Just a Bowl of Jello Rice Krispies

By Cheri Roland

It’s not Shadrac, Meshack, and Abednigo hanging out in the fiery furnace. Life is more like being poured into the bowl with Snap, Crackle, and Pop when the milk hits, a cacophony of new experiences rolled in serendipity.

It started popping last week. In a thumbnail sketch:

Saturday – The Capital Climb up one of the surrounding hills (mountains to us flat-landers) with hundreds of runners, walkers, and us stragglers. We did make it the 8 km to the top before Doug’s little heart arrhythmia kicked in and we caught a ride back down. Better safe than heroic.

Sun. – Church in the AM, then our first opportunity to cook together (our hobby) plus the proverbial house cleaning. (It is extremely dusty here because of the controlled burns.)

Monday – A regular day at SMMS , then entertaining a seminary prof and his wife for dinner before their move to England the next day.

Tuesday – Learned, after a three hour meeting in the AM, that we would be hosting Peter Storey, the face of the Methodist Church in Southern Africa, for the night. (Thank God, literally, that we had addressed the condition of our house on Sunday.) This meeting was with all staff initially, then continued with Sox, the Dean of Studies at SMMS, and Ross, the President. We finally got down to the nitty gritty of our assigned task: designing and implementing the field experience program for the seminarians, an awesome task. We are to start by visiting the five superintendent ministers of the greater PMB area to get acquainted with all church projects addressing the most urgent social crises. Also we will visit community agencies, hospitals, prison, hospices, etc. to scope out possibilities for field work. Then we will evaluate the opportunities, group them into themes for the 6 semesters of the seminarian’s training, meshing their class schedules, transportation availabilities, needs of the organizations vs. those of the students, creating agreements and evaluation tools and procedures, and Viola! We’ll have SOUP! Doug keeps assuring me that since we are starting from scratch, we can’t screw up too badly.

We had a lovely time with Peter that eve, after a Communion service and trip to the grocery, even convincing him to join us in a few rounds of Bananagrams.

Wednesday – A four hour staff meeting concerning upcoming visitors, and activities surrounding the official opening of the seminary. In two weeks, SMMS will throw a traditional African pre-opening fling to which the PBM community is invited. That Friday a bull will be slaughtered by what I call “the cow whisperer” –this man makes the cow know that he will be offed the next day after he makes a certain noise to open the channel for communication with the ancestors. (This ceremony is only for guys, but it is happening in the midst of National Women’s Month. What’s up with that?) The next day will be filled with feasting on the cow, traditional dancing and singing, and praise singers (“professionals” who would perform poetic songs for the king of the tribe, but now for The King in this celebration). It’s gonna be a blast!

Then for the weekend of Sept. 4 – 5, Peter Storey walked us through the grand ceremony announcing to all that Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary has become a reality. This promises to be pomp and circumstance, with luncheons, processions, dedications, singing, culminating with a community colloquium headed by Rev. Samanga Kumalo from SMMS (who has preached at our church) and Dr. Greg Jones, Duke University. I can’t wait! Stay tuned for photos.

On Wed. afternoon, Doug and I with another staff member gave two important visitors “the campus tour”, seeing areas of this place I’d not been before… Ross had instructed us to act as if we knew what we were talking about. It’s amazing how many titbits of info we had actually gleaned from hanging out around here.

After work I walked up to the sports park across from the Seminary, my first solo venture. I “chatted up” a young gal who was doing laps on one of the cricket fields. Cathryn is a psychologist whose father was a Methodist minister, turned psychiatrist, living in Joburg. He will be visiting Friday and we hope to give him “the tour”! Cath will call me today to set up our meeting. But as we were planning this, I noticed it had gotten dark. I knew Doug would get worried, so I asked her to drive me home, just around the corner. (Dark and out walking = stupid.) So she did, and popped in, wrote down her phone number, and now we have new friends! To top that off, while I was out walking, our next door neighbors dropped by with a flowering plant to welcome us. (In this land of a thousand gates and locks, I find that extraordinary.)

Thursday - Today I’ve scheduled a working lunch with Dr. Wendy Dougmore (what a great name!), my medical consultant, to discuss S.A.nursing protocols, thereby preventing my landing in jail.

This Saturday we’ve been invited to watch rugby with a big group at someone’s home. We have been instructed to wear green (Springboks). If any black (New Zealand) is noted, we will be sent packing.

Estimates of my clinic supplies are in. I hope to get them this week so I can open with office hours on Mon. Woo Hoo!

So, as you can tell, we are having the time of our lives!