My Summer: South Africa in Mpophomeni

Why, you may ask, if I visited South Africa in July am I only writing about it now?

I've been finding it difficult to sort and process.

I wish I could show you what it was like. Sitting in the big red tent with the winter sun filtering in. Children playing; dust and old carpets. There was a deep peace about that place, like God's hand was upon it, like something sacred. The reality is that for the children I met, their lives will not be like mine. Sure, they're given schooling now and apartheid is a thing of the past, but where you're born has such a grasp upon who you'll become.

I want to talk to you about one person I met in South Africa. A. is five years old, so you won't be knowing her full name, but I can tell you it's a beautiful one. We were told by Tearfund not have favourites among the children, and I never intended it to be like that. My very first day, we were left alone to get to know them, and so we began trying to interact with those around us. Some of the others joined group games, some of us went over to the little ones. I spent quite a bit of time trying to get A. to trust me enough to throw the ball she was playing with back to me. Later, she was climbing all over me and pulling at my hair. I'd been playing with her and some of the others for quite some time, thinking that they spoke no English, until A. suddenly came out with, "Don't tickle me!" My face must have been priceless. I later found out that while her English wasn't good enough for a conversation, it was certainly better than my Zulu.

In the Pre-school room.

I met and got to know many of the children at the centre, girls and boys of all ages, with different levels of English, the shy and the confident, the cuddlers, the football-players, the mischievous, but if I sat down anywhere in the near vicinity of A. then nine times out of ten she'd be straight on my lap. Since I've returned home, she's been the person most likely to pop into my head at unlikely times and the first face I see when I think of my trip. I cannot begin to explain how a small girl I knew for only a month, whose language I do not speak and who barely speaks mine, could have ended up in my heart. This kind of thing can only be God-given, because it goes beyond myself. 

I met many girls at many different stages in life. In a culture where dowry is hugely expensive, beyond what many people can afford, marriage is rare. The number of single mothers I met was unreal, and left us asking over and over again "Where are all the men?" Not to mention that the HIV/AIDS rate is high, unemployment is high and wages are low. I met a woman earning R50 a day, just less than £5, less than I make in an hour. Ten minutes down the road is Howick. Entering Howick is like stepping back into England, only with big security alarmed gates and a lot of barbed wire. Young people that I met there seemed to have the same opportunities and aspirations we do in the UK, when just down the road going to University impossible for all but the rare few. I have never before met people who wanted to go to uni, but genuinely couldn't afford to.

The back of my Ethembeni T-shirt- a present from the staff on our last day.

There is no doubt that God IS at work in Mpophomeni, and the ministry I worked in (Ethembeni, an outreach of Howick Community Church) is just one example of this. Yet when I think of what A.'s life will be like, with many of the obstacles of poverty stacked against her, it hurts. The Family Centre care for 'orphaned and vulnerable' children, her life has already been difficult. I don't want her to be pregnant and HIV positive at 15, I want her to be able to go to university if she wants to, to be paid fairly, to do what inspires her, to be a part of the world, to have a voice, to know and to love Jesus, to be the best she can be and to have a husband who is committed to and loves her. I want for her all the things that I would want for my own daughter, and I know that it is God who is allowing me to see it this way. We are all God's children, and the way I feel about A. is the way He feels about each of us.

One day, God will restore this broken world, but until then He chooses to work through us. Will we make our hearts and minds and hands available to Him that we might do good works on behalf of others? Although this post has been hard for me, this has been my obedience to God in sharing what He has taught me. It is about A. for me. I don't understand what I can do to make her life better right now. I will pray for her, and continue to give money into Ethembeni and I trust that God had a purpose in sending me to South Africa. I will work my hardest in Cambridge to get my degree, that one day, when God places me where I can make some real change, I will be ready- I will have used every opportunity that He has given me.

Praise Jesus.

Ethembeni Online
Tearfund

p.s. Ethembeni is Zulu for 'place of hope'.