Pretoria

Tony threw his 7 Rand change on the floor a couple of feet in front of us - I was shocked and a knot tied itself in my stomach, his following sentence confirmed the motivation behind his action which challenged me and I hope will challenge you.

"I don't need this money" He said "I need Jesus - I depend on him!"

He was welling up and so was I, though I think I hid it quite well (you get good at that if you live in "I am an O.K. Christian" pretence  for too long).

Honking is illegal - not that it stops the taxis

The wisdom of throwing money away aside, his actions spoke more loudly than his words ever could...  

About 10 minutes previously as I was sat down next to him when a friend approached him, handed him 2 cigarettes (one of which Tony offered back to his friend) and 7 Rand change. As far as I know that was the sum total of the money he possessed.

The junctions can be a little crazy

Tony has been living on the streets of Pretoria for the past 6 months since he had a stroke which left him unable to continue working as a panel beater. He is applying for disability benefit  but his situation is still pretty desperate. His second stroke which re-hospitalised him until just a few days prior had stopped him from being able to function well enough to walk further than a block before collapsing.

The stroke had also removed all sensation from his bowels so he is completely unaware of having soiled himself again until someone points out the smell to him.

He lives day by day and he values God more than money.

I had just been trying to comfort him with some scriptures that I knew (I was not carrying a bible with me). He had mentioned Matthew 6 earlier when we had offered to pray for him - he reminded me that I did not need to pray aloud on the street corner for the world to hear, only God needs to hear and he can hear your thoughts just fine!

Later in Matthew 6 Jesus teaches us not to be anxious about what we will eat or wear. I started telling him and he completed my every other sentence, despite not owning a copy of the Bible he knows it very well.

I was not expecting the reaction that I got, it is one thing to remember the word of God, it is another entirely to live by it on a daily basis.

The second event that put a knot in my stomach was seeing people walking by on the street (sitting next to a homeless person on the street is about as close to their perspective as you will get until you are there yourself).

The 7 Rand had been lying on the pavement in front of us a couple of feet away for about 5 minutes before a guy walked past looked at us, saw the money on the floor, picked it up and walked on.

"See - his life revolves around money instead of God", said Tony.

Tony understands that he has more than the young well dressed man who will take 7 Rand for himself instead of giving it to those in need less than 5 feet away, because he has Jesus who is so much more valuable than any sum of money.

An exert from my journal

I talked to him for an hour and a half with the intention of blessing him - I bought him a coke (on his request) and I came away blessed and challenged by him.

Title font 'Lois Ann'

Lethabong

This past week has been a busy one - doing different practical ministries each day within the local area. One of these days I visited Lethabong - a very small township that lives in deep poverty, the houses are corrugated iron shacks that are (if you are living in the UK) probably no bigger than your bedroom and they are occupied by families of 4 or 5. There is no running water and no electrical hook up in the area.

The locals are dependent on truck-delivered water and cook on open fires. Any electricity they have is from personal generators. It is a place of great need. We were in this area partnering with another organisation that has started a pre-school in the centre of town for the education of the next generation and also so that the parents are able to look for jobs. We were there to paint the pre-school (also corrugated iron shacks) to make it a more colourful place and increase the longevity of the buildings.

Despite circumstance these people seem to have a richness in community and contentment in life that is a challenging thing to encounter. As I was painting and thinking to myself how little benefit a pretty looking shack is to people who have no water - a young man who was walking by shouted to me:

'yes! More! More!- Good! Good! Nice job! God Bless you!'

Then I started thinking how amazing these people are.

Where there are people the gospel of Coca-Cola is never too far away, it is in a lot of ways (somewhat ironically) a sad sight.

But it is nothing in comparison to the heart crushing sight of the church building...

This is very typically African in my limited experience and it makes me sad - in the middle of a town of maybe a few thousand who have nothing - the people who can bring hope and light into such a community instead bring a massive church building that probably has more monetary value than the whole rest of the town and then tell the people there that if they would just love God enough and give enough money then they would be laughing all the way to the bank.  Meanwhile they question how they will eat that night.

To those of you who read this and do not call yourself a Christian because you do not want to be associated with people like this - please know that these are wolves that dress themselves as sheep but that does not make being a sheep bad.

Title font used 'Henry'