Believe it or not, we have not spent ALL of our time in the affluent parts of South Africa. Our dear friends, Jesse and Britlese Thomas--who were engaged and spent their first 4 months of marriage here!--set us up with an incredible visit to a ministry called The Warehouse in Cape Town. The Warehouse is a dynamic ministry that strategically partners with local churches in a variety of ministries, including, but not limited to, working with youth in gangs, AIDS victims, orphans and distributing resources from rich churches to poor churches. Their work predominately focuses on facilitating ministry in the townships. We had the opportunity to eat lunch with The Warehouse's founder, Craig, who introduced us to a memorable Braai in a neighboring township. This is an astounding ministry. (For those unsure of what townships are, see the Wikipedia article. Essentially, these were very underserved areas specifically designated for blacks and coloreds under the Apartheid government. A photo of Gugulethu, one of Cape Town's many townships, is posted above. Although Apartheid is no longer in place, the sprawling--and mostly very poor--townships remain.)
While in Cape Town we also visited Kanisa Church in Gugulethu with our host, Harry. Kanisa Church is my idea of the Kingdom of God on earth, consisting of a community of blacks, browns and whites (a rare site in SA). We would love to send a delegation from our church in Chicago to visit Kanisa as we, too, are trying to be a people of many nations in Chicago and would have much to learn from them. Kanisa's worship songs and sermons were translated either into English from Xhosa or vice versa and this all went very smoothly. After church we were invited to have lunch and a "cool drink" (=South African English for soda) in a black "mama's" house (yes, they are called mamas!). Mama Pumi treated us to potato salad, beets and ice cream, showing extraordinary kindness that clearly reflected her respect for Harry, who leads her weekly Bible study.
We were both inspired by these ministries and hope to visit again in the future.
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