Struggles to Understand and be Understood

Before I came to South Africa, I never considered what a privilege is it to understand the words spoken around me. Before living in a country with eleven official languages, I took for granted that many may have to learn a second, third and even fourth language just to communicate in a new city, or even a new part of town. I had no concept of what it felt like to listen intently for the few words that I might recognize in a limited new vocabulary and the frustration of not knowing how those small recognitions fit with the many unknowns.

More than ten months into my time in South Africa, my isiZulu is not even close to conversational. I do not understand the majority of what is spoken around me at church functions. I can sit through a six hours communion service and only occasionally hear words that I recognize, never mind understand the context in which they are spoken. (At least now I am better at recognizing the major sections of the liturgy.) Most people I meet are more than excited that I can simply greet them and exchange a few pleasantries in their home language. To my frustration, there is no expectation that I understand anything in isiZulu when English is my first language.

I never considered what an intimate connection one has to one’s mother tongue. It is the language spoken in one’s home by one’s family members, the language in which one most easily expresses emotion. It is the language in which prayer comes most easily. After months of attending church services in isiZulu, to hear a liturgy in English, the words themselves suddenly had new meaning. They were no longer words I heard every Sunday. I had missed these words for many, many Sundays and greeted them like old friends that I had not seen in a very long time. I was comforted by their familiarity and excited to appreciate them in a profoundly new way.

Like many Americans, I have never taken the study of language seriously. I’ve never had to, because almost everyone that I associate with in the US also speaks English as a first language. The circles in which I move have never necessitated that I learn another language. I studied French for the required number of years in high school and dabbled in it for a few semesters at university, but I had no appreciation for how difficult it can be to learn a language in a practical way. There is a difference between doing grammar exercises in a classroom and trying to ask for directions in an unfamiliar city. There is also a difference between singing through phonetically-written hymns having no concept of what one is actually saying and feeling that one is praying every word one sings.

I have crossed a language, and hence a cultural, divide. In my ignorance as a white, middle class, English-speaking American, I had no understanding of the difficulties a black, poor, isiZulu-speaking South African might encounter simply on the basis of their linguistic understanding. To be a Zulu in South Africa is not only to learn one’s mother tongue, but also to be required to learn at least English and possibly Afrikaans. (Both are historically colonial languages, with all their cultural, political and ethical implications on society.) My struggles to take public transport and find my place in a church liturgy do not compare to trying to understand the instructions given by an emergency room nurse or a magistrate considering the custody of children. But now, even in my own limited and small way, I understand differently.

I know now what it means to be an outsider and a minority, to struggle to understand and be understood. This is a feeling compounded by a new awareness of my race, class and nationality in any given social interaction. Now I have perhaps even a vague understanding of what the Latino, working-class, Spanish-speaking immigrant in the US might experience in this struggle. I will never ask the question, which now seems grossly insensitive, “Why can’t they just learn English?!”

Caught in Between - May Newsletter

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

- John 10:10

There are days in South Africa when I often feel that I travel between two different universes, especially when I work at the crèche. In the morning I catch a kombi taxi, which shuttles domestic workers to and from the upper-middle class neighborhood where I live, to town. In town I catch another taxi out to the townships. The drivers that don’t recognize me often assume I’m a health professional going to the public hospital. What other business would a young, decently dressed white woman with a backpack have in the poorest, almost entirely black part of town? They are always surprised when I tell them I volunteer at a crèche. A taxi driver once asked incredulously, “You came all the way to South Africa to work at a crèche?” (To work with pre-school children is perhaps even less glamorous than working in hospital.)

How is it possible, that within the same city, shacks made of sticks, mud and corrugated metal can exist beside luxury homes with granite counter kitchens and swimming pools? A failing public health system with no medications or sterile gloves and world-class private health facilities? Dysfunctional township schools riddled with violence and prestigious prep schools? The gross inequality between the rich and poor is one of the defining characteristics of South African society. In fact, it has one of the widest disparities in wealth of any country in the world. Though a volunteer living on a modest stipend, by virtue of the color of my skin and a certain amount of social capital, I have the ability to travel between these worlds at will. Many, in fact the majority, of South Africans do not have this privilege. I often feel caught between these worlds, comfortable in neither, riding the kombis between them every day.

