A Sad Day...

Well…It looks like Anne and I have just developed a new aspect of our ministry—community development if you will.  Our special emphasis is on technology acquisition, and we began a rigorous training program at 4:00 am this morning.  We’re starting small… at the moment we have each “donated” one laptop to the interesting fellow who broke through our security gate.  If our young “student” returns again tonight, my next donation will probably include pepper spray.  We are such giving people…

All humor aside, today was very discouraging.  Early this morning somebody broke into our apartment (It appears whoever installed our security gate fifteen years ago had never encountered a Phillips screwdriver!  I am angry with myself for never checking the frame in detail, but I never could have imagined that the entire door relied on two tiny, exposed screws!) You have all shared some amazing times with us here on our South African adventure, so we felt it would not be honest to keep the difficult times only to ourselves.  It is very discouraging to think that if any number of little things had gone differently, we would not have lost $3,000 worth of electronics.  There was a brief pursuit, and I guess I yelled enough that the intruder dropped a number of smaller items as he fled.  Then I realized I was buck naked, and was forced to admit defeat!  In retrospect, I wish I had gone for it…  people would have been talking about the white lighting all over Wellington for years.  Plus, my indecent exposure charge would allow me to take my prison ministry to the next level!

Most of our data was backed up, but we have both lost a significant amount of work.  Most awkward is the sense of violation knowing that all of our personal information is now floating around somewhere.  Please pray that we would be able to rebound quickly.  There are a number of crucial ministry initiatives that we are fundraising for at the moment, so it feels particularly daunting to watch our efforts sliding in the wrong direction. 

At the same time, we are genuinely thankful that the two of us escaped the situation unharmed.  After eleven years of working in prison, I have heard quite enough stories about violent home invasion.  It is a great blessing that the intruder was not interested in a direct confrontation (However, you can insert a joke here about white lightning!).  We believe God has protected us throughout this incident, and he will guide us in the way forward.  Thank you for your prayers and friendship in the victories and the challenges. 

Love Andrew and Anne

Hillsong Worship Concert: Pollsmoor Prison!

There are hundreds of forgotten inmates at Pollsmoor prison.  They receive no visits.  They are often the victims of post-traumatic stress disorder.  Their churches and communities do not understand them.  Their marriages and families suffer because of their time behind bars...  I'm talking about correctional officers!

(picture: a correctional officers choir at Allendale
sings for an Easter service)

There are 7,000 prisoners at Pollsmoor and hundreds of men and women officers who are "serving a sentence" right alongside them.  They face an intensely difficult job and they receive little training and support.  They also represent an incredible untapped potential!  As the gatekeepers, they set the tone for the entire prison, and when even a handful of officers view their work as a missionary calling, lives will be saved. 

We have coordinated two Hillsong worship concerts behind bars since 2010, and the officers have been asking for our help.  On Thursday 25 October we have a chance to bring light into a forgotten world.  Many officers are trapped in a vicious cycle where they take out the stress and trauma of their job on their families, the prisoners and each other.  We need grace and freedom, and you have a chance to be a 

part of it!

Pray for this even, or contact us if you want to join one of the prayer teams!

To the ends of the earth

Note from Anne: Andrew wrote this late Sunday night and asked me to post it Monday morning after dropping him at the airport, but I have had internet problems since then! He arrives back in Cape Town tomorrow evening, but you can still pray for the team as they travel, as they return home having been grown and stretched in new ways, and for the people they were able to reach that God will water and grow the seeds that have been planted.

I guess I am bad at sightseeing…

I think when you travel to a new country you are supposed to tour historic monuments and sample local cuisine. Call it God’s sense of humor, but when I visit a new country I continually find myself ministering in the local prisons.

Last year it was prisons in Botswana and Zimbabwe, and now this year it is Lesotho. Hillsong Church is sending a team into “the Mountain Kingdom” and they asked me to coordinate a prison visit. Needless to say that the only thing cooler than prison ministry is getting to the prison via a 4X4 truck on mountain roads!

