Living by Faith

By Ben

I’m sorry that we haven’t updated this in a while. We were hiking on Table Mountain during National Women’s Day, and I was bitten by a cobra. Just kidding! (Mom, you can start breathing again. [Speaking of my Mom, her # is 303-530-9311, Mom in Law])

We both have had a touch of the flu this week, but are both feeling fine now. I jokingly called the flu bug “Mandela’s Revenge.” Again my sense of humor was not understood as no one here has ever tasted the bitter reality of Montezuma’s Revenge as I have. Fortunately, Mandela is a much more kind a peaceful leader than Montezuma, and he let us slide with only two days of fever and sore stomachs. On the humor front, I am being laughed at more. My plan to email home with a cobra bite story was a big winner. People laugh freely and often here, and my face still hurts from smiling.

Lesson # 24 Living by Faith

The idea of “full time, vocational ministry” that we have in the states translates here to “living by faith.” Ministry is a sacrifice here in many ways. Ministers do fundraise, but not nearly to the scale that American ministers do. Most of the money that they receive supports the programs that they have started. They trust God to provide for their living expenditures. This often means living in sub-economic areas, sometimes without electricity or running water. The men and women in ministry that we have met are at the mercy of God’s will, and they consider this normal. I don’t want to idealize the way that ministries are organized here; there are still budgets, and financial stress, and there is still greed among ministers (none that we have spent time with, though.) However, the emphasis is on trust in God’s provision; whereas I have seen many American ministries who rely primarily on management and human strategies.

Lesson # 26 Tik

Somehow, I have the reputation here as “the Drug person.” I think that this stems from the articulation of my ministry at home. In reality, I have learned so much about drug rehab and prevention while being here- I feel very unqualified to be a “Drug Person.” (Quotation marks are called inverted commas here. Still, I find them “obnoxious.”)
I taught a seminar about drug prevention and rehab for parents on Tuesday. It was a learning experience for all. Here are a few things that I have learned about the matter in my preparations for the seminar (starting years ago, even), and from listening to the parents share during it:
1. Tik is South African for Crystal Meth and is far and away the most prevalent drug here.
2. Drugs are such a pervasive and troubling problem here that fulfilling the Great Commission and making disciples in South Africa must include the hard work of offering hope to those in the grips of Tik.
3. The war on drug abuse must be a war that is fought on three fronts: the family, the community, and the country.
4. Family problems (here as in the US) are the primary breeding grounds for teenage drug abuse. Therefore the best way to fight drug abuse is in the home. A family that will prevent drug abuse among the children will most like be a family where the values of vulnerability, communication, love, discipline and others.
5. The reality facing South African Christian is that there are many families that are broken in the communities. It is not enough to ensure the safety of our own, but we are called by Jesus to reach out. The communities are suffering from Tik pushers and gangs waiting to prey on the many youths who are disenfranchised. Christian leaders who are slowly developing (transforming) their communities one teenager at a time are in the fight for the long haul, they are kind and not judgmental; but they still hold strong to the truth and to the hope of Christ.
6. Around the world, national remedies for the drug problems are relying too much on enforcement, and not enough on development. The drug business is just that- a business, and the rules of supply and demand apply. The problem with Tik is that it can be manufactured locally, so that trying to limit the supply is a huge problem. Therefore, the South African Government is beginning to try to slow the drug’s demand by supporting innovative rehab and prevention programs that are changing lives. Still, there is much to be done. Like in America, there is great injustice when it comes to schools. Schools in poorer areas lack funding, and teachers are scarce and overworked. We must support education in both the local and national stages.
7. Tik addicts need a long time to rehab as they experience relapse. Relapse is a chemical imbalance that for a short while will intensify cravings after the user has been clean. South African programs have dealt with this well by instituting an aggressive follow up program for addicts who have finished rehab.

There’s a lot more, but I’ll end there for time’s sake.

Lesson #23 An Adoption Story

While Alicia was out sick, I got to go have dinner all by my onesey with Sheryl and Ashley. Ashley told me the story of his adopted brother. When Ashley was a boy, his mother adopted a seven year old AIDS orphan. (Due to my accent problems, I didn’t catch Ashley’s brother’s name. Hence he will be referred to “Ashley’s brother.”) The boy was hard from the start, constantly running away and stealing from the family. A few years after his adoption, Ashley’s brother ran away for good. Twenty years later, one of Ashley’s cousins was approached by a man claiming to be Ashley’s brother. The man slept on the streets of Cape Town’s city center, and was addicted to tik. Ashley went to the streets and found him. He gave his brother some food, but did not identify himself, and his brother did not recognize him. Ashley repeated this daily for a week, and then after giving the man some food; Ashley told him who he was. His brother walked away for a moment, and then came back with tears in his eyes. Brothers were reunited. The man told Ashley that he had been so grateful to Ashley’s mother for opening her home to him and for teaching him about Jesus. The man said he was so sorry. Ashley continued to visit and bring food daily for about a month, visiting his long lost brother, and speaking to him about Jesus. Ashley thinks that his brother did decide to put his trust in Christ. One day his brother did not show up. Ashley asked around, and found out that his brother had been taken to the hospital. Ashley arrived at the hospital to learn that his brother had already died of AIDS.
Ashley looks back at this story with joy and gratitude that he got to see and speak with his brother before he died. It reminds me that even though things seem fruitless and hopeless in the moment, God is big and we never know the effect that our actions (both selfless and selfish) have.

Person #6 Crazy Pastor Cheti

Picture my mentor Cris Crisfield with black skin and hair and an Indian heritage. Then make him crazy. This is Pastor Cheti. He and his wife joy have been in ministry for 25 years together, and really want to move to India to be missionaries once their children are in university. How’s that for retirement?! Pastor Cheti was born in Durban and is a converted Hindu. He and his family have lived by faith for their entire Christian lives, and God is faithful. I got to be with them when they put their deposit down on their first home. After 25 years of faithful service planting churches, serving missionaries, being missionaries and being crazy for Jesus; the door has opened for them to buy a small (72 square meters) house. Pastor Cheti said over and over that this was such a remarkable blessing. Their house is in Pelikan Park, yet another sub-economic area. It recently was a squatter camp that has been developed into low income housing. While we were doing the paper work for the house, a dump truck pulled up. It is a serious problem for poor people in the area that people and businesses use their land as a free place to dump trash. Pastor Cheti ran out to confront the driver of the dump truck. While the manager of the project argued with the driver, Crazy Pastor Cheti jumped into the truck and stole the keys. We ran into the house and called the authorities. It was CRAZY!!