Auntie Charmaine

Last Saturday, I got to meet a woman I consider my newest hero. She is known to everyone around as Auntie Charmaine, and everyone is hardly an exaggeration. Many, many groups greeted her, and us, as she gave us a tour of her neighborhood. This woman is like the village grandmother. Her outfit was not stylish, but practical and simple. The soup pot in her kitchen that she declared as too small to meet her current needs would feed closer to two hundred than the ten that her family would naturally be. However, this woman was not born a saint. She was not a model of young adult life. Her parenting of her own children in the early years is not an example to follow. Auntie Charmaine is an ex-convict. The first time she left the country was to pick up drugs she would deal in her neighborhood. She is an abandonment survivor, who gave up her own baby girl to be raised by others before she went to bring her home again.

After eating a late lunch (which was multiple courses and delicious in the way grandmothers' meals usually are), Auntie Charmaine took us around her neighborhood to pray for sick people and get to know the community a little bit. One of the reasons we were sent to visit with Auntie Charmaine was because her township, and others like it, are where most of the offenders we will be working with grew up. As we started the walk, we came across this group of young men blasting music who were more than happy to pose for the camera and dance for the visitors.

You have to love a street corner party

 Setting up a scarecrow in the new community garden.

Seeing all the people outside on their steps and in lawn chair chatting, and the children playing freely on the streets gave it a welcoming and safe aura. But that was the surface, I lost count of how many times Auntie Charmaine pointed at the ground in front of us and said, “Last week a young man was shot dead here” or “Three days ago two men were shot here.” or “I had to call the police because someone died here after being shot recently.” She also rolled up her sleeve to show us the scar of the bullet wound from when a bullet hit her in her sleep, in the “safety” of her own bed after flying through her wall. She pointed to one wall explaining that most imperfections were old bullet marks. Yet this woman goes out boldly to serve her community. She makes giant pots of porridge for the children to have for breakfast. She cheerfully stated, “I used to have four children, but now I have five hundred.” Her soup pot, which is probably ten times the size of the biggest pot in my house, is troubling her because sometimes she runs out of soup or porridge before she runs out of children who need feeding. The new bigger pot she wants is R4,000 which is about $306. Not much to most of us, but she does not have nearly the money she needs for it. She is trusting God that if He is giving her these children to take care of, He will also send the money she needs.

DeeDee Riding the Mary-go-Round Built on Pavement Covered in Glass

This is the private hospital that is too expensive for most families who go instead

 to a free government hospital.

Auntie Charmaine in her current service shows beautifully what a powerful Godly woman looks like. Her being in full time service wearing aprons with giant pockets and serving endless ladles of porridge does not mean she is not a force to be reckoned with. She told off some kids for posing for me with gang symbols. She also told us of recently going to confront a mother who had sold the uniform Auntie Charmaine had just provided for her son. She told the mother that her son better have his uniform back by that afternoon, and he did. Her house did not just have food or school supplies, it also had random bulk items that she was planning to break into small units and resell. Red nail polish, clothes pins, gallons of soap and juice, tubes of lipstick. This woman does so much!

"Say no to Crime and Drugs"

"Gee Teng Ons Straat" Take Back Our Street

Now I am going to tell you a tiny bit about my experience entering prison for the first time. We went to church in the young men’s section of a prison. As we first walked into the compound, I instantly noticed the powerful, rhythmic, pounding noise. It took me a minute or two to realize that it was the opening worship at the church service we were about to join. I do not think I have ever heard such manly worship before. Part of me was a little nervous before coming of how I would feel towards the guys. I am working with people who have done the worst things people can do. On first meeting them, all I felt was love. After a week more of helping facilitate a program with another group of young men, four at my table, and twenty four in the program, love is still the biggest emotion I feel towards them. As a group, they have been friendly, cheerful, and respectful. Even though the guys at my table are over twenty, there is something about the whole group that exudes the aura of a vulnerable little boy. They grow in me maternal feelings of protection and instruction. I see so much wasted potential, and it breaks my heart. As they pour out their stories, I can see how they came to be where they are. So much childhood trauma in one little group. It confirms in me the desire to work with kids. Just one person in their childhood who stopped them from joining a gang, or called the police on their abusing father could have changed their lives enough to have kept them from prison. The townships here are crying out for more adults who care in every sense of the word. I feel like maybe I have found my first home after college.

Home Sweet Home?

Please be Praying:

• For the young men in the program who's families could not come to family day. Pray that these families will have the chance to speak openly in the future.
• For the rest of the trip. Now that my main project is almost done there is some flexibility for me to chose activities. Pray that I will pick the right one.
• For rest. We are all in desperate need.
• For spiritual protection.
• Praise that eight guys committed to leave the prison gangs and two became Christians!

You can still support me financially for my South Africa trip. The church will keep donations open until my work here is finished. If you want to give, go to this website, select "STM South Africa", and put Tatiana Martin in the optional memo (You would get a tax receipt for this)