(the Sani Pass -- 4x4 vehicles only! -- connecting

South Africa with the most remote region of Lesotho)

On a serious note, it is always a little humbling (or maybe even frightening) in leading an outreach to a new prison. I do not believe that safety will be an issue, but there are a thousand logistical challenges in arranging security clearance that are beyond my control. Add in the unique challenges of Lesotho’s geography and things are getting interesting! (it has the highest low-point of any country in the world, and some of the villages where we will minister can only be accessed by foot or by pony!)

I have made several connections with local volunteers who are working in the prisons, and I am exploring the possibility of future partnerships. Lesotho is an amazing country, and I look forward to what I will discover about their prisons and about myself. I will be leaving cell phones and email behind, so I am hoping that it will be a time of reflection and growth.

Thank you for being a partner on this adventure!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! The last two months have been a whirlwind, but we have loved seeing so many friends and family after a long absence. Please pray for us as we have a family wedding tomorrow and then make final preparations to return to South Africa next week!

Park Street Church in Boston produces an Advent devotional each year, and we both wrote for it this year. Even though Advent and Christmas have passed, we wanted to share them with you. Here is Andrew's piece on Gabriel's proclamation to Mary.

"Can we have your guitar?"

We made it! It was a very intense time, both physically (13 events in four days, plus 10+ hour travel in between) and in terms of ministry. Here is a post Andrew wrote for the official tour blog, which you can find at www.hillsong.co.za/about/africa-tour-blog. Feel free to check out some of the other stories there!

Over the course of the Hillsong Africa Worship Tour we had the privilege of visiting five different prisons. Whenever we finished our visit to a prison, this was inevitably the last question we would be asked. This is not significant in itself— prisoners often ask for gifts and favours, and it wasa beautiful guitar. What made the question striking was everything the prisoners were not asking.

Many of the prisons we visited did not provide beds or uniforms for their inmates. Some did not even have safe access to water. One facility was built in 1897, and it did not look like much had changed since then. I will always remember the menu taped to the main gate of one prison. If your family was willing to pay, you could get some actual food added to the small dish of maize-meal. Malnutrition and disease are commonplace, and downright starvation was a continuous lurking possibility. Why ask for a guitar?

(Afternoon Worship Festival in Livingstone, Zambia)

The inmates are intelligent enough to realize they would have more chance of getting some food or money from their visitors than their only musical instrument, but they didn’t care. In a bizarre way they were responding to a hunger that transcended even the most basic human needs. These prisoners did not have food, shelter or even physical safety, and yet all they asked for was music. As one old prisoner said to me, “music is the language of the soul.” Maybe they were so tired of scraping together an existence like animals, that they were desperate for a reminder that there was something more to life than mere survival.

If a prisoner is willing to overlook even basic necessities to nourish his soul, maybe I need to be assessing whether all the luxuries and entertainment in my life are worth the distraction...

(The crowd in Livingstone -- several thousand strong)

Prison Ministry and Missions

Everything comes full circle!

The Andrew Murray Centre began in the late '80s as a missions training program. Everything took a dramatic turn when the leadership decided to bring this training into an unlikely setting—prison. However, prison ministry was always a means to an end. The inmates we served were already leaders… it was just a question of whether they would be leaders for the church or leaders for the gang. Behind the scars and the tattoos, we saw a new generation of missionaries who could reach into dangerous subcultures where American missionaries would have no voice.

Now our mission’s heritage is combined with the prison ministry as never before. Anne and I need to be at the airport at 4:30 tomorrow morning to leave for a nine day tour of Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. The trip is organized by Hillsong Church, and they will be performing huge worship concerts in four major cities.

The Andrew Murray Centre has been asked to coordinate a series of prison visits in each of these countries. We used to do missions trips before starting local work in prisons… now this same prison ministry is taking us international again!

