My days in Africa have been flying by, and an update is long overdue. The internet connection that I regularly use is too slow to allow for blog updates, so today I set out determined to find an internet cafe with a better connection. 

Random excerpts from my life the past month and a half:

• I spent my first week(s) back in Cape Town in bed, thanks to a bacteria I picked up from some sketchy drinking water in the TransKei. 
• I have snagged three illegal first-class train rides, all of them accidents
• I have grown accustomed to sleeping in four layers of clothing, hat, and mittens
• I've forgotten what it feels like to be consistently warm
• I eliminated peanut butter as the core of my diet (and my existence)
• I've visited the place where the Indian and Atlantic oceans join
• I've discovered the best banana pancakes in the world
• I've determined that my hair, at its current stage of growth, resembles a shaggy dog
• I've learned that being a missionary doesn't miraculously transform you into some sort of "Christian Superhero"

Since returning from the overland trip on July 27, I have been staying at a hostel near the YWAM base in Muizenberg. Getting "plugged in" has seemed like a rather long process--there are so many needs and opportunities to get involved with various ministries in the larger Cape Town area that it has been overwhelming at times.  My daily activities have varied widely and taken me to all different parts of the city, whether it's to do street ministry, interview fishermen about pay inequalities, speak to a youth group about sexual purity, sort bags of donated clothes to be distributed to the community, or tutor students at an orphanage. 

The other day I was thinking about my last-minute decision to do the DTS and my preparation to leave for Hawaii. It is crazy to find myself at the other end now, with only ten days of ministry left and the six months almost gone. The past months have seen times of learning and growing, ministering and having fun, challenges and triumphs. The most valuable thing that I will take away is a new depth in my relationship with my Creator, and I hope that out of that, I will have left something behind in Africa, as well. 

At the beginning of the month, our team split into smaller groups, based on the areas of ministry in which we wanted to be involved. My group has been focusing on raising awareness about human trafficking, which is a huge issue in South Africa and is becoming an even bigger one because of the 2010 World Cup. We have spent numerous hours researching, talking to organizations that deal with trafficking, hanging awareness posters around the city, and talking to people to raise awareness. As we have delved deeper into this issue, it has been heartbreaking to see the dark reality of trafficking in this country...

• Most human trafficking is done for the purpose of sexual exploitation
• 27 million people have been victims of human trafficking
• Most trafficking victims are girls between 5 to 15 years of age
• 1.2 million children are trafficked annually: 1/2 of those children are African
• Trafficking is a $33.9 billion industry
• The U.S. State Department estimates that 100,000 people will be trafficked into South Africa for the 2010 World Cup
• Between 28,000 to 30,000 children are currently being prostituted in South Africa: 1/2 of these children are younger than 14
• Children as young as four are prostituted

I cannot look at these numbers as just statistics; each number has a face, a name, a life.  Not a single one goes unnoticed by the Creator. "Slavery" is often talked of as a thing of the past, but there is more slavery in the world today than at any other point in history. I wonder, in our modern world that boasts of freedom and equality, how has this been allowed to happen?

The Journey...

...Through My Eyes

*A month-long overland journey up the coast of Southern Africa*

July 2, 2009

"One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."

Our first stop of the journey is at the small coastal community of Victoria Bay. We are staying in safari tents in the middle of a mountainside, surrounded by trees, solitude, and monkeys. 

I am blessed, in every moment, simply by the vibrancy of being alive. There is magic in every breath of wind, every rustling branch, every bird's whisper, every stroke of the Painter's brush across the sky. 

Beauty.

Magic.

Life, in its rawest form.

That people go through their lives without fully awakening their senses to experience and engage and live is one of the greatest tragedies in the world. 

Peace. I am enveloped in it, as the sun casts its final glow across the day. Life, for this brief moment, is perfect. 

