by Doug Roland
It started in a shack, a composite of old "borrowed" pieces of lumber, four walls of heavy roofing paper tacked onto a frame of narrow wood, a doorway for entry and light onto a dirt floor. The roof was held down by discarded tires. I judged the single room to be about 64 square feet filled mostly with a double bed where four people lived, three children and one grandmother/great aunt. This was my first trip to South Africa. I wanted to see a piece of the third world, but once I was there, I sort of didn't want to. Being in the presence of such poverty and understanding its reality through an old woman with no future shocks the senses and the soul. It was October, 2007, a mission trip with three others.
I suspect that many (make that most) people do not go to these places because of fear. Not just fear for their safety of but of taking the risk of doing things that may change their lives. It's all very understandable, wanting to be sure, living a predictable life. But there's a dark side to that. NHL Hockey coach John Tortrella told his Stanley Cup team that "safe is death." All of us need to keep stretching, reaching and learning. I shed my cocoon in that shack and stopped playing it safe. I would soon realize that there is hope out there.
My companions and I went to Eldorado Park, a colored township adjacent to Soweto. We did not know anyone there. At first, I thought maybe it was going to be more of the same - going to see how the poorest of the poor live. The experience included a little of that, but we soon learned there were people who refused to accept despair as a response. They believed unconditionally that God could make lives better, one person at a time. They called themselves Come Back Mission (CBM). Energized by their faith and their vision, they believe deeply that they can do great things. Faith and vision blended together is an agent of change. Something will happen though there is nothing easy about it.
We were taken to an informal settlement bearing the incongruous name of Heavenly Valley. It was neither heavenly nor a valley. The population consisted of mostly HIV people living in shipping containers. There were a few clothes lines, one water faucet and one virtually worthless toilet. Most adults remained out of sight. A rusty piece of metal, the frame of a shipping container, stood to one side of the village. One of the CBM founders said he hoped it would be used for computer training. To me it didn't register. Any project seemed hopeless. When I returned a year later the frame was a building acting as a pre-school, complete with teacher. I was a little surprised. It seemed like a good try, but could it last?
I was back there a week or two ago. The pre-school needed more room and a bigger container was obtained. There were of couple of "newer" containers. One is being used as a for a women's empowerment center, envisioned and designed by a friend from home who was on both trips. Today, she's a board member of CBM and an integral part in its operation.
There is a new spirit in the place called Heavenly Valley. I see it differently now. It has been transformed from a place of despair and defeat to a place of hope. Now, when I go there, I am greeted with smiles by some of the women who were around in 2007. It's enough to make you believe that hope is alive even in this little forgotten settlement. It may yet live up to its name.
I began to actually believe that CBM could envision and execute ways to improve the lives of those who had no hope previously. But my growing belief in possibilities of CBM was shaken the one day in 2010. I taken to a run down, badly damaged farm about 30 kilometers from Eldorado Park. Lately inhabited by makers and purveyors of illegal drugs, the place was a mess. The legalities of the ownership and former tenants was thorny. Undeterred, the Come Back team saw it as an ideal site for a wide variety of projects. I should not have doubted at all.
On Sunday, March 11, 2012, the Hadassah Centre for Women was opened at the farm. It is the only facility of its kind in the province of Gauteng, the home of Johannesburg. It has room for 12 women as a "safe house" during their journey to recovery from abuse of all kinds. The house has been restored.
Through generous donations from various South Africans, Germans, Americans and others, the funds were raised to buy the farm and rehabilitate the housing. In the final analysis, it is the limitless faith and irrepressible spirit of Come Back Mission that brought this into being. They are only just starting. Other visions for the farm are evolving. There is no let up.
So what are the implications for me, 500 kilomerters down the road trying to help train a new generation of ministers? CBM's successes have broad application. It opens the door for us at the seminary to carry a message that things can be done; that churches can look well beyond their walls, catch the fever and be infected with vision and change the country fundamentally. With faith and vision the possibilities are unlimited.
A seminarian wrote recently to the effect that "the church is busy doing things that churches do each week . . . . meanwhile people are dying." Maybe he'll apply the faith that led him into ministry and become a minister who takes the path to social justice, an exciting, threatening and joyful journey, turning the impossible into the possible.
