This is a trip update from an AIM student serving in JBay right now on a 3 month trip. We thought it was profound and resonated truth about the culture, and wanted to share it with you.
Jeffrey’s bay, South Africa: Yesterday, I played with the children at Ithemba. It is a place of hope in the middle of an economic catastrophe. Children from the slums and squatter camps come to Ithemba to be loved on. Some of them don’t have parents. Some of them do. Many of them have AIDS. Many have tuberculosis. Many have been physically or sexually abused. They speak Xhosa and Afrikaans. I speak English. They all need someone to care.
There was one girl that stands out that shattered my whole world. Her name was Sema. She had an angelic face and a beautiful smile. She wanted to be held. So I picked her up and held her. She clung to me like I was her last chance of survival. I held her for a long time and she didn’t let go, and I couldn’t. She sat up in my lap and I would tickle her and she would laugh and giggle. She put her tiny dark skinned hand into my giant light skinned hand and we both saw that we were the same-we were people, in the same human race, none any better or worse, both wonderful creatures of God. I taught her how to count to five in English by counting the fingers on my hand and she counting hers in imitation. She played with my beard and ran her little hands through my blonde hair in amazement. She felt the hair on my arms in disbelief. I was so strange to her, but she loved me because I gave her my time and attention-something she wasn’t used to.
The results of apartheid are economically and socially obvious in this place. The dichotomy of the rich white surfers that make up 1/3 of the population and the impoverished black and coloured people of the townships that make up 2/3 of the population yet live off of less than half the land is astounding. This class separation is not based on economic usefulness but on skin color, and it forced this little girl to grow up without hope.
My team in J-Bay is not here to fix the world, but to bring hope to the lives of all those who have forgotten that there is such a thing. The children here are in desperate need of our love. Pray that we find the strength to love on them the way they need our love. Pray that Sema will one day teach other children how to count to five. And pray that the children of Africa see the hope that everything’s not lost. In God’s grace-Todd
