NieuCommunities » NC South Africa

Seedbed.

Chris Kamalski — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:32:09 +0000

Our community is rapidly experiencing the last 3 weeks of our Apprenticeship year, and a whole host of emotions, swirling thoughts, and frantic ‘final things’ define much of our days right now. As a part of the Entrusting posture, we are reading Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak, which has immediately risen to the Top 5 (3?) books that I have ever read (Not a surprise once I learned that Henri Nouwen was a longtime mentor of Palmer). I could pontificate on endless things regarding this book, but instead let me simply post an original poem of his that has stopped me in my tracks.

HARROWING

The plow has savaged this sweet field
Misshapen clods of earth kicked up
Rocks and twisted roots exposed to view
Last year’s growth demolished by the blade.
I have plowed my life this way
Turned over a whole history
Looking for the roots of what went wrong
Until my face is ravaged, furrowed, scarred.

Enough. The job is done.
Whatever’s been uprooted, let it be
Seedbed for the growing that’s to come.
I plowed to unearth last year’s reasons–
The farmer plants to plant a greening season.

So much has changed in the past 9 months of growth. I am uprooted in ways beyond my intellectual, emotional, even guttural ability to understand. I am becoming a different sort of person: richer, fuller, clarified. Paradoxically however, the seeds of this growth have happened through confusion, isolation as I am confronted with my cultural perspectives, and a gentle uncovering of my hypocrisy as I live within the mirror that is intentional community.

Much of me wishes to continue plowing, nay, even to stay broken and paralyzed. A few words Colin Crawley taught us in regards to healing prayer have anchored themselves within my soul these past several months, namely that ‘Those of us who are living in paralyzed sickness have no concept of knowing what life in freedom feels like.’ In actuality, I often prefer darkness to light because the reality of my life has presented no other alternative. Walking in a settled joy, calm peace, and hopeful freedom feels unnatural to me because ‘my normal’ is the antithesis of these things!

I am scared to walk into my future, let alone to step in confidence. I embrace Florida Scott Maxwell’s words with a grasp that I desire only to deepen:

“You only need claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done…you are fierce with reality.”

[Chris Kamalski]

A Further Look at “The Art of Tony Cermak”

barbarajean — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:26:56 +0000

As requested by Chris, here’s a closer look at each of the individuals caricatured in Tony’s sketch. Please especially take note of the individually appropriate t-shirts and comments each is making. I will now let the art speak for itself.

The Art Of Tony Cermak.

Chris Kamalski — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:20:44 +0000

Barbara Hillaker already posted this on her Facebook page, but it was simply too brilliant to not share with the wider world.

Humbly, I present ‘The Art Of Tony Cermak’ to you all, representing a ‘minor incident’ that took place after Rhythm last Friday night. (Captions courtesy of Barbara’s wit).

Tony finally gets what's been coming all year. And offers revenge via pen and paper.

Panel 1. Location: Pangani kitchen.

Panel 2. Location: That room we never have a name for, where the blue desk is. Please note the mailboxes in the background, and Busi's hair. And the captions on Sally & Adrienne's t-shirts.

Panel 3. Location: Pangani pool. My favorite detail here is Chippy laughing at Tony.

Panel 4. Location: Dining room. Points of interest: Curtis' contented expression, his Gollywog t-shirt, Maxie's crutches, and Oupa saying "T-shirt."

What is even MORE fantastic (as if it could get better), is that Barbara just told me that she actually took close-up photos of many of us in this drawing. Part II is coming folks!

And then…

Melanie — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:43:40 +0000

It’s hard to believe there are just five weeks left before the end of this year’s apprenticeship. As we look forward, and begin to answer questions of what’s next, focus on finishing well here, transition out of the ministries we’ve become involved in and the like we are all experiencing and processing things a bit differently.

I think my favorite thing about this time is that as we discuss what next year holds for each of us we are all doing something amazing. A few may be getting married, or going back to school, or joining the mission field, or having a baby! I’ve come to realize during our last posture [Imagining] that this apprenticeship truly is an on-ramp to what God is calling each of us too.

Mixed emotions that include the sadness of pending good-byes and excitement of experiencing God’s intended plan for us hum and throb throughout our community. At nearly all times of the day one of us can be found withdrawing, another engaging, one crying, another laughing. I believe we actually might be living up to the drama of the way people try to explain us back home. “It’s like a Christian version of ‘Real World*’,” said one of our road trip participants.