The South African city in which I live and work is a microcosm of the global reality of socio-economic inequality. Americans live in the wealthiest, most militarily powerful society in the history of the world though they represent a tiny fraction of the world’s population. And yet according to Jeffrey Sachs, a development economist, “Almost three thousand people died needlessly and tragically at the World Trade Center on September 11; ten thousand Africans die needlessly and tragically every single day…of AIDS, TB, and malaria” (my emphasis). According to the UN Human Development Index, half the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day. And yet for me, these statistics were not enough, only numbers in the pages of books and NGO reports. Although not my initial motivation, I traveled over seven thousand nautical miles to come face to face with global inequality. I traveled on a jet plane only once to negotiate the space between two different worlds daily.

I thought that I was coming to South Africa to come face to face with poverty, to witness the stories of and walk alongside individuals. The poor are not people comfortably “out there” living in another world, although we construct our societies in such a way that it becomes easy to avoid them. (In South Africa people that are poor are relegating to townships and inner city neighborhoods, places people advised not to go and are not highlighted in guide books.) And yet I realize now that to talk about poverty is not enough. The daily realities faced by individuals, families and entire societies living in poverty are indeed tragic and dehumanizing. As Christians it is important that we have an understanding of poverty, but this is not enough.

We also need to be talking about wealth. Is it not also tragic and dehumanizing that citizens of developed countries can maintain such a high standard of living in the context of so much poverty? As an American, though raised in what I understood as middle class family, I have realize that I too come from a society of incredible wealth and privilege. I too participate in systems that maintain inequality. Our entire global society, not just those of live in poverty, is in need of transformation. The only thing that is really comfortably “out there” is the moon! Wealthy and poor alike exist together in this world, and we are all in need of God’s healing and transformative grace because of the sins we have committed against God and one another.

Jesus said that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. What is the abundant life? Is it the American standard of living or something far simpler and more sustainable? Was abundance intended for the wealthy few or for all of humanity? For rich Christians, this realization requires a deep, sincere look at and engagement with the huge disparities between the developed and the developing world, extraordinary privilege and desperate poverty. This gap is not something “out there” on those “problem continents” but a reality in which all participate. Living in South Africa, I have entered into this tension. I invite you too, through your growing awareness, to enter into this space, to “travel” back and forth between these worlds. It is my sincere hope that we invite God’s presence, in abundance, to reconcile them. I pray that it may be so.May Highlights

• Attending a Young Adults League circuit conference
• Attending several theological cafes and a lecture at the School of Religion and Theology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)
• Co-facilitating a Peer Education workshop with PACSA’s Gender and HIV/AIDS Desk
• Preparing a statement on the theology of accompaniment for PACSA in consultation with staff and academics
• Creating teaching aids, especially an entire alphabet complete with pictures, and attending my first parent meeting at the crèche

Even now I am sending you...

“I thought you were going to say you were a missionary or something…”

I was shocked to be found out. Our conversation was ending, and I was surprised by this offhand comment. I had been chatting with a cashier in a grocery store.

“Where are you from?”
“My accent gives me away doesn’t it? I’m from the US.”
“Oh that’s cool. What are you doing here in South Africa?”
“I’m a volunteer doing development work.”
“Good for you. Are you enjoying your time here?”
“Very much so. I’m learning a lot from the people I work with.”

These conversations, usually with complete strangers or new acquaintances, usually unfold in the same way. I always introduce myself as a volunteer doing development work. I usually mention that I’m supported and sent by the Lutheran Church in US. But I never use the “m-word”: missionary. “Volunteer” is a safe, secular word, a very different sort of label. It has many positive connotations of giving of oneself and one’s time for the sake of bringing about worthwhile change. I like describing myself as a volunteer, because in those casual, fleeting conversations in the grocery store no one asks tough, uncomfortable questions about what I’m doing in this country.

