God Uses Ghost

Thursday, July 1, 2010, 7:02PM

In the Car, Mgodwana, South Africa

I am currently in the back seat of a Toyota Yaris, driven by Lourens.  We have been driving for the past ten hours today, after driving eight hours yesterday, headed to Nelspruit.  We will spend tonight in Nelspruit with a friend and then drive another hour tomorrow into Kruger National Park!  For the next three days, we will be hanging out and searching for lions, rhinos, elephants, leopards, buffalo… basically it will be the Discovery channel, but in real life.  Nonetheless, this past week was filled with some great experiences.

On Monday we put down the concrete foundation/floor of a shack that Serve the City built last week (Lourens pictured right).  It was some pretty intense labor, leveling the ground, compressing it, and mixing sand, cement, and water together to create the proper mixture for concrete.  We had some help from some of the local boys who brought us the water.  It was neat to get them involved in the process. After a couple hours, we completed the task.  The rest of the day was pretty relaxed, spending some time together as a team in what they call “face-to-face.”  It is church for the 13^th Floor groups.  Once a week, they come together in fellowship (Matthew 18:20).  This week, we focused on forgiveness- that everyone has people in their life that they have not forgiven, whether it was the kid who stole your lollipop in first grade or something more serious.  It was a very neat experience, opening up to some of the other people and having an intimate conversation about our pasts.

Then Tuesday rolled around.  Well, more like epically crashed into us.  We went to a juvenile detention center.  On the ride there everyone was talking about how uncomfortable they were with the idea and all of the precautions we were going to take.  Once we got there, we unpacked the truck so we could set up to show the Japan vs Paraguay game and so the 13^th Floor crew could perform their show.  While we were setting up, we slowly realized how wrong it was for us to be so worked up about being in a detention center (below).  These were just kids.  No older than 16 years old.  And they were human.  Just like us.  But trapped, barricaded, removed from society because they didn’t fit the institutionalized norms.  And they were the best audience the 13^th Floor crew ever had.  It was as if God had been prepping the group for this moment.  To understand completely, let me describe the play, titled "Ghost," to you that they have been performing all week:

A soccer star from a township gets caught up in selling drugs.  He made the choice to try to take the easy way to making money.  That choice led him to a party where acid was accidently poured in his eyes.  The soccer star was instantly blind, no longer able to play his beloved sport and pursue his dream of winning the world cup.  His mom spoke some words of wisdom to him, encouraging him to coach the team he was once a part of.  His coaching skills lead the team to victory, bringing them to the world cup.  The ending scene has him looking into a mirror, reflecting on the choices that he has made.

This play sets the stage for one of the 13^th floor guys to come up and do ministry.  Pieter spoke straight truth into the boys’ lives, summarizing the play and making it relate to them a bit more personally.  I got extremely excited as I watched God take over, leading Pieter in his talk and convicting some of the boys.  Afterwards, there was one boy that was really touched by it; two of our team members were talking with him and praying with him.  It was awesome- in the true sense of the word.

On Wednesday (Compassion Day), we took the kids from Kayamandi to paint the same park that we cleaned the week before.  The kids had a great time, almost fighting over whose turn it was to paint next (right).  Then the team drove over to Enkhanini where we finished the bridge that we had started the week before.  It turned out great and we took some time to debrief ourselves, sharing what we liked and any cool stories that connected us more with the locals.  Then it was time for me to say bye to the 13^th Floor team.  It was really hard!  The past two weeks had brought us very close.  Driving all around the greater Cape Town area, loving on kids, and serving in a township quickly solidified many friendships.  We all hugged and said our goodbyes, taking a final photo of us all (below).  As we were leaving (Lourens, Elsa, and I were leaving for our roadtrip), one of the locals that we are good friends with asked when we were coming back next.  We told him it would be about ten days until we were back again and he said, “No, no, that’s no good.  You must say one and a half days and that is good!”  We felt extremely encouraged at this statement, realizing we really have good relationships there.  It put us in a great mood for the drive up north towards Pretoria.