In the Cape Without Internet

Sorry for the lapse in posting. Our really wonderful bed and breakfast in Simons Town does not have internet access, so I'm just quickly writing from an internet cafe before we get on a boat to Robben Island. As soon as we find a wi-fi hotspot, I'll post more about Table Mountain, impromptu protest participation in Cape Town, the District 6 Museum, Robben Island, etc., complete with pictures. It's incredibly beautiful here!! Can't wait to share more...

Signs of Pain and Hope

The cross outside Calvary Methodist Church

It’s been a very full couple of days here in Johannesburg. We’ve seen lots of the city from our rental van (still with a broken gas gauge and a rattling muffler), and we’ve been able to visits several sites where God is clearly working and several sites where remarkably evil deeds have taken place.

We started yesterday morning with a wonderful worship service at Calvary Methodist Church, between Jo’burg and Pretoria, where Alan Storey preached an inspired message about the call for all of us to be truth-tellers, an especially important task in a fragile new democracy with a history such as this. The church that Alan serves is remarkable in itself, as it’s a dynamic multi-cultural integrated congregation doing serious discipleship, reconciliation, and spiritual formation work. We were privileged to eat lunch with Alan to further discuss his work at Calvary.

Then we spent the afternoon at the Apartheid Museum, which was moving, indeed. Steven and I had known much of the historical detail presented at the museum thanks to Dr. Storey’s classes, but it was still very moving to see and hear accounts of the roots of apartheid, the horrors of its reign, and the sometimes-violent resistance against it. I was reminded of my visit in 2004 to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, and I wished the Apartheid Museum had the kind of outdoor art garden that was offered in Jerusalem to help visitors process so much emotion. We left with feelings of hope, despite the awful history on which we were dwelling, as the very existence and popularity of the museum means that its visitors will not forget their past.

Last night we had the wonderful privilege of visiting over dinner with Tom and Barbara Manthatha. Tom is a black South African who has worked for his entire life against systems of injustice, and was imprisoned on 16 different occasions as a result, including a stint on Robben Island. He also served on the reparations committee of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and now serves as a human rights commissioner in Johannesburg. Barbara served for many years with the South Africa Council of Churches – both of them had amazing stories to tell about the history of this struggle and the power of their faith in the midst of awful situations.

This morning we journeyed to Soweto, the township to which black South Africans were moved in the forced segregation of the early apartheid regime. Families were forced to share tiny poorly-built homes with no electricity or services, and their numbers grew rapidly. Today it is one of the largest cities in South Africa, with estimates at 4 to 6 million residents, and while still a very poor city, one with many signs of hope and renewal.


We started the morning at the Hector Pietersen Museum, memorializing the murder of many black schoolchildren during a peaceful march in 1976, an event which largely spearheaded the resistance movements which followed. After the museum and a nice “local” lunch at Wandi’s, we were able to visit with students in their first year of candidacy for ordination, stationed at various churches in the area. These students serve as pastors with no formal training, but they have classes and meetings two days per week at the Soweto Campus of John Wesley College. We really enjoyed meeting these students and learning about the joys and challenges of this first year of ministry, as well as the many differences between their experiences and the experiences of American seminary students.

With ministry students at John Wesley College's Soweto Campus

In the afternoon, we visited the Ikageng-Iteraleng Children’s Ministry in Soweto, where one woman has begun an NGO that now serves 2000 children who have lost (or are losing) parents and other family members to HIV/AIDS in and around Soweto. Some of these children, as young as 10 years old, are the heads of their households, taking care of younger siblings after losing both parents, including cooking, cleaning the house, and caring for siblings who may also have HIV/AIDS, while navigating the troubled waters of education and adolescence. The needs of these children and the ministry of this community are incredibly moving. The community refuses to label these children as orphans, so they remain in their own homes by themselves rather than going into a system of foster care or adopted families. The ministry is able to provide them with basic needs, such as school uniforms and monthly food parcels, as well as peer support groups and genuine love and care. This is a ministry which we will definitely take home with us – the plight of these children will be with us for a long time.

This evening we were able to spend significant time after dinner reflecting on our day as a group – it is a wonderful privilege to have other faithful Christians with which to process all we are seeing and experiencing here. Our experience is greatly enriched by these conversations!

We’re headed to bed early tonight so we will be ready to check out of our Johannesburg hotel in the morning. We’ll visit the Old Fort Prison and the new Constitutional Court before catching an afternoon flight to Cape Town. There is much more to come!

All Kinds of Monuments

We were awakened very early this morning by what I’m sure were some very beautiful safari-quality birds quarreling noisily on our balcony. It was a tough way to be reminded of the wonders of God’s creation (since we were trying to sleep), but a good way to start the day nonetheless. After a chilly breakfast on the terrace of the bush lodge, complete with some baboons climbing trees in our sightline, we took off in the van (now with a rattling muffler after our safari driving) toward Pretoria.

