Observation #1: Authentic Community

The Mamelodi Initiative: Final Week

Its too bad that I did not have the time to process all of this information and experiences in the moment but we really did have to give it our all the last week of program to make it work. I'm going to blog about things that I observed during our groups final hours on the trip as well as the three most formative final experiences for me. Look for blog posts titled by observations and events.

Observation #1: Authentic Community

Throughout my life I think that the force God has used most in my life to create genuine change has been authentic community. This isn’t a term that’s really well defined so I am going to take my best crack at explaining it. To really work most of the people in the community have to be representing two aspects in their lives, which I can now see are the Christian’s yin and yang; Grace and Truth. Too much grace and not enough truth; people do things they shouldn’t, others are complacent in confronting members of their community because they fear being confrontational, a rule enforcer, they just don’t want to be the one to call someone else out because of their own shortcomings and in general people feel like they wont be confronted for the things they do even if they are detrimental to others or themselves. On the other hand when you have too much truth and not enough grace; people act off of their impulses and say hurtful things to one another, people don’t have any reservations about calling others out when they see them as doing something wrong in their eyes and in general the only evidence of love is that people just tell each other what they believe to be right with no filter.

What I saw in that last week, was nothing short of incredible, what I saw was people constantly showing love to each other in grace and truth. Here are some fruits of this:

·      Because of the authenticity of the grace in the community people could be real, no matter what they felt. I saw people who had never opened up in their whole lives due to pride share their honest feelings about a family member losing their job, and how they were afraid for their family and say they didn’t know how they were going to provide for them. I saw another person express that they didn’t even know why they were in South Africa and that they weren’t having fun.

·      Because of the authenticity of the love being shown by everyone in the community it compelled people to quickly admit when they had done wrong so that there would be truth. I saw someone break down and say to the group that they had snuck out and broken curfew, when they never would have been caught for it.

·      Because of the commitment to truth people could point out to their friends when they saw them doing something that might not be good for them. I saw someone with so much humility and in a way that was not judgmental at all tell a group of people on the team the movie they were about to watch probably was not beneficial to the kind of life people in that group are committed to living.

These may not look like much by themselves, but together they add up to a community that was living authentically with grace and truth. People were able to forgive immediately when others confessed doing something wrong. People had the courage to tell the truth, even when the truth might not have been a popular decision. No one felt the need to bottle up their problems and they didn’t fear expressing themselves even when what they had to say was hard because they knew they would be met with love. The kind of love that developed out of this was deep and addicting. I credit the authenticity of the love we were able to show each other in grace and truth being the reason that 40 or so people, most having never met before, made every hug goodbye last as long as possible. Its the reason every laugh was so loud and so sweet. Its the reason tears that needed to be shed made their way down to the floor without being wiped away. The love we showed each other was unexplainable without Jesus. That love we were able to have as a result of living out grace and truth on summer project in Pretoria South Africa 2014 is the reason we will all be able to be friends for a lifetime. It is the reason our hearts will be entwined with South Africa, it’s people, The Mamelodi Initiative and each other as long as they beat.

God bless and all the best, 

Dylan Rollins