A Month In Photos

Also known as - I was too busy living it up in December, so here's the abbreviated version.

The Barnes family, Allison, and I celebrated Thanksgiving at Inanda Seminary in Durban.

We went to Gandhi's house! Not many people know he lived in South Africa.

The site/ballot box where Mandela cast his vote in South Africa's first democratic election!

GCS Junior Primary put on a beautiful Christmas Concert December 4.

Project Gateway hosted the teachers and staff for an end-of-year lunch.

 

MCC SwaLeSA retreated to Pennington Beach for some R&R (Dec 13-18).

 

How do you celebrate Christmas on a beach? Build a sandman, of course!

Enjoyed Christmas and New Years with my host mom, her children, and grandkids.

That left plenty of time to play hair salon, soccer, and watch Barbie with this kiddo!

Update: The Honeymoon Phase

Hello from the other side!

That is, the other side of this thing called the honeymoon phase (not just a casual Adele reference, although that's relevant too).

I want to take a moment to apologize for this poor excuse of documenting my experiences. I promise that my private journal entries are increasing at a healthy rate and I keep in regular contact with a few lovely, supportive people. Otherwise, I've done a terrible job at taking photos and posting to this blog, so I'm sorry.

It's been three months since I landed in South Africa. When traveling or studying overseas, I have never stayed in one location for so long; I've never surpassed the honeymoon phase of living abroad. Now my mind and body have settled into a routine so that I don't see my surroundings as extraordinary so easily anymore. Sights and sounds, faces and conversations, cultural and institutional habits have all normalized for me. I've reached a plateau, which is a steady, mundane, and comfortable place to be. This contented feeling is both a blessing and an alert to be constantly attentive, vigilant, and dedicated to the work ahead of me. Whatever you do, work at it wholeheartedly, as if working for the Lord and not for people. (Colossians 3:23)

On that note, my assignment at GCS has picked up! I tutor ~25 students throughout the week, all in grades 1-3 (AKA Junior Primary, AKA the important formative years). At this late in the school year, some students have already been told whether or not they will repeat their current grade. Some students may have fallen behind because of behavioral or financial issues. Some may have entered GCS with very little prior education and have advanced by leaps and bounds, but are still not at the level of their peers. Come what may, we are pressing on, reviewing Math and English every day!

In this season of contentedness and finding motivation, I want to make a few shout-outs of thanks. One to my dear university friends who gave me a deck of cards in a parting gift - who knew that everyday card games could teach Math and be fun?! I've also made a fool of myself more than once while reviewing English Phonics with 6 year-old non-native speakers. For that, I'm grateful for my days as a camp counselor which showed me how to relate to all ages of children in ways that are fun but also fruitful.

Lastly, I'm thankful for and humbled by these beautiful people who have committed themselves to teaching the next generation. This photo I took during National Teacher Appreciation Day shows the faculty at GCS who daily encourage my spirit and respond to my myriad of silly questions. I rely on them a lot, whether it's to provide review materials for the students or experienced teacher tips, which I am admittedly lacking. They call themselves a family; I can see it.

LOOKING AHEAD...

• November 26-27 MCC South Africa celebrates American Thanksgiving in Durban
• December 4 GCS Junior Primary host a Christmas Concert
• December 13-17 MCC South Africa retreat in Durban
• December 19-January 3 I head to Johannesburg and Kruger National Park for the holidays, fulfilling two major things on my bucket list, you can see why here!

The Greatest Journeys Answer Questions...

...That in the beginning, you didn't even think to ask.

Friends, so much has happened in the past month and I apologize for keeping quiet. During that time, I have been discovering the ways to wi-fi in this different cultural context (some of you laugh now, understanding my lifelong struggles with technology). Meanwhile, I have kept a regular journal so that my experiences, observations, and questions are not forgotten. From the months before I left the States to today, I have received and dished out all sorts of questions. In an attempt to please my audience, as well as gain new information for myself, I'm choosing to process this past month using questions.

Some of my favorite questions from the new friends, students, and coworkers I've met in Pietermaritzburg:

• Have you met anyone famous?
• Does it snow in America?
• Do you like One Direction or Justin Bieber more?
• Have you ever seen a Ferrari? A Lamborghini? 
• What is a Mennonite?
• Are you popular where you live?
• Can you sing the National Anthem for us?
• How is South Africa different from America?

