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!

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.

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