My Eyes Have Seen

Never Enough

I can't even begin to think how to describe this trip to people. I've been home just over a week and I'm still reeling from the experience. At church and work people ask me how it was. And it's hard to answer. "Great." "Amazing." "Incredible," don't seem to do it justice. It was truly an experience you'd have to take for yourself to understand.

So while words and descriptions may not be enough...they can be something else. I can reach out with words and stories and convey some ideas or impressions of what the trip was like. To share that little piece of Africa that has grown in my heart like elephant.

Chrysalis

In the Western World, particularly the USA, we have wrapped ourselves in a cocoon of self-service and entertainment. Oh, we're connected to the outside world, in that we feed off their suffering to reassure ourselves that we're O.K. (Granted I'm speaking in broad strokes about our society and culture at large. I know there are many good people out there doing good things.)

It makes me think of my favorite line from Watchmen (graphic novel or movie.) Nite Owl and the Comedian are breaking up a mob of civilians in New York:

Nite Owl "...What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream?"

The Comedian: It came true. You're lookin' at it.

I'll spare you from where my mind wants to go with this right now and relate it back to the trip. My point is that in America we don't fight for anything any more, we don't really work for it. (Again this is generalization, I know there are many people who work very hard every day) By that I mean we don't have to hack a living out of the wilderness. We can have everything delivered to our door, or the palm of our hand.

Proverbs 12:11 "He who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment."

We've filled ourselves up with the fantasy of convenience. We're in a chrysalis of laziness and selfishness. And I am terrified of what we will become when that shell starts to crack open.

Bricks

I used to think so many things about who I was, what my goal in life was and on and on. But I've come to learn a few things about myself. Over the past 4-5 years I've been on a rediscovery of who I am. Where I belong in life, and most importantly who I am in Jesus. I know I've got a lot of problems and I'm far from perfect. I'm about as far from perfect as a snake is from the clouds. I knew going to Africa would be a major life changing event for me. But I had no idea how much, I'm still sorting through all of it.

That first day at Botshabelo we started work by learning to build. Anyone who knew me when I was younger know I loved Legos. I still do. If I had money to spend on toys I would most certainly be buying Legos to this day. I loved building the designed playset, learning how to fit pieces together then taking them apart and making my own design.

So getting to learn how to use real bricks to build something that could sustain more use than a Lego castle was exciting. We were to build a brick wall surrounding a sidewalk, and turn it into a giant sandbox. So that first day we learned how to scoop the mortar with a trowel, plop it on the ground, lay the brick, check levels, tap it, remove apply more mortar if needed, then lay it in. Then start over with the next brick.

There was something to holding that trowel in one hand, grabbing a massive grey brick with the other, and putting on the mortar that just felt...right. No job or work that I had ever done felt as whole and real as that. Brick by brick we built that wall. For half the time there I was able to help with the construction of that wall. Layer upon layer, mortar, brick, level, mortar, brick, level. A kind of rhythm set in, and the pit walls began to take shape.

Building this wall spoke something into my soul. I love to create things. I think that's why I love writing so much, and stories. Building this wall was a form of creation. It told a story of our labor as we worked to the final covering. So over the course of 11 days it transformed from a sidewalk, to a plastered wall, painted white with hand prints, names, and designs all over it. Where once nothing had been, a long sand box now rests, and is climbed in, jumped over, played in and filled with the sounds of laughing children.

And to know my hands, sweat and labor helped make that thing a reality...I've never known a comparable experience.

Grave

There is nothing in the world that compares to digging a grave by hand. I didn't know the people who died from Adam, but their passing will forever be a part of my life. Two people I had no knowledge of before I learned they were waiting to be buried. Their existence in my life started with learning of their deaths. It is a strange way to meet someone.

It was Tuesday the 20th of July. For us it was 12:30 PM. So here on CST it was 5:30 AM. The men of the village, including Raf, Steve and myself, started back from lunch up the long hike through the village across fields of tall, dry brown grass, to the charred fields and eventually arriving at the graveyard. The guys hung their jackets or shirts on a tree with massive thorns and set about the dimensions of the graves.

Then, with pick and shovel the digging started. We all took turns. Never have I as emotionally "off" about a physical task. To know we were digging a hole in the packed red soil of Africa to inter two people was surreal. I never anticipated that being a part of my life. It was so unusual, but so natural at the same time. It made sense in a way that I can't describe. At least not in this format.

One of the guys with us streamed dance tunes from his cell phone as we dug. Little by little we made our way down. Eventually the three of us headed back to the playground to go back to building. The other guys continued on digging until almost 8:30 that night. Apparently after we left the ground got "hard and rocky" and we were nearly halfway done when we left only 2 hours into digging. So they spent 6 hours digging about 3 feet in each grave.

The next day was the funeral. I won't go into a full description of it again, but once over, the graves were immediately filled and rimmed with big stones. The 8 hours of digging quickly filled with the casket, and red dirt. Red dirt mounds surrounded by stones and at the moment charred black earth. To have been a part of the final resting place for those two bodies, to have stood in their grave as it was being dug...it moment I will not lightly forget. I know that all that went in there was the bodies, and what made them who they were in life was long gone.

It was all simple, and to the point. No elaborate mausoleum and pricey headstone. No backhoe or machinery. Just men with shovels and picks, bent backs, and sweat. And I know that the people of Botshabelo will be back on that hill, with shovels, songs and prayers much sooner than we could hope. There, death is quite literally a part of life.

