Anger

I want to be angry at God. I have seen some of the most atrocious injustices, met the faces of the silent poor, heard the suffering in the voices of those that still have them, and felt the hopelessness that these people fight against every day. I want to be angry at God. I want it to be His fault so I don’t have to look any further into whose fault it might actually be. I want to scream and yell and beg Him for the answer as to why He’s allowing all of these things to happen to incredible, beautiful people. The people I’m surrounded with are angry and upset and frustrated with God, but my heart can’t feel anything at all. It is in those moments where we’re frustrated to the point of the absence of emotion, God reminds us of who He is. I’m re-reading a book called Intercessory Prayer about why prayer is even necessary and how to release God’s power through prayer. In the first chapter (which is the chapter I read this week as I was feeling void of emotion) Sheets explains that the reason we need to ask God for things is because He gave us authority over the earth. Back when Adam was created, God gave him the responsibility of watching over the earth and everything in it. And then, through a simple act of rebellion, our world came crashing down. It’s not that God has done this to us… it’s that we have done this to ourselves. So now the emotion that I feel is sadness… sadness that we as human beings have failed our brothers and sisters by not taking care of them and loving them has God does. He even re-sent us an example in Christ of how to love each other and we still can’t get it right. So my heart is heavy with sadness, but urgency to experience more of what this means and to encourage people to look past their anger at God and to take responsibility so that we can move forward and start undoing the mess that we have created.

So now what? That’s always my next question. What do I need to do now that I have this information? What are some action steps I can take? Well, I can tell you, I can encourage the people around me here in South Africa to think about this as a counterargument as to why God would allow this to happen, and then I can go and do something in the community that surrounds me and encourage you to do the same. This week the non-nursing students are starting their community engagement projects and the nursing students were able to sit in on the introduction of the course that will be taught by Francis Njoroge. It is an incredible course about how to go into a community to facilitate growth and understanding of their own needs and how they can improve their quality of life from within their own context. The non-nursing students will be using the material in this course to start a project with specific African groups of people to try and help them discover some problem areas in their communities and work toward developing solutions to those problems. For me, it’s giving me tools with which to take into communities at home as well as preparation for things to come and it’s teaching me to be culturally relevant and focused on building peoples’ capacity so they can do things for themselves by walking with them toward their own personal goal.

Ok… I have to tell you about the other parts of my fantastic week that don’t have to do with life revelations! Last weekend was a catch-up weekend… on sleep, strength, and homework. We were supposed to go hiking in the Drakensberg mountains to go see some sand paintings done by the bushmen, but the weather here is ridiculous and they wouldn’t let us go in the rain, so we stayed home and hung out around campus.

Monday began homecoming week, which for normal APU students is a semi-big deal, but we went all out. It was like high school spirit week on steroids. We had dress-up competitions between our chalets every day and activities almost every night. We started out the week with by roasting marshmallows and making makeshift S’mores out of Marie cookies and Cadbury chocolate and small marshmallows that we had to double-up. Monday was inside out and backwards day and we all put our clothes on inside out and backwards and walked around campus in that all day long. Mind you, there is a conference going on at the center this week, so we’re having meals with a group of people who look at us like we’re crazy every time they see us.

Tuesday brought an interesting day. I was supposed to be at an HIV and AIDS facility that does research at the same time as treat patients, but instead, they sent me to the clinic next door where I was of far more use. I saw primary health care (chronic patients who need medication and colds) and drew bloods in a room by myself, and spent time with the equivalent of an LVN in the states who was taking blood pressures, giving Depo (contraceptive) shots, and taking blood sugars. He let me do a lot, but I noticed that he was very flirtations with his patients which bothered me a little. At lunch time, he took me on a walk to go and see the community because I hadn’t been there before. We walked the dirt roads and met the women in the community and he literally flirted with every woman we walked by, which made me uncomfortable. When we got back, I had about an hour left and he proceeded to flirt with me for the remainder of the time with me. I didn’t really know what to do. He was talking about flying to the U.S. and paying labolo (the bride price) for me and bringing me back to have his 7 children and kept asking me when I was coming back to see him. I was composed enough, but in my head I was just angry. All I could think of was these poor women who had to subject themselves to being cared for by this man because they don’t have the rights that he does here and they don’t have a voice to stand up for themselves. Ugg. So frustrating. When we got back to campus (after much venting in the car about my anger) we got dressed up for crazy hair and mismatch day and it snapped me out of my anger and helped me focus on the beauty of being in this place aside from all of the things that are wrong with the system.