July 9, 2009

I was up before the sun to witness its awakening... it was surreal, casting brilliant hues of light across the sky, their reflections turning the sea into a glistening mirror of color. It was entrancing... 

one of those moments when life stops and you forget to breathe. 

I went on a safari today. It was a journey that cannot be adequately described with words.

July 10, 2009

We crossed over the Kei today, entering the Transkei area where we will spend the rest of the month. We crossed the bridge on foot, praying as we entered the territory. 

The change is drastic...dry, arid landscape; mud huts; no white people anywhere; poverty; women in long skirts or colorful dresses carrying water on their heads; animals roaming free; barefooted children running alongside the road, waving as we pass...

...it is beautiful. 

"A traveler without observation is a bird without wings."

-Moslih Eddin Saadi

July 15, 2009

I think you cannot truly know that a world like this exists until you actually see it. 

There are so many thoughts to think; sometimes my head is not big enough for them all.

July 16, 2009

The Peach Hut

I sit on the doorstep of a mud hut in Lubanzi watching the sunlight play tricks across the valley. It is a peach-colored hut. It smells of paint and must and cow dung. It is my home for the next eleven days. 

The Peach Hut sits atop a mountain, overlooking the sea on one side and a valley on the other, with cows and donkeys and sheep wandering freely, littering the ground with future flooring material. 

Lubanzi is a world removed from the world I left... It is a world where time is marked by the rising of the sun and the returning home of the sheep; a world where candles are a necessity rather than a festivity; a world where a "shower" consists of a small basin of water carried up from the river; a world where light switches and faucets and stoves and televisions do not exist. 

We hiked 21K's along the coast to get here; up mountains, down mountains, across long stretches of deserted sandy beaches, over rocks jutting up from the sea, alongside pods of dolphins...

It is an hour and a half walk to the village of Zithulele... a walk I will become very familiar with over the next week as I work in the village's HIV/AIDS clinic and the pediatric ward at the Zithulele Hospital. 

July 19, 2009

Today my friend and I led Sunday School for a group of 70 Zithulele children. They had no chairs to set on the dung floor, no brightly-lit classroom, no craft materials, no books, and no marker board, but they were the most enthusiastic sunday school group I have ever seen. 

July 23, 2009

Winter has descended with fury... the wind howled around the peach hut all night; I feared it would be picked up and hurled into the ocean. Such a terrible clamor... our hut is unusual in that it has a tin rather 

than a thatched roof, and it makes a dreadfully frightful racket in the wind. We made a painstakingly long drive to the clinic this morning, under the cover of a menacingly dark sky... so cold.

July 24, 2009

There is one little girl that has completely captured my heart... she is in the malnutrition room, but also has TB. She is nine, but looks to be about four, and is the most frail child I have ever seen... I don't know how she could weigh more than 20 pounds. Every bone sticks out; her thighs are as tiny as my wrists; her wrists are no more than an inch wide... every part of her body looks elongated, because it is so narrow. She has long lashes and the most hauntingly beautiful eyes in the world,  huge in her tiny face. She is shy, but will occasionally peer up at me with a little smile...

There is no spark in her, but she is so incredibly beautiful...

July 25, 2009

We cooked dinner for our hosts this evening... they have been very generous throughout our time here, feeding us four dinners of milli-pop and chicken. We invited them all into the hut after dinner to watch Spiderman on a laptop run off of the truck battery. They were mesmerized, despite not being able to understand a single word. It was a unique experience, all of us crowded into a mud hut in the middle of the Transkei, 20 English speakers, 15 Xhosa speakers, lots of body odor... 

I am realizing how privileged my life has been, simply for having experienced flipping on a light switch... little things you never even think about until you live for two weeks without them... but I could not say "my life"--or the western world--is "better"... and I have developed a deep respect for these people and their way of life. A person's level of happiness is not dependent on whether they live in a two-story house in Suburbia or a mud hut in the Transkei, which is made obvious by the number of both happy and terribly unhappy people living in both worlds. 

