LPTS Travel Seminar to South Africa

Standing at the top of Table Mountain...the view of the city on one side, the view of the ocean on the other...breathing in the crisp cool air...getting lost in the clouds as the wind carried them over the mountain...it was hard not to feel God's presence. Surrounded by such beauty, the grace of God seemed closer than our own breath and as powerful as the gusts of wind at the top of that mountain. That was Wednesday. Today as we walked through one of the townships I wondered where that overwhelming sense of God's grace had gone. It was heartbreaking. I was so humbled by the people we met there and the way they live. And I was so angered at the injustice that led them there. Tomorrow we are returning to one of the townships...hopefully tomorrow will help me continue processing and thinking about where the hope is...where the grace is.

On a lighter note, yesterday for lunch we went to a BBQ restaurant. Well, butchery, not really restaurant. You first picked out which raw meat you wanted--it looked like a deli counter at the grocery store. And then you took it in the next room where BBQ pits were set up and you grilled your own meat! Our lunch was already prepared when we got there, so we didn't cook the meat ourselves. The food was delicious! I was big fan of the chicken, but they had lamb and sausage too. It was yummy! Not so much for our vegetarian friends though.

Yesterday we also went to the Warehouse. It is a local ministry that ministers to local churches. It's like a mission outreach organization that provides ministries to churches. For example, if a family needed clothing, the church would contact the Warehouse and the Warehouse would put together a box of clothes specific to that family, then send that box to the church where the church would give it to the family. The Warehouse, then, goes virtually unnoticed--and that is the way they want it, to be invisible. The Warehouse also has several programs that are all grounded on relationship building. All of the people there seemed to echo the idea that prayer, patience, and perseverance are vital to social growth and social change.