Smushed in a Minibus

In the U.S., I have always lived in a stand-alone house with my family. I have always had a front and a back yard. I have a college degree and am working on another, but I never moved into a dorm, choosing instead to stay with my family and use the saved money for traveling to do ministry. When I moved to Lavender Hill, I left the spread-out, individualistic life behind, trading it for close packed community. At home, I spend hours of my week driving alone in my car to work and to school and to church. Here, I go in to prison to volunteer two or three times a week by minibus and it's almost always jam packed. Last Friday, on the way into work, I messaged my friend to tell them that my bus had a sign all in caps at the front "CERTIFIED TO CARRY 11 SEATED PASSENGERS - 0 STANDING..." We blasted into the station, music blaring and people chatting...all fifteen seated passengers, and our standing conductor.

The mob of kids waiting for the food to be served.

There are some things that are uncomfortable about living so close together. I have never been inside my downstairs neighbor's flat, but I know they smoke in it because I can smell it through the floorboards in the front rooms. But this same neighbor knocked on the door last night to check if I was alright and to say hello because they had not seen me out and about in a few days. I am learning that many times, in order to really love someone, you have to be too close for comfort. You have to be willing to smell their dirt and sweat and get their snot and tears on your shirt as they cry on your shoulder, and when you do, you will wind up feeling just a little closer to Jesus, who said, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (Matt 25:40) But maybe not until you have had a nice hot shower and changed into some clean pajamas 😉

  

This little girl is my next door neighbor. Her front door is mere feet from mine. She always wants to be involved, whether it is peeling carrots for soup, or taking photos with me. She is a talented, budding photographer and took the two following photos. She also helps give me the inside scoop on my neighborhood, telling me the names and relationships of those around us, and occasionally the secret truth of who likes who.

Auntie Charmaine and me, after feeding over two hundred.

With the height difference, my photographic student needs help to make us level

Also, I have started a fundraiser for Lavender Hill. I was moved to do this after Auntie Charmaine told me that she was planning to cut back from feeding the kids three times a week to just once because her money is running out. You can contribute here if you want to join in the work.

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray for funding, whether through the fundraiser or other sources, praise that over $600 has already come in!
• Pray for Auntie Charmaine to have wisdom in how to use the funds. There are so many needs around us it is a challenge to prioritize.
• Pray for rest from the overstimulation. Being around foreign languages and barking dogs and shouting people and loud music all the time gets tiring. I am learning to take more breaks in nature. 
• Pray for me to be useful. I am mostly learning here, but I also want to be a help and encouragement.

Life in a Township

This is not very long, and it is not a full picture, but it is what is currently on my heart. I am almost exactly seven days into my sixty-nine day stay in Lavender Hill, a township in Cape Town, South Africa. I have already been to the funeral of a man whose life was cut short by the gunshot of a gangster. His funeral is how I spent my very first morning here. The gangs have currently called a ceasefire in my area, so instead of gunfire I hear radios blasting American pop music, and children playing soccer (football), and dogs fighting. My home for the next two months is a busy place. So much life happening in a small place. Sadly also, so much tragedy. I have already met two mothers who sold their babies to infertile couples. Together, both mothers were given less than the cost of my plane ticket home. That is much of life in these types of spaces. The townships, projects, slums, and ghettos of the world. These places that leave their inhabitants undervalued, unappreciated, and unloved far too often. And so many of their inhabitants are beautiful, happy children.

 

 

They are full of life! They bubble over with curiosity and fun. They like soccer and chocolates. They easily recite the worldwide recipe for success: stay in school, go to university, get a good job, make lots of money, live the good life. They dream of visiting the United States of America, land of opportunity and Hollywood. Americans represent the good life to such a degree that one of the biggest street gangs is named The Americans. I learned last year that when someone was referred to as being "American", especially if the description ended with "...used to be an American." that it was far more likely that they were a South African gangster than that they were from the land of the free and brave.

To me, the true American dream is to work hard and thereby support your family, with enough left over for a little fun, and a little left over for helping your fellow man. I hope that the kids I am working with will be able to live that American dream without even leaving South Africa, and that they will not try out the counterfeit one offered by their uncles, classmates, and fathers with the eagle tattoos. I hope I can be a small piece in the work being done, with great love, to get them out of the repeating cycles of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and gangsterism that too many of their families are trapped in. I hope I do not have to go to their funerals.

