Sunday-We finally meet

Sunday, February 17, 2019

Cape Town

South Africa

For two months I’ve been reading the bios and blogs of the retreatants, and praying over their photos, but today’s the day when we finally meet face to face. I only know two of them personally, Stewart, the President of SAMS, and Denise, Assistant Director. (https://samsusa.org/).

A third I know because I’ve been supporting her for the past two years. (In SAMS language I’m known as ‘a sender.’) But I’ve never met her. The story of why I’m supporting her is rather strange and too long to share, but seems appropriate to mention it here, because one of the greatest blessings that could come out of this trip is for one (or more) of you to feel God’s call on your heart to support a missionary. Theirs is a tough row to hoe. Don't even consider the hardships they go through to serve God in a distant land. They have to raise every penny to support themselves while they serve. Talk about Biblical faith. “Take nothing for the journey except a staff--no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.” Mark 6:8.

(Side bar: In order to preserve their privacy, I’m not going to share anything about the various missionaries. This blog will be about my experience, not theirs, as we go through the retreat.)

The above not withstanding, I’m sharing the story of April and myself with her permission.

SAMS has a newsletter called “The Messenger.” In each issue there are thanksgivings and prayer requests and stories from missionaries.Each time I read it I send a dart prayer about the needs and thanksgivings, marvel over the accomplishments, and then delete it.

As I think back, I’m not even sure how it happened, but I received an email requesting that people partner with April. The style was so unique and upbeat that I pondered over it awhile, but put it aside and "forgot" it. Then I began to feel God speaking, and suddenly I’m sponsoring a young woman in Zambia! I didn't even know where Zambia was! Well...Africa, duh! But Africa's pretty big!

It was sorta like finding out I was suddenly a missionary to India! But I can’t begin to tell you what a blessing it’s been. Each newsletter I get from her I am more profoundly impressed with how God is using her. Read April’s blog and I guarantee you will be blessed. (https://missionaryaprilsylvester.com/ ) This young woman is starting an NGO (non government organization) called YANI (you'll read about the name if you read her blog) to help depressed young people. In Zambia a 'young person' is anyone between 15 and 30. And she’s doing it on nothing but faith!

The others on this retreat are just as impressive. One couple has a disciple-making ministry that takes them all over southern Africa (seven countries -- and they're praying about taking on three more.) Four others serve in Uganda, one in Madagascar, and one is even a South African who is a missionary to the States! The ninth is in a country where I couldn't mention his name if I wanted to because his life would be in danger. I hope you can see why I was awed just to be in their presence.

One by one they appeared at the airport hotel where we were to gather to take the van to Wateval Conference Center. Most had been traveling many, many miles and were exhausted. One had even lost his luggage (which later caught up with us the day before the retreat was to end.)

As we met, one by one, you could tell why they were missionaries. The light of Christ shone in each and every face, and there was a deep joy even in spite of their exhaustion. Right from the start I knew this experience was going to be something extraordinary.

The bus was late, so we checked on it and the driver had been parked down the road waiting on us. He couldn’t get into the hotel driveway. Turns out we were supposed to get a 16 person van and got a 33 person tour bus instead. The van apparently had problems of some kind. None of us were complaining.

Google showed the shortest route to the Center was over the Stellenbosch Mountains, but we took the longer, easier route through Wellington. The terrain reminded me of western Colorado. Wide flat plains with mountains rising in the distance. Only two things were different. First it didn’t matter which side of the bus you looked out of...flat plains and tall mountains. Second, it’s been a long time since I’ve been through Wild Horse, Colorado, but I sure don’t remember any vineyards. We passed estate after estate, horse farm after horse farm, and herds of cattle in field after after field.

Finally we entered the narrow gorge that descended into the valley. The view on the other side was again the same! Wide flat plain with mountains on both sides. After about fifteen minutes more travel we arrived at Waterval Conference and Team Building Center (http://www.waterval.co.za/) near the little village of Tulbagh.

After some bus driving gymnastics, the driver finally wedged the bus through a gate that certainly wasn’t built for 33 passenger buses, and we unloaded. Waiting for us was Denise and another couple who lived in South Africa. Denise had been staying with them a day or two and they drove up from their home. They were our forward scouts and had done an excellent job of finding a place to hold our retreat. Beautifully landscaped in its own right, it was surrounded on four sides by a wildlife retreat.

There were greetings all around, everyone knowing Stewart and Denise of course, but none of us knowing each other. After muffins and tea, we dispersed to our rooms to settle in before meeting at 6:00 for dinner.

