Selling Sex: A Shadow Life

Disappointed, I watch as the shadow disappears behind the fence. The cloudy night sky sets a bleak backdrop for the naked tree limbs. But the whole scene is bleak and shadowed: from the dimly light streets to the trash that lies scattered against the concrete walls to the dark houses with their peeling paint.

Shadows.
I’ve entered a world of shadows: Rosettenville at night.

I feel nauseous.
I watch as the girl gets into the car. I don’t want to know what happens next.
But I do know.
Rosettenville. While we lie sleeping in our warm beds how many young girls are hopping into strangers cars?

Shadows. The pimps. They lurk in the shadows and drive their cars up and down the streets. They watch us. They watch the girls. They watch the cops.
The cops. The girls fear the cops. They shrink into the shadows and slip behind the fences.
Nauseous. A white VW pulls to a stop. A girl gets out of the car. I try to swallow my disgust as the large white man drives away. Another shadow.

We walk in small groups and try to talk to the girls. If the girls don’t walk away and slip into the shadows. If a pimp isn’t around watching. Most of our time is spent praying through these deserted streets.
Sometimes these prayers feel like dust in the wind.

Opportunity knocks. We come across a few girls who are searching for a lost ring and we join the search, jumping at the opportunity to talk with them. There’s Nea, Shakerah, Melissa…Names with faces and stories.
They’re all around my age: beautiful and young. Their bare legs shiver. They don’t have the luxury of wearing four layers like me.
A pick-up truck pulls up. He sees our white faces. He wants to do business.
“We’re just visiting with friends.” We try to explain.
“I just want a blow-job.”
I swallow disgust once more and wonder if Nea, Shakerah and Melissa have the same reaction when this happens to them. But they don’t have the option of saying no.
Our resolute “No” convinces him to look else where. He drives away.

The pimp comes out and starts conversation with us. He wants us to go up with him to the top room so he can repent to God. Right.
A car pulls up and begins playing music. Nea starts dancing in the light of the headlights. The kind of dance that comes from numbing the pain of life with other substances. There’s no way I can judge them for their use of alcohol and drugs. They don’t know of another way to escape the realities of this shadow life.
So she dances to sell herself.
It feels surreal. It’s 2 am in one of roughest sections of Joburg and I’m standing on the cold, dirty street watching a girl dance in a car’s headlights. Dancing to have sex with a stranger.
But really just dancing to survive.

You don’t know how much I love them. I hear His voice repeat again and again as I watch the shadows of the girls, of the pimps, of the men in the cars.

I don’t know.

Where I see shadows He sees faces. Where I see brokenness, He sees a life to be restored. Where I see bitterness and all absence of emotion, He sees a weeping soul in turmoil. Where I see poverty, He sees potential. I see darkness, but wherever He goes He brings light.

I see a prostitute. A pimp. A john. He sees a child that He longs to make His own.

Prostitution is complicated. Poverty is complex. I need to see through the eyes of the One who doesn’t see hopelessness. It’s too easy to breathe in the hopelessness that engulfs this place.

So I pray and blow back out the breath of God on this place. And I know that something happens when I pray for His power to come here. I know that when I sing the words, “Blow, mighty breath of God, move upon this place. Blow, mighty breath of God, move in power and grace”, something shifts. 

Because the more I look into His face, the more I see how He sees. The more I yearn for His heart, the more my heart breaks like His breaks.

And the more I want Light to come, because they are meant to be more than shadows. It isn’t supposed to be like this.

Background: Once a month there is an outreach to prostitutes in Rosettenville. The purpose is to pray over the area and build relationships with the girls and pimps. We build a fire and invite the girls, pimps, homeless men, and whoever else may be walking around at midnight, to come have hot drinks and snacks. We walk through certain streets in small groups with a few guys and girls. The outreach is headed up by a pastor from a Salvation Army church in Rosettenville.

Idiot’s Guide to South Africa: Lost in Translation

Fact: Just because two people speak English doesn’t mean that they will understand each other.

South African English and American English decidedly have their differences and I’m thoroughly enjoying discovering these differences, even if it’s often through trial and error.

