Not my usual post

I just wrote a very long blog entry that was deep and heady and possibly difficult to follow. I erased it and wrote the following instead because what I think what I want to communicate is simple. I'm going to attempt to clearly share my joy.

Jesus has changed me. He used the friction of colliding worldviews on the ship and in Africa to slowly liquefy my values and beliefs. Then he hit me with a trifecta of methods to hammer home some gospel truths. The methods are his word, the words of other people and a supernatural leading of my thoughts through meaningful experiences to some conclusion. He has replaced some of the most rotten parts of me with fresh flesh. He has taught me things that I can't believe I never knew, things about him, about other people, about the world and about me. He has loved me just like he said he would and just like he loves you.

I don't know how to say it any other way than that. All of the credit and honor goes to God.

Just a quick update

Well, if you didn't know you will find out soon enough anyway. I'm in the states. MS flew me to Texas to do some hospital supply preparatory work for next year. I was at the base for 3 weeks and then I flew to VT to surprise my family. I snuck into my parent's house at 1am, camped out on the couch and then woke up early so I could spring the trap. I intended to cook breakfast and have it ready when everyone got up, but I forgot that my dad wakes up super early and he got the drop on me just as I got to the kitchen. I am fully satisfied with the amount of shock and tears that occurred. After thanksgiving I made my way east to Maine and pulled another surprise on my church family. Also satisfying. I've been having a great week catching up with everyone and getting reacquainted with east coast living. Next week I'm heading back to the ship to resume life on board. Vacation in the states is always nice, but I'm looking forward to going back home to Africa.

Listomania (not the song)

Things that surprised me about Africa (specifically Togo):

1. Everyone has a cell phone

2. There are no dogs anywhere

3. How much people love to see a white guy acting like an African

4. You can buy movies on the street before they are released in theaters in America

5. Liquor is cheaper than water

6. The beauty of the country

7. Maggots that borrow into your body

8. How a simple joke can diffuse a tense situation

Things I love about the ship:

1. You get to eat every meal every day with people you love

2. Watching day volunteers react to 'ship culture'

3. People will help you with anything you need

4. Getting in a land rover with 9 other people and realizing none of you are from the same country

5. Seeing a sick person enter and a well person exit

6. A 20 second commute to the office

7. Lifeboat drills (sometimes)

8. Having no idea what the next meal is and the surprise when you see it

9. Long talks on deck 8 with people you barely know and with people who are your best friends

Things I miss about home:

1. Having people over and cooking for them

2. Seeing my breath

3. Ordering food at a restaurant without it being an ordeal

4. Helping people move

5. Green grass and tall trees

6. Stopping by someone's house to say hello

7. Grocery shopping

8. Family and friends (of course)

Things I've learned about God in the last year:

1. His kindness leads us to repentance

2. He is always good

3. He works best through a community

4. He breaks down dividing walls

5. He has a personality

6. He presents different sides of himself depending on circumstances

7. He desires my redemption more than I do

Things I used to believe that I no longer do:

1. I'm a pessimist

2. Shame is an appropriate response to sin

3. I need to keep my armor on to avoid getting hurt by people

4. It is difficult for people of different cultures to relate to each other

5. Poor people are always unhappy

6. I will never be truly happy

Things that I hope will happen in 2011:

1. Lots of Sierra Leonese people will get life changing medical care

2. I meet a woman who will become my wife

3. My heart will soften even more for the impoverished

4. The community on the ship will become tighter and less divided

5. I will continue to work on and make progress with my issues of being motivated by power and acceptance

6. Hospital supply become a well oiled machine that never breaks

Reactions that I want you to have to this blog:

1. Wanting to come and work on the ship (if you're not already here)

2. Wanting to experience Africa

3. Wanting to pray for the ship and Sierra Leonese people and me

4. Wanting to discover new things about God

5. Hopefully a smile or at least a pleasant thought or two

An impression of racism in SA written by someone from the whitest state in America whose only been here for 60 days

Are people out there still interested in race issues? I'm not sure. I feel like racism just gets tossed around and when people talk about it the conversation goes in circles until you don't want to talk about it anymore. Well, this blog is about racism in South Africa. I don't have any answers about it. I just want to kick it around a little more because race is such a strong issue here.