Here is a rough itinerary:

- Livingstone, Zambia – Saturday October 8^th

- Francistown, Botswana – Tuesday October 11^th

-Bulawayo, Zimbabwe – Wednesday October 12^th

- Harare, Zimbabwe – Friday October 14^th

A special prayer request is the prison in Livingstone. Through an administrative mistake I was unable to obtain security clearance for the team. Short of a miracle, we will not be going in there.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this journey is that I am carrying fifteen letters from South African prisoners. They are praying for this mission, and they wanted to encourage their brothers behind bars. I will share some of these letters with you in the coming weeks.

Thank you for praying with us!

Restorative Justice: How can this make sense...

This happened weeks ago, and I am still struggling to make sense of it. I asked for your prayers concerning a Restorative Justice program, and it is clear that you responded because it was one of the most intense weeks of my life.

I was a little disappointed at the beginning of the week, because most of the inmates who were attending the course were already believers. Sometimes "christian" inmates will be more excited about parading their knowledge of the Bible than about actually taking responsibility for what they have done. Heck... I guess it's kind of like church sometimes! I have heard men calmly walk away from shocking crimes because "God has forgiven me"

I could not have been more wrong. Usually the inmates I work with are incredibly guarded--almost paranoid--but these men let down their defenses and really took the discussion seriously. Restorative Justice challenges the men to understand the impact that their actions have had upon their families and communities, and these guys got it.

The highlight of the course was when one young man came up to me after a discussion: "Andrew... I feel sick. I feel like I could vomit in my spirit." He went on to explain that he was going to be released from prison in a matter of months. Unlike many of the men I serve, his family was actually looking forward to his return. He also had a young daughter that he could not stop talking about throughout the course.

His problem, was that he now believed he could not do it. In our conversation, he confessed to a murder he had committed on the outside that nobody had even charged him of. After sitting on our program, he realized that this woman's family was still hurting for the crime he had committed years ago, and they deserved answers that only he could give. He had to take responsibility, even if it meant an additional sentence.

I was shocked. Honestly I had to warn him to be careful what he shared with me, because once he started down this road it could have very serious consequences. This young man explained that he could never be an effective father to his daughter if he kept this secret.

I have never seen anything like it... It was living proof of the passage in Matthew 10 where Jesus states "those who lose their life for my sake will find it." It is a sacrifice that can only make sense under grace. This man understood that the most dangerous prisons are not built of concrete and razor wire, and he needed speak the truth before he could ever be free.

I don't know what you guys were praying for, but God was present in that prison hall in a way I have not experienced before. It was humbling to be a part of such intense healing.

I will soon be meeting with the Inspecting Judge of the Department of Correctional Services, and I would appreciate your prayers again as we take this case forward. This young prisoner has already ministered to me, and I will consider it an honor to walk with him as he takes responsibility for the past and claims whatever future God has in store.

Call for prayer

This will be an intense week…

Monday June 13^th begins our Restorative Justice program in Drakenstein Correctional Centre. We are going to be working with twenty-four juvenile (late teens, early twenties) prisoners. The goal of the program is to challenge these young men to take responsibility for what they have done, and begin the long journey of healing the shattered relationships in their lives. We will spend all day together for the next five days, and then everything comes to a head on Saturday when we bring their families into the prison.

(Andrew teaching a previous Restorative Justice class)

I have a dynamic team of twelve facilitators who will be supporting this project. While I will be doing much of the teaching, they have the more important job of running the small-group discussions at the tables. We are a diverse crew… American, Afrikaans, Scottish, Xhosa and even a German! We come from all different backgrounds ranging from Californian college students to South African ex-prisoners. Honestly, I feel God’s sense of humor in this! How is it that a random white American guy is supposed to reach into the lives of African prisoners? By any natural comparison, we come from different worlds that have nothing in common.

