Helping Others to Help Themselves

Because of various interruptions, we apologize for this very late post. This update was meant to be posted prior to our trip to Cape Town, however it was never edited. Without further introduction, here is Wednesdays post, July 23rd.

We got a look at the Mukhanyo Theological Seminary, but only for a moment. We were only there to exchange Dr. Miskin’s car for the bakkie so that we could transport a patient from the hospice to his home. There were not enough seats in the front of the bakkie, so Erika and Scarlett sat in the back while I sat by Dr. Miskin. As we drove to Nakekela to pick up the patient, she and I talked about apartheid—a law which remained in act from the 1940s to the 1980s to keep blacks out of the white cities in South Africa. She said that many of the blacks were forced from their homes in Pretoria, Cape Town, and Johannesburg to isolated shanty towns, like KwaMhlanga. When apartheid was abolished and the blacks came to power, many of the villagers in the shanty towns believed their new political leaders in parliament would help them out of their poverty, but after fifteen years the people were finally realizing that even their own people had forgotten them. “No political leader is going to worry about some poor blacks living out in the sticks,” she said, “and so the poverty remains.”

I asked Dr. Miskin if there were no industries to help them rise out of their poverty. She said there were a few, but none of them were enough to provide jobs for the alarming number of unemployed in the community.

The subject changed to the AIDS virus. She said that the blacks had no shame in extramarital affairs, however if one were to get AIDS, one would immediately bring shame upon oneself. People with AIDS in KwaMhlanga were treated like people who carried the plague in the Bible. Shunned from the community or hidden away somewhere in a separate shack, it was no wonder people with AIDS kept their inflictions a secret until it became nearly too late for medical assistance. “That’s where we usually find the patients,” she said. “Hidden in shacks or thrown outside the city.”

We arrived at Nakekela, the MCDC AIDS hospice. Dr. Miskin told us we were going to take a patient to visit his family. He was laid on a stretcher and we lifted him into the back of the pickup truck. It seemed a primitive way of transporting a fragile patient, half of his body paralyzed by a stroke, but of course there was no other way. Erika, Scarlett and I stayed in the back with him. As we drove on the unpaved road I discovered the bakkie lacked sufficient shocks. Our heads banged against the top of the cab while the patient’s thin knees slammed against the windows. Eventually we came to the smooth highway and the ride became much more comfortable. We were dropped off at the farm, and Dr. Miskin took the patient the rest of the way.

When we came to the farm a man named Ferdie gave us a tour of the Community Development Centre in a renovated old barn. There was a computer literacy class room and a sewing room to instruct the villagers in their own trades. Ferdie explained that originally the ministry’s main purpose was to provide relief, or emergency assistance such as food provisions and medical assistance. “But relief is not enough any more,” he said. “If you continue to provide food, you’re not helping them anymore. You’re taking away their necessity to go out and find their own food. The purpose of this ministry is to help these people by showing them how to help themselves.”

Ferdie summed up by giving us words of advice in ministering to the natives of South Africa. “We have some people come and they want to change the customs of the people. You can’t do that. How would you feel if someone came into your home and said they didn’t like the way you did thing?.” He told us a story of a few volunteers who came and entered the home of a person with AIDS. They all rudely covered their mouths and noses with the collar of their shirts, as though AIDS was a disease that spread through the air. “What kind of manners are these?” Lastly he gave us a warning in our ministry to children. “Often we have young people who come and want to minister to orphans. Eventually they create a bond with a child. The child then learns to trust them and love them. But eventually the missionary’s time runs out and he or she must return to the States, or wherever they came from, and leave the child. Now here is a child who has already lost their parents at a very young age and must now go through the pain of losing a loved one a second time.”

His words were well received by Erika, Scarlett and I. He summed up, and we three took a walk. We explored the farm, ate lunch and returned to the Miskin home.