For my American friends (I’m sure my South African friends would laugh at my attempt here): here is an example of how a “normal” conversation could go…

“Howzit? (How’s it going/What’s up)”
“Ja (yes), it’s good, hey (“hey’s” are just randomly thrown into sentences)! I got some new tekkies (sneakers), they’re really lekker (nice, good) and much easier to walk in then my slops (flip-flops).”
“Isit? (really, is that so, used quite liberally)
“Ja, I also got a new waistcoat (vest) and cozzie (swimsuit, also called a costume).”
“Eish! (self explanatory I think, basically an “ugh” or it can be if you’re surprised, etc. ) Can you please pass me a serviette (napkin. A napkin *also called a nappy* here is a diaper)? I just spilled tomato sauce (ketchup-though it’s not as good as American ketchup) and chips (French fries) on my lap!”
“Shame (sorry, too bad, and can also mean cute in reference to a child), that was a bit dof (stupid), hey? I need a packet (garbage bag). The dust bin (garbage can/trash bin) is full.”
“Let’s ching chong cha (rock, paper, scissors) over who gets the last biscuit (cookie).”
“I’ll give you a lift (ride-can’t use ride here as it has sexual connotations) just now (just now does NOT mean just not, but means sometime in the future). I’d like to take a zizz (short nap) first.”
“Ok, I live right past the garage (petrol (gas) station) after the second robot (traffic light). I’m about five minutes from the dam wall (dam).”

And I won’t even get into spelling where center is centre and there are extra u’s added to words (neighbour, honour etc.) and s’s instead of z’s (organisation, analyse) and missing l’s (install, fulfil) or extra l’s (travelling) and so the list goes on. Unfortunately this means that I am constantly re-checking my spelling depending on who I am writing too.

As confusing as these differences in language can be, I love that there are differences (even when they don’t make sense, like metre – uh, where does that come from?). If I wanted American culture, norms and American English I would have stayed in America! Of course my American tongue frequently stumbles over many South African (particularly Afrikaans) words, but hey, at least I’m providing some entertainment for my South African hosts!

The confusion and misunderstandings that arise from these subtle differences in language remind me to always seek to understand before jumping to conclusions.

It’s so easy to hear something and assume that you understand what the person is saying, and even jump to the conclusion that you know what their motives are.

STOP.

Don’t do it.

Being in a different culture has heightened my awareness that I need to be alert and attentive to what others are really saying and what their actions mean. The best safeguard I’ve found is to continually ask questions whenever I have the slightest doubt that I understand what someone is saying.

Thankfully South African’s are pretty good natured and no one has seemed too exasperated yet by all my questions.

Different culture or not, always seek to first understand.

Don’t assume that just because you hear what someone says that you understand what they’re saying.

As a side note, I can see this being particularly helpful in relationships cause I swear, sometimes men and women speak a totally different language!

Are you seeking first to understand or to be understood?

(Winnie outside of her shop)
When I visited my friend Winnie in Diepsloot she was telling us a story and what I heard her say was that all of the stores on her street were "roped". So the whole time she is telling the story I am wondering why people would rope all the stores and why it was so bad.
Later on I find out she was actually saying "robbed". All of the stores on her street were robbed".

The March of Tears

I crumbled to the bathroom floor. My back pressed against the door as I tried to muffle my tears into a dish towel.
That was how March started out for me.
Crying into a dish towel in the office bathroom was a low point for me. Very low. But, unfortunately just the beginning of the March of tears.

That day I cried for a variety of reasons. I cried because I couldn’t find a car. I cried because I felt like a burden to those around me. I cried because I was stressed about work. I cried because I was PMSing. I cried because I was homesick.

I don’t think I’ve been homesick since I was about 4 years-old and I was staying overnight at my best friends house. And I wasn’t even crying because I wanted my parents-I’d just forgotten my beloved teddy bear Sarah Elizabeth (who may or may not have moved internationally as well-but who admits to taking a teddy bear with them overseas?).

Not even a month into my time in South Africa and I was experiencing homesickness. I’d spent three weeks loving everything and soaking up the newness of it all and then it sunk in. This is now my life.

There’s a difference between spending time overseas (which I’d done) and moving overseas. There’s a difference between living in a community (or at least with a spouse or roommate) and living alone (which is what I’m doing).

I have never enjoyed being alone. I love being with people. I love community. I love being out and about and busy.

But for the first time in my life I experienced what it’s like to be lonely.

More than just having nothing to do on a Friday night but feeling like you have no one to share your life with.

I have always been abundantly blessed with many life giving relationships with friends and family. And then I moved to South Africa where I’ve met so many warm and friendly people, but….fact: community and friendships don’t happen overnight.

Then the unexpected death of a friend and realizing that there is no shoulder to cry on. Sometimes you just want someone to mourn with and the absence of the shoulder just intensifies the pain you’re feeling.

