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

As Close As It Gets

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 Question posed to me this morning at breakfast, "Do you want to go to a place where you can pet lion cubs?"

I can only assume that this question was asked to me because someone wanted to hear me shout, "HECK YEAH I DO!!!"and watch my eyes about pop out of my skull as my eyes no doubt were filled with cheer like it was Christmas Day.

The video's included below should be corrected for the horrid frame dropping that happened before and I failed to notice. Enjoy.

However, if you ever make it to this place, its called the Lion and Rhino Preserve and its about 45 minutes away from Pretoria. While you won't see totally wild animals there, you will see animals with observable habitats in more numbers and as close as you can be. If I had known more about the place, I could have been taking full frame SLR photos of cheetah's eyeballs with my 105mm as they napped alongside dirt roads you can drive on within this place. They were so close we really could have reached out and touched them if we wanted to get mauled. But alas, some things are better left undocumented as memories. So it will be with what was no doubt our most touristy experience of the trip.

Swaziland hiking: Sheba’s Breast

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On our day off today, we went to Swaziland, one of the few true remaining Kingdoms on the planet. Swaziland is led by King Mswati III. If you find it as fascinating as I do that a kingdom could still exist in landlocked within the borders of South Africa then read the excerpt from Wikipedia below.

                        The constitution for independent Swaziland was promulgated by Britain in                 November 1963 under the terms of which legislative and executive councils were established. This development was opposed by the Swazi National Council (liqoqo). Despite such opposition, elections took place and the first Legislative Council of Swaziland was constituted on 9 September 1964. Changes to the original constitution proposed by the Legislative Council were accepted by Britain and a new constitution providing for a House of Assembly and Senate was drawn up. Elections under this constitution were held in 1967. Swaziland was briefly a Protected State until Britain granted it full independence in 1968.

                  Following the elections of 1973, the constitution of Swaziland was suspended by King Sobhuza II who thereafter ruled the country by decree until his death In 1982. At this point Sobhuza II had ruled Swaziland for 83 years, making him the longest ruling monarch in history. A regency followed his death, with Queen Regent Dzeliwe Shongwe being head of state until 1984 when she                            was removed by Liqoqo and replaced by Queen Mother Ntombi Twala. Mswati III, the son of Ntombi, was crowned king on 25 April 1986 as King and Ingwenyama of Swaziland.

The mountainous roads of Swaziland have enough twists and turns to make even a guy who’s been driving backcountry roads in Boone for the last five years a little car sick. The hike was beautiful, and as we went through the forest I could not help but appreciate that I was doing this at what must be the best time of year. Cool breezes chilled our sweat as we walked underneath vines named Christ’s Thorn, that easily could have taken out almost anything reckless enough to come in contact with it.

Along the way some dogs followed us. The friendly pups had short legs but from the way they navigated that mountain it wouldn’t surprise me if they summited Sheba’s Breast with every group of travelers that came along.

The top was gorgeous, I sat on top reflecting, gazing out into the hazeless winter sky and encouraging the others on my team to take the leap over a reasonably narrow but still imposing crevasse to get to the peak. If I hadn’t been in my element on the trip yet, it was enjoying the supreme peace of looking out over a country I had never expected to go to.

This One's for the Ladies

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This one was for the ladies

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“Date Night” Better Known as Female Appreciation Night

Unannounced to me, there is normally something on Cru Summer Projects known as “Date Night” Now my last project was in leading a backpacking ministry in Grand Teton National Park, so there wasn’t really the time or resources for a “date night” Now when I first heard the title, I must admit I was a bit mortified and for a moment I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into. Later I found out it was really just a time where we showed appreciation to the girls on the project by making nice dinner with ambiance, writing some notes of encouragement, having their picture taken and an epic slam poem courtesy of Matt Logan. If you think this sounds odd, I don’t know what to tell you, other than its just tradition on project to treat girls the way they should be treated.

