St. Thomas Parish in Kagiso, South Africa
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Seeing Christ in South Africa, October 2009
by Martha Rodes, parishioner
One October spring South African morning near the end of our recent visit, we sat in a circle in St. Thomas, Kagiso, along with friends from that parish who had worked alongside us all week to reflect on the time we had spent together. Focusing
our discussion on Matthew 25:37-41: “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?’… The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’,” we reflected on where we had seen Christ during the week. Our friends from St. Thomas shared heartfelt sentiments of having found Christ in us, in our presence among them, and in the generosity they had felt from us and from St. George’s as a whole. Listening to their love and gratitude was both heartwarming and humbling.
From the moment we arrived in South Africa, we saw Christ all around us, even in the middle of heartbreaking conditions.
We heard Him in voices lifted in praise during St. Thomas’ worship service and in other hope-filled voices of youth who sang for us in poverty-stricken Kliptown. We felt Him in loving embraces we received from everyone we encountered,
whether we had met before or not, and learned that these warm brothers and sisters in Christ do not put up barriers that have become most comfortable for us in our culture. We saw Him in the joyful faces of children, so happy to see us, regardless of their circumstances.
Perhaps we saw Christ most evident in the daily livesand ministries of our partners from St. Thomas, some of the same friends sitting in that circle thanking us that morning. While our resources and manpower increase their ability to reach out into the community, it is humbling to see how much wonderful ministry that small parish does. We could see Christ exhibited through Father Victor, senior warden Joffe, and the many other volunteers and caregivers who work to help HIV patients, orphans, hungry, and homeless people. Their daily witness of “living beyond themselves” goes beyond our concept of outreach as something “extra”, as fellow traveler Nicole Corlew recently observed in a reflection she wrote for Devozine Magazine. They glorify Christ through their lives of service
South Africa 2006: A Journey of Discomfort, Discovery and Amazing Grace
It started with a rainbow. Taxiing to the gate at a stormy Detroit airport, we prayed and worried for one of our group who had not shown up when we left Nashville two hours before. Our spirits soared when we discovered that she had been put on an earlier flight and was watching us from the terminal. Just then, we saw a rainbow arching across the sky outside our plane’s window. We were off to South Africa.
We went to explore a partnership among hospices and churches. Along the way, we experienced discomfort, discovery, and amazing grace.
There was the discomfort of seeing the poverty in the “informal settlements” where sticks and tin make a home and the only water comes from a hand pump down the road – of meeting people dying of AIDS in informal settlements, and then meeting their children – of seeing the lingering separation of blacks and whites, physically, socially, and economically. There was the discomfort of realizing that this separation was a sight so familiar that it was all but lost on us.
But then there was the discovery of the incredible beauty God has bestowed upon this land. We saw the richness of God’s palette as we peered through the white picket fence of a seaside home at an immaculate backyard of emerald green grass flanked by cascading pink and purple flowers against a backdrop of bright blue sky and cerulean sea. We observed the harnessed power of a lion, admired the graceful elegance of an eland, smelled the musty odor of a water buffalo, and laughed at the panache of penguins on the beach. From a mountain top we looked down at the point where two oceans meet.
Finally, there was the amazing grace at work in the people of this land – grace: “the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.” We heard grace in the forgiveness and reconciliation of a people ravaged by the scourge of Apartheid, like the woman whose husband had been imprisoned for fifteen years and who not only refused to hate, but turned forgiving love into action, orchestrating a school feeding program. We learned grace in the first-hand history lessons from Naomi Tutu. We experienced grace at Hospice in the West where we played African drums with patients and, for a moment, saw all colors – “the rainbow people of God” – joined in music, movement, and the celebration of the Holy Spirit when even the lame danced. We felt grace in the worship at St. Thomas Church where music again reverberated, incense filled the air, and happy voices in different languages were raised to God in praise.