I hesitant as I share all of this:
1. Because I have been tremendously blessed here and I don’t want to give the impression that March was miserable. It wasn’t. But it had it’s challenges and low points.
2. I hate to admit that I’ve been homesick and lonely because I’m not looking for sympathy or advice, I’m just being honest.

But here is the thing. Loneliness was a season that I believe I needed to go through (and in some sense, still am going through). I never really understood what loneliness was.

I wish I could express the richness that comes from these kinds of seasons. Seasons that you try at all costs to avoid, that you try to work yourself out of, but find yourself seemingly “stuck” in.

Trust me, I tried to avoid this season and than tried to work myself out of it. But I simply ran in circles. Exhausted, frustrated and discouraged I found myself where I needed to be all along. In the arms of Jesus.

I have discovered the beauty that comes from the lonely wilderness. Suddenly you have the time and space to encounter yourself and your Maker in a way that just doesn’t take place surrounded with people.

Instead of depending on people and activities and familiarity, you find yourself discovering what it truly means to depend on God. Stripped of that which you used to find false security in you are forced to decide where your true sense of security and identity come from. What is it that you truly depend on?

You learn to be with yourself-a new thing for us extroverts. You have the opportunity to be with God in a way that is different than when your life is full of people. You’ll be humbled, and it won’t be fun, but it will be fruitful.

This blog is different for me. Because I honestly had no intention of sharing my struggle with homesickness and loneliness. It just felt too vulnerable.

But I think it’s important to be real and I know that I’m just one of many who have gone through or are going through this kind of season.

As winter in the US has come to a close and winter in Joburg is about to begin there is nothing that I can do to hold onto autumn and prevent winter from coming. And there’s nothing that my East Coast friends can do to keep winter and avoid Spring.

Don’t miss out on the beauty of the season you are in. The coldest winters have the most beautiful starry skies and there is something so stunning about the black silhouette of bare tree limbs against the red of a winter sunrise.

The season can be awkward, and frustrating, and at times it will make you cry. But I cannot emphasize enough the depth of joy that comes from these seasons. BE in the season that you are in. It won’t last forever, but you will miss out on so many gifts if you try to rush through it or deny it.

Are you being in the season that you’re in?

 

Because I Love You…

The candlelight flickered off our faces as we shivered under the moonlit sky. Sitting under a pile of blankets, cradling a glass of wine, Aubree’s words kept rolling over and over in my head. “The greatest act of love is sacrifice”. It was like switching on the light after you’ve been sitting in a dark room. It takes you back for a moment, as you squint and take in the new perspective of your surroundings. This one sentence dramatically began to give light to my previously dimmed perspective. My eyes squinted. The greatest act of love is sacrifice.

Fast forward 42 days:

“We’re all one phone call from our knees” . I’ve never felt those words so deeply as I did this past Sunday when my sister and brother-in-law skyped me to tell me of the unexpected death of a friend.

It was someone I deeply respected and looked up to. One of those rare people who live a life full of deep passion and love for Jesus. There are no answers to all the “why’s” that flooded my head. And I can’t remember the last time I cried so much.

This friend knew that following the calling of God meant a lot of sacrifices, and even the very real possibility of the greatest sacrifice, death. But instead of settling for something more comfortable and less dangerous, he pursued the full calling of God.

Now we sit and look at his life and the final sacrifice he made, and wonder if we would make the same sacrifices that he and his wife made.

But I think it depends on how we view sacrifice.

To sacrifice is by definition, “the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.”

What holds the highest value in our lives? It’s for that thing that we will surrender all else. And when we do so we reveal what we most love.

The greatest act of love is sacrifice.

In all honesty, I previously viewed sacrifice as this rather somber, melancholic action. It must be done but is never fun and should really be avoided when possible.

But when I view sacrifice as an act of love all of a sudden there is this joy springs forth amidst the pain. Sacrifice isn’t easy-hence why it’s a sacrifice-but there is such an unexplainable joy it brings.

Sacrifice is saying, “Because I love you I will ______”.

Moving to South Africa, as great as it has been, has required sacrifice. During one particularly rough week where it finally sunk in what I had left behind, I came back to a journal entry where I’d written “the greatest act of love is sacrifice”. I had to remind myself of why I had made those sacrifices, and it was because I was following the calling of God.

