First Two Weeks in Joburg

Well, I’ve been in Johannesburg (Joburg) for about two weeks now and a lot of that time has been spent on even more orientation with our missionary supervisors here. Our apartment is in a pretty nice part of town outside of the main city, and it reminds me a lot of the states (there’s a mall and a grocery store within walking distance of my apartment). The big difference is the way crime affects how you do things here. Everything closes at four or five o’clock and almost no one goes out at all after dark, plus every house and apartment complex has multiple layers of security with guards, gates, electric fences, and bars on the windows and doors.

One of the coolest things to me so far has been the variety of languages. Its impossible to tell what someone’s first language is until they start talking…whites will either be of British heritage and speak English or they’ll speak Afrikaans (which is a Dutch and German based language) and blacks might speak any variety of tribal languages, Zulu and Xhosa (which uses different clicks with your tongue and is really cool sounding) being the main two. But pretty much everyone knows English and a lot of people speak at least 4 or 5 different languages.

We’ve really just started getting into the ministry we’ll be doing, and I don’t think we’ve really had a normal week yet, but here’s an idea of what I’ll be doing. We’re working alongside two different churches, Lyndhurst Baptist, which is within walking distance of our apartment, and Troyeville Baptist, which is in the inner city, pretty close to downtown Joburg. Our main job with both churches is helping organize and lead the youth groups, although there are other things we’ll be involved with as well (we're going to be volunteering at an AIDS orphanage that is associated with Lyndhurst Baptist one day a week). Our main goal is to develop relationships with the people in our area in and around our apartment complex and eventually start small house churches and Bible studies.

On Friday we went with Chuck (our supervisor) to one of the townships several miles outside of the city. It was one of the poorest areas I've ever seen, no running water or electricity, dirt floors, with shacks built almost on top of each other. There are hundreds of thousands of people living in townships like this around Joburg. Most of the people live there because it is land that the government has said they will eventually develop and provide housing with plumbing and electricity. So people from all over southern Africa come and live in these areas for maybe five or ten years hoping that eventually they'll get a better life. I didn't take my camera with me but here's a picture I found of what one looks like...

...so Chuck took us to a church inside the township that he has helped start and we played with about 20 kids that they were keeping at a daycare inside a building similar to one of those in the picture, we also helped them build an outhouse. It was a great experience and hopefully we'll be going back pretty soon...to me the saddest thing about it is the fact that a few miles down the road is the financial capital of Africa with millionaires and a very American style of life.