasi slum in south east Nairobi. While Nairobi has many high and middle income areas, a large portion of the population (maybe up to 1/3) of Nairobi lives in places like this. Most of the residents in Embakasi work as casual laborers in nearby factories. Jeff and I have visited Kibera slum which has about 1 million people. This one was much smaller (I think about 25,000); it’s a maze of corrugated steel structures–some shops, schools, clinics, homes, food stands… It’s not far from the international airport, and from the top of a taller building in the slum we could see both downtown Nairobi and the stadium near where Jeff and I live off in the distance.
We were followed most of the way to the school by some children occasionally chanting “How-wah-yoo.” What was fun was to respond in Swahili instead of English, “Nzuri sana.” I don’t think they expected that! Not every child in this slum is able to go to school. Costs for uniforms, text books or other school fees can make education cost prohibitive for some families. In some cases only one child in a family may be able to go to school. Sometimes a child’s education is paid for by a relative or friend with more financial means, or a child’s education may be sponsored by an organization like Compassion International or Save the Children.
Melody started a school here for children about age 4 through, I think, age 13 or 14. When the school first opened, Melody and her husband covered many of the school costs out of their personal funds. Today, Jennie’s home church in Taiwan covers the teachers’ salaries and the text books. Students do have to pay a small tuition, but the cost is greatly subsidized and much less in comparison to what the costs usually would be. The buildings are simple, but the students seem happy and excited about learning. Every student also gets one meal provided to them while they are at school. For some it may be their only meal for that day.
The younger students greeted us with big smiles. The older students sang us a special song that one of the students wrote about the school. All the students and teachers knew Melody. She checked in with different ones to see how they were doing. We managed to bring everyone together for a group photo before we left. Jennie and I helped with getting the crowd together while Zeke got up atop an unfinished classroom building to take the photo. Almost everyone was in it.
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(Click on the image to enlarge it)
The Masalite already have a written language and a beginning reading primer. The SIL team is providing the community with linguistic consultation and helping to train the literacy teachers. The local communities are taking the lead in coordinating and conducting the actual literacy classes.
At the Bredjing and Treguine refugee camps we attended ceremonies where those that have completed the Masalite reading primer received certificates. There seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm for education and the Masalite literacy classes. The SIL team is now thinking about what other literature they could work with community leaders to make available in Masalite. Having a body of literature is a key to sustaining literacy over time because why would you keep reading if you’ve already read everything there is to read? It will be interesting to see how this literacy program will continue to develop.
Eunice has been providing some personal tutoring to the guard at their compound. I was able to see her going through the literacy primer with him. Later in the evening, he showed what he had learned by writing several words on a blackboard. He was laughing with excitement while he wrote each word he had learned in Masalite.
I’ve already talked about the harsh environment here. It might make some want to give up. But, I continue to feel the love that this team has for the people here–God’s love that they are sharing with this community.
When we were at one of certificate ceremonies, I came across this random plastic chair that said “Love of God.” It really affected me at that moment just thinking about how God loves the Masalite, how He knows of their suffering, and how He’s using some of His servants to help them.
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