[*That would be without the fighting and/or inappropriate relationships!]

I very much look forward to the next five weeks. We’ll be handing off our ministry responsibilities to partners [luckily I have been working with either full time missionaries or South African residents!]

We’ll be having a host of “Goodbye” celebrations. We’ll be creating art that reflects what God has done in us over the past year. I think my favorite thing is that not one of us hasn’t been changed completely this year.

We’ve all been opened up, the yuckiness that held us back from living as God intended has been poured, pushed, and picked out, and we’ve been filled with the Holy Spirit.

It’s been an amazing journey so far, and I’m looking forward to running the race to the end.

A Baptism

Doug — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:36:23 +0000

Two weeks ago I had the privileged of baptizing four young men. They wanted to publicly display their commitment to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This was a pretty special moment for me as I have walked with all of them in their spiritual journey. For three of them, I walked closely with them for three years, since their journey with Christ began.

I’ve never had the privilege to walk with young men like this before. Before coming to South Africa and had spent 7 to 8 years doing one to two year commitments in the Middle East, attending college, and working at home. These guys I have known since 2005 and have followed their lives up to this point. It has definitely been something special to see how God has been able to use me to help shape and encourage these young men.

Our group is made up of five with four of them baptized two weeks ago and the other to be baptized in the next month. They all live in the township of Soshanguve and very close to each other. They come from families that have very little financially, but God doesn’t them this way. He sees them as warriors for His Kingdom and His purposes. My journey with these guys starts back in January 2007 as I began mentoring one guy, Tshepo. Within a few weeks he had invited his friends and the group was formed.

In the first weeks, each guy came to me and shared how he had never thought reading the Bible and talking about God could be cool and how his life lives have changed drastically. Feelings of hate and anger were being replaced with love and joy. Instead of starting fights at school, new friendships were formed with classmates. Instead of ignoring God, looking for God became a habit. And so began their journey into the heart of God.

Over the past three years I’ve been able to walk with them through their struggles and joys, their wounds and triumphs. And it’s culminated in them being baptized.

The baptism was held at a camp where we had a men’s retreat. There was no body of water available for baptism, so I borrowed a small kid’s pool. But it still wasn’t big enough for them to be fully submerged so Johannes and I dunked their heads completely under one at a time. It was a moment they won’t forget as they moved forward in their walk with God.

Adrienne Is Right.

Chris Kamalski — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:23:55 +0000

God is Love.

My next-door neighbor and good friend Adrienne Mickler has been on a crazy journey with God this year, culminating in the raw and powerful thoughts below following a profound experience with God through her boyfriend Ryan this past weekend…I thought her words were too impactful to not post in their entirety. (P.S. If you visit her site, I took the epic profile photo of her!).

God is infinite. I am finite.

Keep that in mind and try to stay with me through this next bit…

Love exists. It is an invisible, intangible force that is undeniably present, manifesting itself differently all over the world. If I can believe in love, than I can also believe in God; for they are inseparable: God is love.

In one week, I experience moments of love given and received more times than I can remember. Things like: an understanding smile from a close friend who can see straight through my mask, a note left for a friend who needs to know she is cared and appreciated for, an anonymous act of service done for another, a meal shared with friends, etc. These are all seemingly normal moments, but they are moments where real love is exchanged.

If I believe that God is love, and I experience indisputable acts of love in a week, than wouldn’t it make sense to say that I experience God? If I am seeking to experience an infinite God in a tangible, finite way, I must look at my human context; for it is there that the tangible reigns supreme. God’s love is manifested for each of us in our everyday. God loves you and God loves me. Just look around.

4 Cities… or 4 Different Countries?

Joe Reed — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:11:24 +0000

(originally posted here)

We just got back from holiday in Cape Town. This marks the 4th major South African city I’ve spent significant time in, though I’ve also been in some pretty small towns and what not as well. All this to say, I have a few thoughts on mission here in South Africa that may seem a bit obvious, but I think need to be said.

When we were first getting ready to come to SA over a year ago, I had some conversations with people about what mission in South Africa would look like. When I got here, it didn’t look like that exactly. Then I visited some other sections (like the Cape Flats where the black and coloured communities were forced to move during Apartheid) and I understood what they meant. Pretoria just doesn’t role the same way Cape Town, Durban, or Johannesburg role. Things look, feel, smell, etc… way different EVERYWHERE. There’s just not a cookie cutter approach to mission here (is there really one for any town on the globe?).