July 26, 2009

With every step we take, we are writing our past...

We crossed back over the Kei today, in the same way that we entered, walking by foot across the bridge. It was a unique collision of two times, past and present, every step I took in the present mirroring the steps I took 16 days ago, except that the unknown that I was walking toward then is now in the past; fixed, unmovable, imprinted on the pages of my memory, but never to live again. Time is such a curious thing... so fleeting, and the only dimension we can live in is 

the briefest thing in the world...the past and the future are huge expanses of time (or can seem so), but the present--what we live in--is ever escaping us to take its place in the past. We cannot slow, or stop it, but I think that for the most part we are unaware of it... 

Beginnings...

Over the past ten days, Team South Africa has been slowly winding our way up the Eastern Coast in an oversized yellow "truck", on the first part of our month-long overland adventure with Cross Country Missions. 

We've made stops in Victoria Bay, Jeffrey's Bay and Cintsa, and are currently in the Transkei region in a small coastal town called Port St. Johns. 

The primary language spoken in the areas we will be visiting during the rest of the month is Xhosa, a language filled with pops and clicks that make for interesting truck rides as we all practice our clicking skills. 

Our ministry has taken a variety of forms--weeding gardens, ministering to street kids, making connections with people through our cameras, praying Scripture out over a region from a mountain top, street evangelism, and sharing God's love to kids by joining them in their national sport, soccer. 

We have had the opportunity to experience a wide variety of South African-style worship, from the very colorful and eclectic Jeffreys Bay YWAM base worship to the liturgical formality of an Anglican service (conducted entirely in Xhosa). 

It has been a delight to be able to see and experience more of the contrasts that exist in South Africa, and we have been filled with excitement and hope as we imagine what God envisions for this land and these beautiful people. 

After 40 of the longest travel hours of my life... I am in Africa!

I will not even attempt to describe with words the beauty of Cape Town, because I would fail miserably. 

It is a city of contrasts; it seems that when God painted Cape Town on the canvas of the world, He chose from some of His best creations and put them all together in this one place... I have felt as if I were on a mountain top in the Swiss Alps, on an endless stretch of white sand beach in the Caribbean, in the heart of third-world Africa, and even in Paris' Montmartre... all on the same day. 

Our team will be leaving tomorrow on an "overland" journey up the coast. I would appreciate your prayers, specifically along the following points:

-It is quite a bit colder than we anticipated; there is no heating anywhere, and many of us "freeze" our way through the nights. Coming from Hawaii's hot temperatures, this is quite a shock...please pray we stay healthy!

-Team unity... we will be spending the next 30 days together living out of a cramped bus (with no access to showers for much of the time :-) )

-Keeping our focus on God regardless of our circumstances is so key in effecting our ability to share God's love. Please pray that the next 30 days are a time of drawing closer to the Lord and learning to walk in His presence as a lifestyle, unhindered by distractions. 

Life.

I want the fabric of my life to be woven by the skilled hands of the one who created me. 

Life is a patchwork of twists and turns, unexpected endings and beginnings, choices and decisions... As I look back over the past year of my life, and in particular the last few months, I am amazed by the Lord's faithfulness to me. I am grateful that I am here, that I am living this reality rather than any other.

Time is a strange thing, one of the most binding aspects of our physical reality.Three months ago, my orderly seam of life was disrupted and I faced a great unknown (which has now become some of the best three months of my life). Three months from now lies another great unknown. I feel like the author of my life is writing with an invisible pen; as I walk, the path appears. But right now, I am directly in the middle. The end of one season, the beginning of the next. The past three months have been extraordinary. Jesus said that He came to give "life, and life abundantly." If I had to sum up what took place in my life since I arrived here, that would be it. Six days from now I will board a plane for Africa to share that life with the masses of humanity, one person at a time. 