God’s hand was everywhere in our journey, breaking our hearts then filling them again. He has granted our parish an opportunity to forge a partnership with our new friends, these fellow members of the Body of Christ, who have so much to tell us. Those of us who journeyed are changed. We pray you will join us.
Monica Carlson
Personal Account of South Africa Mission
Agatha Nolen was one of several travelers who journeyed to South Africa in 2007. Read her personal account of the visit.
My African Souvenir
by The Rev. Timothy Jones
The following is an article recently published by our own Timothy Jones in Discipleship Journal about the trip he took last fall with our group to South Africa..
Recently I helped lead a group from my church on a mission trip to South Africa. I had heard from others who had gone on a similar trip that I would witness the country’s majestic beauty, as well as stubborn signs of heartache and poverty. I didn’t realize, though, just how much what I would see would change my praying. I would take home with me new reasons to intercede. And I would also uncover the simplest of ways to ensure I kept praying.
Our time began predictably enough. We joined forces with a sister congregation, St. Thomas Anglican Church in Kagiso, near Johannesburg, planting a vegetable garden at a school for children of a nearby shantytown. Another day we lent our sweat and muscle to help build a simple wood-frame-and-tin-wall house for a family known to our partner church. They had just lost their rickety home in a windstorm, and I will never forget the grandmother, as the walls were hoisted up, lifting her hands to Jesus with tears of thanks. At museums and in conversations with our new friends we learned about apartheid, the oppressive national system that fell in the 1990s. We also heard testimonies—and gave them—to the saving and sustaining love of Christ. The images I saw and the conversations I had moved me. I realized how praying for the people of South Africa needed a larger place in my intercessions.
But how would I remember to pray once I left these powerful images behind?
Toward the end of our trip, our group spent a morning in Cape Town’s bustling open-air market. Already I was realizing that I needed more than the typical souvenir to commemorate the week. At one of the booths I bought a soapstone cross not much bigger than a postage stamp on a simple thread cord. I decided the cross could help me not only remember what I saw, but prompt me to pray—to pray for the poor and for my friends ministering in that land.
My souvenir has made a difference in my prayer life. A glimpse of the cross on my closet shelf and the act of slipping it around my neck as I dress remind me of the great need I witnessed there, and Christ’s love for the people. Sometimes, during the day, I will feel the friction of the cord’s knots under my shirt and I recall again my pledge to pray. My prayers are often brief, even quick. They are prayers that can fit in the midst of a busy day. But I have prayed for South Africa more often, and more consistently, because of that simple souvenir. It reminds me of a week in a faraway place that changed my life and continues to deepen my prayers.
The Rev. Timothy Jones
A Journey of Faith, Forgiveness, and Hope
If someone had asked me why I was going to South Africa, I am afraid I would not have been able to give one good reason. I have a full life with a busy family, like everyone else I know, and ten days away from them is a struggle. For reasons that I am still discovering, this trip - the third for St. George’s and first for me - seemed important.
Our first full day began with a church service at St. Thomas in Kagiso. Music and incense filled the air as we witnessed the congregation truly celebrate the love of Christ with us and each other. We were embraced, not only as welcomed strangers, but as fellow children of God. Later in the day, we would visit Kliptown, a 100-year-old settlement that began as a home for all races. Today, as well as some mixed use buildings, there are shacks with no electricity. There are only a few water faucets for the entire community and each family is assigned to a locked portable restroom. We were given a guided tour by a member of SKY (Soweto Kliptown Youth) - an organization that provides after school programs such as tutoring, sports, and dance for the youth. More importantly, they are providing hope to impoverished children, many of whom are orphans.
It was during this walk through the shacks that I first felt God’s love that would follow our group of twelve through long days of tears and laughter. A little girl named Ntaya, maybe four years of age, slipped behind me and took my hand. She smiled and walked with us all the way back to where we began our tour. She did not ask for anything other than to be a part of our group for a little while. The hope in her sweet dark eyes was almost too much to see. I wondered how such a young child, with no mother in sight, could reach out to us with such grace and dignity.
