August 15
We stayed last night at the home or Ron and Joanna Zeiner again. What a blessing this couple has been to us. They had a wonderful bible study on the gospel of John chapter four. What a refreshing time it was to be among the ESSA community (Evangelical Seminary of South Africa) in their home.
MPOPHOMENI
Joanna picked Darlene, Timothy and I up around 8:30 am soon after we returned from our night in the Sobantu Township with Thulani and his family. We took the 30 minute drive to the community of Mpophomeni and as we drove into the very rural township, we could see lots of people walking around. We parked in front of a health clinic with a “surgery” sign out front. Surgery here means doctors office. If you have to have an operation here, you go to the theater where they will actually cut you open. Soon, we broke into three groups with Darlene and Tim going with a woman named Nora (who appeared to be in her late 50s) and young African man whom I later learned was a Pastor in the community. I went with a woman name Margit, a woman in her late 60s who had been in South Africa as a missionary since 1953.
She told me the story of how she came to the Lord at the age of 14 after being what she called ‘a very naughty girl’ She later met her husband who had come here in 1951. She and her husband were now retired from ministry and are a part of the Howick Church, a economically stable and primarily white community about 5-7 miles from Mpophomeni. The Howick church is the primary ministry to those who are HIV positive in Mpophomeni. Both Margit and her husband were both from Sweden. In the car with us was a woman from the Mpophomeni community named Annette. There was a third car with Dr. Rouen Bruni. Dr. Bruni began the AIDS visitation ministry in Mpophomeni about three years ago. When we were at Robyn’s home (The YFC director) a few days earlier, we met Dr. Bruni’s wife. They all live in a small community together outside of Pietermaritzburg. Dr. Bruni is a homeopath physician who takes one day away from his practice each week to visit the people with HIV in the Mpophomeni community.
The Mpophomeni community is not small. I was told there were more than 5000 homes in this township situated in a very beautiful area of the countryside near two large fresh water lakes. The houses in the community were very close together and most were concrete block homes with metal roofs but a few were brick. Many of the houses had a small garden. Several of the homes we went in did not have ceilings. The tin roof on the house was the ceiling. Each home had 1-2 windows depending upon its size. Most homes were very small with a room for sleeping and a room for eating/cooking etc. In the past few years (post Apartheid), the government had brought in electricity and a sewage system. Almost all the homes had a toilet now but none had heat.
The purpose of our visit was to go into the homes of people with HIV and bring them food, helpful words of comfort, spiritual encouragement and prayer to sustain their physical and spiritual health. To my shock and amazement, 56% of the people in Mpophomeni were HIV infected and there was an 82% unemployment problem. This explained the overwhelming challenge the church was up against there.
Margit, Annette and I traveled to our first home visit. We knocked on the door and waited but no one answered. Soon a woman from across the street explained that the man was visiting neighbors. After a few minutes, the man returned and we all went into his home. This man has been living alone for some time. He is HIV positive and my guess is that he was in his mid 40s. It was obvious he was very cold. He mentioned that his feet hurt and I was informed that this was one of the problems that AIDS patients have to deal with. It was a cold day for South Africa. It had rained hard the night before and along with the cool temperatures came lots of mud. I was very aware that I was tracking in mud but I didn’t know what to say or do. The women with me were having the same problem but didn’t remove their shoes. The temperature inside the home was cold (I suspect 45 degrees) and the furnishings consisted of two chairs and a stool. There was a kitchen and cooking area. I could see the metal roof and the two or three wood boards holding the roof up. Margit and Annette spoke to the man in Zulu and I listened. I could tell they were trying to encourage and comfort him. Margit read some scripture in Zulu to him from John 15 as he followed along with his Zulu New Testament. She later explained to me that they don’t give out bibles until the person opens their life to Jesus. We closed with prayer and Margit asked that I pray. We dropped off the large container of mealie-meal which is crushed corn/finely ground maze used for portage and is the primary staple of the African community here. I carried in a 15 pound jug of this food and it would last a single person 2-3 weeks. I later learned from Ron that another major part of the African diet is samp which is cracked corn, rice which is very inexpensive, with curry (that is grown from a tree here).