This is why you are so important! I do not want to fight my way through this week through my own charisma or intelligence (You can insert whatever joke you want here!). These young men have deeply alienated themselves from their families and from their society, and it will take a divine act to heal these relationships. Pray with us! I include a few prayer requests from my team so you get a sense for our hopes and fears.

-Pray this would not just be another program for the inmates. They need a heart transformation, not just a certificate!

-Pray for the inmates’ families – Saturday will be an intense experience for them, and we want them to be prepared spiritually and emotionally.

- Pray for concentration and focus for our students and volunteers. Prison is a very distracting place. It’s always noisy!

- Pray for clear communication with the authorities – prison is the ultimate bureaucracy.

-Pray for safety from ridicule and persecution for inmates once it is known that they have gone through this process. It’s difficult to leave the gangs, or even show evidence of a changed life.

-Pray for teachable spirits for both the facilitators and the inmates.

- Pray for unity among our team. This is often an area where we experience spiritual attack during significant times like this.

- Pray for smooth execution of all the logistics – venues, food, transportation, communication with families, etc.

- Pray that God’s justice would transcend cultural differences.

Thank you for your support! As the week progresses we will give you more information, but at the moment we go forward with confidence that can only come from an understanding of 1 John 5:5

“Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”

An Easter reflection...from prison

I do not think I understood what Easter meant until I started working in prison. I was a nineteen-year-old kid when I began volunteering with the chaplain of a medium security prison in Massachusetts. As a naïve white teenager from a middle-class family, I was thrust into a world that I did not understand. I will always remember the day I was responsible for counseling sessions while the chaplain was away.

The prisoner who walked into the office invoked all of my Hollywood stereotypes. A huge black man with shaved head stood glaring at me. He was facing a long sentence and a restraining order that would keep him away from his children even after release. What could this puny white kid in a cheap tie know about his life and problems? It turns out the man was Muslim, so I did not even share the same faith. I shared literally nothing in common with this man, and yet he was looking to me for help. I needed the hope of Easter.

The absurdity of my cross-cultural ministry in prisons has made one thing clear: I think we need Easter because we do not really understand Christmas. The message of the holiday seems simple enough: God is born into our world. There are even songs that proclaim Emmanuel—God with us. However, we just do not want to believe it. How can the Lord of the Universe really understand what we are going through? Our lives are messy. If we are honest, we do not even want Him to get close. Rather keep Jesus far away in our post-card conception of Bethlehem. We confine the Savior of the World to a manger, and tie him down with “swaddling clothes” (Whatever those are!). “Emmanuel” may adorn our Christmas cards in fancy letters, but we have forgotten what it means in our lives.

We have not accepted Christmas, so in His mercy God presents Easter to drive the message home a second time. The message is the same—a loving God trying to convince us that He truly has been born into our broken lives. However, the sacrifice on the cross can no longer be confined to a manger. Crucifixion is hardly the stuff of holiday postcards! A loving God has chosen extreme suffering to prove that He really can relate to human brokenness.

Strangely enough, this Easter suffering is the source of our hope and the answer to the bitter, discouraged prisoner sitting in front of me. I had to admit that I had nothing in common with him. Indeed, it would be arrogance for me to even speak encouragement into his life. However, we share a Jesus who understands. Whether it is betrayal by friends, the prejudice of a community, the punishment of a father or even violent trauma—Jesus has served the sentence. This prisoner may come from a different life and a different faith, but because of Easter we could have a conversation.

Ten years later in the prisons of South Africa, the conversation remains the same. For whatever reason, the Lord has called me to be the Director of a prison ministry. We serve nine different Correctional Centres in the Western Cape, and I am continually thrust into cross-cultural ministry that confounds my experience and capability. Good thing Jesus is already there.

Happy Easter!

Re-entry

Our bodies may not know which continent they are on, but we are at least physically located in the States!

We always wonder whether the “culture shock” of reentry will surprise us, but for the moment we are just enjoying all things American. Golden Grahams… Cranberry Sauce from the can… oh, AND FAMILY AND FRIENDS!