Wednesday was another incredible day. We dressed in black and white, went to the mall for a cup of coffee, and then headed out to the Drakensberg mountains to listen to the Drakensberg boys choir. They are a group of 4th-9th graders whose main focus in school is singing and they are incredible. I had goose bumps multiple times and you could just drink in the beauty of the music as they did songs from all eras including classical, contemporary, and traditional South African music. They even did “We Will Rock You” by Queen and added a little stomp in with their South African music. Thursday was a very uneventful day out at Caprica (which is the HIV and AIDS facility I was supposed to be at on Tuesday) and I literally did nothing all day because there wasn’t anything to do besides paperwork and do blood pressures which my sister insisted on doing herself. We went back home to twin day and had just a few hours to prepare for an “Air Band” competition which turned into a dance competition. Allison and Teresa choreographed our dance to “Battlefield” by Jordan Sparks and which was so amazing and we came in with war paint and dressed in black and busted out an awesome dance! After the competition (which I still think we should have won) we busted out a spontaneous dance party in preparation for the “Homecoming” dance the next night. Friday was color day and our whole chalet dressed in pink and we ended the day in a Brie (BBQ) and a tacky dress dance. We looked aweful and it was amazing! I got to do big stage makeup on a bunch of people which made it glorious and we just danced our hearts out for a few hours.

All in all, it was a glorious week and I can’t wait to tell you about the weekend, but I’ll save that for another day! Thanks for reading so much! I’ll try to cut the next one down ; ) Enjoy the pictures and leave me some comments! Miss and love you all!

What Do I Know of Holy?

What Do I Know of Holy – Addison Road

I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small
I never feared You at all No
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?

(CHORUS)
What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

(CHORUS)

(CHORUS 2)
What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life "its" name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?

(CHORUS)

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of Holy?

I’m discovering God in new ways. I can see Him in the tears of a girl that “doesn’t ever cry” but who loves her friends so much she cried for their redemption. I have seen Him in the Muslim nurse that cries with her patient because she only has weeks to live. I have seen Him the face of a two year old boy who was fascinated by the blood I was drawing from his mother’s body. I have seen Him working in the life of a girl who doesn’t want to be here, yet is searching for source of joy through it all. I taste Him in the lovingly prepared food that our cooks make three times a week. I hear him in the voice of an incredible woman who feels so much strife because she doesn’t want to invest in us too much because she’s afraid if she does she won’t be able to let us go. How do you experience God every day?

This country is such a beautiful anomaly in the world. It can’t be classified as a developing world and it can’t be classified as a developed world. It’s a grey area. There are men and women here that live next door to each other and are of completely different economic statuses. There are families that have been ripped apart by death and sadness and segregation and yet do good work every day. I was talking to a nurse this week and she asked me what I could possibly like about this country. She was confused as to how I could like it here because the people are so poor and racked with sickness. When I told her that that is exactly the reason that I love it here she looked at me like I was crazy. I continued to tell her that I love the fact that there are so many hurting people, yet their joy is unending and that joy and hope in the face of everything that has happened in this country is something to be admired. She smiled and thanked me for noticing.

Last weekend we went to visit the battlefields of South Africa. The first one that we visited was called the Battle of Blood River. It was the site where the 600 Afrikaners fought off 10-20 thousand Zulu warriors and won the fight. It’s a miracle that they were able to do this and they attribute it to the fact that they prayed and asked God to deliver them from the Zulus and if He did, they would keep the day as a tribute to God’s mercy. However, over the years it turned into a day to celebrate Afrikaner victory over the Zulus – a celebration of oppression. After apartheid ended, the day (which was called the Day of the Vow) was renamed the Day of Reconciliation and became a day to celebrate people loving people. My kind of holiday ; ) That night we stayed at one of the oldest hotels in South Africa that was filled with beautiful antiques in rooms that were all different and just had the feel of being from an old romance novel… meaning it was right up my alley. Part of me wanted to draw a bath in the old bathtub, light some candles and curl up with Pride and Prejudice or Wuthering Heights and just soak in the beauty of it. They fed us so well! There was a South African version of meatloaf, chicken that tasted like it had Thai sauce on it, sweet potato and rosemary soup, and all the deserts you could imagine. They even had coffee that could have put my mom’s to shame because it was so strong and you could tell that it was real drip coffee (which is a miracle because most of the coffee here is instant).After dinner our director, Reg, sat down with us and told us stories of his amazing life and I remembered just how important it is to get to know the incredible people God has surrounded me with here. The next day we drove to two other battlefields. I forgot to mention that this whole time we were being shown around by a little old man named Tony who Reg says “has forgotten more history than I ever learned”. The man was a steel trap of knowledge and you could tell that he adored telling people about the history of his country. The next battlefield was the site of massacre of the British army by the Zulu army because of a tactical error of arrogance by the British army commander. We walked the ground where this fight had taken place and could imagine the army of tens of thousands of Zulus flowing over the hills toward you and knowing you were going to die. It was frightening. The final battlefield we went to was not a battlefield at all. It was a store and a makeshift hospital that had been in place at the same time when some of the Zulus decided to cross the river and attack it. The able bodied soldiers held off thousands of Zulu warriors with only some sacks of Mealy Meal (think of flour sacks) and their guns. Sorry for the history lesson… I just think it’s incredible.

