The Church on the Hill

Today Robin and I had the pleasure and privilege to worship at Norwegian Settler's Church. This is our regular place of worship here in South Africa and our second home church (along with Northview Bible Church in Spokane). When we came to live and serve here in the Port Shepstone area we came on our own on behalf of our small organization Two Tunics. We were not coming to join a team already on the ground and did not have a larger mission organization ready to support, guide and encourage us. We realized one of the first priorities for us needed to be to find a church and a small group for Christian fellowship. God provided for us the Norwegian Church and then a home cell group with in that church. Both have been a blessing to us.

Robin and I with some of the members of our home cell group







The Norwegian Settler's Church is just that, a church started by Norwegian settlers a little over 125 years ago. Today it is a thriving, predominately white interdenominational church. It sits on a hill with a view that in a sense captures life on the South Coast (as this part of KwaZulu-Natal is known). Toward the sea (lets call it east) the church overlooks the beach communities with their hotels, restaurants and shops that are a holiday destination for people from throughout South Africa as well as Europe and further abroad. It is in this community that Robin and I live.

Margate beach on Christmas day

Toward the south the church overlooks rolling hills of sugar cane fields where predominantly white and Indian farmers grow the historical number one cash crop for this area. Toward the north the church overlooks the industrial outskirts of Port Shepstone know as Marburg. Here textile factories, the Coke bottling plant and other light industries offers jobs at salaries that barely cover transport and food costs. This is also a residential area for many "coloreds", an official designation for a mixed race group distinct from blacks. This area is known for its violence, alcohol and drug abuse.

Toward the west the church overlooks an area known as Mkholombe, a shanty town that merges into a slowly expanding government housing area. No one knows how many people live in the sprawling shanty town but is definitely in the many thousands. In this community are the effects of extreme poverty, hunger, AIDS, drug abuse and despair. 40% of pregnant mothers in this community are HIV positive. Young children, many of them orphans roam the dirt paths between tin and mud shacks. Many sick with AIDS lie alone on dirt floors, abandoned by their families because of the stigma associated with AIDS.

Norwegian Settlers' Church sits on a hill overlooking these four communities, realities that together make up a microcosm of this South Coast region of South Africa. Most of the church's members come from the coastal and farm communities. They live, work and relax in a world of one or two of these realities. The other two are often unrealities to them as they have little or no contact with them. A few years ago Pastor Trevor Downham challenged the church regarding whether anyone would notice if the church disappeared. That challenge resulted in the formation of Genesis which today continues to provide care, support and hope to those in communities around the church affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty.

Genesis is fulfilling the desire of the church to be relevant to all of the communities surrounding it. Genesis is one of the key partners of Two Tunics and I am currently acting as the Medical Director of the Genesis Care Centre, a 40 bed HIV palliative care centre run by Genesis as a ministry of the church. Sometimes we think as we walk into our churches on Sunday morning "this is church". But I prefer to think "this is church" as I walk onto the Genesis wards this week helping to care for sick, dying and despairing people who would be without hope were it not for this church choosing to be the church to the pleasure and glory of Jesus Christ.

1,000,000,000 People

During our recent trip to Franschhoek (see my last post "The Winelands") Robin and I enjoyed some of the best meals we have had in a long time. Franschhoek is considered the gourmet capital of South Africa and 8 0r 10 of the 100 best restaurants in the country are in this one small village and the surrounding wineries.

Robin and I have always enjoyed good food and one nice thing about living in South Africa is that eating out is quite reasonable. Even at the best restaurants the prices are a lot cheaper than equivalent restaurants in the US or Europe. And now with the dollar-Rand exchange rate at something over 10 it is a great deal. So we were able to enjoy some wonderful meals at several excellent restaurants during our 3 days in Franschhoek.

Part of the purpose of our trip was to get away from the realities and seemingly never ending needs associated with the work we are doing here in South Africa. Getting away from time to time is quite necessary if one is going to be able to sustain this type of work. In this regard the trip was a success as we were able to get away from phone, internet, emails, people begging at the gate and all the other daily demands that are a regular part of our life here.

However, even as we were enjoying our escape and especially several wonderful restaurants there was one thing I couldn't seem to get away from. It was the title of this post which was also the headline on the second section of the Sunday Independent newspaper on January 4th this year. I couldn't seem to get the number one billion out of my mind. You see as the article explained, that is the number of people that will go hungry in 2009. And this has nothing, or at least very little to do with the worlds current economic crisis.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organizations makes annual estimates of the number of people who will go hungry and is predicting the number to go over one billion for the first time in history. This is despite a second record worldwide harvest in as many years and contradicts the undertaking of world leaders in 2000 to cut in half the number of hungry by the year 2015. The biggest factor in the increasing rates of hunger is the increase in food prices so that more and more of the worlds poor are unable to afford adequate nutrition even if it is available. The Sunday Independent article points out that although "At a special summit in June last year, rich governments pledged $12.3 billion to tackle the food crisis, but so far they have handed over only $1 billion of it, as they have scrambled to provide trillions to bail out failing banks."

I am thankful that I am one of the privileged and becoming few that can afford food. Certainly I am among the privileged elite who can afford to eat in a restaurant. I am not saying that I should have to give up eating as much or even eating out (as I said it is not really a food shortage). But I am convicted that I need to be more intentional about helping in some way to meet the growing hunger in the world.

Robin serving meals to children after school

Two Tunics name comes from Luke 3:11 where John the baptist says "let him who has two tunics share with him who has none and let him who has food do likewise". One of the things we are doing as Two Tunics is giving nutritional support to vulnerable and hungry children. We have established a partnership with Food 4 Africa through which we are providing a nutritional porridge food supplement daily to over 500 children at community based day care and after school feeding projects. We also provide healthy daily snacks (peanut butter, brown bread, milk, fruit etc.) to children at several of the creches (pre-schools) we support. Two Tunics is about sharing and I am proud to a part of this work that is doing something small in the area of the world's hungry children.

Robin feeding Food 4 Africa porridge at a creche

999,999,500 to go. Can any of you take on a few more?