The history of SA is similar to that of the States. There are indigenous people who have lived somewhere for a long time and European people come in. At first there might be some shaky peace between them, but in both cases there is eventually open war and genocide. The difference is that in the states, the native Americans were all but completely wiped out so that the white people vastly outnumbered them, whereas in SA the indigenous people weren't totally eradicated so they remained the majority. I think that difference has had huge implications down the line for how racism has developed here in SA.

So for decades and decades a white minority ruled over the black majority while slowly solidifying the separation of races. It was subtle at first, then grow more insidious with the dawn of the apartheid regime. Feelings of hatred took root on both sides. The upper class white people stood on the labor of a people that disgusted them and the lower class black people were becoming resentful and restless from being treated like they were something less than human.

Then the world grew up. People everywhere were coming to realize that all humans are equal and SA became a dangerous place of terrorism and secret armies and meetings. The black majority wanted to regain control of the country and they eventually got their way without a massive bloody civil war occurring. They turned SA into a republic and set up a government of their own people. They changed street names from things like Pine St to Masabalala Yengwa Ave. They changed stadium names to honor the heroes of the resistance. They set up affirmative action laws to encourage white-owned businesses to hire black people. They took down signs that said "Whites only." And what happened?

The white people still said "Take a left onto Pine St." They said "Let's go to the rugby match at Durban stadium." The white business owners took their companies to more stable countries. The 'whites only' areas are still for whites only, it just isn't clearly marked anymore. Durban proper is filled with Zulu and Indian peoples. Outer Durban is white country. When I walk downtown I am often the only white person around. All of the neighborhoods here belong to a race. If I make plans to go to a restaurant in a certain part of town I already know what color everyone there will be.

The white people are afraid. They all think that someday not too far away they will completely lose the country to black people. They chatter on and on about the neighboring country of Zimbabwe where the black people took control and forced all of the white people out and now the place is a total wasteland. They feel that they aren't adequately represented in the government and most of them simply reminisce about the good old days 20 years ago.

The black people are afraid. They all think that someday not too far away they will lose all of the big white-owned companies that power the economy. They chatter on and on about the neighboring country of Zimbabwe where the white people moved all the industry away and now the place is a total wasteland. They feel that things aren't really much different now and most of them simply wonder what things would be like if those European ships never landed in Cape Town.

There is a billboard not far from the ship that has two pictures on it. On the left there are naked black women carrying baskets on their heads wading through a muddy river that looks like it's straight out of National Geographic. On the right there is a group of black people bundled up in warm clothing crossing a walking bridge in cold weather in some city. Then the text underneath reads "Things are better now". The irony is that only a couple of kilometers away from that billboard there is an overpass where hundreds of homeless black people scrounge for food and sleep under newspaper and cardboard. The place is easily visible on the way back from a favorite restaurant of us who live on the ship. On more than one occasion I've gone out with friends, enjoyed great conversations and beautiful views of the harbor and sky and nice food and drink, then drove back passing a community of barrel fires and shivering women and hungry bellies.

The world hasn't grown up quite enough. This is a broken place. One person hates another because his distant ancestor wronged the other's. The God that I know can't stand division and deeply desires restoration. There it is again. All my blogs are about it these days. Restoration, redemption, unity, humans loving humans. As I write this I search for some hope of racial reconciliation. Not just for SA, but for this whole globe. It eludes me. I wish I could wrap up this blog in a nice little bow with a statement about how things are moving forward and people are changing. I can't conjure it now. Here's the best that I have: There is an infinitely powerful being whose priority is the restoration of everything that exists.