We can’t believe how much we have missed all you guys! Working in the bizarre world of South Africa’s prisons makes us forget just how much we love being home. As you can see, Andrew is reunited with his first love (the old Jeep Cherokee!), so we are willing to drive just about anywhere to see you guys!

Our email addresses remain the same, but we have a US cell number: 781-656-2081. Give us a call to set up coffee, or just say hi! We will be in the Boston area until just after New Year's.

SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL VERMONT FRIENDS! We are driving to Vermont late today (Monday the 29^th) and staying until next Monday. Get ready for us to invite ourselves over! hehehe

Andrew comes to terms with 'emotional energy'

Being separated from friends and family by an ocean has taught me a few things about communication!

When we left the States we really were not expecting to be here very long… I had a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, and aside from a free master’s degree and some volunteer work the plan was just to enjoy South Africa for a year, then go home. It was only going to be a short trip, so I never made a deliberate plan on how I was going to stay in touch. Since now I am well into my third year in South Africa, this hurt my communication with many dear friends and family.

My communication was doubly hurt, because I did not realize the emotional energy that is required for a real connection (insert joke here about being a stereotypical male!). After an intense day in prison—which is probably the most cross-cultural experience imaginable!—the last thing I had energy for was more communication!

Within the past six months I have come to terms with the fact that prison ministry is a spiritual battlefield, and it would be arrogant for me to step into a prison without your prayers for my protection. Our commitment is to keep updating you regularly, but we will probably be apologizing to you again! Blogs are a flawed medium, and sometimes we are in the middle of something too raw to be processed in such an open manner. Our stories are tied up with other people, but we can only share our own. At the end of the day, maybe this blog is just about holding me accountable! If I am going to challenge gangsters to speak openly about their lives—even when it is messy—I owe it to them to hold myself to the same standard.

(P.S. from Anne: over the next few weeks we will be highlighting some of the ways you can be involved in our ministry, including joining a team that will commit to praying for us regularly. For a sneak preview, click here.)

"Strange Company"

What could a man from the Congo, an Afrikaaner, a couple from Australia, a Xhosa, a German, a couple from America and a man from Switzerland all have in common?

Just another Thursday afternoon in prison ministry!

The Andrew Murray Centre is called to be a bridge between the churches and the prisons, and that mission brings a strange crew of people together in a single purpose. We are a non-denominational Christian ministry with a leadership team that draws from the full spectrum of South Africa’s racial diversity. Despite coming from radically different backgrounds, we are united in our mission:

“Raising up a new generation of Christian leaders from South Africa’s prisons—a discipleship journey that will return the churches to those they have forgotten and rejoin the prisoners with those they have harmed.

It is strange, but prison ministry is remarkably similar across social and racial barriers. On the surface a Latino gangster from Southern California would have literally nothing in common with a Xhosa ganster from Mbekweni. Unfortunately prison acts like a sociological meat-grinder! No matter where these men come from they are subjected to a similar range of isolation, bitterness, prejudice, racism and violent trauma. It is impossible to predict all the factors that will bring someone to prison, but it is easy to predict the challenges they will face as they try to make it out of the system. It’s bittersweet, but this is one of the reasons I have been successful in ministry here—even as a foreigner. My work in South Africa is very similar to prison ministry that I began doing in the States back in 2001.

The challenges we face in prison ministry cut across cultural lines, and our ministry team also defies cultural expectations. However, there is something even more important that ties everything together. The God we serve has the same loving character -- whether it is a "C-Max" in Johannesburg or death row in Texas.

We're Back!

(This is a long one, but hey… it’s been two years!)

This blog has purpose now! When Anne and I came to South Africa, we were excited for a break. We were leaving stressful jobs to pursue interesting graduate studies on a Rotary scholarship, explore South Africa and do prison rehabilitation work on the side for fun (maybe that makes us strange… heh). This blog began with a string of hiking vacations and interesting cultural anecdotes. There was never a sense of urgency other than my mother demanding new pictures!

