(sigh) Today was Day 3 of working in whats called a “township” here in Cape Town, South Africa known as OCEAN VIEW. Me and the Belmont team are working with a team from Vineyard Church in London, monthly volunteers from Living Hope, and volunteers that actually live in OCEAN VIEW. Instead of going through the specific logistics of how Monday, Tuesday, and today have been, I will describe the experience of what I’m going through and seeing with my heart.
OCEAN VIEW is a township of nearly 20,000 “coloured” people. We are putting on a Kids Club and a Teens Club at their Multi-Purpose center from 9am-12Pm, and Teens from 2pm-5Pm. We’ve been in contact with nearly 400 of the locals because of the Kids/Teens Club. The club is similar to what we know as Vacation Bible School in the states. It’s a place where the kids come to dance, sing, laugh, learn about the love, LIFE, and TRUTH of Jesus, and eat. Although we are only here for merely a week, I feel like this is a huge part of the kids’ “Holiday” (the 3 weeks of break before school starts back up). I also feel like it’s been a place where HOPE is taught and where the small amount of Hope that they currently have is rooted within them and multiplied.
I honestly don’t know where to begin. Let’s just start with the fact that Ocean View is known as one of Cape Town’s “poor” communities, or “under-resourced” communities, or “impoverished” communities. The lunches these kids are being given is the ONLY meal they will have the entire day, for most of them. Yet, these children have the most genuine smiles and transparent souls. When they smile, they glow. When they see me, they run to me. When they hug, they squeeze. When one of the leaders draws a picture for one of them, she/he will smile and show it off the rest of the day! They are attentive. They know more than one language. All this…and yet they’ve worn the same clothes since I first met them on Monday.
But what I don’t get, is the small bubble of outreach that is being done. Cape Town is an INTERNATIONAL city. There is alot of money and comfort here. But there are also families whose income is between maybe 200 and 300 USD a month. These 2 walls have collided in Cape Town and I’m seeing that collision. The families/kids of OCEAN VIEW may have “nothing” to us Americans, but they have so much. We, Americans, have so much and to them….we are royalty. Many want to just run away to America, but many want to become educated so they can change their communities, and many/most don’t DREAM big enough because they were told they were poor and the ones before them were poor…and they believed it. They are limiting their DREAMS!!!!! Can you imagine? I”ve been taught(as any comfortable American) to “DREAM BIG” and that I can “DO ANYTHING: I wanted to. These kids don’t have that. So they have no frame of reference when they are told to go to the University. They have no resources for finding a job. Shoot, their is one “township” that has absolutely no available PUBLIC transportation.
Their goals are nothing. Nothing. It more than hurts my heart and makes me angry just asking WHY! A local told us tonight that the time we have spent in OCEAN VIEW as a group of 5, is more than the amount of time that 90% of Cape Town locals have spent in Ocean View or any other impoverished township. WHY!?? When you are here, you see it….and u have 2 options…you can either shut yourself and those emotions off, or you can HELP.
This is not only the case here in Cape Town. It’s the situation around the world. Poor and rich. Unhappy and the joyful. Comfort and loneliness. Compassion and ignorance. It’s our attitudes toward the homeless in our cities. It’s the attitude toward the minorities in our city. It must change. WE CAN HELP! WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
As Julie ( a volunteer from Ocean View) told me in the kitchen as we were preparing lunch yesterday, “I am not going to give them a drink that I wouldn’t drink [we were mixing a kool-aid like drink]…it’s like you giving me clothes with holes and stains in them. Don’t give them to me. If you wouldn’t wear it, why would I? My preacher has been teaching us the past few weeks about Giving. If we are going to give, we need to give the BEST that we have”.
That is a struggle for me as well. That’s like giving your favorite/most expensive pair of shoes away. It goes along with the whole build your treasure up in Heaven, not on this Earth kinda thing. Where do you invest your joy/happiness? Makes you think, huh?
What is TRUTH is that you and I were BUILT TO LOVE. Jesus Christ has been sent before us and lived a life of perfection and we are called to strive for that. He died so that we could live for eternity….no matter our sin, no matter how bad we were last night.
One of the leaders from Ocean View gave her testimony in her native tongue (which is “Afrikaans”) yesterday during the Teens Club, I wrote down a few of the things she said in English during her 10-minutes, and I was brought to tears. She said, “Whether you admit it today, whether you admit it tomorrow, whether you admit it when Jesus Christ comes in on the clouds….EVERY KNEE will bow and EVERY tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord…..Once you come to know Jesus, your whole attitude changes. Your heart changes toward others. Your heart changes towards your family. God loves family and God loves you.”
Life is better WITH GOD, than without Him.
I am seeing firsthand what POVERTY is. I am seeing in physical form the term HOPE I so freely daily throw in the air. I am LEARNING what they both truly are…and yes, it breaks my heart…it absolutely wrecks me.
Don’t just admit that God is good, AND he died for our sins THEN sit in comfort. DO SOMETHING! LIVE out that LOVE!!!!!!
I hope all of you rest well and never take your blessings for granted. We seriously can change the world….one by one by one by one.
- Cheryl -