My room was newly built and beautiful in a hermitage kind of way...bed, dresser, side table, and bathroom. They later brought in a wardrobe just as we were leaving. The rooms were so new they hadn’t even finished furnishing them yet.

Can’t recall what we ate that night, and will only tell you about a couple of our special meals, but I can tell you this...they were all delicious, cooked by a delightful staff, and served cafeteria style. Usually two meats (typically chicken and beef,) potatoes, some other vegetable, and salad. Simple but, as I said, very delicious.

At 7:30 we all met at the conference room for a brief orientation to Waterval by the manager. After the obligatory explanation of the facilities he answered questions. Yes, it was a wildlife preserve on all sides. Yes, there were baboons, but they were up north at the moment where the mango trees were bearing fruit so they probably wouldn’t bother us. Yes, there were leopards in the mountains, but he’d been here years and had yet to see one. (What a blessing! To gain martyrdom at a Christian retreat by being eaten by a leopard, thereby sustaining a fragile and vanishing specie.) Yes, there were puff adders, but we rarely see them. Leave them alone and they won’t bother you. Yes, do take your flashlight at night so you won’t accidentally step on one. Yes, we do have scorpions, but we haven’t seen any in a while.

You can tell these folks come from some pretty wild places just by the questions they asked!

We went around the room, each person introducing him- or herself. Afterward Stewart and Denise introduced me and our fourth teammate, our liturgist, (also a missionary,) we went over the week’s schedule, had compline and went back to our rooms.

Once again I was surrounded by angels. I needed to stay for a few moments and check out how I was going to do my presentations. When I finished, I looked up and two of the men were quietly ‘hanging around’ waiting to walk me back to my room. The night was pitch black so one took out his iPhone flashlight to guide us on our way. The conference room was elevated above the walkways on one end by four tall steps and on the other by two. There were no handrails and the columns holding up the roof were just beyond reach to provide a support. Coming up had been no problem. Using my poles I had negotiated them one step at a time. Now, going down in the dark, it was going to be a different matter. Quite unobtrusively, one was at my side and the other was behind me. Taking the side with the fewer steps I started down. The top step was about two inches taller than a normal US step, and as I started down my leg gave way. Rather ignominiously, but somewhat accustomed to this, I simple sat down rather dramatically, scaring both of them to death. Instant action and concern! Assuring them I was fine and unhurt, they assisted me up and we went to our rooms. The gentleman who was on my left (and he was one in every finest sense of that word) had the room next to mine and walked me every step of the way to my room, pointing out obstacles and drop-offs all the way.

Thus it was to be the entire conference. I was surrounded by angels, each, in their own unique way but quite unobtrusively, making sure my every need was met.

Exhausted, I finally went to bed only to lie awake most of the night going over and over my presentation. Finally having met the retreatants I was even more concerned. How was an ‘outsider’ going to address the needs of this incredible group of people? All I could do at this point was pray and hope I had heard the Lord correctly when He gave me the outline.

EPILOGUE

I’ll go over the presentation day by day in the future, but a brief overview might help at this point.

When Stewart had sent me the email asking if I would consider being the speaker at the retreat for their Sub-Saharan missionaries, my heart leapt with a curious mixture of joy and trepidation. I think I knew instantly I was supposed to say yes. Stewart had asked, if I accepted, did I have any thoughts about what I might present. Within two days the outline of the week came full blown into my head. I shared my thoughts with him, he seemed excited about it and approved it, giving me the final invitation to go to South Africa.

The topic? Andrea’s old teaching, “Change=loss=grief.” But this time it was not an eight-week workshop, rather three intensive days with six hour-long sharings and one one-hour workshop...plus reflection questions for the small group sessions that were to follow each sharing. The twist was to change the paradigm to “change=loss=opportunity.”

The outline may have come instantly, with each topic clearly given day by day, and it never changed from start to finish. But it was to take me weeks of prayer, study, sweat, and maybe even a few tears, and I was still getting guidance that Sunday night in Waterval about what tomorrow would look like when it all became real.

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On the map, south of the route marked to Waterval you can see the cities of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek which I mentioned in Saturday's blog about the wine country tour. The route we took to Waterval passes Paarl, also the name of the mountains behind it. The word means 'pearl' but doesn't sound like that at all when it's pronounced.They are so called because the geography reminds one of clumps of pearls. The Afrikanner Language Monument is on a hill overlooking the mountains and city.