The best reaction I've received after telling a class that I was from America- a single boy shot up from his seat, threw his hands in the air, and shouted 'LIES!' as if I had offended him (then again, it wouldn't be the first time America offended someone)...

It's safe to say that I didn't prepare myself to answer these questions before flying halfway around the world; I certainly didn't prepare to become the expert on all-things-American. For example, one Grade 6 Social Studies class asked me 'what are America's main imports and exports?' (If you can answer that one without a Google Search, please do.)

Here are some questions I've been asked from friends and family in the States with pictures to illustrate my answers:

• What do you do every day?

This is the charming Grade 1 class I've been hanging out with. September 24 was National Heritage Day so they all dressed in their traditional clothing. September 30 was Gateway's Sports Day where they held a series of relays like the Sack Race.

• Are there [zebras, lions, giraffes] in your backyard?

No lions yet. I got pretty close to some baby giraffes at Bisley Nature Reserve, which is a 10-minute drive from my host home. Note my giddiness as I approached a wild zebra.

This journey is proving that every day will pose questions that I never thought to ask. College taught me that the world is my classroom, keep asking questions and I will learn. Here's to my new 'classroom' filled with questions and (hopefully some) answers.

P.S. The globe icon on my Facebook app has changed to show the eastern hemisphere, so this must be real life.

Hamba nathi mkhululi wethu...

...that Zulu sentence directly translates to something like, Join us on our deliverance. If you've ever been exposed to a Mennonite Church worship service, you possibly know the tune as Come, walk with us, the journey is long. Close enough in translation, eh?

Close enough, at least, that's the sort of grace I'm hoping for as I muddle through a two-week-intensive Zulu language course before I'm placed in my volunteer setting for 11 months. An urban setting where the taxi horns are loud, the giant birds are loud, the upbeat music is loud, but the people are even louder. Everyone I encounter knows that I was not gifted with a loud voice... My strained vocal cords are hoping for grace here, as well.

Meanwhile Allison, Dominik, and I (see "Other SALTers Blogs") are living with the MCC South Africa representatives here in Pietermaritzburg, who happen to share the grounds with my volunteer location, Project Gateway. The entire complex is full of history, both the good and bad, and I can't wait to explore over the next year (see blogpost "Reduce and Reuse me").

This building within the prison was used to hold political prisoners (which was nearly every prisoner) including Mandela. Now its renovated jail cells are used for guest accomodations at Project Gateway.

 

This is MCC's beautiful backyard within the prison walls (notice the watch tower). Our current lodgings are inside to the left where our MCC representatives live.  

Team ADAM (Allison, Dominik, And Melinda) at Project Gateway

This past Sunday we had a full day with a range of worship styles not entirely unfamiliar to me. In between attending church services, we hiked down the scenic Howick Falls (yes, in our Sunday dress). It was a great opportunity to escape from the city for a few quiet moments. We also ventured to the "Capture Site" which is the geographic location where Nelson Mandela was arrested for treason and then imprisoned for 27 years. There was a huge marathon just ending on the grounds (see the finish line behind us?), so we collected this poster for our MCC office. You can also see black posts forming a portrait of Mandela when standing at a specific location. "Do not judge me by my successes. Judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."

Come walk with us, the journey is long.

Bless Us With Discomfort

"I'll see you tomorrow then!" My darling friend shouted as I pulled out of her driveway last Tuesday evening. Only, we knew this would not be so; I was packed and on my way to orientation the following morning.

It's true, saying 'goodbye' is the hardest part of any new adventure. Especially when I have been given such amazing friends who went out of their way to make me feel loved during my final days in Virginia. I was blessed by round-the-clock lovin' from my friends in the form of potlucks, care packages, carnival rides, and enormous laughter that turned into bittersweet tears. How sweet it is to be loved by them all. How bitter it is to leave such comforts.

Friends who know me at all know that I am a chronic procrastinator. I do nothing in a timely manner, but rather, take pride in my ability (and preference) to work under pressure! With that said, I am living proof that God works in all circumstances. When I applied for this SALT position, I turned in my application on the day it was due. That same week I was asked to interview, and the following week I was given the position. I still find great peace in knowing that 1. God knows my flaws, inside and out 2. God is working through me, not despite of, but because of my flaws. An imperfect person reflecting God's perfect love. This is not the first time I've been put under pressure while working for God (my favorite examples are of my summer camp experiences) and it certainly won't be my last!