This post goes along with another one I posted a while back on focus. Look, there’s a LOT of need in South Africa. AIDS is killing a generation. Poverty rules the lives of millions. Rape is a common place headline in every major city’s newspaper. It’s hard reality. But how we address each need is neighborhood specific, and we need to get strategic in how we’re addressing specific community needs. On top of that, I’m not convinced that every organization can really do all things to end all problems in a neighborhood. We’re going to get stronger when we do those things we’re set up to do… really well.

So networking becomes pretty important then. We’ve met a lot of people that are much better at addressing human trafficking that we are. So we’re working with them on how to support what they’re doing without sacrificing what God’s called us here for specifically. Same thing with the AIDS crisis. We have a sister ministry in one of the townships doing incredible work dealing with the AIDS crisis. And they’re licensed and qualified to do what they do!

It’s time to pull together the business people, the medical people, the social service people, and the local church people to collectively develop communities of hope here. I think there’s a lot of that going on now… So how do we multiply those kinds of things all throughout our area and our country?

Simplicity Is Not Simple.

Chris Kamalski — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:34:52 +0000

Simplicity Month's Big Challenge: Living on 1/2 of our Disposable (Could be everything!) Income.

August 2009 marked the beginning of a significant challenge for our community at Pangani. Corporately, we decided to practice the discipline of simplicity, as described in Richard Foster’s classic work, Celebration of Discipline. NCSA first had practiced this discipline in July 2008 with our previous Apprentice crew, and had found itself walking through a month of financial challenge, hardship, stripping of excess in our (already simple?) lives, and yet increased emphasis on community, relationship, being present in the moment, and gratitude provoking outward expressions of generosity.

Our process of prayerful discernment & conversation about where to simplify.

In this same spirit of expectation and anxiety, we gathered together the last Tuesday of July 2009 to explore where the Spirit may be leading our community to embrace simplifying our lives, both in corporate sacrifice and individual expression. Through a wonderful process of several hours spent in conversation, personal sharing about where this point in the apprenticeship year found us, as well as where we sensed God leading us to move forward in simplification, we brainstormed this process on the whiteboard that you see in the photos accompanying this post. It was a powerful time of reflection on one of the more transformative disciplines Foster describes in his book. Especially powerful were these quotes, as shown in the photos:

“Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you”
“To conform to a rich world is to be sick”
“Enjoy things without owning them”

Great quote from Foster's classic 'Celebration of Discipline.'

After a few days spent contemplating where we were to sacrifice, we settled on two corporate practices that would shape our month:

Seeking to live on 1/2 of our disposable income (which could be defined as anything from the entirety of our monthly paychecks, to the amount left over after ‘critical’ bills).
Ruthlessly seeking to simplify our possessions by establishing a communal ‘Chest of Give & Take’ where we would place unused items for others to enjoy.

Individually, I (Chris Kamalski) decided to seek to practice the following Rhythms:

Weekly slowing through engaging the discipline of Sabbath Rest in a more ‘focused’ manner than I normally do, using Sundays as a day to disengage, slow down, and seek to ‘not achieve’ anything productive. Very, very hard, but incredibly needed.
Cutting my own internet usage by 1/2 throughout the month. Given the fact that most of us use the internet as the primary means of communication with our worlds ‘back home,’ this is surprisingly difficult. Yet powerfully needed to break the addiction of thinking I must remain in communication ‘online’ at all times.

Powerfully restorative idea from Foster.

Almost immediately upon the calendar turning the page to August 1, simplicity became incredibly difficult. Most of our community experienced a deep flu/cold/cough virus that lasted at minimum 2 weeks for each person, and simply took us out at various times. Cars broke down. Visitors came through and needed to be hosted with graciousness, not frugality. To a person in our community, we realized that ‘simplicity is definitely not simple.’ And yet our desire to strip ourselves of what truly mattered remained. We banded together, sharing food and seeking to go without what we needed (and especially what we wanted) throughout this month. We began to realize that even attempting the corporate practice of this discipline was powerful and shaping in our failed attempts at it. Again, I came away with the understanding that engaging a shared practice with an openness of spirit is key towards a true allowing of the Spirit to transform our lives.

Our Grand Total: R7,456.40! (Not too shabby for a hard month of bills!)