So I started writing, “Because I love You _____”. An example of a few of the things I jotted down:

“Because I love You I’ll leave behind a wonderful family and amazing friends and navigate through the waters of new people”

“Because I love You I’ll let myself be stretched and push the limits of my comfort zone”

“Because I love You I’ll miss one of my dearest friends weddings”

And the list went on and tears kept flowing. But tears that had started as a result of frustration and homesickness started changing to tears of gratefulness and joy. There is something so powerful about doing something because you love someone. It doesn’t make the pain go away, but it makes it seem much smaller in comparison.

As I look at my friend’s life I see a long string of “Because I love You”’s, with the final one being his life. Even as I type this I find myself pushing back tears. He got it. He knew what it was to sacrifice and he did it with such joy and passion because he had such a deep love for Jesus.

The greatest act of love is sacrifice.

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.” John 15:12-14

What is your “Because I love You…”?

I haven’t taken a shower in 31 days…

Yes, it has been exactly 31 days since I last showered. In fact I haven’t, I will unashamedly admit, taken a single shower since arriving in South Africa.

While I consider the conditions in Joburg to be fairly comparable to those at home I have had to make some adjustments.

Baths have never made sense to me. Why would you want to wash yourself in your own dirty water? I have been blessed with living in a beautiful flat here in Joburg complete with a tub, and-you guessed it-no shower.
So this has caused me to adjust my attitude about baths. Let me digress into some of the benefits of baths:

1. I take them more so I stay much cleaner.
2. I’ve always showered at night, so now I take baths at night which is a perfect way to relax before bed.
3. It’s easier to listen to music while taking a bath.
4. Baths cause me to slow down. Literally and mentally. My personality needs that reminder.
5. I clean my bathtub ALL the time. I scrub it at least twice a week. I decidedly did not clean my shower that much at home. I will not confess in a public blog how often I used to clean my shower.
6. Bath’s provide great relief to sore muscles and great therapy for stress.
7. Baths make it easier to leave my conditioner in for a few minutes.

I’d still take a shower over a bath any day, but I’m learning to focus on the benefits. Having a bathtub vs. a shower is by no means a hardship, but it is an adjustment.

Driving a manual stick shift car on the other side of the road would be another adjustment. Is it a hardship? No, although it may be for all of the other drivers in Joburg who will be rejoicing when I buy an automatic. I’m not sure I would recommend learning to drive manual here, but desperate times desperate measures.

I haven’t decided what makes driving manual here so difficult. Is it the congested Joburg traffic? Maybe the countless robots (aka red lights), many of which are situated on hills?  The people selling goods in the middle of the road? The taxis who all think they own the road and can do what they please? All the drivers that randomly stop in the middle of the road or do other unexpected things? Driving on the left side instead of on the right side? Countless roundabouts (where I’m never sure who is yielding and who isn’t)? The lack of street signs? Having to hold my GPS in my lap since I don’t have the cradle for it?

Or maybe just that I have trouble shifting gears and stalling?

At any rate, I breath a sigh of relief every time I make it into my driving spot at home. Granted, it’s not when I arrive at home since I typically stall a few times before I can make it up the driveway and through the gate.

With tensed up shoulder muscles after driving through thunderstorms and hitting all of the uphill red lights (or nearly getting killed in the middle of intersections when I stall) it is a great relief to slip into a nice warm bath. I’ve never been a big fan of the song “Jesus take the wheel”, but that’s definitely what I’m saying every time I’m behind the wheel!

Life is all about adjustments. Whether we will admit it or not, we all have a standard for how we think life should work, people should act and things should be done. Of course, only in an ideal world would our standards be fully met.

I’m learning that the beauty of adjustments is that they provide the opportunity to look at life in another perspective and be stretched. I am challenging myself to view various adjustments, however small, as opportunities to broaden my perspective and increase my flexibility.

There are obviously many things besides baths and driving manual that I’ve had to adjust to, but often the hardest part is adjusting my attitude and my American/Christian/Foreigner/Female/Marisa etc. way of doing things. At this time I’d categorize myself as being IP (in progress). Every day provides the opportunity to adjust my attitude and embrace an opportunity.

Are you viewing adjustments as a hassle or an opportunity?

The pots were spit clean…

“The pots were spit clean.” Adelaide said recounting that night.

Imagine. Your six children come home from school one day and you have to tell them that there will be no supper.  There is no food in house to the extent that the pots are spit clean. What would you do?
I have no idea what I would do. I would probably gather my children around me and pray (maybe even plead) to God to provide food.
Adelaide, on the other hand, told her children that they were going to fast and pray all night to become more like Jesus.
They were going to fast and pray to become more like Jesus. I have to repeat that line, because even though that story has spun around and around in my head I still can’t grasp it.

