You’ll have to accept my apologies for the South Africa radio silence on the blog front. It was a whirlwind 2 weeks on the ground there. We were blessed to travel with a team of pastors and others from the RCA that were in South Africa to present a marriage conference and visit schools. It was awesome to travel with a team (we’ve typically been a little more on our own), but that did make our schedule a little more strict (more time for awesome team discussions, less time for blogging).
I also have to confess I was a bit overwhelmed by all we saw and experienced in South Africa. The ministry of Setshabelo Family and Child Services (SFCS) is such a gift from God to the town of Botshabelo. You can get a good overview of what they do at the SFCS website, so I don’t want to spend too much time talking about it here. In a nutshell, they are supporting children and families holistically. Think pretty much anything from training foster parents to sheltering orphans until they can land in a family to supporting ministries that feed the poorest of the poor in Botshabelo.
The need in South Africa (and especially the community of Botshabelo) cannot be overstated. In particular, HIV-AIDS affects this community in a huge way. UNAIDS says (as of 2015) that 500 people in South Africa die of HIV-AIDS every. single. day. Read that again. Every 24 hours 500 families lose a parent, a nephew, a cousin, a daughter. In the time it takes you to read this post (granted, it’s my longest one yet), another six people will have died. It’s so bleak! Lives are ripped apart through poverty and preventable disease. Children are abused sexually, emotionally, physically; they are abandoned by those who should love and protect and celebrate them.
I can write a gazillion pages about this, but many others already have done so, and much more eloquently than I. For starters, I’d encourage you to read reports like this one by Save the Children for information specific to South Africa, or books like Orphan Justice by Johnny Carr as he can give you an overview as to the plight of the 153 million orphaned and vulnerable children all around the world (and, even better, how you can be involved in caring for them (including and beyond adoption)).
So anyway, we lived it for a short time. We played soccer (ahem, excuse me, *football*) with kids eating their only meal of the day in a tin shack I wouldn't store garden tools in. I saw a one-month-old baby that should be asleep in momma’s arms, or giggling watching his older sister run around, or discovering his own fingers; but he was left in the hospital. No momma has claimed him. He sleeps all day in a crib, alone; only his basic needs attended to. We saw a little girl whose favorite (possibly only?) toy was the same as our dog Luna’s favorite toy - a tennis ball.
Now, set Orphan Sunday in the middle of all that. If you read that website, you’ll see it’s an annual celebration usually held in November. And celebration really is the right word (they held it early in Botshabelo because our group was there). We sang, we laughed, and oh man was there dancing. How can that be? Why gather as a community to eat and talk (and did I say dance?) when children are homeless; when fathers are struggling to provide for their family; when fathers are nowhere to be seen? Wouldn’t it be easier to hide away? Wouldn’t it be safer to pretend you don’t know there’s a problem? Surely, it would be nicer to raise your own children in the relative comfort of your own home and let ignorance of your starving neighbor be its own bliss?
And what if you do learn? Suppose you know the truth of how many child-headed households are around the corner? Imagine really and truly seeing a glimpse of the life of the grandmother raising her 6 rowdy grandchildren--her own child, their parent long since passed away. To have even the smallest glimmer of what life is like for the mother selling herself in the sex trade just to attempt to put a little food on the table… Could you dance? Could you celebrate? Could you even leave your house?
But the people of Botshabelo haven’t made like the ostrich and buried their heads in the sand. And yes, they are still dancing. They know, and are continuing to learn through the ongoing work of SFCS, that they alone have the power to make change in the lives of children in their community. God has given them hearts full of love to care for orphaned and vulnerable children who are totally out of options.
After all we’ve seen and experienced in the last year, I shouldn’t be surprised. But God continues to break and enlarge my USA heart in ways I haven’t been prepared for. One mom who adopted a daughter through SFCS described her wellspring of happiness best: “God’s love is a transforming love. I didn’t think I’d have room in my heart for this little girl after I raised my own boys, but as I prayed, God gave me more and more love for all my children.” When God loves you, the way you love your community changes. Your heart is transformed in ways you never expected.
If we don’t have God’s love as the foundation for this discussion can we dance? No, I don’t think so. Without Christ as the foundation, all we’re left with is sick and homeless children, broken relationships, and no hope for community transformation. We’d have an uphill battle without a clear path to victory.
But we have the Cross, we have the path to victory paved in Christ’s blood. So we can rejoice! We can dance! We rejoice that God has so much to teach us about who he is through the gift of adoption. We can celebrate the gift of family, and how beautiful it is when children are brought into a loving home. We can praise God for the gift of work yet to do in this area — all of us as Christians can do more to educate ourselves on issues of justice for children.
If you want to talk more about any of this, please reach out. There are so many resources to help you engage your own heart and your church community around what can be done to love well vulnerable children all around the world. I’d love to connect you to Setshabelo, or to any other number of resources! God’s blessings to you! I leave you with some Orphan Sunday dancing. Take care!