There was planning that went into this late into the night. There were any times when girls tried to come into the dinning hall at Kilnerton that they were shooed away with many caveman-esque grunts. Dinner was pasta, chicken, salad with vinaigrette and an epic cookie brownie dessert. The presentation and quality of the food may have actually been the best of the trip - so huge credit to the guys that cooked. The dinning hall had been transformed with purple table clothes and maybe a hundred candles traded off for the fluorescents. The whole thing went off without a hitch and it was really cool to see the guys come together to do all the different parts of the evening, from hours in the kitchen, baking with the right amounts in the metric system, ambiance music with acoustic guitar and violin and the greatest poem I have ever heard.

Overall it was really nice and any mental capacity I was using to stifle my doubts about the idea quickly were traded for taking mental notes on the things we did for future reference.

Somehow Akeem and I banged out some group portraits in the last moments of the golden hour. Chalking this one up to a great assistant and gorgeous models.

 Mische, Erin, Bri, Katie, Arielle and Hannah B.

 Hailey and Jen

 Judy, Carla, Malia, Hannah Y. and Jestine

 Mary, Sam, Shannon, Gracelyn, Jen, Hailey

Sophie and Zoe

Sphatlo: The Answer to South African hunger.

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Today I got to try a local specialty, Sphatlo. The every man’s solution to hunger, the Sphatlo is a sandwich that is more or less the size of my head. Filled with sausage, potato fries, and acho (pickled mango), it is topped off with a fried egg, cheese, tomato, lettuce and a slathering of tomato sauce (ketchup). Not living up to my adventurous spirit I declined on the acho, being afraid if I didn't like it it would ruin my experience with the sandwich I had heard so much about. I was told before hand by my roommate Akeem that I would need to prepare time to take a nap afterward. I scoffed at this notion, as I have been a guy known for putting away some food when the job needed to be done. Akeem would later prove to be right as I had to sleep for two hours after the massive sandwich. As it turns out it is a running joke in South Africa that one should not eat Sphatlo if there are still productive things needed to be done in the day. But back at Supi Trading where we were waiting on our meal, Akeem and I conversed over how cheap this was. This giant sandwich was being made in a little corner storefront in Mamelodi for a whopping 10 Rand, so $1. Cold drinks in the fridge were for 7 Rand and so with smiles after talking to the kind store owners we went back to the car with what was surely a days calories for a mere $1.70.

Inherent Value Judgements

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Tonight during life group we read over the story of Jesus and the rich young fool. In the very beginning of this story, I realized something pretty crucial that I have been realizing over the past few months but I have not found a Biblical argument for it until now.

Matt 19: 16-17

16 Now behold, one came and said to Him, “Good[a] Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”

17 So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good?[b] No one is good but One, that is, God.[c] But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

What I had never gotten out of this story is that Jesus redirects the man’s value judgment of him. The man calls Jesus a good man and Jesus responds by saying only God is good. 

Now there is a very long theological debate in here somewhere and I accept that there is certainly a chance that I am wrong. That being said, it seems to me that while Jesus does not refute the mans value judgement, because Jesus is actually good, that I, being inherently separated from God by my mistakes could refute a similar value judgement. Maybe even as a believer, I should refute it and direct the praise to one that I know truly deserves it.

It hit me the first week we were here, when in out teacher training we were told not to tell our students that they are smart or dumb. I talked about this research more in depth on the blog post for the 27^th. So I wondered today, what is the effect on us when we are told we are inherently good at something or just good all-around? Can we develop pride from that? The things we are really good at, I would argue are gifts God gives us and not things we should take all the credit for. 

One of the things that I learn as I become closer to God is that I am above no other human, but I am also not below them. There is an almighty and perfect God and all people. Those are the only two class distinctions that I believe in. When I look at these kids, they are all so cool and have so much to offer the world in their own unique ways. The idea that I could come here to help them is flawed because that implies that they have nothing to offer me. The opposite has certainly been true, while I am at a point in my life that I can help them learn them some knowledge that they don’t currently have, they have also been teaching me just by the ways they act and by the incredibly deep and beautiful things that they say.

God bless and all the best,

Dylan Rollins.