God's Community

Feb 25, 2012

Hi, everyone! I miss you all very much and I’m praying for each of you constantly. My time here in Africa is slowly decreasing. But my love for it is rapidly increasing! This week has been very exciting and joyful.

First, on Wednesday morning, the 4 and 5 year olds that I have been working with performed the story of Jesus Feeding the 5,000 at the 8:30 am chapel. We had an unexpected surprise when Ntebeleng and I arrived. The boy, Miguel, who was supposed to play Jesus, was nowhere to be found. We discovered that on Tuesday night he suffered a severe asthma attack and had to be hospitalized. This threw everything into mayhem, and the first ten minutes Mma Beauty and I were trying to find someone else to play Jesus in Miguel’s place. After we tried at least five boys who either got cold feet and would not say the lines, or got too silly and kept mixing up the lines, we finally got a boy named Faith who could do it without much difficulty. However, as we all processed into the church a car rolled into the Daycare and out popped Miguel! So we quickly took the costume off Faith and dressed Miguel and he stepped into his role as Jesus immediately. In the beginning Mma Mudereri led the school in the Botswana anthem and then some worship songs and then proceeded to tell the rest of the school about the story we’d been working on. After she was finished the children and Mma Beauty along with Mma Garonne set up the scene; Ntebeleng and I had baked fish sticks and bought 5 loaves of bread the day before and we put it in a basket (I know ,and the children know, that there were 12 baskets but for the moment we only had one!) It was amazing to watch the children slip into their places with no difficulty and they all knew what to do as well as had their lines completely memorized! Miguel was loud and clear and there was no child that misbehaved. When the performance was finished they sang “Jesus Loves Me” and then they sang the song “God is so good”! I must say I was impressed with the graceful way these children portrayed this wonderful story and like I’ve said before, children really are our best teachers! Theirs truly is the kingdom of heaven! Mma Mudereri was extremely pleased with the whole performance and after watching what the children did she came up to me and put me in charge of directing the 5 and 6 year olds who are going to do the whole Passion play! I will be helping Mma Goncee who’s the teacher of the 5 and 6 year olds and I’m EXTREMELY excited for another opportunity to put my theatre skills into practice! At the moment we are rewriting the script and beginning to block it, and I love every minute of it.

My second exciting event happened last Sunday when I visited St. Michael’s in Mogodishante, which is actually where my supervisor, Father James Amanze, is pastor. I was invited by a young woman named Tshegofatso Bogacu whom I met at the Diocan Link Committee in January. She wanted me to come and get involved with the young adults there, and she said that after she heard me speak in the committee meeting she thought that I would be a great influence on the youth and be able to encourage them. She came and picked me up at around 9:30 since it takes us 30 min and she wanted to be there in time for the 10:00 service. It's not like the service was actually going to start at 10:00, but none the less. We had a good time on the way, just getting to know each other. I loved the little place the moment I laid eyes on it. It is a small church, beautiful with wooden pews and a large fan in the center of the ceiling. We entered the room filled with people dressed in brilliant colors chattering about various sorts of things in Setswana. Tshegofatso and I sat up in the front where some of the young women were already sitting. I greeted them all and introduced myself in Setswana which they appreciated. Well, as I expected, the service did not start at 10 but more towards 10:30 but I was not bothered by this nor did it seem like anybody else was for that matter. When the service finally did begin, the Deacon announced that Father James Amanze was unable to attend today and so we would just have to start without him. The service is celebrated exactly the way we have it in the states but it’s all spoken and sung in Setswana, which to me is so beautiful that it almost makes me cry when I hear it. I managed to understand a lot of the things that were either being sung or said, and the things I did not understand Tshegofatso would quietly tell me. I learned several new hymns but one of them that we sang has become one of my favorites. It goes like this: AO Mata, AO Mata, Ke Modimo O Teng! AO Mata, AO Mata, Ke Modimo O Teng! It says: There are no problems and nothing to fear because our God is here. BEAUTIFUL!!

After the service, the youth group gathered for their weekly meeting to discuss their plans and upcoming events. They include college age students as well as younger ones. Tshegofatso introduced me to the rather large group who warmly welcomed me into their circle. I told them about myself and that I have always had a love for Africa since I was very small child, my passion to empower the disabled for missions, and that my second major is Theatre and Communications. The fact that I was studying theatre excited the group greatly and immediately they wanted to know if I would be willing to help them with their skits and mini dramas that they do in the spring around April and May. They perform as a Fundraiser for their mission work . They make it a rule that they don’t do any fundraising of any sort during the 40 days of Lent, which I really honor. I told them that I would be delighted to help out with their plays in every way I could. I did tell them my need to continue learning Setswana and they said they would be happy to help me, and they also want to work at helping get the disabled more involved in the church and society. I was pleased to hear that they were going to participate in the Fundraiser walk for Cheshire as I also was. Everywhere I go I feel like God is expanding my community of people to work with. Tshegofatso and I have become friends and we will work together with the youth as well as do other things together.
Speaking of Cheshire, I met with Raa Mabasa on Tuesday afternoon to discuss my theologizing project that I would like to do there at Cheshire. I want to work with scripture and help these workers and the disabled themselves understand what it says, and mostly what it does NOT say about why people are disabled. Raa Mabasa thought this would be a wonderful idea, since even though many of them are Christians, the culture, even in the church, sometimes believes that people are disabled because they, or their parents have done something wrong. The staff and even some of the parents of the disabled children will get involved with that study as well. He said that he has seen how the disabled are really rejected here because they seem to be evidence that someone has done evil, and so families often keep them kept shut away. Since they are seen as cursed, or as proof that the families are, they are embarrassed to take them out. Families will deliberately keep them hidden in order to avoid being blamed for the child’s deformity. He felt that doing something like a Bible study on God's love for the sick and disabled would be something so wonderful and he even agreed that we should get the St. Michael’s youth involved too, since they’ve been there and helped with the children before. We will discuss in more detail about how to do this on next Tuesday. We probably will begin this in early April. He believes that we should start getting some media attention on the problems of the disabled because of the wrong ideas people have about the cause of disability, and he said that even though he has been an advocate for the physically/ mentally impaired it’s not as effective as someone like me would be because he himself is not disabled. He wants me to speak myself and say why I can trust God and know his love in the midst of disability. So we will get that started up soon as well. THIS WAS WONDERUL!!!

On Friday I got a call from an Indian Doctor at the Princess Marina Hospital, who wanted to meet with me that afternoon. So Ntebeleng and I drove over there after our time at St. Peter’s and talked with Dr. Gureja for an hour about the needs of the disabled. He told me that Dr. Moffat, whom I’ve mentioned before, told him about me and that he would like me to talk to the staff that take care of wheelchair-bound patients and encourage them to rethink how they view these people. He said, "If they see you and your art, and hear about your love of God as well as all the things you can do for yourself, it will help them see that disability doesn’t define a human being." So amazingly, I have come to Africa to be asked by an Indian to talk about disability, such a small world this is! I will speak to them in late April.

It is so amazing all the opportunities God has given me to share my testimony and to just try to show Jesus - He is the one who really can bring people closer to Himself, but he is willing to use us when we are willing to be used. I am so grateful.
That is all for now. Ke o Rata (I love you)!
Minda