We couldn’t help ourselves! There is too much potential in South Africa to go through as a tourist or even just as a student. Without always making a conscious decision, we gravitated more and more into our volunteer work. Maybe it’s the confessions of an adrenalin junkie—prison ministry is even more exciting than surfing! I like to think we found our purpose.

As our days shifted from Table Mountain to Pollsmoor prison, this blog stopped working. How do you turn the intensity of a counseling session in a maximum-security prison into a clever anecdote? Especially with no pictures! (it seems the gold standard of a blog is pictures… if it’s not pretty, who wants to read it!). It was challenging enough to work in this context, let alone write about it.

Basically we did the missionary thing backwards! I always thought missions involved raising support, building a team and then staging a big farewell sendoff… whoops! Suddenly we found ourselves volunteering in intense cross-cultural ministry and development work, but with very little support.

Now blogging has a purpose again! We cannot do what we are doing—what God has called us to do—without your support. This isn’t “christian-ese” for “give us your money!” If we think about our lives here in South Africa, we have been able to participate in some incredible, life-changing events. We have experienced more success than two random Americans dropped into the middle of the South African prison system could ever hope for.

If I reflect honestly on what we have accomplished, everything could just have easily ended in disaster. We have experience, advanced degrees and a team of volunteers behind us. Not to be melodramatic, but that doesn’t mean much against a homemade knife! South Africa continually receives bad press for its crime problems, and yet we have always had perfect safety even in the midst of some pretty scary places. Prayer works! There has been a small team of people from around the country who have continually been praying for us, even when they had no idea where we were. It would be arrogant for us to continue in our work here without building on this foundation of prayer. This rejuvenated blog will form the backbone of our prayer network, and we would be honored if you would join us.

A Guitar

The boys I meet in B5 take pleasure in simple things.

I'm not talking about life coach philosophy here. They are not “downsizing” their lives – rather, the things I would consider “simple” and beneath my enjoyment are often luxuries for them.

Consider this example. One of the most surprising things about working in B5 has been watching the boys color. Yes, color, as in using crayons or markers to fill in picture sheets with Bible verses on them. The kind of activity you would normally use with kids no older than 7. Don't get me wrong and think that this is a reflection on their mental capabilities. These boys are smart despite the fact that many have had little or no formal education. The key word here is opportunities. Coloring sheets might not seem like much of a creative outlet to most people, but in an environment so devoid of creativity in every area we take for granted (décor, clothing, food, hobbies, even time management), any opportunity is a good one.

This tendency plays out in another area of my involvement in B5: music. When I was making plans to come to Cape Town, I realized right away that I could not bring any of my instruments without paying a small fortune in either extra baggage fees or shipping, and another small fortune in insurance against potential damages for either of those two options! I decided to wait until I arrived and see if I could borrow or rent an instrument instead. I have managed to get a violin so far that should serve me well, and just today a fellow prison volunteer brought in a guitar I can use.

I don't think this guitar will “serve me well”. For starters, it's missing a string! That can be remedied, of course, but what can't change is that it's a classical guitar -- very different from what I normally play (wider and thicker neck, nylon strings, etc.). It's something for now, but I'm definitely going to look for something else.

The boys love it, though. To them, it just makes music – something they don't experience very often. I can also let them hold it and play it without worrying about damage! Having someone care enough to bring an instrument into prison and play for them means so much, whether it has the proper number of strings or not. If I find a better guitar in the coming weeks, will they even notice the difference?

Anniversary Part One

Today we celebrated one year of marriage!

But wait, some of you will say.  Haven't you been married three years?  Right you are.  But after some discussion of how to mark the day, we decided to have a little more fun than usual.  Instead of just doing one special event, why not have one activity or gift for each year we're celebrating?  This could get increasingly difficult and expensive as the years progress, so some gifts will be very small, but we like the idea of continuing the celebration beyond the actual anniversary day.