Tomorrow, the 80+ young people I've questioned with, prayed with, and shared life with here at MCC will be sent out across the globe. Three of us SALTers (see Allison and Dominik under "Other SALT Bloggers") will fly to Durban, South Africa, for the beginning of our great adventures. The days and hours leading up to this moment have been nothing short of amazing, God-filled, inspiring, and absolutely draining. Though I have only known these 80+ peers for a week, I will treasure them in this next stretch of the journey.

With each of our adventures come great responsibility. As the Franciscan blessing states below, we are charged to be uncomfortable, to be angry, to shed tears, and to feel foolish. Leaving our comfort zones, we will experience every one of these, and I pray that we will count it all as blessing. Amen.

P.S. Two 'self-care' goals I'm proposing for myself is 1. to write shorter blog posts (a win-win for all) and 2. to write more frequently. At this point, writing once a week is a pretty lofty goal for myself, but if you would like to hear more of me, please Subscribe under My Profile (you will receive email updates for each new post).

This Is Not A Mission Trip: Part 2

An article I pose in contrast to the "voluntourism" style of missions is titled Staying for Tea: Five Principles for the Community Service Volunteer. Our MCC SALT coordinator shared this with all upcoming SALT and IVEP peers in our joint Facebook group. He introduced it as an article that "highlights the importance of building relationships on assignment and to ensure that we are empowering others, rather than forcing our own views and values onto others. It captures well the way MCC hopes all our workers will interact with those we serve alongside." With that preface, I take to heart the advice of this experienced MCC writer. Some highlights:

1. Stay for Tea: Mv title and position were being eroded; I was becoming real to them. At the same time, my simplistic stereotypes of them were melting away; they were becoming real to me... Staying for tea helped us to become mutually indebted. I call this operating at eye-level with the community, and this made all the difference in the quality and impact of our time together... It is not healthy or productive to allow yourself to be falsely perceived as a hero, or to perceive yourself as such.

2. Process Matters: When logic models forget to examine the behavioral .issumptions in the links between intervention and outcome, it amounts to forgretting that people are at the center of the development process. An outsider can totally miss the fact that the community has a unique set of cultural lenses, economic incentives, and social structures that may run orthogonal to one’s neat logic model.

3. Focus on Values: ...there may be a drawback to defining the situation in terms of needs, because it automatically frames the whole development issue in terms of the community having something wrong with it that needs fixing... Instead of mapping problems through needs to external solutions, you help the community identify its values and then map these through local resources to develop a vision and action plan.

4. Check Your Filter: If we fear that nothing will get done or improve without us, if we are the motor of initiative, if we are stressed-out that we might fail in out efforts, if we have trouble recognizing the names and faces and stories of those whom we serve, then it's likely our filter needs replacing. 'People as Function' how shockingly inhuman people can treat you when they filter out your humanity and see you as nothing more than a malfunction in their transaction rather than as a person with history, sensibilities, soul, and a piece of the Creator within. 'People as Backdrop' it's easier to set our mind's eye on wide angle at 10,000 feet and just take it all in from a safe distance, treating people as the background scenery to our life... this filter blurs individual people...it dehumanizes, stripping from view the essential elements of individuality and personal consciousness. 'Polarizing Lens' As a rule we should seek clarity to see people for who they are: unique expressions of God's creative proficiency, fellow human beings with a full range of emotive faculties and wholly enabled desires to belong, to have enough, to overcome, to create, to give, to enjoy life, to survive, and most of all, to have meaning.

5. Cultivate A Servant's Heart: First, since you don't have the power to steer a community, don't pretend you're at the helm (it doesn't depend on you). Second, since people with self-respect resist arrogant generosity, make sure to operate at eye-level. Third, since unlike us, God does have the power to transform a community, we should be interceding passionately on its behalf.

As history shows us, I am humbly reminded that good intentions do not always mean good outcomes, thinking especially of missions that have been done in the name of God (see Part 1 of this blog post). This article is not written to scare me away from the next chapter of my life, but rather, to remind myself (and those who ask 'why not someone else') to think critically about how I serve others. Remaining doubts, fears, worries aside, I want to pause this topic with two quotes...

The best journeys answer questions that, in the beginning, you didn't even think to ask.

