Before I start, I wanted to give you all a little bit of SA history. June 16 is known as Youth Day, commemorating an event that happened in 1976. Due to the apartheid, children were separated by skin color for their schooling, and the black schools were greatly inferior. On that day, a bunch of black school children marched in protest through a part of Joburg, and the white police officers opened fire, killing several of them. The shooting was not in self defense. The rest of the day was one of riots and killings. The children did not initiate the violence, though in their anger over the killing of their peers they did begin to stone innocent bystanders whom they associated with the government. It was a horrible day, but it caught the attention of people and helped start the movement to work towards ending apartheid. And though it has ended, healing is still a long way away.
And a quick update on the strike – it's still going on. We went with Cheryl to the hospital on Sunday so she could visit someone, and it was eerily empty. Some staff is there, but they're all in plainclothes so they aren't attacked coming to/from work. Only the worst patients are there; they're trying to send as many home as they can since they lack manpower. In fact, the woman we went to see had had a stroke on Friday, had her head and heart operated on on Saturday, and was back at her house on Sunday. It's a miracle she was able to get the treatment, and even more of a miracle that she was doing okay. I just pray the strike will end soon, because there are many more who haven't been so fortunate.
Since I've been dropping all these names, I thought you might want to know who they are! So here are some brief bios on them...
Cheryl Allen is the pastor here at Troyeville Baptist. She is a whirlwind, and you have to listen closely because she will tell you about 10 different things at the speed of light! She has a great heart, and knows what she's doing, even if she's always 5 steps ahead of the rest of us. We typically have lunch with her family after church on Sundays, and this past week we started watching another season of the Bachelor (the season with Bob). I reassured her several times that us American girls aren't all like that :o)
Uncle Tony is the director of the TLC, and has been helping me email these blogs home since the laptop is still unusable at church. He had retired from his previous job, then came on to help get the Centre started. He and his wife, Anne, have been very kind to us, helping us get the space heaters for our rooms and even taking us to a Sunday night worship service. This Friday we're supposed to go to their place with some of the youth to watch a movie and have supper.
Janice and Josh have been named my unofficial family here. Janice has had us over for dinner twice, as well as taken us grocery shopping. Josh is her son, age 16, and often his friends Ngobi and Jono are over as well. She even took us along last Saturday to Gold Reef City theme park with Josh and Ngobi, where we rode lots of the rides and got quite dizzy. (And the cost was only R100 – about 12 or 13 USD!) They also lent us a cell phone to use while we're here. They've made us feel so comfortable and accepted here. And like a good adopted little brother, Josh has fun picking on me.
I've mentioned Nomalanga several times – she lives in the cottage with us. She's a sweet woman, but doesn't put up with any foolishness! It's been fun getting to know her and hear her story. For a long time, she lived with Oyisa's father, and he kept saying they would get married “one day,” once he had the money. She knew they should get married, and kept pushing for it. A year ago, he won a drawing for a new car which he couldn't drive. The logical response would have been to sell it and use the money to get married, but he didn't. At that time, the offer came for Nomalanga to work here and move into the cottage, so she left him and took Oyisa. In March, she took in Thabo, who was very malnourished, because of bad family dynamics. He looks very healthy now, but is still undersized for his age.
Aurelia is my co-teacher. She has twins – Prince and Princess, but everyone calls them Puti and CeeCee (that's my phonetic spelling of the words). She is sweet as well, and it's a struggle for her sometimes to teach if one of her children is crying, even through we put them in another class.
Joyce is Russell's co-teacher. She's from the Congo, and started teaching here a week before we got here. She's very talkative and funny. She's fluent in French, taught herself English, and is now working to learn Zulu. At some point I'm supposed to start discipling her with a “Fundamentals of the Faith” workbook that Cheryl is ordering.
Faith is the head cook, and always smiling and laughing. She lives across the street, though her power has been cut off. She broke her foot before we got here, but cut the cast off herself about two weeks ago because it was heavy. I'm afraid as to how poorly her foot may heal.
And Carol is now here! She was working at the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, but has come over here to spend (at least) a year working with the youth group. I think she's doing a great job already! She's full of energy, and I love to talk with her. I'll probably be helping her some with the youth, at least until I leave. And she'll hopefully be getting a car soon so we can go places!
Well, naptime is almost over, so I should go. There's lots more to do – they've asked Russell and I to help out musically on several levels, so we need to figure something out!
Cheers!
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