Category Archives: Faith
HELP US!!! FIRE at Masiphumelele*
As of 12am last night people have been displaced and caught in the blaze that broke out across the Masiphumelele Township! All Nations and other organizations are working to comfort and help devastated people. It is chaotic and crazy at the site and families and kids are cold and hungry. People are gawking at the ashes left over from the blaze, estimates calculate 800 homes lost. Men and woman rummage for lost positions and try to rebuild homes from what is left.
PLEASE HELP
-Food, clothes, toiletries and bedding and material to rebuild houses. )
-Financial assistance can be donated to ALL NATIONS, under Masiphumelele Outreach Team through GIVENGAIN. (Be sure to put Masiphumelele Outreach Team under PROJECTS when you donate!)
UPDATE FROM ANNA:
“The situation is devastating! I’m standing here looking over ashes that once were homes… Everything has burnt down! Just found a few of my kids and they all told me they’ve been crying all through the night, running and watching their houses burn down… They have nothing left except what they are wearing and they are shivering and starving… Haven’t eaten since last night… Please pray and rally as many donations as you can!”
(Anna and one of her kids with the Masi Outreach for All nations)
*Masiphumelele is a township in Cape Town, South Africa, situated between Kommetjie, Capri Village and Noordhoek. Initially known as Site 5, the township was renamed Masiphumelele by its residents, which is a Xhosa word meaning “We will succeed”.
FUSION Mannenberg
This is a video from The Warehouse, on a project called Fusion. After watching this short clip, I was so inspired and motivated. I wanted to be a part of it.
SO… I offered to paint the wall- we both had no idea what we were getting into…
On Saturday morning, just before I was going to paint in Mannenberg, I was invited for breakfast at the Radisson Blu. 7 star, seaside hotel- or something like that… I guess life is good to us like that! We always get when we give. And I got breakfast.
While at the Radisson, despite feasting like a mad woman, I noticed how people were quietly keeping to themselves. Avoiding the buffet- if even one other person was dishing, looking to the ocean for joy and certainly not at the other guests. While I was with my friend Javi, from Argentina, I felt this mild and yet contagious loneliness. As though all the guests, in their wealth, no longer invested in people, and while they didn’t NEED community, I could see that they seriously LACKED it.
I couldn’t help compare this tranquil isolation at the Radisson, with the busyness and commotion of Mannenberg.
After breakfast, I drove out to Pete’s new house to get back to working on the wall. And while I knew I was giving my most valuable asset- my time- I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty that I had just had a feast fit for a king, while the boys putting up the scaffolding for me, had probably eaten nothing for breakfast. As we painted in the sun, a group of children formed across the road, in the road, and on our pavement- watching and chattering. Every adult that passed, sincerely complimented the work, or gave encouraging feedback. One man, stopped to note that I had made three, yes three, spelling mistakes. Two men came and asked for a small bit of paint to add to their paint, to make more paint- If I wouldn’t mind? Kids got involved with the spraying and taping and cleaning.
While Mannenberg is riddled with gangsters, drug abuse, neglect and old age, you couldn’t be lonely there if you tried. You know your neighbours, and they know you, you know the kids on your street and you can’t do anything without getting someone’s attention. It’s a deeply beautiful place. As is the Radisson, just in a fundamentally different way!
Rivers of Life Church
There is a little church in Khayelitsha that rejoices out of a white container in Site B. The congregation is made up of mainly little kids who catch a taxi to get to church without their parents. The church elders, Dan and Thandizile are an incredible team who met at Tech in Durban (Yes, they are both Zulu and crazy enough for Jesus to live in the middle of a Xhosa township). In 2009 they felt called and moved from the City of Cape Town- to Khayelitsha with their daughter Sisi. Most of us would imagine it happening the other way around.
The services are interactive and awesome. Praise and worship raises the roof and the children are more disciplined than seems possible. The venue is without its own electricity, the inside of container reaches a healthy 38 degrees- twenty minutes into the service- and the donated toilet was stolen before the walls of the bathroom were built. Bibles are hard to come by and the R20 for the “1996 Xhosa translation” is often too much to ask little children who come without their parents.
Never the less, in the 6 months I have been visiting Rivers of Life, I have never been asked for anything other than love and energy. I have never been anywhere where like this before. The impact of this little community is so evident. A lasting joy is visible in the faces of the children and I am forced to ask myself- where are the rest of you?