I shy away from using the word “missionary” to describe myself in these conversations for several reasons. I haven’t taken ownership of the word, because my understanding of it is often quite different from how it is understood here in South Africa and abroad. When many people hear the word missionary they think of people handing out tracts on the street and trying to have conversations with people, the majority of which are very uninterested, even offended or threatened. For many, the faces of Christianity are often these missionaries on the street.

The history of the word “missionary” is a complex one. It is loaded with contemporary and historical understandings, many of which are not positive. Especially here in South Africa the word does not often have positive connotations. Missionaries came to this country with colonization. Although they brought the Christian faith, developed infrastructure through schools and hospitals, and translated Bible, they also often forced their new converts to adopt western cultural practices to prove that they truly “belonged” to the church. Though they often had a positive impact, in many cases missionaries also reproduced in the church the colonial structures of oppression and racism that were practiced in wider society. The white, western missionary was not often someone the black African or later the apartheid government understood as a positive agent in this country.

Being aware of the cultural and historical context in which missionaries worked, I am mindful of not wanting to undermine the churches that are already established here. Who I am, a Lutheran from the US, to be a missionary, in the traditional understanding of the word, when there is a Lutheran church here in South Africa with its own pastors and evangelists? Who am I to evangelize to the people of South Africa when there are many people here far more capable and equipped than I to do that work in this context? Instead, should my work here not be to accompany what is already taking place, to walk alongside and encourage these and other ministries?

Missionaries are almost exclusively associated with evangelism, sent to covert non-believers to the Christian faith. This understanding needs to be transformed and reclaimed by people serving in an international context and by Christians generally. This can only really occur, not in casual conversations, but in meaningful engagement through relationships. I acknowledge that evangelism is important part of Christian discipleship, but it should not be the only understanding of missionary work. To be a missionary is to be a witness. There are so many ways to witness to the Christian faith, in addition to evangelism.

Christians are called to live out their faith in daily, intentional acts of discipleship, in their relationships with others. Philip Knutson, an ELCA representative in Southern Africa, says that all Christians are missionaries. If all Christians are sent into the world for the sake of the Good News, we cannot be comfortable with safe labels like “volunteer.” To be a missionary is not reserved for a select, commissioned few. Christians are not just “do-gooders” on weekend service projects, though those projects certainly have their own value. To be a missionary requires an awareness of how daily actions witness one’s faith, which requires disciple and self-sacrifice in a way that it does not of the occasional volunteer. How would the church be different if each Christian felt called to be a missionary, felt the responsibility to witness through their words and actions? Though I am serving in South Africa, thousands of miles from home, should I be seen as different from any other Christian? Are we not all called to do God’s work in and for the sake of the world? I pray that it might be so.

"Typical Day" - April Newsletter

Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;

we are the clay and you are our potter;

we are all the work of your hand.

- Isaiah 64:8

There is no such thing as a “typical day” in South Africa. Several people have asked me what exactly it is that I “do” on a daily basis. It is only in retrospect that I am thankful for the complete lack of description about my placement sites I initially received from YAGM. I didn’t have even a vague job description to which people could relate. I remember being frustrated in the months leading up to my departure that I was unable to tell people what exactly I would be “doing.”

For those of you who, like me, have a need to “do,” I will make some vague attempt at describing the “typical day.” In fact there are three potential “typical days” depending on which placement site I’m at and what day of the week it is. A day at the PACSA office almost always begins with making the rounds, saying hello to my co-workings, checking in on things both personal and professional. There is usually a meeting or two to attend, e-mail to check, and a report or minutes to write. Lunch often involves coordinating an order from the Indian restaurant down the block with co-workers. The day usually end when I realize I’m in danger of missing the last khombi out of town.

A day at the crèche starts with cleaning the hall and feeding the kids breakfast porridge. Then there are usually songs, games, drawing/writing activities, and stories (often in no particular order). Sometimes I help out with organizing the student and financial records. Then lunch and nap time round off the day.