Level

If working on the sand pit wall was satisfying with each brick, creating the foundation of the kiddie-pool was utter frustration. This was my second task to focus on in Botshabelo. The sand pit was moving nicely, and other guys were working on finishing the construction while the ladies plastered it. A few of us started on the new pool.

We started out in a slightly sunken 'pit' on the edge of the playground. We set stakes in the four corners and tried to make them straight and 6 meters each side. Then we set to clearing the grass, and excess dirt to level the ground. Next we started with a row of bricks. We didn't have the foundation of the sidewalk to work off so we had to make it level, and 90* angles in the corners. KU (our friend from Ga-Rankuwa) worked tirelessly on digging and removing the soil, Christie would go before me and clear out loose earth and rocks and get the gap between the ground big enough for a brick. Then I came a long, placing the brick, leveling it, adjusting etc.

It was mentally exhausting. And it was slow going. So when the other team memembers finished plastering, or building a swing set, or whatever they were doing, the three of us could look at the pit and say, "we got 6 bricks level." It was tedious and slow going. I had a lot of time to think and examine things.

Sitting in that pit, moving a brick into place then checking the level was not hard work physically. But it tolled on my mind. I'd wait and watch as the little greenish-yellow liquid and bubble would bounce around before settling into place just a pen's width away from center, and then remove the brick. Add some loose soil, replace the brick, check level, tap the right spot to flatten the new earth, and...almost level. Repeat. Repeat. Clear away some earth cause there was too much..repeat, level, repeat.

At last the brick was in place! Shuffle my seat over that red dirt, and start on the next brick...repeat, repeat, repeat.

Tedious. But necessary. Anyone who knows anything about building, or drafting, or co-ordinates etc will tell you that a little bit off here, means a huge way off at the other end. And Con made sure we were aware of that concept, even on the sand pit construction.

It's a lot like life.

We set everything in place, and it looks level...but something is just a little off. And if we're not careful we don't see it until we reach the end of that line and realize we are nowhere near where we expected to be.

Choices we make, exceptions, lapses in judgment...indulging into that moment of complete selfishness...pushes us a little farther off the line. If we are out of level enough at the beginning we may not even recognize ourselves at the other end.

Matthew 7:13-14 says this, "13 Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."

I think God has a plan for all of us that He wants us to choose to be on. He won't force us to it. It's a choice we make. A path we have to walk ourselves. We may have help from time time, or others accompanying us in different periods in our lives, but it is our walk with Him. And it's so easy, so very easy, to divert from that path.

Just like it was easy to say a brick was "close enough" to level. It didn't cut it. I'd say that out loud, and move onto the next brick, and then something was off. So I'd go back to the previous brick and correct the "close enough," before returning to where I thought I should be.

I don't want to be like that in life. I don't want to have too much dirt under me to make me go over the level line. To be so full of stuff, things that aren't necessary that I'm bloated with life and can't be used properly.

Or to not have enough in my life. To be so restrictive to what I don't rise to the line that I'm supposed to be at. To fall short. I'm not into that whole concept of universal balance or yin/yang and that sort of thing. I do believe we can fill our lives with too much stuff, too much distraction, and not see what we should. Or the opposite where we don't learn enough, we don't seek enough and come up unable to reach the goal.

I also believe that with out God, Jesus, that it doesn't matter how perfect a life I live, I'll never be enough on my own. And the more I think about it, I don't want to be enough on my own.

Leaving a Piece Behind

I know I've left a piece of my heart in South Africa. The days, the work, the events we participated in, sliced off a piece and left it in the red dirt of the kiddie-pool, the mortar of the sand pit, the silence of the graveyard, the fur of the dogs and the laughter of the kids.

Not my heart.

I see now that it wasn't really "me" that I left behind. Though I think I will long to go back all the days of my life. But it's a piece of the heart of God. Regardless of what you believe, it was God who called me to go on this trip. If He had not, I personally, wouldn't have had a reason to go. I would have been none the wiser of my chrysalis, had I stayed home. I'd have spent the two weeks visiting with friends, watching movies, going to church and thinking I was an ok guy, living a good life, doing the best I could.

But I've seen something now.

I've been blessed with the opportunity of traveling to Africa. To see the hills around Botshabelo. To hear the laughter and cries of the children. To see Marion and her family going to and fro in the village checking on everyone and everything. I've seen the sun rise and set on a different continent. I've breathed in the air of Africa, listened to the songs of a funeral, hear the drums of the Zulu in the mountains. I've locked eyes with a lion and was terrified and amazed in the same instant.

I pray more than leaving a piece of my heart, the love that God gives to me, that I could bring Africa back with me. To carry a piece of that place in my heart. To retain what I learned and experienced, and to know that I am forever changed, not because something left me, but because something was added to me. The Township, the Village, the Mountains, the animals, and the People have all given something to me.

I pray that I will honor that, and live a better life than I did before I went. To open my eyes when I think I see. To open my ears when I think I've heard it all. To talk less, and participate more. To see the world around me not as my home, but where I'm blessed to be in that moment.

So there it is, my first real reflection over the trip. It's not everything. But it's where I'm at now. I'd love to see where tomorrow takes me, but I'm here today, and today will be enough for me.