This week, instead of going into Masi on Sunday as we normally do, we went in on Saturday. There is a big bicycle race happening today — Sunday — (the Cape Argus race) and all of the roads in our vicinity are shut down because of it. So it mixed things up a little bit, but it was still an incredible day.
We had appointments scheduled for Sunday, but we were thankfully able to move most of them to Saturday, and we started the day by going to the first. It was with whom we think is the most peaceful and spiritually hungry man we’ve met (who happens to be from Zimbabwe — that’s a common thread for some reason). We’ve visited his house twice before specifically for Bible Studies, and each time its grown with different friends and family from the immediate area.
This particular day, we actually had two meetings planned with him. The first was a money management session and the second a Bible study. He and his wife and another friend came to each this day and it was an incredibly fruitful time.
The money management seminar was basically a time to go over the fundamentals of having a budget, saving for the future and being empowered throughout. I taught them a simplified version of the method my wife and I use — a modified envelope schema. We started by talking about recurring expenses — what we spend money on weekly and monthly — and having a category to classify every single expense we make. We discussed dividing his paycheck appropriately between the categories (making sure the “fixed” expenses like rent had enough and that more fluid categories like “food” had plenty as well). We taught them how to keep track of what to spend and the importance of making sure that everything — even little treats like ice cream — had a category from which they came. We also talked about the importance of saving a little, even if only R10 per paycheck, to prepare for the unforeseen expenses of the future, and that it was ok and good to make “special” categories so that they could get important items that might not fit elsewhere, like a new cooking set for the mama.
We take doing things like this for granted but it was totally mind blowing for this family. They had never even considered tracking what they spend. These concepts were all completely new. And that’s how it is it seems in most, if not all, of the townships. They grow up in families that have no inclinations towards managing their money. As soon as some comes in, its blown on a whim on whatever comes to mind. Basic stewardship just isn’t something passed from generation to generation.
It was exciting to me to see them get excited about budgeting and taking ownership in their own financial stewardship. It was encouraging to see them empowered to think past immediate desires and take serious stock at the actual needs in their lives.
And this, as it is with all that we do, was a discipleship issue. We don’t live outside the grasp of our heavenly Father, nor should we budget and consider finances outside the realm of His touch. We were able to encourage them to look to God as their provider, that He cares for them even more than the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, and that even if disaster might strike (as it has a knack for doing), we could still rest firmly in the comfort of His arms. It’s in the simple truths and the simple actions taken in response to them where we see transformation occur. And it’s exciting.
But our day didn’t end there, and that wasn’t even the most exciting part of our story with this family. After the money management seminar, we did a Bible Study. The past two Bible studies there, we’ve looked at intro passages to the Bible together; today we decided to start digging into God’s story of creation, rebellion, sacrifice, repentance and commission. Creation was our starting point (and all that we got to), specifically reading Genesis 1:24-28:
God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: cattle, creeping things, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” It was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the cattle according to their kinds, and all the creatures that creep along the ground according to their kinds. God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”
It’s a pretty straightforward passage and lays out some keys of creation: God created us all, every animal and every person and saw that it was good, and that people are all created in His image. We thought this would be our primary topic of discussion but God had other plans. We went through the passage as we normally do (which I promise to write more about soon) but before we finished we had a couple of questions. First, our main man’s wife asked, “Male and Female were both made in His image — does that mean God is married and has a wife?” This led us to begin talking about the grand love story of Scripture — God’s quest for a wife, visualized as Israel, and Jesus’ eventual consummation of that in His people — the Church. We talked much more eloquently than that, and I believe were spirit led because of the next question, from the main man himself: “I want to be baptized — how do I make that happen?”
