The Weekend

This weekend was HOT.
Saterday we went to the beach in the morning, walked at least 25 minutes along the beach in the sand to this place where we could BBQ, then decided not too, and bought hot ready-made chicken and bread and stuff instead. It was a long walk; me and Emily (the other Canadian) got pretty burnt. I have the worst shorts tan EVER! I could walk around naked and it would still look like I am wearing shorts. White shorts. Even my lips are sunburnt which has never happened to me before. Luckily on the way back we walked on the road and someone the staff member knew picked us up and we rode in the back of his truck back to the base. Then I slept the rest of the day.
On Sunday me and Emily, Sabina (from Germany) and two girls from SA went with Jonta (who is on staff here and leads worship at a church in the community) walked to his church which is located deeper into the poor community. It was a pretty nice sized building, but a kind of small congregation. Anyways, Emily and Sabina and I were the only whites, but I didn’t feel uncomfortable at all. It was a great worship time, and a very intense sermon. The preacher was so passionate that sometimes I thought he was going to pick me up and throw me, haha. It was about in 2Kings where the man with leaprosy was told to wash in the Jordan river 7 times before he would be healed, and how sometimes we have to wait that long before something happens, we can just expect healing or answers after asking 2 or 4 times. It was a very powerful church.
Afterwards the preacher came to talk to us white people and he said, ``You want to know how to make a difference, well I tell you that just by walking in our streets and worshipping in our churches, that makes a difference more than you could ever ever know.``
And he told a story how when he was a kid and a white man touched his head, or smiled at him, he would run to his friends and say ``guess what, a white man was nice to me!`` And his friends would say, ohh no way, and obviously that was way back in apartheid days, but still it is a big issue as people are getting out of it. Another story he told was when him and a few people from a YWAM team went into a house of a sick man, and the man said, `now I can die in peace because white people have entered my house.` Now that may sound a little extreme, but I took it to mean he can die in peace because black and white have some together in his house.
Anyways, what he was saying is that our presence in their community and church really means a lot, more than we know, and that was really cool to hear…it made me sad actually, but also happy that even if unknown to me, I am making a difference. ! J