We had the great privilege this morning of visiting with two students from John Wesley College, one of the seminaries of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. The education/candidacy process toward ordination is very different from ours in the United States, and these two young men, in particular, were incredibly passionate and committed to the work of ministry. This small school seems to teach transformation without fancy buildings or loads of world-renowned professors: another witness to the work of the Holy Spirit. In many ways this place was a stark contrast to my own seminary experience, but the hospitality of the students made the space feel just as warm and welcome as the halls with which I have become so familiar over the last five years.

Dr. Storey converses with our hosts at John Wesley College

Later, we visited the union buildings, where the president and cabinet of South Africa have their offices in Pretoria/Tshwane (old name/new name). The buildings are gorgeous, and are positioned high on a hill so that one can see all of Pretoria/Tshwane from the steps. We stood very near to where Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as president, and imagined the elated crowds on the lawn below. We were sad to hear from Dr. Storey that the grounds are actually more heavily guarded now than they were during apartheid, simply because of the paranoia of the current administration. Thus, we were unable to get too close to the buildings themselves.

One of the spires of the capital building with the South African flag.

After a quick lunch in a little hole-in-the-wall bakery sort of place, we headed up to the Voortrekker Monument, built by the Afrikaans people who moved inland killing or displacing the native African tribes who were living there; believing that they were God’s chosen who were given the land, like the people of the biblical Exodus. The giant (ugly) monument is readily visible from all over the city, reminding everyone of the power of this racist history, chronicled in marble in offensive scenes all over the inside. As I looked at this monument, I was reminded of the danger of believing that you are part of a chosen people, or at least the danger of believing that as a chosen people you have certain rights over against the non-chosen. We have seen this demonstrated in brutal ways throughout history: when groups of people have killed ‘others’ in order to ‘rightly’ inherit the land or space or rights that God has supposedly granted. It makes me wonder if we Christians have any specific rights at all, other than the right to worship and serve the God of Jesus Christ and to cultivate the fruits of the spirit. It’s a tough question with which to wrestle, but one that we Americans especially need to confront: if the rights we feel God has granted us oppress others, they cannot come from God at all.

One of the Voortrekker leaders immortalized in stone (giant stone, I might add).

The giant Voortrekker monument through the outside gates.

Tomorrow we’ll attend worship at Alan Storey’s church between Johannesburg and Pretoria before spending the afternoon at the apartheid museum. I trust that it will be a powerful day in many ways.

Into the Wild

We're "on safari." Who ever thought we'd say that? It's really quite remarkable. We left Johannesburg yesterday morning (in our rental van with a broken gas gauge) to head toward "the bush." Our van has a GPS very similar to ours at home, which is very lucky, as Dr. Storey argues with "her" a lot, and Steven and I are often called on to see what she's talking about. :)

On our way out of town, we got some wonderful commentary from Dr. Storey, which gives us a little foretaste of what's to come when we begin visiting apartheid resistance sites tomorrow. We saw the downtown of this giant metropolis (about 5 or 6 million in Johannesburg), including several "informal settlements," with hundreds of homes made of unmatched pieces of tin leaned together; the headquarters of the old secret police, where many resisters "accidentally fell" from the 6th floor; middle-class normal-looking homes surrounded by very high walls, some with razor wire; and the site of Sophiatown and the Church of Christ the King, the first black neighborhood to be forcibly moved to another part of the country.

The safari has been wonderful. We're staying at a really lovely lodge just on the edge of Pilanesburg National Park, and we have taken several "game drives" into the park to find animals. We've seen amazing things which I previously thought were zoo-only animals! And all without fences or cages. We have seen several elephants, zebras, hippos, giraffes, rhinos, baboons, warthogs, wildebeasts, lions, impalas, several kinds of antelope, and birds galore. And searching for the animals is half the fun! We have also enjoyed relaxing a bit, catching up on our sleep (getting rid of jet lag) and getting to know our travel companions (who are wonderful!) as we've admired the detail and complexity of God's creation. We've been humbled by the ways these animals work together, within and outside of their own herds, and by the way the ecosystem works as long as everyone does their part. If only we humans could take some cues from these brilliant creatures, perhaps all of us could have "enough"!!

Tomorrow we're headed to Pretoria and then on to Johannesburg, where we'll see lots of important reminders of this country's troubled past and present struggles. There is much more to come...

This may be my favorite photo of the trip so far! This little giraffe family paused at just the right moment for me to take their portrait.

A small elephant pausing for a snack. There was a baby traveling with this little group, and I waited very patiently to take its picture, but its mom insisted on standing between the baby and our jeep. Ah, well - such is life! Did you know that elephants can eat for 20 hours per day, and sleep an hour or less?

Here's a young zebra with its herd. They recognize each other by their stripe patterns, but I certainly can't tell the difference.

The hippos spent much of the morning under water, and most of the afternoon lying near the shore. This young (yes, he's smaller than the others!) guy seems to want the others to get up and play!

A rhino family portrait at the watering hole.

Our group with our dusty safari fan.

Above: One of the ugliest animals: the warthog.

Below: The King of the Jungle, and the beautiful twisted horns of the impala.

