May 20, 2011 | The Good Word
It’s late afternoon and the sun is streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and doors of our living room. The dryer is humming in the kitchen. The wonderful meaty mixture for the World’s Best Lasagna is simmering on the stove.
The baby who suffered with gas this afternoon is in his baby gym on the floor beside me, cooing and figuring out how to make everything jingle when he kicks his feet.
His big brother is in his high chair working on tracing letters and colouring the pictures on each page.
I’m pausing in my heart to give thanks.
We feel a little like we’re facing giants. Finding the finances to cover another transcontinental move. Selling our furniture. Selling our car. Saying good-bye to South Africa and the family we love here. HH needs a spousal visa and his interview is next week. Baby Brother needs a passport and the process is moving in African time. There are a lot of metaphorical ducks to get in a row and they sometimes feel kind of like boulders. Big, daunting, immovable, grumpy-faced boulders.
But part of faith is sometimes trusting that it’s going to be okay, no matter what.
I recently found myself pondering one of the descriptions of the woman in Proverbs 31:
She is clothed with strength and dignity, she can laugh at the days to come. {v. 25}
Other translations say she smiles at the future or she laughs without fear of the future.
Really? Who does that?
How do you look at the future and laugh? Is it a flippant decision to laugh and leave worrying about the future for another day? Or the impudence of a lion cub Simba declaring, “I walk on the wild side. I laugh in the face of danger,” and then getting into trouble with the hyenas? {You’ve seen the Lion King, right?}
It must have something to do with courage. And a purposeful decision to trust an unknown future to a known God.
The woman’s attitude may have been built on the confidence that she was walking in the ways of the Lord. Each verse demonstrates another way in which she honours the Lord with her actions. She is clothed with strength and dignity… and having put on all this godliness, she must be a person of consistency and firmness of mind. She’ll know to expect difficult times — in this world we will have tribulation. But our actions — our decisions to walk in God’s ways, and our beliefs — our decisions to believe God’s truth, demonstrate that, like her, we trust God to meet us and see us through.
It takes faith to look ahead and trust that everything is going to be okay, even though we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But keeping that frame of thankfulness around my life, I am more often see God’s sovereign hand in places I would not have seen it before.
He is clearly moving. There is reason to take off my shoes. As Psalm 100 describes it, we enter the gates with thanksgiving, and we enter the courts with praise. We remember that the Lord is good, and His love endures forever. Why should we fear?
Can you laugh at the days to come? What’s holding you back?
xCC
Feb 17, 2011 | An Expat, Prayers in Poetry & Prose, Stories
We take the same route to church and to the the doctor’s office for my prenatal checkups. Depending on whether it’s a weekend or a weekday, the sights might be slightly different, but it always seems like there’s something to tug at my heartstrings.
Turning out of our neighbourhood, we’re on a fairly busy stretch of highway. Mr. Potato Head grumbles in the direction of the nearby Steenbras mountains, and then we turn and start heading in the direction of the Hottentots Holland mountains, further in the distance. We cross over the busy N2, up a hill and in a moment we’re whisked into Sir Lowry’s Pass village.
Until you come face to face with the reality of poverty, it is still just images on a TV screen or website, or in a brochure you received in the mail. But the reality is so much bigger — more complex, more colourful, more hopeful, more distressing.
We grumbled along for a prenatal appointment a couple weeks ago, and my heart rode the up and down roller coaster it usually rides on the journey. We pass the big dumpster where three or four goats are usually grazing on a pile of trash, and we come to the one little roundabout with a small food store on one corner, shacks on another, a freestanding house opposite the store. The rundown wall behind the goats closes out the circle. It’s a school day and the streets are full of life.
Children in uniforms are dispersing in every direction, and one little girl is giggling and scurrying away from an older sibling, or perhaps her mother. They are both laughing and seem so joyful I wish we could stop to ask what’s so funny.
A tall gentleman with a checkered shirt, a baseball cap and nice shoes struts across the street on the other side of the roundabout. A smaller guy with long dreadlocks and a red t-shirt hops up the curb on a little trick bike.
Outside a shack built entirely of what looks like found or recycled pieces of wood, a dog and a cat stand beside one another, staring in, as if something important is happening and they’re waiting to get inside. Children, some with shoes and some barefoot, are walking or sitting in the shade of the occasional, small trees that line the road. They’re eating their lunch and enjoying treats they’ve just gotten at the food store.
Life seems to be joyful for a moment.