The next morning found us prepared in spirit and dress for a day of work in the garden, a project that was started last year in hopes of providing added nourishment to a school of 700 children, many of whom have little or no food at home. We had learned that two greenhouses had been erected over last year’s gardens and that there were also two small water towers to provide much needed irrigation in a water-scarce country. When we arrived at the school, we were not handed work gloves. Instead, we were greeted with a parade of students which led us to the garden and the unveiling of a large sign announcing St. George’s and St. Thomas as sponsors of the project. The word “Steadfast,” written under our logo, took on such a strong meaning as I saw the joy in the eyes of my fellow travelers, especially those who had returned, and also the members of St. Thomas - truly our partners. We did work in the garden and returned later in the week to see the plants already growing - a hopeful sign that there would be relief from the hunger.
During our remaining time in South Africa, we would visit a family in Soul City - where a structure had been built during last year’s visit, only to learn that one member had died- a reminder of the AIDS epidemic. We would see man’s despair in a crowded health clinic and God’s beauty in a flower garden that bordered a shack made of tin. Our ears would be filled with the sounds of worship. We would taste and smell incredible foods and see the beauty of nature- with mountains falling into the ocean. We would feel the pain of the spirit held down by the evils of apartheid and the glory of God in the soul of a former prisoner of Robben Island who has chosen forgiveness over hate. This was a choice that we would hear repeated in the voices of so many others. A choice to forgive for the sake of their children, for themselves, and for the future. God’s choice. We would hear first hand accounts of African life lived under an oppressive government and what it meant to be told that your education, one that was already minimal, would be taught in “the language of the oppressor.” We would also be reminded, most importantly, of the redeeming power of God’s love.
The reasons for this trip and our partnership with St. Thomas are numerous. We can provide funding for clothing, books, and food for the community. Most importantly, we can provide our love, as they so graciously have provided to us.
Dana Long
A Little Girl Named Gladys - Agatha Nolen
“So, who is that little girl?” I asked.
Surrounded by 780 young schoolchildren, we had just been overcome with tears when a huge sign was unveiled dedicating the vegetable garden to the partnership between St. Thomas Anglican Church of Kagiso, South Africa and St. George’s Episcopal Church, Nashville, TN. What a glorious sight to recognize the common bond that we all shared: God’s unconditional love for all His children.
“But, who is that little girl that read part of the dedication and is having her picture taken?” I asked again.
One of the assistant principals said, “I know the story. She is a very special little girl. It is because of her that we have the feeding scheme at the church.”
“Her name is Gladys Ndakane, and this is her story.”
“Three years ago, Father Xolani was driving on the streets of Kagiso and noticed this little girl on a street corner. He stopped and said, “How come you are not in school today?”
“I live with my mother and we don’t have money to buy a school uniform for me to attend school.”
“Father Xolani took her to the Tsholetsega School and made sure that they could accept another student. Then he took her and her mother to the store and bought her a school uniform with his own, personal money. Father Xolani learned more about the family and realized that the family did not even have enough money for food. They existed on bread and occasional rice. Father Xolani asked about other students at the school and found that many of the students were the same. The only food they received was one slice of bread at the beginning of each school day.
Father Xolani then declared, “The Parish of St. Thomas will help; we will start a feeding scheme to provide one hot, nutritious meal per week to as many students as we can afford.”
“So the church raised money to buy food and the ladies of the church worked to prepare it, but then they would run out of money and the feeding program would stop. Again, they would have money donated, but soon it would be gone, too, and the feeding program would stop. This happened time and again as money would be raised, but it would soon be gone, and the children would go hungry.”
“And then the people of St. Thomas of Kagiso met the people of St. George’s from Nashville.”
“It wasn’t until the people of St. George’s got involved in our feeding scheme, that we can now do great things. We feed 100 children one hot, nutritious meal each week, every week.
God has blessed this partnership and we can now do great things.”
“And this is the little girl that started it all.”
Agatha Nolen