As I contemplate the next step of this journey, the greatest prayer on my heart is that I would continue to daily "die" to myself, that He would be more in me and I would be less. I have nothing to offer on my own. Throughout the past couple weeks, this realization has been rather discouraging to me at times, and has even made me wonder what I am doing here.  But it is not a reason for discouragement; it is simply a truth. It is why I am called (as is every believer) to surrender my life so that through Christ I can truly live, and enable people to see, hear, and touch Jesus reflected through me. 

The calling of Jesus is really a rather simple one. To serve. To love. To have compassion. We are not asked to do anything He did not do; but we are asked to do what He did do.... to relinquish our rights and desires, and to live and love in a way that seems like complete madness to the world. It is my earnest desire to remain free from the shackles of passivity that paralyze me from being the hands and feet of Jesus to the world around me, and I would appreciate  your prayers as I continue to walk this out.

Grace.

I have never sat still for a few hours and simply thought about grace. But yesterday, I did.  During those few hours I laughed, I cried, I wondered, I imagined, and I felt rather like a child who one day realizes that he has failed to completely unwrap a gift given him long ago, tearing off only enough of the paper to see what is inside, but stopping before reaching the treasure. 

We have been saved by grace alone. 

All that is asked of us is to lay down our lives at the feet of the King. 

Grace.

A free gift that is so often not freely accepted. Why? It is a gift of forgiveness, of life for eternity in place of death and punishment. Why do we struggle to add something more to it, or say that it is not enough? Why do we continue to walk with a head hung in shame when God has cast our sins as far as the east is from the west and made us into a new, blameless creation?

Grace. It is the greatest gift we have been given, and so many of us barely unwrap it. 

Grace. It is the gift of life as it was meant to be, lived in intimate relationship with our Maker. Pure, raw, radical, supernatural, life-changing grace that was won by a journey that led from the light of heaven to a bloodbath of brutality to the depths of hell and back again. 

Grace. It is a gift that was won by the ultimate sacrifice, but a gift that is freely given if we will only believe, unwrap, and step into the new life it makes possible. 

To cling to feelings of failure or inadequacy or shame is to insult the sacrifice made at the cross. It is a scandalous gift that changed the course of history. It is our only hope of salvation, but it is more than that. It is the key that unlocks the door to a life of relationship and freedom and power and raw, radical love. It swings open the door between us and our Creator and bridges the chasm between. It gives us a glimpse of His power and love and nature that is more than enough to cause us to run hard after Him for all of eternity. 

A single glimpse, and life is changed forever. 

A single glimpse, and we are wasted for anything but loving Him with all our lives.

A single glimpse, and laying down our lives becomes a joy.

To try to add to grace takes away its power to truly and radically transform our lives, because the essence of grace is its complete sufficiency. It is enough. It has no need for further striving or works on our part. It requires us to humble ourselves and accept it freely, admitting that we are incapable of attaining salvation by any amount of merit or good works, humbling ourselves at the foot of the cross and looking with all of our strength to Jesus... for only when we take our eyes fully off of ourselves will we be able to put them fully on God and understand the depth of the wonder and possibilities given us through grace. 

THE BUG.

This blog post is not about God or photography, nor is it related to anything that I usually write about. 

It is about a very big bug. 

Last night I was sitting on my bed after a very long photography class, working on my laptop, when I felt the sheet on my bed moving. I looked over, and a cockroach of extraordinary size scurried past. 

I am accustomed to cockroaches of extraordinary size jumping out from unexpected places when I am sorting garbage for campus "recycling". It is a garbage dump; they belong there. But in my bed? No.  

Normally my bed is bug free, although since arriving in Hawaii I've shared my bed with spiders, fleas, mosquitos, and a variety of OUBs (Other Unidentifiable Bugs). It's not that big of a problem, I can share my space. 

BUT. 

Cockroaches are on an entirely different level. They come in a variety of sizes, but this one was four inches in length, from antenna to end. You would probably be unable to imagine in  your mind the sort of creature I am trying to describe, so here's a picture of a similar cockroach.