I want to ride a zebra

Normally at this time of day my thoughts are of sending food to the dining room, scrubbing floors, cleaning counters and doing dishes. Not today though. It's a three day weekend off from the galley. Booyah.

My and my fellow galley teammates spent most of the day at a place called Tala Game Reserve. It's only a 40 minute drive from the ship and it hosts many of the animals you might think of when you picture Africa. No predators. Except for a few mercy shippers with cameras. I posted the best pics on fb page. Go ahead and check them out. Feel free to friend request me too because that is where most of my pics will go. Anyway, blah blah blah.. enough about facebook.

You get to tour the park in your car which you are strictly instructed to remain in at all times. That lasted about 7 minutes. Sometimes you have to get out to see the best stuff. Like a big mama hippo with two babies. What impressed me mostly was how comfortable most of the animals were with us getting very close to them. At one point we had to shoo an ostrich off the road to keep going. Even the rhinos were ok with me standing pretty close to them. These huge powerful animals with deadly sharp appendages acted just like cows. Quietly grazing while we snapped photo after photo. We all were enticed by the comfort the animals showed and we all wanted to get closer and closer to them. Maybe we could pet an ostrich. Maybe we could ride a zebra. Of course not. Although the animals are used to people gawking at them, there remains an ancient lack of trust for man. It is our fault after all.

I like to imagine that every animal knows how life is supposed to be. They have some distant memory of the perfection of Eden and they resent humanity for messing it all up. They want to just all get along again. The rhinos know that they wouldn't need the horn for protection and the wildebeest know they wouldn't need the speed if only we had stayed strong. I believe all of creation is desperate for restoration. Humans too, but I think we just can't really identify our desire sometimes. I'm always wishing that my relationships didn't collapse so easily, that I could show love to everyone I meet, that there wouldn't be so much injustice out there. The time is coming. No, it's here. The kingdom is here. The ethic of Jesus is present and slowly redeeming this place. Broken hearts are being restored every day. I know this because he restores me continually.

A few pics

Nothing earth-shattering here. I just wanted to show some pictures of the current state of the ship and my work in the galley...

A pretty typical day in the galley.

Happily slicing bacon for Sunday's breakfast.

Totally under the ship. There are hundreds of those blocks holding the ship up.

The AFM in dry dock.

Standing next to one of two of the ship's propellers. The gray stuff is all barnacles.

The Return

I'm embarrassed. How long has it been? May 12? Yikes. Sorry to leave people hanging there.

Yes, I'm still alive. Yes, I'm still on the ship. Yes, I'm still in Africa. Things have certainly changed since my last update though. Let me start several months ago in Togo...

The Who What Where When

The end of Togo was marked by one word for me: burnout. Only 5 months in and I was having a tough time remembering what it was all about and why God put me here. The constant grind of different cultures colliding, the ever-present group of people, the stress of my job, and the homesickness. Ok, I'm not going to beat myself up too much for being burned out. The truth is that most of the people on the ship were going through the same thing as me. I discovered that towards the end of the outreach my job gets exponentially busier. Mainly because we were packing up the hospital for the long sail to South Africa and when you're the guy responsible for all the supplies, that's a tremendous amount of work. We got through it though. Didn't even have any box avalanches during the sail.

Despite the rough times, Togo was a fantastic outreach, both personally and for the ship. I've been trying and trying to find some stats about how many people were helped, but I've been unsuccessful so far. It's a lot people. There are some great patient stories in the same place where they keep the stats. My next update will contain all that information. Scroll down to the 'deeper' section to read about why Togo was great.

Early in August life was moving at 100mph and then we set sail and brakes came on. Ah, the sail. Nothing is quite as good for decompression than being in the middle of the Atlantic, sky full of stars, waves breaking on the bow, and friends to watch movies with. It was exactly what I needed after a hard two months of work. I didn't sit around the whole time. I worked in the galley (kitchen) every other day chopping vegetables and trying not to slide across the floor and crash into an oven. I think if you haven't been on a ship in the ocean you can't really understand what it feels like to constantly be moving side to side. On a calm day, it's kind of relaxing. On a rough day, it can make life very interesting. We hit the tail end of a storm off the coast on Angola about half way through the journey and at times it felt like we were going to tip over. It was fun as long as you weren't trying to actually do something. Like eating, sleeping, working, or sitting. I fell out of my bed a few times during the rough days.