Weekends are filled with errands that I put off during the week, social events (weddings, funerals, more casual hangouts), and church on Sundays. I attend a few different congregations, two in the townships and one at the Lutheran Theological Institute at the local university. Admittedly I am a very “left brain” person. I like structure. I like to know what I’ll be doing in any given day and week. Only several months after arrival I realized this need to “do,” if acted out in the way I’m accustomed, would have been a huge detriment to my year of service. A plan or an agenda would have made me so focused on a few specific things that I would not have seen anything in the peripherals of my vision or made room for anything unexpected. I’ve had to let go of this need for structure, which has given way to a decidedly more “right brain” schedule. There is so little that can be planned on any given day, because there are simply too many contingencies to predict. I might be invited to a person’s home in the afternoon or pulled into a meeting during the day. I might be asked to come on a hospital visit or a trip into town at the spur of the moment. These events, though unexpected, often become the most interesting and meaningful parts of my day. Much to my initial uncertainty, the plan is often to have no plan.

It’s humbling to realize that there’s something in control of this experience far more powerful and aware than I am. This year has been in a lesson in giving up control and learning this experience is about something much bigger that I am. In order to be shaped into something beautiful, clay must be soft and pliable. If it is hard, no work can be done, no creativity expressed. In many ways this time has shaped me and shaped itself, not the other way around. Iwas told at university that your experience is exactly what you make of it, that you create your own experience. If I had taken that mentality into a cross-cultural setting I would have been bound for failure. I realize now how much rigidity there is in this approach and how limiting it can be. My year of service as a YAGM is largely not a process I can control or shape, and I don’t understand that as a bad thing. It is something that has unfolded organically and prayerfully. There has been something very powerful in allowing God do the molding.

April Highlights

• Helping facilitate a peer education workshop with the Gender and HIV/AIDS Desk at PACSA
• Celebrating the Easter holidays at family’s home and attending my first sunrise service
• Presenting reflections on the theology of accompaniment at a learning workshop
• Observing the SA national and provincial elections, in which the African National Congress (ANC) was re-elected as the majority party
• Attending the wedding and traditional Zulu ceremony of a friend from the ELCSA Young Adults League

Between Creation and Creator

Recently I spent four weeks with no functioning indoor plumbing. Due to an infrastructure malfunction, the water supply was almost non-existent to the house at which I’m staying.  A tiny trickle came from the tap behind the house, which was to provide water for four people.  It took about an hour to fill a five-gallon bucket, making the water supply extremely limited.  Only small amounts could be used for simple activities like bathing, cooking, and laundry.  During one of those weeks there was also no electricity, which meant no lights after dark (excepts candles and flash lights) and no hot water for bucket baths.  Aside from being incredibly tiresome, this experience was an opportunity to learn and grow.  

I didn’t realize how dependent I had become on modern conveniences like indoor plumbing and lighting until I had to go without them.  I had never questioned whether water would flow from the sink faucet when I turned it.  Although I had heard stories from returned Peace Corps volunteers, I never thought I would learn the art and science of the bucket bath, because the shower always worked.  After living for weeks with very little water, I became very aware of exactly how much I was using.  When your only source is very limited and time-consuming to acquire, every drop counts. When the water came back on, this now almost instinctive mentality remained, that every drop counts. When the water flowed through the pipes again, it felt so luxurious to do laundry without hauling buckets of water that took hours to fill.  It was a glutinous indulgence to take a long, hot shower.  I realized I had taken for granted how wasteful I had been in my water consumption and how privileged I am to have running water at all.  In the crèche’s neighborhood where I work, no one has indoor plumbing.  There are taps along the road where women come with their buckets for their daily needs.  I suddenly had a whole new appreciation for the lives of my co-workers and the children at the crèche.  I had endured that hardship for an insignificant amount of time compared to potentially one’s entire life. 