They do not make good bedmates.

All in all it's not really a big deal. I will be a missionary whether or not there are cockroaches in my bed. 

But, I'd prefer to be a missionary without cockroaches in my bed. So as you get into your own bed tonight, I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a minute to pray that God would keep the cockroaches out of mine.

Reason for Existence.

Jesus continues to shatter my passive existence on a daily basis. 

The other day I was thinking about how nothing that I am feeling or going through in my day-to-day life changes the reality of who God is for me or His lovingkindness to me or my relationship with Him. 

He is constant. 

Unchanging. 

Always faithful. 

He says, "I will never leave you or forsake you." If I feel disconnected or distanced from Him, it is because I have distanced myself from Him by focusing on what's going on around me. As a result, I lose sight of reality--my reality with my Maker. He has chosen me, He chooses me every moment of every day. He loves me, and longs for me. That is reality. Reality is that He is always with me, even when I mess up or get distracted by what is going on in my life. He never leaves. I can always rest in His presence, even if I feel overwhelmed with life or like I can't stop messing up. Those are the times I need to cling to Him the most, rather than pull back and feel like I need to straighten things out on my own before I can approach Him... I need to focus on the reality of me and God in constant relationship. Everything else is just a shadow; an apparition that fades in the reality of the presence of God and His love for me. He is not looking for people who have it all together, He is looking for people who will keep choosing Him. 

I cannot do it on my own. 

I need Him. 

But, that's how He designed it to be. 

He created me to be in relationship with Him every day of my life. He wants to complete me. He wants to be strong where I am weak. He wants to fulfill me. He wants to be the one that I cling to... all the time, not just when things are good. He wants me to cling to Him in my sin, in my hardships, in my struggles. He wants us to be one, inseparable. He wants me to lose myself in Him. 

Updates...

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of learning and busyness and vog and photography and Jesus' life-changing presence... and I have been lax in updating. I cannot believe that the half-way point of the DTS lecture phase has come and gone--the days are flying by. Only a short time ago I had no intentions of moving to Hawaii for three months to be trained with YWAM, but I thank God every day for the events that changed the direction of my life path and brought me here. Sometimes it is in the most unexpected happenings of life that we look back and see the fingerprints of God most clearly. One of the characteristics of God that I have been contemplating lately is His jealousy. I don't think it is a characteristic of God that is examined or discussed very often, but I am so grateful for the evidence of it in my life. 

Over the weekend, our PhotogenX community traveled north a couple of hours to Maka Pala for two days of teaching, relationship building, fun, and (my favorite part) a reprieve from the food on base. 

Gekkos are one of my favorite parts of Hawaii. And there were lots in Maka Pala!

PhotogenX 2009 DTS Community

Beginning this week, our lectures will focus on preparation for our upcoming outreach and future mission work. Whereas the first six weeks were focused "internally" on building our personal relationships with Christ and gaining freedom in our lives, the final six weeks will focus on ministering "externally" to others. 

Our departure date has been finalized for June 25, and we will arrive in Cape Town on June 27. Our first thirty days of outreach will involve an overland trip around the country, ministering in different villages as well as working with hospitals, youth programs, building projects, church planting, etc. My outreach fees are due on May 28--it has been so encouraging to see the Lord's provision thus far. I am still trusting the Lord to provide $3400 by May 28, and would appreciate your prayers as I prepare to have several fundraisers on base later this week. God's faithfulness has brought me this far, and I am confident that He will see me the rest of the way through. 

One of my favorite parts of the DTS lecture phase has been our book assignments. These have been an awesome supplement to our lectures and given me a lot to think about as I am seeking to know Jesus for who He really is. I thought I would post our book list, for those of you who are interested...

-Is That Really You, God? (by Loren Cunningham)

-Making Jesus Lord (by Loren Cunningham)

-Irresistible Revolution (by Shane Claiborne)

-Living Together (by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

-Sex God (by Rob Bell)

Passivity.

