A chance encounter

August 5th

It may be happenstance..... and it might be a small miracle.

South Africa Airlines could not get us to Ghana for 2 days. I had emailed Joan and James Alty just before we left for Africa, just to tell that that I would be in Africa. They, as luck would have it, we were forced into staying in Jo-burg. I had all but forgotten about James and Joan because the return email told me that they were out of the office and would not be able to answer my email for a few weeks. Then I got a note from Joan last night. They live 6 hours outside of Jo-burg, so it wasn't really an option to see them. But they introduced us to Pastor Mpho Putut, a vineyard pastor serving a congregation in Soweto (on the outskirts of Jo-burg). I got the email at 11 p. at night. While having a local pastor tell us his story would be ideal -- we realized that the timing was just off.

But I sent him and email anyway.

I stayed up until 1:30 am in the hopes that he may be a late night emailer. He wasn't. At around 8 am the next morning, just on the off chance that he would be available, I called him. He generously offered to take us around Soweto. I am amazed at how small the world is. Pastor Putu is very involved in taking members from our congregation at the Meeting House around as they visit the project we are working on in South Africa with MCC. He is also one of the key contacts for the Out of Town program out of Canadian Mennonite University. He calls Paul Kroeker a dear brother in Christ.

He met us at the hotel and took us to Soweto. As we drove he told us his story and the story of his people.

I live in a nation where our freedom is never question. Opportunities are available for every citizen. The government doesn't draw lines. We toy with the ideas of democracy and talk about rights -- which, to Pastor Putu, are really privileges. He told us this story:

A man steals a bike from his neighbour. For many months he uses that bicycle for his own purposes. His neighbour is powerless to get his bike back because his neighbour refuses to admit that he has stolen it. He treats it as his own. But after a long while he feels sorry for what he has done and he takes the bicycle back to his neighbour and says, "I am sorry. For I have taken you bicycle. I was wrong. Will you forgive me?" The neighbour, humble and forgiving, says, "Yes, I will forgive you." And the man who stole the bicycle gets back on it and rides it home, freed from the guilt of his theft.

As we drove, he told us that he was arrested many times in downtown Johannesburg because he was not carrying his card. Even though he was born in South Africa. Even though his father was born in South Africa. Even though his forefathers had invested their lives in the land and the future of South Africa, he was black. And a black man did not have permission to walk where a white man lived. He was expected to stay in Soweto, where he belonged.

His father, his friends fathers and thousands of other fathers came to Soweto to find work. Often they left their wife and their children behind. The were given shelter in barnlike structures that had nothing -- not even a bed. At night they through a light blanket on a concreat pad and prayed that their bodies would revive so that they could work another day. The men were men, not animals. They needed the comfort of their families, the support of friends. They ahd nothing. They sought out women to be their friends and mistresses while they were seperated from their families. Children grew up with no father and their mother was overcome in the raising of her children, farming the small plot of land and doing everything by herself.

Pastor Putu had no one to show him the things a father should show a son -- when his cheeks grew soft hairs, he had no idea how to shave. When he needed manage his home, he had no example, for his father had been a prisoner of the mine. When he looked for a mentor to show him how to become a husband and a father, he had to look outside of his own home, because his own father was stolen by capitalists who wanted gold. Pastor Putu wanted a better way, so he struggled to go to school. He discovered democracy -- a nation where the people have a right to have a voice in the governing of their country, city and municipality. He showed us the 10 rights that his people had dreamed about in 1955 -- the year I was born. But still have not realized completely.

Each dream was something I take for granted every day.

As we walked through the morning with Pastor Putu, I wondered if the very strength of our own country was slipping through our fingers.

Ironically, I had recieved an email from a journalist in the morning who wanted me to comment on an article written by a professor at TWU which commented on the increased stress on today's student because of Facebook. And I looked at the students who were walking on the campus in Soweto -- a campus that is only a few years old. They are the first generation of black young people who have the opportunity to go to college. Their parents dreamt of having enough food, being together with their family, have a safe shelter for the night... they never even imagined that their children would learn to read.

I am willing to fight for a democratic society? One where each member of my community has the freedom to live in a safe home, work 40 hours a week, have the right to a basic education, the freedom to till the land they own and use the resources that are a part of their own nation.

It has never occurred to me to fight for democracy.

He walked with us through a monument to the past. For many years Soweto was only a dormitory for the mines and for the labour jobs in the city of Johannesburg. People lived in long row houses, that weren't homes, they were small cubicles where people slept at night, before they made their way to their work. They were not even really communities. The dream to make the community a thriving environment where the more than 2 million citizens could live freely, buy necessities from their neighbours, trade skills, goods and services was far from their imaginations. Today the community has built a market. A huge covered structure provides booths for many people to seel their goods: vegetables, hand made crafts, fruits, meats, cheeses... everything you can think of.

In the centre of the market is a food court that is built of brick. The roof is a tall tower made our of sheet metal taken from the slum dwellings that many of the people used to live in. Each rusted and twisted sheet is a reminder of the past, giving each child the gift of the journey to change. Pastor Putu believes the past is important to remember, so that each child who recieves the gift of education and a career remembers the painful journey their parents walked to give them a democratic state.

The injustice of Apartheid are a painful reminder of the power of authority and wealth. The clash of cultures in one nation is not new -- nor do I expect will disappear. The believe that a black child was born to serve, created to bow to the power of the white child, unable to understand the complexities of the written language, math and science has no meaning for me.

But before I step back into my world, I want to hang on to the dignity in which God created all people -- in his image. Our imaginations are so much smaller than our creators -- yet, each day God performs a miracle and opens our minds to a new idea, a new thought, a new understanding. May I never see the world as finite or predictable. May I be open to seredipidous laughter when I realize that I have only seen the elephant from the eye level of an ant and suddenly, miraculously, I am given the opportunity to see the elephant from the perspective of a swallow.