South Africa - Day 2 (Soweto)

(Wednesday, March 26, 2014)

My day began with a beautiful 6 mile run here in the neighborhood where we are staying.  It was great to see the people out going to work and school and saw many other runners and walkers.  

After breakfast, we travelled by car to Soweto, just outside of Johannesburg.  Soweto is where, during apartheid, black families, who were forcibly moved from Johannesburg (Sophia Town), had to relocate.  It is also the place where the June 16, 1976 Student March took place (protesting the education system) and police opened fire on them.  Our first stop in Soweto was to the Hector Pieterson Museum.  Hector Pieterson was the first child killed in the uprising.  Just outside the museum there was an area that was graveled over and contained bricks with the names of the students (some as young as 6) who were killed that day.  While I was walking through looking at the bricks, all of a sudden a class full of students (on a field trip) came in as well…in the face of such violence and evil, the students there were a reminder that in the end love and good really do win!  

We shopped for a little while in the market just outside the museum and then went to visit the home that Nelson Mandela lived in both before and after his arrest.  Just down the street is Desmond Tutu’s old home.  Interestingly, Soweto is the only place in the world that has a street where two Nobel Peace Prize winners have previously lived.  

After a light lunch, we visited a ministry called “Ikageng”.  This is a ministry that cares for children whose parents have died of HIV Aids.  Carol, the founder, is a Methodist lay person who worked as a nurse.  She found herself visiting the home of a mother who had HIV and was near death.  The children were left completely alone and began to reach out to Carol for help.  Through this experience, she heard a call to work with children like these.  The love and joy that she has for serving these children flows from her.  Right now she is working with 850 children, a few years ago she had as many as 1,000.  Talk about one person making a difference and building the Kingdom of God! 

We ate dinner tonight at Jack and Joan’s home.  They are our hosts here in Johannesburg.  Jack is a retired Methodist Minister and also served as Presiding Bishop.  He told us several stories about visiting Nelson Mandela while he was in prison and also giving pastoral care to Winnie Mandela during her own imprisonment.  Joan, Jack’s wife, shared stories that she had about meeting Nelson Mandela, as well.  They are both so kind and continue to show us wonderful hospitality.  

Tonight we saw a play at the Market Theater in Johannesburg called A Human Being Died that Night.  It is the true story of Eugene de Cock, a police officer imprisoned for murder and other atrocities during apartheid, and Pumla Godoba Matikizela, a black Psychiatrist on the Truth and Reconciliation Committee.  The play is based on the book by same name.  In short the story is about how Pumla got to know de Cock by doing a series of interviews with him in prison.  What she came to realize was that this person who committed such evil was human, too.  She also helped him to realize that the people he killed were human beings, as well.  It was a powerful play.

I just want to say that it has been great getting to know our new friends and colleagues from the Western North Carolina Conference.  It is an honor to share this journey with them!  

A final word for tonight (it is getting late here).  As I was getting out of the car after the play.  I thanked Joan for her hospitality and showing us all around.  She said to me, “we are really proud of our country and especially of our church (even in the days of apartheid the Methodist Church was a strong voice for equality).  We have been through some really hard times, but I guess we really are prisoners of hope!”  May we all be prisoners of hope!  

God’s Peace,

Brett