When is that my first reaction to a need that arises in my life? To ask to become more like Jesus.
When I first heard the story of Adelaide (she is one of the entrepreneurs who has gone through the Paradigm Shift program) it really challenged me. But all too quickly it slipped from my mind.
The other night I lay in my bed, tossing and turning and worrying. I need a car. You are pretty much stranded in Joburg without one and yet finding a reliable, automatic car within my tight budget seems more and more complicated. So I lay in bed tossing back and forth frantic prayers for God’s provision, feeling like they were bouncing off the ceiling. And then I remembered, or was reminded, of the story of Adelaide.
Here I was, frantically praying for provision, instead of focusing on the Provider. My first reaction was not to ask God to make me more like Him. Not. Even. Close.

His body is the bread, His blood is the wine. Is it enough for us?
I’m in no way saying that we shouldn’t pray for God’s provision-but is provision the goal, should it be the focus?
Slowly, slowly, God is reworking my mindset, redirecting my eyes. I want my first reaction to a crisis, to a frustration, an obstacle, to be “Help me to be more like You”. Cause that’s the point isn’t it?

No electricity, but a lot of light: Francinah’s Story

The smell of rain hung in the air as we walked out the home. In the background I could hear the sound of chickens clucking, children’s voices…the sound of a community living, breathing, eating, working. In my mind I heard Francinah’s voice, the struggles she’d been through in her 57 years and the hope she had for her future and for her son.
Francinah grew up during apartheid and her parents were both domestics (meaning they worked at the home of a white South African family). Because she was a black child she wasn’t allowed to stay with her parents where they worked. So she lived with her uncle in Lesotho. Her childhood was hard and the lack of her parents presence had a significant impact on her.
Being sent to her uncles and the hard life that she had there caused her to doubt her parent’s love: doubt that they had her best interests at heart. This even affected her motivation to do well in school, which she later regreted.
Now, a mother of a twenty-one year old Leroy, Francinah makes sure that he knows that he knows how much she loves him and that love is the motivation behind what she says and does. I glanced over at Leroy as Francinah continued talking, and it was clear that Francinah had communicated her love and that it was reciprocated.
Francinah and Leroy live in a small home in Zandspruit with 70,000 other residents. Zandspruit is one of the many informal settlements in South Africa. Informal settlements face a variety of serious problems such as lack of electricity, poor sanitation systems and are prone to multiple safety and health hazards.

Side note: Think about how hard it is when the electric goes out and you don’t have electricity or running water for a few hours. Imagine having that all the time.
Imagine if your whole family lived in one room? I mean really, isn’t it enough to share a tent with your family for a weekend? (granted, we don’t really go camping in my family, so this isn’t an issue J) I’m emphasizing this because it is so easy to write off communities like Zandspruit because you’ve heard of poverty before-but do we really take time to think about what it would be like to actually live in poverty? To not be able to take a hot shower at the end of the day and to be reliant on gas lamps to light your small home at night.

I didn’t take pictures of the small tin makeshift homes, the children playing in the narrow dirty streets, the piles of garbage. One of the Paradigm Shift team members explained that people come to a place like Zandspruit, take pictures and then leave. What does this communicate to the people of Zandspruit? How would you feel if someone came into your neighborhood and took pictures of your yard, your home, your family? I’m not saying that it is wrong to take pictures when you visit somewhere. But, particularly in the case of Paradigm Shift where we are working in these communities, it is important to build relationships first and communicate that we are here because we care, not just to take pictures and feel good about how much we have in comparison to what they lack.

Let love be our motivation.

I am challenged as I walk through different communities here, to look past the dirt and the poverty, and see the faces. Zandspruit is filled with 70,000 men, women and children who are treasured, adored and much loved by God. Poverty is far more than a lack of material items (I don’t think I’m alone in seeing the lack of fulfillment that material items bring) poverty, as described by the poor is a lack of self worth and value.
We can give out food, clothing etc all day, but can we communicate to people that they are valued and have worth?
Francinah still lives in what we, as Westerners, would consider as poverty. But Francinah is rich in so many ways. Francinah loves, is loved and knows that she is loved. Francinah takes pride in her work and is continually learning and teaching others.
Francinah lets love be her motivation. I want to do the same.

Francinah is one of the artisans whose products are sold through the Paradigm Shift Shop-check them out at and read more about her story.

http://shiftingparadigms.org/francinah/