Don't shine so that others can see you; Shine so that, through you, others can see Him. - C.S. Lewis

This Is Not A Mission Trip: Part 1

As my date to departure gets closer and closer, I've really been wrestling with where I stand on missions, and particularily, global missions. Why can't they do ___ for themselves? Some have asked me. Number one response of defense: Cool thanks, that's really (not) encouraging. Number two response of reason: I'm not being paid, I'm a volunteer. Would you volunteer this much of your own time for your own country? If yes, fantastic, however you manage to do so sustainably; we need more of you around. Admittedly, using a title like "This is not a mission trip" is intentionally snarky as I wrestle with my own doubts, the critiques of peers, and global media. Bear with me in grace.

One of my college roomies recently shared this article on Facebook and I can't stop thinking about it. It's titled Voluntourism: More Harm Than Good so you know why it got my attention. Yes, it is most definitely a negative critique on the traditional "mission trip" and yes, I absolutely got defensive while reading it. But I came out at the end of it thinking, Yes, this is/isn't what I've grown up to envision as missional work and these examples are what I want to avoid. This is what MCC wants to avoid and they do ___, ___, and ___ to ensure ___ doesn't happen.

I'm reminded why the program I signed up for is called Serving and Learning TOGETHER. Here I want to quote some of my favorite points of the article, but I do encourage you to read the whole thing.

The temptation to swoop in and fix a village’s hunger, poverty, and disease seems simple enough and personally fulfilling, but it presents Africa as “victims” and creates a feel-good spectacle for the volunteers. By sending out untrained volunteers, we are essentially saying that development work is “easy,” that our skills as middle-class twenty-somethings are so valuable that they can save a village, and that just because we are from the U.S., we are superior to the third-world countries that we aim to serve.

A reflex reaction to this critique may be, “At least they are doing something,” or “Wow, I guess we can’t really do anything,” but this would be lazy thinking. It’s not that our intention isn’t genuine, it’s that our analysis isn’t. As long as the West has the kind of economic, cultural and militaristic stronghold over places like Uganda, our hard work is still not targeting the root or causes of oppression. Our main goal should be evaluating foreign policies, which we play a direct role in electing, not short-term solutions that make us feel like we “done good.”

Let’s support vocational training and community-based initiatives. Let’s talk about this White Savior Complex and how to keep it out of ministry. Let’s match volunteers to their existing skill set and require them to be integrated with their host communities, learning and listening to real needs.

Thus begins the conversation of why I shudder at the words "mission trip." Makes you do some deep reflecting, right?

He must become greater, I must become less. John 3:30. Challenge accepted.

Reduce and Reuse Me

Hi friends, family, anonymous readers- thank you for visiting my new little blog as I prepare for the trip of my lifetime! As I'm still about a month away from orientation, I've been finding myself day-dreaming (more than usual), caught up on a few details of my assignment. I'll try to connect some points and we'll see if I make any sense of these fleeting thoughts.

First to note, this primary school where I will be assisting- in fact, all of Project Gateway's missional operations- is set in a renovated prison. That's right, Pietermaritzburg's historical prison and now national monument, which had previously held great peace leaders of our time such as Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi! How neat is that! I will pry my nose out of the history books for now, but only to get to my point more quickly.

A second, present-day piece to note about South Africa is their strained importance on security. Did you know it's the highest grossing market in the country? For reasons, eh, I'll let the history speak for itself. Even I have personally seen and felt the tight surveillance- the concreted fences with metal spikes, the barred windows and doors, the home keypad systems- the enclosed feeling in and of itself is enough to make this free-roaming American shudder with culture shock. That's a topic that must be saved for later.

What is overwhelming to my soul is this age-old concept of reusing materials (insert joke about Mennonite frugality). Honestly, what was once, by all intensive purposes, a disgusting and horrific prison is now being used to foster church outreaches in the greater community. If that doesn't shed some hope on South Africa's peace efforts, I don't know what will! Since 1992 (basically in my lifetime!) the mission of Project Gateway has been to:
Change people's lives by
Helping them physically, emotionally and spiritually. We aim to
Uplift people and their communities through job, business and life skills,
Reaching all people without prejudice, showing the
Compassion and care of Jesus Christ, and
Honouring our Creator.

How beautiful! I don't think you have to be a peace studies major to see the goodness in that! However, I may use that acronym later to illustrate why I chose to study Peacebuilding with a side of Bible and Religion. For the time being, I'm feeling safe and secure knowing that my Lord and Savior is busy reusing creation (and using me) to better creation. I can still pray that his love cuts through those scary concrete fences...

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ~ Philippians 4:7