This week on Tuesday I was able to go teach eighth graders about health. While my nursing classmates and I were still in the States, we prepared teaching projects for people of low literacy in rural areas. What we were faced with, however, were 5 classes of incredibly bright eighth graders who all spoke English and had learned a lot of what we had to teach them already. But it was an awesome experience anyway. We taught about basic hygiene, dental hygiene, communicable diseases (Diarrheal diseases, Respiratory infections and HIV) and the menstrual cycle. It was five hours of teaching with a tea break after the second break. We all talked to them like they were 5 years old and they laughed at us for our ridiculous examples and funny way of talking, but they were so quiet and attentive to everything we had to say and answered all of our questions beautifully. I had the express pleasure of teaching HIV causes, prevention and treatment to them which was amazing because I have always loved HIV education. It was a really big struggle for me talking about safe sex with eighth graders because I just didn’t want to imagine them even getting into those situations. But I know that it happens here just as much as it happens in the U.S. and that the only way to prevent this disease and other ones is to empower them, so I told them that many years down the road when they decided to have sex they should use condoms and have one partner. I think I emphasized “someday a long time from now” quite frequently and my professors teased me about it later, while telling me that they loved that abstinence was my emphasis because they need to hear that preached as much as then need safe sex preached. I fell in love with teaching again this week. I think like a teacher and it cracks me up because the one thing I swore I would never be was a teacher. But I know that someday I will be a health educator and that I’ll love it.

Ok. That’s enough procrastinating for now. I love you all. Thanks for reading my rambling. Listen to the song if can… it’s changing my life.

Grace and Peace

Real

The room was dark and the smell of paraffin was intoxicating. On the stove sat a pan filled with a corn couscous-type food called puthu. The walls were thick and made of cement. Around the home were a few shelves with dishes and a few small trinkets. And in the corner there were ten children huddled together close to the oven. Outside, the rain was falling and making mud around where the cows were grazing. It was my first time doing home visits for the Etembeni Hospice Centre in Mpopomeni. I was up in the hills delivering bags of food to families that have family members that are dying from HIV or other life stealing diseases. For the first time I saw the inside of home like the ones I’ve seen so many times before in pictures and magazines. It wasn’t real until that point. Being here in Africa, working with the population that I’ve wanted to work with for so long, putting faces and stories with pictures I’ve seen all my life… its real now. The pain and the suffering of patients and their families and the imminent death that comes with these diseases finally became real. I needed it to become real. I think a part of me thought that once I could see it and understand it I wouldn’t be as excited about it anymore or that it would take away some of my passion. But it did the opposite. It lit a fire under me to want to change the system and to search harder to understand the heart of God.

Two weekends ago we went to a city called Durban which is right on the beach. Before hand we spent some time at an indoor market. There was everything South African you could possibly imagine. Jewelry and decorations were hanging from the ceilings of the shops and every corner was crammed with trinkets and curries and the air was thick with the smells of South African foods. The colors were so bright and cheerful, though the light was dim in the shops. We met some women in the shops that thought we were so funny for wanting to buy so many pairs of earrings and not being able to decide which paintings we wanted. They also thought I was hilarious because I bought a basket for my mom, but it’s awkward to carry and I was trying to carry it around with me through the crammed little shops apparently I was making quite a scene.

We left the indoor market and headed to the beach for the rest of the day. Kelsey, Jeanna and I went and found some of the best iced coffee I’ve ever had and enjoyed it on the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day at the Indian Ocean. We were lying blissfully on the beach when we heard yelling and clapping from the water. Apparently there are lifeguards that lead songs in the water and people jump up and down and clap in different rhythms as a game at the beach. I really like this country.

This last weekend we enjoyed the finest in Zulu culture. We were a bit worried that going to a Zulu home and staying in huts meant we would be eating parts of a cow I never wanted to think about eating. But it was a wonderful experience. We learned all about Zulu culture: the multiple wives, the “homes” which consisted of five or six huts placed in a circle with a cow corral in the middle. They take the cow poop and put it in a pit in the ground and use the built up methane as a supply of gas to light their stoves. They did some Zulu dancing for us and cooked amazing brie (which means BBQ) and some great vegetables and bread as well as giving us tea and biscuits. We slept in huts and then woke up and made clay pots and beaded necklaces. It was an absolutely beautiful experience!

When we got back we quickly changed and jumped into the bus again to head to a professional rugby game! We had a South African with us who sat and explained the game to us. I loved the differences between professional rugby and professional football. It was all about the game. There wasn’t any loud music playing and cheerleaders dancing around. It was 80 minutes of uninterrupted quiet, intense man hitting man crazy rough bliss. Afterward, we headed into Durban for some Italian food with just a few of us to hang out for awhile. It was a beautiful night.

Life is beautiful. It’s filled with brokenness and tension and confusion and frustration and joy. Last week wasn’t pleasant. I can’t quite wrap my head around what God is trying to teach me about His Kingdom right now in this country that is in a beautiful grey area between the first and the developing world, between hate and love, between black and white.