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