Eventually we rounded the Cape of Good Hope and crossed over into the Indian Ocean. We saw lots of whales, dolphins, and seals off the coast of the bottom of South Africa. A few days after that we arrived in Durban. The harbor is quite large, and we had to have a pilot lowered down from a helicopter to steer us into the exact spot where we were to dock. My first impression of Durban was that it looked like a real city, complete with tall buildings, paved roads, and traffic lights (called robots here). Soon after docking, 75% of the crew, not including me moved off the ship to an abandoned college campus up in the mountains 90 minutes away.

I should probably mention the whole reason why we are even in South Africa right now. The ship is undergoing some pretty significant repairs. They are replacing all the generators and updating the engine room controls, among many other smaller projects. The ship is currently in dry dock, which means we are resting on some blocks and completely out of the water. The work will last until early January and then we will set sail again to Sierra Leone, where we will spend a big chunk of 2011. The hospital is not running right now, so my job has changed a little bit. I work full time in the galley, making food for the technical crew that lives on board. I can say that it is not quite as fulfilling as working in the hospital, but the work is necessary and temporary, so I am enjoying it. That's it for the details of what's going on. Read on to the good bits...

The Deeper Stuff

I learned a lot in Togo. Well, more accurately, I learned that I don't really know anything about the world and the poor and especially how to serve the poor. I tried some different methods. I thought if I can just speak to them about the gospel and Jesus, that must be the answer. Nope. Most of the people don't speak English and the ones that did knew the gospel better than I did. Then I tried just loving them. Showing them kindness, being generous, trying to help with their situations. Nope again. They didn't want my help. Another contributer to my burnout. I found myself constantly asking the question "How am I supposed to help these people?"

Before I go any further I want to write a bit about the mindset of poverty. Many of you may not know what I mean when I say that because you don't see it very often in the states, although it is prevalent there too. It seems that when poverty resides in a place for generation after generation, a certain way of thinking is adopted. The bottom line of the mentality is that there is nothing outside of an impoverished life. It is not a situation where young people are dreaming about better things and failing to achieve them. It is a situation of no dreams at all. No hope. No belief in change or anything better. Not even a desire for anything better. This is how the people of Togo lived everyday of their lives. Most of the people I met had enough money to eat, get to work, buy clothing, and recharge their cell phone with overpriced minutes. But they were living in poverty.

This poverty mindset is so destructive. It's like strong armor that everyone wears. They learn not to hope for anything because they've been continually oppressed and let down. They are shielded from human connections for that reason. I have not yet been able to get through that armor with anyone who wears it. I have never seen anyone pierce it. That is how powerful and deeply rooted it is here. When I dwell on all this for too long I sometimes start to despair. It is overwhelming.

The motto of MS is "Bringing hope and healing". I like it, but I think "Bringing hope through healing" would be better. The best thing about this organization is that it provides hope for people trapped in the prison of poverty. I think the whole point of the ship is broadcast the message "You can't see? God wants you to look at this world. You can't go out into public? God wants you to have human relationships. You are close to death? God wants to breath life into you. Look. God still redeems people. There is hope." The message gets through. I've seen the look on patients faces when they see themselves for the first time after surgery. I've seen the reaction of families when the patients go home restored. I've seen the response of hundreds of children when they notice that the kid who legs were backwards are now correct and he's playing football. That is what cuts through the poverty armor. It's the love of Jesus, clearly displayed by simple surgeries. I believe in that. I trust in that. And that's why I work hard to make sure that when a nurse reaches over for a syringe, it is there. I want to pour myself into this hospital because it matters. It actually truly makes a difference.