Today's event was a small one – walking to a nearby restaurant for breakfast.  We saw some beautiful flowers along the way (can you believe these grow wild here?), and a less beautiful but equally compelling pile of discarded, melted rubber tubes (Andrew loves taking pictures of strange textures). 

The meal was good.  The “Shrek Juice” (vegetable smoothie) was not, but it had to be attempted.

Table Mountain

We have settled into a nice routine of hiking once a week here, and we are loving it.  We have both moderately enjoyed hiking in the past but never pursued it regularly enough to get into good shape with it.  Now that one of the most beautiful mountains in the world is in our backyard and we have pretty relaxed schedules, there's no excuse!

Our first trip up Table Mountain was with Trevor, the Rotary coordinator for Ambassadorial Scholarships.  He was an excellent guide, taking us up some rock pitches off the normal trail that gave the hike a bit more challenge.  We felt proud when we came across this sign pointing down the trail we had just climbed!

 

Enjoy the views...

Made in Vertmont

We are going through serious withdrawal from an addiction. 

 

The first stage was denial.  We avoided certain recipes and experimented with local cuisine.  The second stage was temptation.  We would wander the foreign grocery stores in search of our drug of choice.  We even stooped so low as to finger cheap forgeries, before finally turning away in disgust.  Of course I am talking about Maple Syrup.  Not syrup... or Golden syrup as it is called here, but pure, beautiful, flavorful, MAPLE syrup.  That sweet nectar of Vermont... 

 

When the pain became to great to bear, we took up weapons and money and set out into the wilds of Africa like a junkie in search of a fix.  This was the sad result:

I think the concept of “Vertmont” could be useful for my friends in the frozen northeast.  Kind of an alternative state of reality which bears a rough resemblance to the State they know and love, but is at the same time horribly wrong!

 

In this case, “Vertmont” maple syrup was as disappointing as could possibly be expected.  Canada is clearly shipping their “sloppy seconds” to parts of the world that don't know better.  The stuff was bland—extremely bland.  Then, it was watery and thin.  All in all, it was closer to mildly sweet, brown water than the delectable syrup that true Vermonters (and their transplanted cousins) know and love.  All this was even more frustrating because it was just close enough to the real thing that we remembered what we were missing. 

 

All in all our addiction remains unsatisfied.  When detox hits me in a couple of days, look for me in the forest gnawing on random trees that look like maples!

A Men's Retreat?

It's kind of exciting to start attending a brand new church and not know anybody.  It is the same adrenalin of starting at a new school, but with none of the insecurities and zits of being young.  Anne and I have been attending two churches, but we haven't necessarily made a strong connection yet.  We were so blessed in Vermont with a church that was really more of a family, that we have been missing those relationships. 

 (<---A Prayer Hut)

The problem is that I have been spoiled by a small church!  In Memorial Baptist, at least half of the families had been involved in the church for generations, so when a new “Flatlander” showed up (it is just as impossible for me to be considered a true “Vermonter” as a South African!) everybody noticed you and went out of their way to make you feel literally at home.  We love our new churches in Cape Town, but there are no sweet old couples bribing me with home-made cookies! 

It is easy to think about church with a false consumer mentality.  I know there have been times when I have wandered between churches like some kind of a shopping mall, and I don't want to wind up there again.  As a result, we have stopped waiting for someone to notice us and started getting involved!  Anne will have a few stories along these lines herself, but for me a big turning point was the Men's Retreat. 

 

Now when I signed up, I thought I had a fair idea of what I was in for.  In college, the Christian Fellowship would sponsor a men's retreat that involved driving my 4X4 Jeep through a stream to a tiny cabin with no running water or electricity.  There was much grunting, BBQ, and even a few naked runs down into the freezing pond.  All for Jesus...?  Seriously though, these retreats served as an excellent escape for a group of young bucks who felt dually confined by a pretentious academic postmodernism and a social life that revolved around drinking and cheap sex.  There had to be something more to fellowship in college, so we made it ourselves. 

