January 18, 19 Traveling to Bhoquini, South Africa
Our planned departure was 5 am but because we need to pick up a few things we didn’t get on the road until 10:45 am. That may sound frustrating but I’ve found this to be a normal occurrence. They all seem to take this in stride. There is never any idle time, you can keep moving but there is usually half a dozen things that don’t get put on the agenda that creep in.
10:45 am found us headed north on the N2 toward Umtata. The drive for just the view was feast in itself. It starts with a Florida like coastal feel and quickly moves to a Hawaiian atmosphere with green mountains rising out of the coast. As you move inland you get a touch of an Eastern Colorado feel with rolling hills smothered by some kind of srubb brush.
Once you leave Umtata, a land of large rounded hills painted with subtle hues of green. The terrain is so unusual it is hard to drive (on the left side of the road!) and enjoy the feast. Time travel is a coveted experience mostly in the movies. Traveling the N2 it becomes a reality. We stop at St. Barnabas Hospital to pick up Kesami (Gottlieb), the chief’s son who at the hospital visiting his wife and new son. Walking into a modern structure called a hospital my sons have an OMG (OH MY God!) moment. The outside is nothing like the inside.
Kesami’s wife is in a room with eight beds. Signs on the wall are hand written. The faces of the other women express a despair or hopelessness that seems misplaced in a maternity ward. There is good chance that several of them will choose to abandon that child with the next few months.
Lisa, one of the children at the Oceans of Mercy Village was like that. As you can see from the picture this child by any standards is just plain gorgeous. If you had the chance to play with her you’d see that she is all child, all girl and her laugh is infectious. Lisa’s mother was a Xhosa (pronounced Kohsa with a side tongue click on the “K”) women who got pregnant by an Ethiopian man. As soon as she got pregnant, he left. When the baby was born Lisa had distinct Ethiopian features so Lisa’s mom abandoned her.
Back to the hospital, while visiting mom and baby a man with hospital attire come in and stand near. Kesami’s wife is explaining to Momma Gladys (rapper name= Momma G) that the male nurse used the call button cord hanging from the wall to hit her during labor. She has whelps across her side and back. I guess he was tired of her using the cord to call for help. They ultimately had to do a C section. This is the treatment that the Chief of the region’s son gets! People destitute for physical care fear the very ones who are supposed to deliver it.
After leaving the hospital we proceeded north about 10 kilometers to a dirt road. Fortunately we’d rented a 4 wheel drive vehicle. If you had four a wheel vehicle you wouldn’t want to take it on this road. Suddenly we were in a world that only appears on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. Houses, no huts, constructed of mud and sticks. Surreal!
It is a neighborhood like yours in many ways, children playing barefoot in the streets and field, neighbors talking. Fortunately it is unlike yours in any other way. No running water in any of the huts, although some have electricity and you guessed it, a TV! There is an out house used mostly for No. 2. You discover this by observation.
7000 people live in the district of Bhoquini, one thousand of them are critically ill that is so ill they cannot leave their mudhut to seek treatment. Unemployment is near 100%. There is no hope that life will change.
It is ominous to think that for the sake of Jesus and his Kingdom we might try to offer, economic, physical and spiritual hope to them. The Chief offered a large section of land and said if we needed more there wouldn’t be a problem.
The day at Bhoquini is still a blur. Upon our arrival a large group of people were sitting around a mud walled church. As we began to unload the car a processional of women dressed in white smock tops and black dresses began a slow methodical march down the street toward us. It was there way of celebrating our coming. I was romanced by the percussion and chanting so I just stood watching. I have it on video because I didn’t thing I could explain it any other way. Before it was over the crowd look like a large snake winding its way toward me.
For the rest of the day they treated my like I had come from heaven. Actually that is just what they thought or at least they feel that we were sent from God.
I tried teaching them the first 12 signs of the Walk Thru the Old Testament. I could tell by the blank stares that I wasn’t getting anywhere so I switched to telling the story of the Prodigal Son. If you’ve never spoken by interpreter you deserve the punishment! At least for a person like myself who needs to have his mind occupied while speaking, waiting for the interpretation can be lethal. Imagine the opportunity to react when you are speaking in a mud walled church in the middle of no where and you hear a cell phone start ringing. I thought I was going to lose it. Here are some of the poorest people I’ve ever laid eyes on and some of them have cell phones!
I wasn’t aware of the impact of the day. I knew the culture was laden with social infections. Not the HIV type but isolation, keeping supposed secrets or pretending that everything is good when it is not. So I drove home the point that you an come to the Father not matter how far you’ve strayed from home. To my surprise days later I learned that the two witch doctors of the district were in the audience and one of them responded to the invitation. Had to be God because I am awful with an interpreter! (I know what some of you are thinking, “You don’t need an interpreter to be awful!)
After speaking I handed out Xhosas Bibles. I had purchased 100 Bibles thinking that it would be a nice gesture to leave some behind. I wasn’t prepared to experience what happened when I approached the crowd with the Bibles. You would of thought I had hundred dollar bills and was giving them away. People began to grab for the Bibles in an unbiblical way! I had to assure them that I had enough which was a lie!
That afternoon I had a chance to talk with many men individually. They only wanted to talk about their health. I kept explaining that I wasn’t a doctor but that didn’t seem to matter. Was it my color, white, was it my nationality, American, what was it that made them think that I knew more than their own doctors?
We left in the after dark. Driving out the sun setting in the between the valleys of varied green hills felt like a Kodak moment. We were tired and needed to get back to our lodge or miss dinner. God forbid that we would miss dinner!
The drive back on Saturday to Port Elizabeth was inspiring. We neared the ocean several times and had the pleasure of beautiful blue ocean on our left and the green rugged hills of the Transkei on our right.
On our way back, Momma Gladys remembered a builder friend who was willing to see us immediately. We drove right to Wouter’s house and had an enlightening conversation about the building process in South Africa. Wouter offered himself and his firm to assist in erecting a structure in the the Transkei. They (Chris Howes Construction) have agreed to give us assistance in building a community building in Bhouquini.
Vouter and his wife grew up Africaans. On a foreign study experience Vouter’s friends took him to the movie, Cry the Beloved Country. For the first time he saw how brutal the Apartheid was in his own country. It led to a reversal in his understanding of the equality of all of God’s creation. Now Vouter and his wife, both white, have adopted a black child. If you think this is controversial in the US, you ain’t seen nothing until you see the white reaction in South Africa!
The drive back along the eastern coast of SA was delightful. Brief glimpse of land meeting ocean. Beautiful blue ocean and white sandy beaches peer infrequently from among the hills and valley. This area again reminded me of Florida with its tropical flora and fauna, stark but inviting.
It was good to arrive back once again at the Blue Skies B&B. It was Saturday and we were headed to Seaview Church the next day, rest was a necessity.
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