We Made It!

We have arrived!! Our flights went well, and actually passed more quickly than we had imagined. We left Seattle without incident and enjoyed watching movies on the 4.5-hour flight to Washington, DC (The Hoax and Shrek 3). We arrived a bit early to DC, and had no trouble finding some tasty sandwiches and our next departure gate. We met Bill and Elisabeth Stagg at the gate – they had been waiting there much of the day after their early morning flight from RDU.

Our flight from DC to Johannesburg left quite late, as the little shuttle-busses that taxi people from the terminal to the plane were quite slow, so we got settled into our seats (in the next-to-last row) and had plenty of time to get settled. We took off about an hour late but enjoyed a really comfortable flight (about 15 hours). We were fed well, enjoyed more movies, and Elizabeth even slept for several hours with her fancy new neck pillow.

We arrived in Johannesburg full of adrenaline/excitement and made it through customs and passport control with no trouble – as soon as we found our suitcase, we walked through the terminal doors and immediately saw Peter and Elizabeth Storey waiting to meet us. We found our hotel shuttle and got settled in at our very nice room before meeting for dinner with the whole group (Barbara and Joaquin were already at the hotel).

Tomorrow morning, we will head out to the game reserve, where we are told we’ll even get to see our friends Andy and Emily Oliver, who are at the tail-end of their own South Africa trip! We are really excited about that, even though we are not 'guaranteed' to see animals - any wildlife we see will be really thrilling. We’ll spend a few nights at Pilanesburg before we move on. We couldn’t be more excited!

Here’s a few photos from our plane window, coming into Johannesburg:

The view of the outskirts of Jo'burg from the plane. It is a GIGANTIC city.

If you look pretty hard, you can see the outline of downtown (from the airport) through the smoggy haze.

Now we're off to get some sleep so we can be wide awake for wildlife-watching tomorrow. Hopefully we will have another internet connection and some good luck with the animals so we can post more photos and adventures in the next few days!

Testing the Waters

So, I was just thinking that if I am planning on blogging from Africa, I should probably do a practice run or two to make sure I know what I'm doing!! So here's a little rundown of what we've been up to the past few weeks, complete with a few photos (assuming I know what I'm doing, of course). :)

One fun thing we did while Steven's parents were visiting was to take nieces Eden and Hailey to the Woodland Park Zoo. They have some really great exhibits, and a neat opportunity to feed 18-month-old giraffes! These guys were AMAZING with their giant blue tongues. I really loved this, and am slightly obsessed with giraffes now. :)

We have also gone to several Seattle Mariner's games. I have been a life-long baseball fan, and now we live in walking distance from a major league park! I am definitely a fan of Ichiro, but I think Kenji Johjima is my new favorite. I've taken hundreds of pictures at these games, so far, but the best ones are of Ichiro. Here's one of him hustling back to the dugout at the middle of an inning (we had super-good seats for this game, just two rows behind the Mariners' dugout!):

While Steven's mom was staying with us, we made our first trek up the hill at Gas Works Park and were amazed by the beautiful views of the city across Lake Union. We stayed there for quite a while, mesmerized by the float planes which took off and landed one after another! I had a lot of fun watching the people, too - it seems like there is something for everyone at Gas Works: young, old, singles, families, kite-flyers and book-readers and puddle-stompers alike. Here is one of the views of our beautiful new city!We have been blessed with lots of family this summer, including two brief visits from Elizabeth's parents. When they were here a few days ago, Elizabet's sister came over one evening and we were able to take a few family pictures from the rooftop deck at our apartment building. We hadn't done any family pictures in several years, so I was glad to get these, even if they are not professional!!

Lastly, we took a hike yesterday in Discovery Park in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle. This is an amazing place which used to be a military fort and is now primarily a public park. We parked near the visitor center at the park and hiked a few miles toward the coast, up and over a giant hill, emerging at a beautiful beach! It was a bit chilly for swimming, but we enjoyed a picnic lunch sitting on a driftwood log and had a quick tour of the small lighthouse which was there (pictured here). It's the oldest working lighthouse in Puget Sound, and is quite small but very pretty!

So there you have it. A little window into our lives as we prepare for the vacation of a lifetime. We made a last-minute run to REI this evening for a few final travel items, including serious bug repellent for any pesky mosquitoes who might be biting despite the winter season, a fancy neck pillow for our 20+ hours in flight each way, and a good sun hat for Steven to avoid sunburn. Tomorrow is devoted to packing, delivering Benji to his Aunt Chelsea, and getting to bed early for a VERY early Tuesday morning flight!! We are ready!!

Getting Ready

11 days and counting!

We're headed to South Africa on the 21st. Yesterday we stopped into REI to look for some perfect travel clothing and picked up a few key things to keep our suitcase small. And I went to the library and got plenty of South Africa reading to keep us busy for the next few years... and we've been watching movies about South Africa as often as possible, so hopefully we'll be ready for this big adventure!

I can't wait to post journal entries and photos from this adventure of a lifetime!