 

It turns out that I had no idea what I was in for.  These South African guys know how to hold a retreat in style!  For starters, about sixty men took over an incredible farm in the middle of a perfect countryside.  This was no log cabin! 

There was still the necessary outdoor component (I have included some pictures from our hiking) and I was even dragged into a rugby game that definitely fulfilled the quota for grunting.  However, this was some group of civilized dudes.  I think the food is where I started to notice a difference.  An old Swiss guy had been selected as the kitchen-czar, and he ruled over the menu with an iron fist.  Speaking as the grill-master of my old college retreats, I was put to shame!  This guy not only produced genuine gourmet fare, he mobilized a clumsy group of investment bankers, teachers, and lawyers who had probably not cooked anything that didn't involve a microwave for the past decade.  By the end of the weekend, they were begging him to keep their involvement a secret, or their wives would suddenly have great expectations around the house!

 

Sure, there was quality teaching that was both intellectually stimulating and emotionally challenging, but the napkins folded into three dimensional shapes really took me by surprise!!

 

To be serious, I must say that I will never again allow my life to be too busy that I cannot spend some time alone outdoors.  Once a day we trekked with our journals up into the hills for a time of reflection and prayer.  I brought my camera on a few of these outings, and here are some of the pictures.  My prayers may be private, but it all just seemed so natural in a place of such beauty.  

Joseph in Prison

The Bible is a book with unique cultural relevance.  As I step into the bizarre world of a South African prison, I realize that the inmates I am going to visit have more in common with the harsh realities of the Old Testament than my middle-class white America.

 

Today was my second time going into the B5 Youth Centre at Pollsmoor while Andrew attended follow-up sessions for the Restorative Justice course in the men's prison.  The program I have been working with is a Bible study/life skills class taught by a fellow volunteer named Hillary.  Hillary's husband was involved in the Restorative Justice course that Andrew joined a few weeks ago, and we have become close friends. 

 

Stories are the best teacher, which is why the “life skills” component flows so naturally from the Bible stories.  Andrew would call it "Narrative Curriculum," but for anybody who has ever tried to entertain twenty teenage boys, it's just plain survival!  What would be the point of studying the Bible for these boys if it didn't have a practical connection to their lives?  To make the connection even closer, Hillary has started a series on people in the Bible who were in prison.  First up is Joseph.

 

As you can no doubt imagine (and probably some of you know firsthand!), there are plenty of challenges associated with leading a Bible class of 20-25 teenage boys who do not share your native language.  Added to that, there is very little consistency in attendance from week to week – the class is voluntary, of course, but even more important, the boys are awaiting trial.  That means that although some are in B5 for very long periods of time, others could be gone the next day.  Every week Hillary introduces herself at the beginning of the class, and if there is a multi-part story, the whole thing must be retold from the beginning.

 

Fortunately, there could hardly be a better topic than Joseph.  The story is real to these boys in ways that it never has been for me.  For instance, I never considered the culpability of Jacob before.  The boys in my discussion group understood the consequences of jealousy among brothers, and they were adamant that fathers should not show favoritism.  They have seen those situations end in bloodshed.  They have a cultural background that connects with the Bible better than anything I have experienced.  The harshness of the world many of them have lived in comes to the fore when we discussed the role of Reuben in trying to save Joseph from the other brothers.  When asked if they had ever tried to help someone and failed, one boy told of seeing his friend stabbed and going to help but having him die in his arms. 

I don't feel like the teacher here.  I may have been involved in bringing an interesting story into the drudgery of prison life, but in many ways Joseph was already here.  Maybe part of what makes the Bible so valuable is that in its pages we find parallels to all the moral complexity and pain of our own lives.  For a group of young men who literally feel "trapped" by their own experiences, this is a gift that I have had the privilege to share.