This question honestly took me by surprise — we were talking about creation and NOT Jesus and baptism. But the Spirit moves through His Word. We asked Him what led him to this decision and he said that from the passage he was just impacted by how powerful God is juxtaposed with how much He must love us. Finding this to be a good answer we steered the conversation towards Jesus specifically and then to baptism. I got to share my testimony intermixed with the Gospel and the what baptism meant — dieing to our old selves and being raised in the resurrection of Christ — and that there wasn’t any specific power in the act but that it was a public declaration, a stake in the ground, that your life now belonged to Jesus and not the world (it can be good, I think, in places with a high spiritual awareness to distinguish between an act like baptism and weird or powerful magical type things that witchdoctors do). Anyways — at every step of the conversation both he and his wife said, “Yes, this is what we believe and this is what we want!” I had the honor of leading them in a sinner’s prayer and when we finished, we all hugged and celebrated being a part of the same family. And — on April 4th (which is Resurrection Sunday) they will be baptized, if we can get them to Africa House! Regardless — the Kingdom of God is now one family bigger!
After leaving their place, our only other significant encounter for the day was an impromptu Bible study with these guys named Joseph, Courage and Blessing. I normally don’t name names but these names were too cool NOT to. They all seem hungry and are interested; but our schedules never mesh (we met them our first day in Masi as well). We studied the same passage of Genesis together, and it was good — I just don’t know if we’ll be able to followup. The upside of our encounters with them is that they know who Jesus is and go to a church that at some level respects the Bible (many of the churches here don’t). Our goal isn’t to draw people out of existing churches but to empower them to chase hard after Jesus, to love one another and reach out to their neighbors and our hope that we have been able to do that, with them, at some level.
Like I said before — it was a pretty incredible day. I expected my story to end here when I started writing last night. But it doesn’t. I never dream but I have twice in my life had dreams that I remember, to this day, that seem to be significant and from Jesus. Last night I had my third and it relates to the events of the day.
In my dream I met a lady from a township. It wasn’t someone I currently know and I don’t necessarily think that that’s important. What is is that we were able to encourage and empower her. She was struggling and had dreams but didn’t know how to pursue them. She really wanted to but didn’t believe that she could. Everyone was telling her that she was worthless and wouldn’t ever make anything of herself but we were able to speak the opposite into her life, beginning with the Gospel. As discipleship took its course, we were able to encourage her to step into those dreams of her heart and pursue them. This took the form of some sort of business she wanted to start and some sort of grant that was needed. We encouraged her to go to this place (it was ABSA, a local bank, in my dream) but this place never gave it to people like her (women from the township); it just wasn’t done, and from what people were told, would never be done. But she went confidently anyways and lo and behold, everything worked out perfectly and the business happened and her life was forever transformed in a big way. And that day we had a big party with her in Silver Palms (the place we are staying). It was a fun celebration but could have been better and Jesus was there and he walked over to a microwave and turned the power up as high as it could go, and then the party got really fun. And then I woke up.
And I remembered it (which never happens), felt like it was from the Lord (really, this is pretty much the case with any dream I remember vividly — the third time that I can recall) and felt like I know what it meant. First of all — discipleship is the beginning of relationship with people and it needs to be like that — firmly rooted in Jesus and the Gospel. He is the power of transformation in life and nothing less (hopefully we can all agree on this at the very least). Second of all — in our context and probably broadly when considering the world’s poor, there is a lot that has been spoken over people that they buy into that isn’t at all helpful — a lot of discouragement and a lot of things that keep them down. I was immediately reminded of our Zimbabwean friends and how budgeting was so foreign to them and so many people here because folks assume that they are always going to be bad with money and that they aren’t worth their time to even try and teach better life skills. Third of all — the ending. It’s important that we live out of a place of joy and praise and thanksgiving. We can’t forget that regardless of what it is, every good thing comes from the Lord, whatever it might be — food for our bellies, a sunset on the beach, a job or the blessing of a child. It all warrants our celebration and thanksgiving. To me, the ending is a reminder of that — that God is wanting to see us walk even more fully in a place of thanksgiving, not taking for granted any little thing that might come our way in life (something I’m keen on right now, living a life solely dependent on Him in a way that I never had before).
Anyways — I woke up encouraged and spurred onward by that dream. I was encouraged that Jesus is pleased with what we are doing — all of it — and that His desire really is for life transformation here on earth as it is in heaven. And I was spurred onward to see both more of that in the lives we meet in the townships (and elsewhere and our own) and much more thanksgiving and praise in our every day walks with Jesus.
And that brings us to the end of this past week in Masi — I hoped you enjoyed it!