People often ask me what there is to do in a place as remote as Tugela Ferry (or the Berg, when I was living there). I used to wonder the same thing when I first landed in rural South Africa, thinking optimistically that with all the free time on my hands evenings and weekends, I could catch up on years of must-read books, teach myself to play the mandolin, and plant a phenomenal vegetable garden. How very wrong I was. After the first few weeks and then months, all that ‘extra’ time disappeared.
We live without a TV, without so much as radio signal, and entertainment options are, well, let’s just say very limited out here where we live. I must admit it’s been months since I last even took my mandolin out of its case, so my progress has been dismal. Since getting married, moving to Tugela Ferry, I rarely have even time enough to finish one of the three books I’m reading simultaneously. Yesterday I laughed outloud when I got a call from a salesperson trying to sell me a discount card for various commercial services. She asked if I was a member of a gym, if I went to the movies, etc. I had to explain to her that I lived in a remote Zulu Tribal Area and there wasn’t so much as a gym, mall or movie theatre anywhere around us and she wouldn’t get far with her sales pitch on me.
Yet, there is something beautiful and precious in living in relationship with people, and not in the rush of urbanized life. We meet together with our friends here regularly and have all developed such delicious recipe repertoires that our menus are almost as good as eating out every night. My vegetable garden, well, let’s just say I tried – it’s not easy to garden in the desert. I can’t seem to get anything to grow past the seedling size. Doesn’t help that the past few months of summer Tugela Ferry has had extremely high temps up to 120°F with limited rain.
But mostly, living here has taught me a lot about relationships. From here it’s easy to see how much we Americans are about efficiency. The Zulu people, on the other hand, are all about relationships. In my push for efficiency, I sometimes rushed to bypass the customary greeting culture that takes about 90 seconds or so prior to every personal contact. It goes something like this:
A: Sawubona
B: Yebo. Sawubona. (Yes, Hello)
A: Kunjani?
B: Siyaphila, kunjani wena? (We’re fine/alive/healthy, and how’s it with you?)
A: Ngiyaphila nami. (I’m also fine.)
Even after all these years (just had my sixth year anniversary of coming to South Africa!!) I still default back to the efficiency over relationship, forgetting to greet each time I see someone for the first time that day. By bypassing this cultural requirement, I have occasionally ruffled feathers thoughtlessly and in fact so offended even the friendliest relationship that efficiency itself was disrupted.
I like to think that we lead a simple life out here, but somehow in ‘simple’ there should be more time for relaxation, reflection, quiet. In the midst of all this ‘busyness’ that has somehow taken over our lives here, we strive to slow down and re-center our lives again on God’s plans and purposes for our lives. How very quickly and easily we can fill our lives with things and miss out on the important purposes God has for our lives. And then I’m reminded of this common human condition as expressed in the Book of Isaiah (30:15)
This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.”
Last week, in this spirit, we took a few days off to go camping with fellow missionary friends. It went much too quickly, but gave us a great chance to slow down again, enjoy God’s beautiful creation in the Northern Drakensberg. It was great to slow down and have some time to spend with God and in fellowship with other believers.
Let me give a few highlights of what I’ve been up to lately:
o Thembalethu Care Organization’s community centre building is up and ready for use! We now have our own offices and are in the process of expanding our work to allow for our expansion from our pick-up (bakkie) and people’s houses to a place where we can meet broader needs from a central place. So far we’ve had meetings and trainings there as we work up to expand our work to include more community awareness and support groups for our various vulnerable populations. Because of the remote nature of our centre, making ourselves available as a community resource centre has tremendous potential for making resources more available for the deep rural community. Injesuthi Clinic, the single primary health care centre covering the area run by the Department of Health, is the most crowded clinic in the area with long queues and waiting times. Because of the vast distances up the Injesuthi Valley, vast numbers of the population struggle to access health service there because of the cost of transport to get there (R14 or $2) and so the mobile clinic is thinking to utilize our facilities for their monthly mobile clinics. That’s the first of many community resources that we are opening our doors to as we seek to help improve access to basic services to our deep rural community.
o Last week we held a community awareness event, the first of many others to come, with the goal of raising awareness of HIV/AIDS in the community. The community could really use many more of these in the future, as the limited amount of HIV information available to people is shockingly poor. We’ve been working on a house to house basis, and I’m excited to have something more than a pick-up to work out of from now on, as the possibilities of working from a physical office space opens up a lot of possibilities. We are working toward starting support groups for our HIV patients, Orphaned and Vulnerable youth and the elderly caregivers of orphaned families. Many new developments in our program are underway. So, it’s a very exciting time here!
o Back to the books! In late October, under a full scholarship, I started a ten-month course in Advanced HIV/AIDS Management which has been picking-up greatly in its workload and requirements. Since I am already involved so heavily in management activities, it has been hugely practical and many of the assignments have already helped me to put better management practices into use. Xoli has also enrolled in a course in Social Auxiliary Work which has already provided her with a great amount of context and practical skills to help her in her day to day work.
An update from South Africa at this point in history would be incomplete without mention of the FIFA Soccer World Cup that is coming in just two months. The countdown has been going on for over a year, and the time is almost here and the excitement and trumpeting of the vuvuzelas is ever-expanding. From 11 June to 11 July, the world’s largest sporting event will take place on African soil for the first time, and South Africa is thrilled to be hosting! Although the nearest stadium is in Durban, the excitement stretches from coast to coast.
Please pray also for the Mighty Men's Conference that is coming to our church (farm) this weekend. They are expecting somewhere around 400,000 men from around South Africa and beyond to come and camp for a weekend of preaching by South African Evangelist Angus Buchan. Please join me in praying for the continued revival in this nation, and for God to continue to move powerfully amongst the men in particular.
Grateful thanks for your generous prayers and support to make this work possible. Praying that God would bless you greatly!
Noluthando kaJesu,
Betsy (& Eugene)
