The Day We Went to Prison
“You’re the one who took the fall and it’s bringing us together.”
THE LETTER
– Acceptance
June 17, 2008
6:30am comes and goes with a tap of the snooze button but 7:00 arrives none the less and I’m standing int he gloom of a sunless morning. Cold and hungry with soggy cereal in my bowl. I drink my tea and begin my quiet time. I’m wresting with how to love Jesus with more than just my mind and where these thoughts of sin in my life come from, but the promise of another sabotaged day looms in the air as a distraction. I know God has me here for a reason but at the moment Satan is doing everything in his power to keep me from finding that out.
“TIA” all the time; that’s what we say whenever the opportunity for discouragement creeps up. “This Is Africa” and we know that means things will never go our way. That in itself is testing for me. I am spoiled and American. I am always busy, but here we are never rushed. It annoys me. But finally we are on the road to our first township, Humansdorp, where we prayer walk for over an hour while we wait for the pastor who called and said he’s “5 minutes away.” We eventually end up driving to met him 30 minutes away in a nearby township called Hankie. He informed us that for the day we would be doing prison ministry. We get to the medium-security-prison and walk with our America-obsessed-pastor-guide to the guard post where we proceed to see everything (and more than we wanted) about the prison- from the lonely prisoners, right down to the two trees donated by the church (which were more bushes than trees).
When we finally escape prison we head to town and have some authentic South African grub from a white lady with a gold tooth. This is SO Africa. But with this frustration of our prison experience and cold weather we headed to see our precious children at St. Francis Bay. A long drive ended in laughter, smiles, and love from kids that, if I had the choice, would never leave my side. Those children have my heart and are the reason I came to Africa. I could write an entire entry on the simple way the broke my heart and put it back together again with their singing voices.
4:30 came too soon and we peeled them off us with cold hands and sad faces and piled 13 of us back in the 7 passenger van again and pulled away with about 50 kids chasing after us.
The point of this story is to make known that mission trips are not all smiling faces and hot days (I actually write this as I sit in one of South Africa’s rolling blackouts where the entire city is powerless and we are locked inside our camp), but those singing mouths and sweet hugs make it all worth it. They are the flesh and blood embodiment of Jesus and He truly is all-loving and awe-inspiring.
Love,
Jen
P.S.- the electricity just came back on… we turned the lights off anyways.