A little further along we pass a little boy, gray-sweatered and green-trousered, still in his school uniform. Like children often do, he has taken off his school shoes to preserve them, and is walking barefoot and alone, a backpack on his back and his big black shoes in his arms. He steps normally with his right leg, but with each step he has to drag his left leg around in a circle, as if the leg cannot be bent at the knee. Watching him struggle under the weight of disability and the load he is carrying, my face is flush and I begin forcing back tears.
My mind begins to marvel that my heart hasn’t grown cold. I thought after a year or so these scenes would become familiar…that I’d struggle to find emotion…that I’d eventually begin to feel sorry that I didn’t feel sorry.
We pass a woman who is pregnant, but not as far along as I am. The difference in opportunity for the life growing inside her and the one in me…I almost want to shuck the thought away instead of letting it sink in. Who’s to know, really?
Sometimes Africa feels like a deep ravine set in a distant jungle. People come from miles around to find it, because everyone’s goal is to fill it. We throw in resources. Money. Food. Clothing. Bicycles. Shoes. Then we lean over to look in, and still can’t see the bottom. It’s a struggle to see progress. Hand-ups and Hand-outs start to look similar.
But I’ve seen change. I’ve seen generosity make a difference. And I’ve seen the numbers. And I’ve shared some of them with you here. We could be the generation that makes poverty history. If we grow weary in well-doing, we probably won’t. But if we continue the fight, our chances of success improve considerably.
The car grumbles on to the doctor’s office, my head and my heart like soft serve ice cream, thick with heavy thoughts. Staring down into the ravine, the hope is for something unseen. And who knows how it’s all going to come together.
I hope my part in this journey will end with a “Well done.” Sometimes I’m not sure what else to hope for.
xCC
Jun 30, 2010 | Prayers in Poetry & Prose, South Africa, Stories
A comment someone made the other day made me think you guys might like to hear a little more about what it’s like to live life here in SA, at least for the Collie family. The thought reminds me of the moment in the movie Amelie when Amelie decides to walk the blind man quickly down the street and tell him what she sees. He’s so thankful for someone else to see for him. If I were to walk you down the street of our days, these are some things I would probably mention.
On the way to the gym we stop for diesel. (Mr. Potato Head is a diesel potato, you know.) We used to go to the nearby BP before we discovered the cheaper diesel place just a little further down the road. We would often see a station attendant called Miemie at the BP. (Pronounced Mee-mee) He lives in a nearby township. His skin is light and his eyes are piercingly pale. He sees the Bear in the backseat and always waves and says “Hello Tiny Bubbles!†while the diesel hums along to fill Potato’s big tank.
Miemie’s wife just had a baby. We offer to bring him baby clothes and things the Bear isn’t using anymore, but he says lots of people have been bringing him things. Though his mother only lives a few miles away, the baby was four months old before she met him. Being far away from family hits home for me, but the fact that four miles is an insurmountable distance tugs at my heart.
We take the Beach Road (Kusweg) from our flat to the gym and watch people out walking on the beach with dogs and babies and friends as we roll over speed bumps and pass women selling newspapers. Table Mountain is across the bay and on clear days you can see all the way to Cape Point. When the sun’s shining the other side of the bay seems close enough to swim to. We pass a coffee shop called De La Creme that I want to visit sometime. It’s decorated in a 50s-60s Americana sort of theme; Elvis and Marilyn Monroe posters, inviting you inside. As we bumble along we sometimes see planes heading to the airport against the backdrop of the mountain. Lots more planes than usual lately.
Our gym is the nicest gym at which I’ve ever had a membership. There’s a beautiful big pool and a separate pool for water aerobics. Almost every piece of cardio equipment in the CV area has its own TV. We often do the circuit and wish other people would pay attention to the instructions and lights and move along in an orderly fashion. It is a strange feeling sometimes…the wealth and poverty that entertwine so closely here. I smiled at one of the ladies cleaning the sinks as I went into the potty a while ago. When I came out she asked for a job for her sister. I felt really uncomfortable because I didn’t know what to say. We have a lady who helps with the cleaning once every two weeks and we don’t exactly have the funds for that, but we are glad to forego something else in the budget to give someone work. I regretted not having any suggestions for the cleaning lady’s sister.
Sometimes we rent a DVD on the weekend. There are two little boys who look like brothers who beg outside the store. I am sad whether I have something to give them or not, because I wonder if they are begging instead of going to school. I saw the little one in the parking lot at the grocery store down the street the other day. Seeing the familiar face of a stranger is sometimes just plain strange.
