this weekend...

This weekend turned out to be a full and good one. The weather was cool, cloudy and rainy, which people here weren’t too happy about since it is still summer! I even wore long pants and shoes! I am just beginning to experience the big swings in weather here. Here are the weekend highlights…

Friday – Friday afternoon I volunteered a ministry called Shade to help with a Friday program for youth. This week was the older teens, ages 12 and up…95% girls. It was the first meeting since Christmas and the new year, so it was a chance for the volunteers to reconnect with the youth and consider ideas and direction for future weeks. This coming Friday will be the younger children’s turn.

Saturday – On Saturday I hung out with two teenagers from Congo, along with their aunt and cousins who are here from Congo for awhile. Tony and Constante have been here in South Africa for about four years and now live with Philomene, a woman who has been a huge help to me here in Cape Town. It was a fun few hours getting to know them a little better. Constante is an artist and loves to draw, paint, and create. Tony is also an artist and likes animation art. I brought them both art books….I got lucky with Tony’s Manga Japanese -style animation book. He was blown away by how I knew that was exactly the kind of animation he likes to draw. Cool how God works that way! Tony and Constance took me on my first train ride here to get some pizza for lunch. Another step in learning public transport here! Then, Tony helped me trace and cut out 30 shield/crests for the Sunday school art project I was teaching on Sunday. HUGE HELP!

Sunday – I taught a Sunday school lesson at a local church here. The lesson was on being a disciple of Jesus. The children had already learned about Jesus calling Peter, Andrew, James, and John to follow him and be fishers of men. I shared about how God was working in my own life to call me to serve the poor, possibly here in Cape Town. I then was able to share about abiding, loving one another, and bearing fruit (What else, right?). The shield or crest was an opportunity for them to draw things that would remind them of the three priorities.

Sunday afternoon I went to town and the Waterfront for coffee at “Mugg and Bean” and some reading. I started a new book, Eat This Book: A Conversation In the Art of Spiritual Reading by Eugene Peterson. The first two chapters gave me some great stuff to think about and consider! Peterson takes the title from a biblical metaphor for reading scripture found in Revelation 10:9. The apostle John writes, “I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, ‘Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth.’” God used similar “eat this book” language to Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Peterson goes on to say, “Eating a book takes it all in, assimilating it into the tissues of our lives. Readers become what they read. If Holy Scripture is to be something other then mere gossip about God, it must be internalized…assimilated into our nerves and muscles and put to work in speech and action.” BUT, I’ll save more on this book in a future blog post.

Sundays here in Cape Town are very quiet and deserted….almost an eerie deserted. Most everything is closed, which is why I went to the Waterfront where things are still open for the tourists. While I was waiting to catch the bus home at the bus station, a few boys immediately caught my attention since they were inhaling glue or solvent which is very typical for kids on the streets. I was immediately flooded with feelings and memories of my friends on the streets in Rio, Brasil. I did not have time to talk to these boys, since the bus was coming and I needed to get home before dark. But, it was a good reminder to keep my eyes open at this bus station for opportunities to possibly talk to these kids. During the week it is a very busy place, so the kids probably blend into the crowd more and went unnoticed by me. Something to pray about, for sure!

My weekend closed with some prayerful planning for the week ahead and listening to some worship on my ipod (Chris Tomlin’s new one, “See the Morning”).