"We were made to live with hearts set on fire, 

exhilarated with the reality of God in our lives."

-Kristin Williams 

In some parts of the world, the forces of darkness are observably in action, and more visible in everyday life than they are in our society. However, I believe that there is a deadly disease spreading through the modern western church, and its invisibility is what makes it so destructive.

Passivity.

Passiveness is so deadly to the Christian's life. It creeps in unawares, and renders a person completely ineffective for the Kingdom.  Not only this, but it robs us of the relationship we were created for: a relationship with hearts set aflame with love for our Maker. 

Where the work of the enemy is not clearly visible, "cozy" Christianity thrives. The enemy seeks to infect the lives of Christians with passivity, causing them to settle for "cozy" Christianity that appeases their consciences and gives them assurance of salvation, but keeps them from waking up to their destiny as radical followers of God. Western society is a breeding ground for this seemingly invisible tactic of the enemy. 

We live in a society where comfort and security are emphasized above all else; we like things to be tangible, so I think we (the church, broadly) have created an image/idea of who Jesus is that we can grasp...an image/idea that enables us to remain passive and live a safe, comfortable life without feeling guilty. We want to have Jesus and a comfortable, secure life. But I am thinking that they are opposites... and we cannot serve both God and mammon. Jesus was a homeless man. He spent His time with the poor, the prostitutes, the sick, the people looked down on by society... He was scorned by the "righteous" people of the day who lived comfortable lives of passivity... and He had some pretty intense things to say about them, what with comparing them to "white washed sepulchers" and such. He was a gentle radical, understood by fools but an enigma to the wise. He was opposite of what everyone expected...and, I think, maybe opposite of the image so many Christians think He is. 

The issue is not about having homes or careers or wealth... it is about allowing passiveness to prevent a follower of Christ from stepping out in action to be a radical lover and servant of God. Jesus needs people who are willing to die to themselves so that He can live and be glorified through them, both in the suburbs of the western world and the slums of Mumbai. He does not promise followers a life of comfort; on the contrary, He instructs them to "crucify" their flesh, give up their hold on worldly security, and surrender everything in order to pursue Him with reckless abandon. 

"If you are living a Christian life that makes sense to your mind, 

then you are not living the Christian life."

I feel like I am waking up from a hibernation that I did not even know I was in, and now am literally starving for more of Jesus. More of His presence. More of His truth. More of His love. I am consumed by a desperation to discover the real Jesus, and to know what it means to be a follower of Him...to follow in His footsteps. To be a radical lover. It has turned my life upside down.

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, 

so that you will know what is the hope of His calling...

And what is the surpassing greatness of His power 

toward us who believe." (Ephesians 1:18-19)

Imagine...

Imagine a world where love is the rule, not the exception.

Imagine a world where beauty takes the place of brutality.

Imagine a world where peace is a reality rather than a dream.

Imagine a world where we are followers of Jesus not only in word, but in action. 

Creativity and imagination are characteristics of God that He instilled in us when He "created us in His image." They are incredibly powerful gifts meant to be used to love and worship and glorify our Creator, and bring His kingdom to earth.  But throughout history it has been twisted by the devil to be the proponent of so much violence and terror and war and weaponry...so much sick cruelty. How can this beautiful gift from God be used to so brutalize people? We need to take it back; to use creativity and imagination to be radical proponents of love around the world.

Too much of the imagination in this world is used to create violence, while its potential to inspire love lies dormant. 

Violence breeds more violence. 

War breeds more war. 

Violence is never the road to peace. 

Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers." To follow Him is to be a peacemaker. To use our creativity and imagination to learn to love...first Him, and then others. Both the oppressed, and the oppressor.

We need to take back and reclaim the tools of creativity and imagination for God's Kingdom...

To make His dream our own. 

To imagine the world as He meant it to be.

 To create that world within ourselves, and to share it with everyone we meet.