South African Journey

I got a reminder this month: It’s not so much what we DO that matters. What really matters is to BE with and walk beside each other in Christ and grow in whichever direction we are led. This is where the biggest impact will come for both parties.

This reminder came during a conversation with Brian, one of the coordinators of the South Africa program. I was filling him in on how things were going here in Alex and the progression with some community programs I’m getting involved with. After a comment I made I got the above reminder which we often heard during our orientation here in South Africa. I was basically reminded to be aware of what you least expect. Well what I least expected was the impact of a conversation I had the day before.

I spent the week helping out at a food distribution warehouse just outside of Alex. It was Thursday and I was feeling like there wasn’t much for me to do. We had just sent off a few trucks for delivery and things had slowed down. I was sitting outback at the loading dock when one of the office workers came and sat down next to me; this was the first time [and last] that we met. I don’t remember his name but I remember our conversation quite well.

As he sat down he groaned and I looked over and noticed he had one of those walking canes, the kind that wraps around your forearm. He jokingly told me not to get old because “this is what happens”. I laughed and wanted to ask him what he had done but didn’t feel it was appropriate. I think he noticed this and told me it was from playing to much softball. What? Softball? Don’t you mean football [soccer]? He informed me that he does follow football a bit but really loves softball and that the bad knee was from many years of pitching. We then exchanged names and he asked me where I was from. [I’ve found that most people assume that I’m from Germany.] When I told him I was from the States he had plenty of questions. We talked about how we, the States, have both hurricanes and tornadoes and S.A. has neither. This topic brought about a lengthy discussion about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans.

Following the hurricane discussion I had the task of explaining that all of the US isn’t like Los Angeles or New York, which happened to be two of the cities he had been in. We laughed about some of his experiences with LA traffic and Taxis in NYC. I shared with him that I had spent the past 4 years in a town of 30,000 people and now I’m in Johannesburg, population 12+million. I don’t think he believed there were actually small towns in the states until now. Time was going by fast and another truck pulled up and a few of the guys began loading it.

The best and hardest part of our conversation together came about this time. There was a moment of silence while we watched the workers ‘toss’ 50kg bags of rice, maize meal and stamp into the truck. As some of the bags were loaded they would spill a bit of their contents on the ground. We both noticed this as a waste of food, yet had very different thoughts about it. I was thinking that all the dropped food could add up to fill numerous bags and that the recipients of the food weren’t quite getting the full 50kg. He then let me in on what he was thinking about.

Henry [I’m going to call him Henry] said to me, “You know I can’t stand seeing wasted food on the ground like that.”

Henry: It really pains me to see good food go to waste. I know I can’t do anything about it, it just happens, it is part of the business. There are people in Africa that would literally kill for that food.

[I want to apologize because I don’t feel that this is the right way to share the rest of his comments with you. Not because I don’t want to share them with you but because I feel that I can’t relay the same message in print. There are some things that just can‘t be expressed unless told verbally. As time goes on I hope to share this with some of you.]

As he talked I listened carefully, realizing that I wouldn’t look at things the same ever again. He spoke about how blessed South Africa is, even with it’s dark history it is a blessed country both it‘s people, resources and geographical beauty. South Africa now stands as a symbol of hope for so many African countries still fighting various battles in their country. Some of the things he mentioned during this time I had heard before, but I was now being given a glimpse into his world, giving me a new perspective. Our conversation ended soon after when his phone rang. It was also past lunch time. I thanked him for the conversation and we shook hands and he headed off to answer the call.

I wanted to share this with you not to leave you wondering what he said. But rather that through this conversation and the reminder from Brian, I have realized there are little blessings that we sometimes miss. There are people we meet that if we don’t open our eyes we might miss something special. I don’t want to miss anything while here in South

Africa and I hope that I allow myself to be aware of what Christ has placed in my path.

I paid close attention to the conversation that day, but failed to see the big picture until later. I encourage you to not only reflect each day but live in each moment and find the hidden blessings, or Divine Nobodies*, that have been placed before you. I am trying to be more aware of this myself…I almost overlooked this one.

[*Divine Nobodies is a book by Jim Palmer]