God Loves Children

A team from Coastlands traveled 1½ hour away to Paternoster, for an outreach to that community. Ian and Carmel Chalklin arranged this event with Samaritan’s Purse. Over 200 children attended. There was face painting, games and entertainment, including Carmel’s singing and dancing team of young girls and a dynamic drama group from an area drug rehabilitation ministry. Of course, the highlight was when the children opened their "love boxes."

If your church has ever prepared these shoe boxes for Samaritan’s Purse, you know what a joy is to think of the children who will receive them. On this side of the world, it was truly delightful to see the fruit of such ministry as we watched the kids open their boxes. We prayed that this day would cause them never to forget how much God loves them.

The Hawks Bless Many

My parents, Ralph and Novella Hawk, have been with us here in Cape Town since April 11. They have had many opportunities to minister during their time here.

In these photos you see Dad ministering weekly to the men, Mom speaking monthly to the women, and all of us visiting Ian and Carmel Chalklin, who minister to the poor in the village of Paternoster.

Regarded by Xavier and Heather as valuable mentors, both Ralph and Novella have enjoyed their role as "fathers and mothers in the faith," not only in Africa but in many other parts of the world.

Career Planet

How do students get ahead when their high school doesn’t even have a telephone? South Africa’s government offers a basic education, but it is up to schools to provide enrichment classes. Most students don’t have access to computers in their homes or in their schools. How will they keep from falling behind?

Karin Chisholm, with an IT background, and Heather Adriaanse, with 20 years in financial services, formed a company to meet just this need. Calling it Career Planet, the two women connect with schools desiring to provide their grade 11 and 12 students with career research opportunities. They take their learning kiosk to schools, where students participate in workshops followed by online research.

More about the workshops and learning kiosk next time…

Rusks on the Move

During perhaps the only four consecutive dry days of the rainy season, the Rusks and Allens moved our belongings from Johannesburg to Tableview. Here's John on our front porch.

Our movers were “Girls on the Move,” an enterprising business found for us by our pastor’s wife Heather. A team of seven black-suited youth, four of them girls (with pink trim on their outfits) packed up our stuff and delivered it to our houses, where both families were glad to settle into our new Home Sweet Homes.

The furniture hadn’t arrived by dinner time, so we celebrated John’s birthday by ordering a “take-away” meal, and our friends joined us sitting on the floor or on lawn chairs our neighbors lent us.

The church that faith built

Take a look at the new building of our African home church, the Coastlands. Pastor Xavier has led the congregation in constructing it completely debt-free.

Businesses, individuals and churches made significant contributions, including our U.S. home church, Grace North in Anthem, Arizona. One local business donated the carpet, another fencing materials; a church member sewed curtains, another provided kitchen counter tops...and so it went up to today, when all is nearly complete. I call it "the church that faith built," because we've watched it grow from parcel of land to nearly finished place of worship.

We've also seen a pastor believe God for what he knows God wants to do in this community, which Pastor X says means a lot of faith-stretching.

Living in South Africa

What does the situation in South Africa mean for us? First, let’s talk about the challenges.

Attacks against foreigners from other African countries have continued since last May, with 10 migrants killed in November in Cape Town alone. Although we are not threatened by this violence, several members of our congregation in Tableview (our suburb of Cape Town) have immigrated from other African countries. They and other members who live in the townships have seen this violence first hand and have ministered in its aftermath.

South Africa also suffers from one of the world’s worst crime rates, with high incidences of murder, rape, robbery and carjacking. Some citizens of Cape Town move to gated communities or install electrified wire around their block walls. And yet, this year record numbers of tourists came to South Africa from Europe and the rest of the world, and we personally have seen or experienced no crime.

Often when John or I talk to people we meet around Tableview, they express fears that the country is deteriorating. They wonder if South Africa is following the “Zimbabwean path.” Will South Africa be able to maintain a successful democracy on a continent where the will of the people is rarely respected?

In all this, Pastor Xavier and Heather, our pastors at Coastlands Community Church, remain optimistic and forward looking. He has convinced us that no matter what happens the church will thrive, that families will need ministry and that people will respond to the Lord. We admire the dedication of our pastors to the people of Tableview, whether in the hospitals, school system, community, or the church.

South Africa’s turn leftward

Upon majority rule in 1994, South Africa instituted many reforms, including prohibiting discrimination, outlawing the death penalty, and establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which I wrote about in my last post. These conciliatory measures smoothed the transition to majority rule. The situation today, however, appears ambiguous, with some South Africans questioning where the country is heading. Why is this?

Although Nelson Mandela began by leading the continent in peacemaking, in recent years subsequent leaders have turned decidedly leftward. At the United Nations, South Africa now routinely sides with China, Russia and other repressive regimes in blocking resolutions on human rights and supporting dictators such as Qaddafi, Castro and Mugabe. As well, South Africans are concerned about corruption charges against the man who may become the next president of the country.

Under majority rule, South Africans now appear to identify more with other African nations and less with the more prosperous West. A recent Economist article locates the problem in “South Africa’s ambivalent sense of identity, with one foot in the rich world, where its main economic interests continue to lie, and the other in the poor one, with which many of its people identify.” Its leaders seem to be reasoning that the world’s rich nations must decline in order for the poor nations to play a bigger part in ruling the world.

Next: What does this mean for the South African church and for missionaries living there?

Dealing with the uneasy past of our new home

In 1994, South Africa officially dismantled Apartheid (meaning “apartness”), shedding its racist past and granting political rights to all its citizens. This result was not achieved, however, without decades of violence and protest.

Attempting to deal with the horrors of the Apartheid era, leaders of South Africa established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Its purpose was to uncover human rights crimes, to provide reparations for victims, and to allow victimizers to earn amnesty. This process helped those who had suffered to be recognized and the guilty to find forgiveness.

During the years of the Commission’s work, which took place in Cape Town, 22,000 people testified of crimes against them or their families and 8,000 people were granted amnesty. As a result of this public purging, South Africans have been granted a measure of peace with their past and hope for living together as a “rainbow nation” of many races.

Healing Mass

Saturday night John spoke at a Healing Mass at Jubilee Christian Fellowship in Johannesburg. This is a service to reach out to the sick by means of traditional forms, including a dynamic choir, communion, a sermon on Jesus' power to heal, and prayer for the sick.

John preached from Mark about the man whose son was possessed by an evil spirit until he came to Jesus. Here's how the text explains what the father asked and how Jesus responded:

"...if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us."
"'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."
Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"