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| View from our Paarl home |
This morning I was sitting outside our house in Paarl, drinking tea and silently absorbing the mystical stillness of the S.African autumn (like a warm spring morning in the UK). In the distance strings of whispy clouds were flirting with the audacious mountains; giants that that are not easily 'messed' with.
I was lost in a plethora of fuggy thoughts - mind darting around like one does when not really fully awake.
Images from internet reports and film footage of the catastrophic earthquake disaster in Nepal strobed across my mind and I wondered what the hell it was like to be there...in Kathmandu or Pokhara...'hell' I guess.
Then my mind lurched to Tegan, living and working at a primary school in Pokhara. My niece wrote and shared so brilliantly and vividly how terrible the situation was in the city. Pokhara and Kathmandu were about the same distance from the epicentre of the 33 earthquakes. She's been sleeping under a table with a friend by her door for days. And she watched in her state of shock as endless streams of traumatised and wounded people flocked into the already needy city. She told us that dead bodies littered the streets and there was no system for burning-burials or a process for bringing dignity to the end of these precious lives.
My heart did summersaults of anguish.
....and then my head veered off and started thinking about our time in one of the Townships this week. Lennox, our head of EL here in S.Africa took us to visit a woman he had recently heard about who was looking after abandoned children. We went to visit Wendy who runs The House of Hope. Singlehandedly she set up and continues to run a home for children who have either been abandoned or have sort refuge with her.
Wendy has taken 9 boys into her care and she also looks after her deaf and dumb teenage daughter. Every evening she finds a way to feed 67 children who flock to her home from the surrounding streets for something to fill their empty bellies and to escape abusive adults and cruel behaviour and sexual abuse.
The Township is a place that thrives on violence and fear. Wendy unfortunately lives in the 'wrong' part of the informal settlement; the wrong side of the road, in an area deemed to be illegal. She had no proper sanitation, running water and no electricity.
At night the dark is as black as pitch. Chronic boozing, drug taking (the raw kind...Tic and vile substances that corrode your innards) and sexually abhorrent acts are the perpetual pastime of those living in Mbekweni. Over the past few weeks riots and violence had hotted up - we saw piles of burnt rubbish, boulders, glass, trashed walls, debris and tyres where mobs had tried to set fire to the road (we could hardly pass in our car). It was vile.
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| Wendy and her boys |
Wendy has no supporters and no financial backing.... don't ask me...I don't know how she does this amazing work, but she finds a way. Neighbours break into her home, steal her meagre belongings and slander what she's doing..., but she still carries on. Her cardboard walls have massive gaps in them, the floods wash through her home, the children get sick from the cold...but she still carries on!
And I'm left harrowed and humbled...yes, so deeply humbled.
We left her home after an hour or so, heartbroken but in awe of this woman of profound courage. It was impossible not to be deeply impacted by her agonisingly tough situation and the gutsy wisdom that came from her mouth. Against all the odds she is shining a light in the inky darkness of Hell itself.
We won't return because it will be very unsafe for her to be seen with us again.
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| The children and their Subbuteo football game with rocks and one pingpong ball |
This afternoon, I read again those word from the bible:
"Learn to do good; seek justice
Correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless and plead the widow's cause" - Isaiah 1:17
...and with tears I resolved that, come what may I’d make these words my inner compass and driving passion.
- JB
