4/25/2008
I am wrecked afresh and it hurts worse than I can remember.
The mass graves today were chilling as the holes are dug far deeper and many more Caeley’s and Sasha’s are dumped in one cavity now – after we left a small hearse arrived with several very short caskets. In minutes they were gone, already forgotten, trying to beat the traffic for the next pickup.
Geoff
4/24/2008Thanks to everyone for your prayers. Jeff K is feeling much better!!!
The team are spending the day today visiting the Mass Graves and spending time at Makaphutu Children's Village (MCV), visiting their feeding scheme in the valley etc.
A Partner Connection Social is being held tonight where leaders from all of our partners will be coming together at MCV and to say farewell to Dave, Jeff and Mighty who leave tomorrow (Friday). 4/23/2008
Please pray for Jeff Krajewski who is sick with some type of food poisoning / bacterial infection. The other team members are not sick.
He is continuing to participate in trip activities but he is sick / throwing up etc.
Your prayers are greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Claire
4/20/2008
Hello Everybody (family, friends and GCC folks)!
4 days in and it feels like 4 months. I have no idea how we could pack more stuff, more “a has”, more startling realizations, and more chicken beheadings in the few days we have been here. Here is a brief synopsis:
Friday – a day at World Changers the partner of LSA dedicated to AIDS prevention through holistic life skills and leadership development. Conversations with wild-eyed dreamers and young world leaders who have seen thousands of young men and women come to Christ and discover bigger visions than most have ever considered. Oh man the stories ….
Friday night – worship with a tiny garage church/youth group. Jeff K. was the man…preached with an interpreter…and we sang 2 songs in 45 minutes.
Saturday – um…OK…how do I describe the “torture” Geoff W. took us through? Began the day on the Indian Ocean in Durban eating an amaaaaazing buffet at (no kidding) the Beverly Hills Hotel. Expensive, French pressed coffee, fresh squeezed juices, etc. It was a set up. From there we headed out to the “valley” to spend the day and night with a Zulu family in their very humble home. While in the valley town we visited with local people, interviewed an amazing young man (wait till you see the video), bought some bead work and then bought a chicken. Live chicken, pooping chicken (on Jeff K. who is suddenly short on pants). Why? To have it for dinner. Um…yeah. We laughed and laughed thinking it was a joke. Ha Ha….30 minutes later Mighty held the head in his hand after sawing it off…. (again, wait till you see the video…Mighty scares me). We ate the chicken. Nummy. We then slept off our feast all night with the barking dogs and roosters. Let me put it this way. Had this been Peter’s roosters he would have denied Jesus 135 times. Thank God for ambien.
Today, Sunday – went to church, worshipped, shared in the service via interview. Went to pastors house for chicken again. Pre-killed, packaged, a la Tyson. Phew. Rested, met with Zulu valley pastors, wept...blown away…went out to dinner.
Holy cow. And what the heck…4 more days? Thanks for the prayers.
Dave
This is not hyperbole or wishful thinking, right now, in Indy and KZN, we ARE changing the world, life by life, mavern by mavern, healing by healing, empowering by empowering, partnership by partnership, and when these individually impacted lives, reach critical mass and the tipping point spills, regions will be altered for the glory of God.
Dave, Jeff and Mighty are doing really well. Jeff preached yesterday and Dave preached today and they both hit it out of the park. Mighty is so gifted in capturing raw life stories and what we are experiencing. We have some great footage already!
Electricity is out again, and the orphans just arrived home so I am typing by candlelight with laugher and shrieks outside my window.
You should see the sunset, light storm clouds unsuccessfully trying to obscure that which is meant to be grandiose, and intensely dramatic.
Greatness will always shine through. 4/17/2008
Dave, Jeff and Mighty and all their luggage arrived safely today and according to Geoff, "They all look surprisingly zesty!".
I wish others could see the valley tonight. Still one of my favorite spots on earth. The air is crisp tonight, the stars out, the crickets quieter than usual but the bullfrogs are having mardi gras, and in a little while the wild dogs will take full advantage of the bright moon and yelps and chips and screetches will be heard, then silence.
Tomorrow morning, 36 little smiley faces will climb off a bus that collected them from the rural valley and start singing and engaging life like my 5 year old does. Ironically, when they climb off the bus, from my bedroom window their backdrop is the mass graves……….. 4/16/2008
I knew I was in Africa because:
I received a warm, effervescent, family welcome from my friends in the Valley akin to what my hyperactive 5 and 7 year olds will give me upon reentry to Indianapolis airport in 3 week’s time;
Because ‘normality’ here involves dodging power-cuts and potholes and large spiders under my pillow, and crazy taxi drivers, etc.
I knew I was in Africa because normality also means the night larks, wild dog chips, ‘Piet my vrou’ birds, and human- like bullfrogs grunts. These and other familiar sounds of Africa titillating one’s senses and come to you like fuzzy cable on the damp night breeze;
I knew I was in Africa because despite being far from home, living with the Zulus in the Valley of 1000 Hills, felt strangely like I was home.
Wade (Executive Director of Makaphutu) and I laughed till late last night (and we probably would have woken most of the orphans if we weren’t standing a few hundred feet from their rooms overlooking their soon-to-be-completed soccer fields) as he recounted a story of small group of local village deviants stealing one of their outlying “houses” –yup they stole an entire small building – starting with the plumbing and roofing and progressing to the joists, then bricks, until eventually they had harvested a small building.
But not all such recounts are humorous as the above power cuts have meant security systems are down in certain areas and crime is spiking [ironically] when the electricity is off. Friends being attacked, crime moving briskly through areas, the value of life mimicking the value of the Rand in ever depreciating value.
God stop the bleeding! 4/9/2008The LSA April 2008 Senior Pastor Trip will be departing on 16th April and returning on 26th April. Trip attendee's are:
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Dave Rodriguez, Senior Pastor Grace Community Church
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Mighty Chandler, Grace Community Church
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Jeff Krajewski, Senior Pastor Common Ground
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Geoff Wybrow, Trip Leader, Loving South Africa
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Ron Blevins, Hospice Partner Investigation, LSA Board
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