P.S. All the photos are from Tuesday, when a couple of other ladies and I helped Auntie Charmaine make a pot of beef and bean stew for the kids.

Prayer Requests:

• Praise God for the ceasefire and pray that it will continue. Where I grew up, we have snow days. Here they have shooting days, when school is closed and the children are forced to hide out inside.
• Please pray that I can pick up more of the language quickly. Most have at least conversational English, but they prefer to speak Afrikaans.
• Please pray that I will structure my days well. I have a lot of free time and am trying to discern the best ways to utilize it.

Going Back to South Africa! 😁🇿🇦

Hello Friends!

As you may already know, I am thrilled to be going back to South Africa this year. I will be going for almost three months! I am both excited and a little intimidated at the idea. It will be my longest time outside of the U.S. ever.

So happy to be returning to this beautiful place

Who am I working with? I will leave as one member of four from Park Street Church to help Hope Prison Ministry. We will serve alongside locals and expats. Park Street has two missionary families in Cape Town that I dearly look forward to being with, as well as many amazing staff and volunteers that I became friends with last year. I will also be working with Auntie Charmaine in Lavender Hill outreach.

What am I doing? Prison ministry and community outreach. The Park Street team and I will be spending two and a half intense weeks in prison ministry. We will be helping facilitate another Restorative Justice program at the same prison we served in last time. If you are unfamiliar with Restorative Justice, you can reference this post my team leader wrote about it. We will also be visiting other prisons for prayer walks, church services, Bible studies, and just to meet and chat with people.

During RJ last year, I look forward to catching up with them.

After that phase is over, the rest of my team will head back to the states, and I will move into Lavender Hill to live with Auntie Charmaine for the next two plus months. Lavender Hill is one of the most dangerous areas in South Africa, it is low income and the gangs have far too much influence. There I will be interning under Auntie Charmaine in her community outreach work. In the outreach, with support from others, Auntie Charmaine makes giant batches of food that feed hundreds, she teaches the kids praise music with dance routines, she encourages them to stay in school and clear of the gangs, she takes them to get haircuts and buy school supplies, and so much more. I will be doing what I can to help in the outreach, and soaking in what it means to live somewhere dangerous and broken and love those next to you.

Why am I doing it? Because I saw something powerful last time in the prisons that I want to see again. I saw a hardened gang leader enter class disrupting it with hand gestures to other gangsters and just with his overall aura of contempt and hardness. I also saw him sob in the arms of his mother at the end of the week apologizing for what he put her through. I saw him stand up in front of the guys declaring that he was done with the gang for good and that it was all built on lies. I want to see that again. I also want to see the four guys at my table again to see how they are doing a year after the program. I am working with Auntie Charmaine because I want to see and be part of helping create positive futures for a group of kids that are disadvantaged in many ways. I always had plenty to eat growing up, gangs were more of a joke than a threat to my safety, and my playground wasn't on top of glass covered asphalt. In short, I want to see lives changed. Lives of kids heading nowhere good, and lives of prisoners who have pasts to be dealt with.

   

When am I going? August to November. Getting our flights booked has proved a little challenging, but we should be flying out the second week of August and I will come back somewhere in the first week of November.

How can you help? With your prayers! By giving financially. By giving me your shoes. By being your encouraging supportive awesome selves!! Prayer requests will be bullet pointed at the bottom. You can give financially at Park Street Church by filling out an envelope designating your gift to South Africa STM - Tatiana Martin and dropping in the communion plate during a Sunday service or leaving it with the receptionist. You can also give online here, just make sure you select "STM South Africa" from the drop down list and put my name as the optional memo. I am still collecting used and new shoes to sell and raise money for Lavender Hill. I will have more information on that tomorrow, but please message me if this is a way you would like to help and want info on.

Cheers!
Tatiana

Prayer Requests:

• That I will finish out my semester strong. I got a bit behind in homework this time and need to do some catch up in the next two weeks.
• That I will make time to do some language learning and it will stick. I have a friend who connected me with a South African girl here nannying who is willing to meet and help me learn some Afrikaans!
• That I will finish up everything that needs finishing and prepare everything that needs preparing. Three months away is a long time!
• That signing up for online fall classes will go smoothly and I will get all the textbooks and materials I need. Doing college from South Africa is not a challenge I expected to take on, and I am still a bit intimidated at the thought.
• That I would be in a good strong place before I go; spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally. Prison ministry was intense and I do not want to go in already burnt out.