This experience begged the question, how many other resources as a privileged person from the developed world do I take for granted?  How often do I assume that “simple” things like water and electricity will always be there? And for how many of the world’s people have these things never been available?  As another example, it took me months to realize that I’m working for free.  There is something inherent in the job description of a “volunteer” that I am not receiving wages for the work I do.  But it took me several months to realize that I’m not “profiting” from this experience.  For whatever reason, I had never taken this idea to heart, because the stipend that I am provided with takes care of my daily needs: food, transportation, utilities, etc.  There is also money for things like newspapers, minutes for my cell phone, the occasional movie rental or coffee…  My needs and then some are provided for. At the end of the month there is usually just enough, or even a little left over, if I budget well.  Tracking how much money I spend has become a spiritual discipline.  By recording every cent, I hold myself accountable to exactly where my stipend is going.  With a “limited” amount of money every month, I am aware that I can’t take it for granted by spending frivolously.  And yet, many of the people that I work with can’t count on something as basic as a monthly stipend and barely scrape by on social development grants from the government.  With the South African unemployment rate at 40%, for many there are simply no jobs available to earn a decent living.  

I have been told that how people spend their time and money is a direct reflection on their values.  A person’s schedule and checkbook reveal quite a bit about who they are as a person and their priorities.  But if everything we have comes from God, how we use what we have been given is also direct reflection on the sort of relationship we have with God.  This includes not only more “western”-valued things like time and money but literally everything: the roof over our heads, water in the pipes, food on the table, opportunities for employment and contributing to society…  This includes not only physical, tangible things necessary for life, but also the intangible needs for love, acceptance, and community through relationships with family and friends…  This continuous blessing is very difficult to compartmentalize, because it permeates every part of our lives.  How can we work on our “spiritual lives” if every encounter, every action is a spiritual act, a communion with our Creator?  God is in all of it, because he gives us not only everything in our lives, but our lives themselves.  We have a responsibility not only to use what we have been given, but also to ensure that all people have access to those things necessary for life, as a response to the love that God has shown us.     

Food for thought: 

884 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly one in eight of the world's population. (WHO/UNICEF)

2.5 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, this is almost two fifths of the world's population. (WHO/UNICEF)

The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is commonly 20kg, the same as the average UK airport luggage allowance. (UN HDR 2006)

At the feet of another

On many days when I arrive back at the house after spending a day at the crèche I wash my feet.  Especially on rainy days the dirt road between the khombi stop and the crèche is cause for mud between my toes when I wear open hiking shoes. The dirt from the courtyard and surrounding neighborhood, carried on the shoes of the learners, constantly deposits itself on the floors of the hall and kitchen.  Many days begin with mopping up droppings from the pigeons that manage to get into the hall overnight.  I usually spill a drop or two of morning porridge on my pants while feeding a toddler.  There are always snotty noses to wipe.  Occasionally a child will wet his/her pants, and needs to be cleaned up.  It seems that almost everything within reach of the kids ends up in their mouths, resulting in many objects covered in spit.  There is always a rather large insect, lizard, or bird to be chased out. Working at the crèche can be a dirty job.  The feeling of warm water and soap on my feet at the end of a long, often exhausting day is a simple blessing.

I was struck during Holy Week by the connection between washing my own feet and how Jesus, through his example, calls us to wash the feet of others.  (This text is read on Maundy Thursday.)  After washing the feet of his disciples in preparation for the Passover meal, Jesus said, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you”  (John 20:14-15).  I realized that, at the end of the day, I’m often washing my own feet and not the feet of others.  The only time that I have literally washed someone else’s feet is during Maundy Thursday worship service. 

It is so easy to spiritualize Jesus’ commandment to wash one another’s feet. In Jesus’ day the washing of feet was reserved for the slaves, for the lowest class in society.  We no longer exist in a slave-owning society, and foot washing is no longer a ritual of hospitality. What is the equivalent of “foot washing” in our day?  How does one place oneself “at the feet” of another?  What are the acts of service that make our lives cleaner and more comfortable, which require getting dirty?  Cleaning toilets, changing diapers, collecting garbage, mopping floors, washing laundry and dishes…  And who are the “slaves” of our day, the people who take the thankless jobs no one else wants?  The domestic workers, child-care givers, nurses’ assistants, janitors and garbage truck workers…  Are these the kind of people, according to Jesus, who most closely following his example of service in our times?  Are we all called to do the same?

