Life just keeps getting more and more interesting! I am writing this in the study of the house Louise and I are moving into. I actually have invented a new word - ‘moveding’ - to describe the situation of having ‘movED’, yet still being in the process of ‘movING’. We are very close to finished on the moving out side, but very far away from finished on the moving in side. We are taking this opportunity to sort and organize more or less everything, and that’s a lot of everything! One of the real blessings of this move is that it is so extremely short - literally across the street. Friends helped us the other day and it proved easier to just carry things over than try to load a vehicle, drive for 30 seconds, then unpack the vehicle. We are experiencing the rather normal phenomenon of wondering WHERE all this stuff was hidden in the flat we are moving from (“there’s NO way all this fit in there!”), but at least we don’t have to worry about finding enough room here. We are in something of a hurry to finish moving in, so that we can start various meetings (men’s, women’s, worship and dance practice, etc.) in the house.
Dancing is proving to be a WONDERFUL addition to Philadelphia worship services. Louise has quite a bit of experience with Davidic dance, and also worked for a year as a professional dance instructor. This means that she is well able to get people up on their feet, moving and very happy (see photo). People walk into the building with their bodies, but their minds and emotions are often far away. Among other things this is not good preparation of the ground for receiving the Word. After dancing to a few good songs, however, they are THERE! The wonderful thing is that nearly EVERYONE who is physically able to do so participates, including children as young as 4-5 and men as old as 70.
Another part of the move to our house that is proving to be a big part of our lives is that it is not just a house, but a community. On the backside of the garage there are two room, one of which is ours (for laundry and such). A black couple in their late 50’s lives in the other room - Able and Miriam. Able works for the veterinarian (Stephan), who’s offices and animal hospital occupy part of the property that includes our house. Miriam works for several people in the area, but one of her employers is moving away, leaving her with two days of unemployment. We will probably offer to take her for those two day, since she needs the income and we will be quite blessed with help in keeping this new place clean (and with ironing). Her pay rate, by the way, is just over $10/day. Able has been struggling with MASSIVE fluctuations of blood pressure, one of which was nearly fatal about two weeks ago. Stephan (originally from Germany) has taken responsibility for him, and has arranged for a local pharmacy to take his blood pressure twice every day. He had a spike two days ago, but yesterday was much better.
Last week Louise and I met with a senior captain in the Pretoria police. She works in social services, which brings her into contact with the poor, homeless, victims of crime, etc. She is an amazing lady (white, Afrikaans speaking). She and her husband provide their home as a place of refuge for women and children, and are registered both for foster care and for adoption. After our meeting Louise and I went to see if a building that the police wanted to give to Louise four years ago for a shelter for the homeless was still standing. To our amazement it was, and it still belongs to the police. The fellow who watches over - and washes - the cars let us in, and Louise found that the buildings were actually in better shape than four years ago. The place is ideal - after a LOT of renovations - for a shelter for women and children in abusive households. There are many who need such shelters, so we are working on developing a plan to turn these buildings (which currently have walls and a roof, but virtually nothing else) into such a shelter. The stories of what happens without such a shelter are simply horrific, so the idea of dropping the project just doesn’t work. Many years ago Louise worked in such a community in Johannesburg and personally knew families with children who were raped EVERY DAY. It is not possible to turn one’s back on such horror.
On a (much) lighter note, we recently enjoyed our one day per year of watching sports on TV. The day was the 16th of this month, and the event is the ‘Comrades Marathon’. This is a ‘super-marathon’ of 87 kilometers, run in alternate directions every other year between two cities in South Africa. This year was the ‘up’ year, in which the race is run from a city by the sea to a city far above sea-level. The special quality of this race is captured in the word ‘comrades’, indicating that it is not so much a monument to competition as it is to camaraderie. People help each other across the finish line rather than hope that others collapse before the end (see photo). It is of course an extreme challenge to human endurance. This year the woman who finished #6 (a South African) collapsed about 15 metres before the finish line, and then crawled to the end (see photo) - after which she immediately received medical treatment for the rest of the day. One of the more famous character of the Comrades Marathon is a fellow (see photo), who passed away some years ago, who won the race several times while in his twenties. He then went off to the Army, eventually to fight in World War II, and returned to the race in his late thirties - winning several more times. He then retired for many years, but returned to the race at the age of 79, and again at 80. In the latter races he had two men who ran with him, holding his hands when necessary, to see that he finished with honor. He did, both times. In South Africa, in congregations all over the country, sermons are preached every year on ‘running the race’, or ‘preferring others over yourself’, on the occasion of the Comrades Marathon. It is not actually a bad example of the way believers are to behave.
Well, I need to get this off in the morning, so I need to stop writing now.
Love from Africa,
Lary and Louise