And what do you know? By the end of a difficult month, we pooled our shared Rand together, and found that we collectively had raised R7,456.40! Half of that money we used to immediately purchase almost 100 blankets and packages of food to distribute to the local homeless population of Pretoria North, which turned into a great experience one Friday night at the end of our month. The 2nd half of that money will be given away to a local project of justice and compassion during our current learning posture of Imagining. And so, we celebrate what God has done with our combination of whole and half-hearted attempts to be used by Him.

Melanie’s Psalm

Melanie — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:00:34 +0000

Several weeks ago I did a personal spiritual retreat. The goal of which was just to cuddle up with God and not worry about all the cool ways he’s been transforming me, but to just enjoy each other.

I spent the first evening journalling about my past year, and praising God for what he had already done.

After I finished I realized it sounded like something a Psalmist would write… so I edited it a bit to make it more Psalmish…

I learned lessons of you, that You never taught

Contentment became long suffering misery

Obedience became denial of anything I was

In Your name I sacrificed myself

You grieved

You waited

You carefully picked up the pieces of Your creation, the pieces I had cast off

You saved them for me

Many years, a broken heart, and heavy baggage later, I sat in a coffee shop

My dreams were in view, and yet I experienced crushing anxiety

Anxiety that caused an inability to eat, and eventually an inability to breathe or walk normally

You were there

I would not let you in

So you came in the arms of my mother, the voice of my father, two weeks off of work, and the generosity of friends

And at just the right time, you brought me here

You are so good God, so patient, and understanding

You gave me the freedom to be honest, and people to be honest with

I was loved through them, because I could not recognize love from You

In Your grace and gentleness, you drew me out

With no harsh rebuke You opened my eyes to the errors of my thoughts

You revealed Your love to

and it was Good

Thank you God… love you.

Sms/text etiquette: How rude are you?

Curtis Love — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:22:52 +0000

This post has been re-posted from my blog ’cause I thought you might find it interesting. Since I posted this blog I have noticed a sharp increase in politeness in texts which has left me with a warm sensation in my belly.

In the past couple of weeks I have found myself (rather amusingly) growing indignant at the way in which people send what seem to me rather impolite sms’s/texts. The problem is not that the sms’s are impolite but rather that the people who send them are not impolite people. In their day to day dealings they are pleasant, considerate and caring people yet (it seems to me) that their pleasantness or politeness doesn’t translate into their sms etiquette! Is to too much to ask for a greeting at the beginning of the text (heya) , an enquiry into ones well being (you well?), a little encouragement (hope the day is/was good) and any appropriate ending (peace…cheers…thanks)? Am i just being a friendliness glutton, wanting more from a simple text message than what it can give. Whatever the case is, there is one detail that I haven’t mentioned so far which could shed some much needed light on the dark, sordid world of poor sms etiquette.

As many of you know I live mainly with Americans and many of the said messages in question have been received from ‘them’ This begs the question, ‘are Americans texto-rudae, or worse so cheap that they want to make sure the text is trimmed of all relational excess to ensure the demanding 144 character quota is met? My heart and experience of my friends tells me that neither of these things are true. What alternative explanations are there? A few things began to emerge on my fact finding mission.

South Africa has an sms/text culture: According to my rigorous research, which included a few casual conversations and a concentrated time of reflection,we send texts far more frequently than Americans. I even encountered Americans who themselves or someone they knew had deactivated their ability to receive texts. Can you imagine a South African who is unable to receive texts? Woe to you, blasphemer! Part of Americans aversion to text messaging is because their service providers charge them to receive sms’s. Because of this, my friends told me they were much more likely to make a phone call than to send a text.
Text’s are a functional form of communication: It would seem that this is the assumption of some of the people who sent me those ‘trimmed’ messages. A text is simply functional: to get information, make a request,confirm an arrangement or arrange a time to make a phone call. If it achieves that end the text is ‘successful’ and any other communication in the text is unnecessary. This is of course very different from my own usage of texts. For example about 70% of my communication with my girlfriend in JHB throughout the week is through text’s. Text’s in my world (South Africa in general?) go beyond a functional form of communication.

Armed with these two insights I am beginning to understand why I would perceive an sms as being impolite while my friends would see it as completely normal. I feel much better after taking the time to share these thoughts with you and let you into the complex world of sms/text etiquette. All that’s left to ask is what do you think? Should an sms include things like a greeting and an ending or is it only a functional form of communication? Is my indignation culturally conditioned or down right misguided? Is there something I haven’t seen?