Jesus is calling us to get our hands and feet dirty, to take off our “outer garments” and learn the vulnerability of service.  Touching someone else’s feet is an intimate act.  A person’s feet can tell you a lot about them.  It can be difficult to create this kind of physical connection in other mundane aspects of service, but an element of vulnerability is always involved.  In our day there is often a disconnect between the “service sector” and those receiving services.  There is very little human interaction, no opportunity to serve another person, because a “service” is bought and paid for.   

In the mundane, even servile act, of washing his disciples’ feet Jesus shows us, not just tells us, how we are to serve and love one another.  Love, manifest in acts of service, is often this radical thing encountered in ways one doesn’t expect.  The call not to be leaders but servants, to place ourselves “at the feet” of others, is an uncomfortable, inconvenient thing.  How would our days be drastically different if we sought not to be served but to serve?  What would happen if we took Jesus’ commandment seriously and realized that none of us are too good to get our hands (and feet) dirty for the sake of others?  

Women In God's Image

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
– Genesis 1:27

A husband cheated. A pastor perpetrated sexual assault. A teenager fell pregnant. A daughter cared for her abusive father. We have strayed so far from God’s living-giving intentions in creating us… Before I came to South Africa, gender-based violence, sexism, abuse and broken families were issues “out there.” Listening to the stories of women here, I am unexpectedly learning to confront this same sense of brokenness within myself. Issues of gender, the relationships between men and women, is no longer something out there, but real and present “in here.” Though separated by the gulfs of culture, language and life experience, South African women are teaching me that I too am a woman, sharing in the experiences of a fallen humanity. And I too am a woman created in God’s image.

Over a weekend in March I had the privilege of participating in a workshop called Women in God’s Image (WIGI). The purpose of the workshop was for a group of twenty-odd women to ask two questions. What does God mean to me? And, what do I mean to God? Women of diverse races, mother tongues, and ages interpreted these questions through art, poetry, and prose. To put pen to paper and brush to canvas was a courageous act, a risk that required copious amounts of honesty and vulnerability. For many, including myself, the creative process was also healing, a moment of catharsis. It was powerful to prod often definitive, traumatic moments as things no long inside oneself but out. There was freedom in making those experiences one’s own, to transform something ugly and broken in something beautiful, a work of art. It was a birthing process that required large dollops of grace and trust.

As a woman, and now something of a gender activist through my work at PACSA, I was surprised that I had never considered that my womanhood could contribute to my understanding of God. If God is Spirit, beyond the human definitions of male or female, can God be understood as Mother as well as Father? The comparison of God to a mother hen sheltering her brood under her wings is often overlooked (Matthew 23:37), as well as many images from the Old Testament. God “knit us” together and “hemmed us in” even as we were being made in the womb (Psalm 139). I was challenged to consider life as a birthing process, that God, in agonizing pain, is delivering us to eternal life (Romans 8:22-23). And yet like little children we bang away with rebellious fists. For me this is an exciting new understanding of God.

The WIGI workshop was a powerful affirmation that women too are created in the image of God; that they too are holy and set apart for God’s purposes. Throughout history and today, half the world’s population, in ways both subtle and obvious, has been told that it is “less than.” How are Christians living out the great commandment to love one another in this reality? Perhaps new understandings of God are part of the answer.

Below is a poem I wrote during the WIGI workshop.

Meditation on Psalm 139

Embrace from the womb,
Hemmed in,
Behind and before,
Known, yet restless.
Kicking.

Wrapped in a dark, watery blanket
Then torn into light.
Hands folded in prayer
And a sucking thumb
The day you went home from hospital.

Little banging fists.
A nipple offered—
Rejected.
To know better,
Put off childish ways.

To be a child to enter the Kingdom…
Naked.
First born.
Known flesh from Mother God.