At one stoplight for a long time, there was a nice and large lady with a brilliant smile. Her “spot†was always just outside a lovely golf living estate that stretches on and on, called Greenways. Her daughter sat on the edge of the plant bed which sat in front of one of the Greenways signs outside the gate. It seemed like her daughter had a mental disability but I wasn’t sure what it was. She was there begging day after day and she began to recognize us. My heart ached if we didn’t have anything to give. I began to think about learning to knit so that I could teach her. If she had a skill, a trade, surely she’d be better off? If she could knit scarves to sell? Before I had a chance to think it through or buy knitting needles, we passed by one day. As the change clinked in her ceramic cup, she joyfully declared “We are going home to Zimbabwe! Good bye dear friends, God bless you!â€
Those words broke my heart. It felt like I’d missed a chance. I wasn’t sure how things would be better for her in Zim. I wished I’d had the opportunity to do more.
After the gym, we sometimes stop at a nearby grocery store. Some days they give away samples, and I’m glad because it distracts the Bear for at least five minutes. He tries new cookies and Pink Lady apples with equally happy appreciation. I stroll the aisles and sometimes still marvel at how expensive things seem to be here. I wonder how people who make so little make ends meet.
An older gentleman who always wears a hat sits on a big cement block, or if it’s taken, sometimes a brick turned on its end, in the grassy area that runs between our complex and the road. Every day we pass by and I smile. He hasn’t smiled back yet, but I keep trying. I want to bring him cookies or banana bread the next time I bake some.
The security gate closes behind us and the security guard on duty in the booth stretches his hand high to say hello. For a little while, we escape the poverty and sights that tug at my heartstrings. But tomorrow is always a fresh battle. A fight not to grow cold…a fight to give, to at least pray, to smile and believe: tomorrow is a fresh opportunity to give, to love, to smile.
xCC
Mar 11, 2010 | Prayers in Poetry & Prose, South Africa, Stories
Mr. Potato Head grumbled along the route from Pringle Bay back home, taking the climbs and descents in stride, weaving his way around the beautiful coastal road. The mountains on the right stretch up toward the clouds…green slopes…rock…fynbos undulating in turn beyond the driver side window.
She was clearly someone’s maid, just hoping for a ride home from work and it made me smile when she said she was going to Gordon’s Bay. We were too and I don’t believe in coincidence. A friend of hers was also trying to catch a ride just ten feet up the road, a fragile looking man — a skeleton with skin and a baseball cap. I wondered if she often helped him get rides because people are more comfortable picking up women than men. Did they do this every day?
He didn’t speak much English but he was grateful when I shared one of the cookies I was giving the Bear with him. He received it with both hands and ate it very slowly and it made me sad. I wanted him to have another but he didn’t. Since I had trouble understanding him and wasn’t certain he spoke much English my conversation turned towards her again. She was well-spoken.
The Bear chitter-chattered and grumbled about the heat and the wind coming through the windows, unsatisfied with the cookies and toys on offer and our conversation turned to children. She looked my age, maybe a little younger. From Zimbabwe, and she has a son. Four years old. She has twin sisters, too, younger. They are back in Zimbabwe and so is her son.
We usually take the route over the mountains instead of the coastal road when we’re coming back in this direction, so we’ve never gone this way before. It is strange how the change in perspective, taking the same road but going the opposite way, makes things look totally different. I sat still for a moment and faced forward, watching slopes, rock, fynbos pass by on the right, and occasionally getting glimpses on my left down the cliffs to the ocean that was at some points a good 200 feet below. Too far to hear the waves crashing with the windows open. The road was remarkably different traveling this way.
Her son’s name is Shinto, I think. I can’t remember for sure. He is still in Zimbabwe, and she hasn’t seen him for a year. I try hard to picture him in my mind. Every month she sends some of the money she makes back to her family there. I think about how the decision for her to come here came about and the narrative plays over the screen of my imagination and it’s sad.
The gentleman beside her looks like he could tell a million stories. I wish I could understand him well enough to listen to them.
I face forward again and am plunged into deep, heart-sore thoughts. I turn to tell her my sister is in America, and that’s where I am from. In my thoughts I marvel at how different our experiences as foreigners in South Africa must be. My sister is having a baby soon and I don’t know when I will get to meet him or her. We don’t know yet whether it will be a boy or a girl, but I hope it’s a girl. Back in my thoughts I feel certain I will at least meet the baby at Christmas, and see my family, and I remember how much I have to be thankful for, and what little reason for complaint.
Mr Potato Head finally arrives outside the gates of our complex. Mark announces that this is where we stop. Our passengers are grateful and quickly get out to head on their way. I stare at the skinny gentleman walking away. He is so thin and I want to do more for him than a ride and a cookie. I wonder if we might someday give away shoes in Zimbabwe. Perhaps this woman could come along and see her son.
We are driving in one direction but two strings in my heart are being pulled in another.
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