 |
| 2 very different houses side by side in the township. Money makes the difference! |
My second day here in the north was
fascinating. But first, I must correct what I said previously. I am currently
staying at the Rectory of St Augustine, Marico, but it is not actually in
Marico! It is in the township of Ikageleng. When the church was built it served
a large area, at the centre of which was the town of Marico, hence the name.
In many of the places I have visited
the congregations are trying to raise money to build a new church or to extend
their church. Corrugated iron roofs have holes; wooden posts are being eaten
away by ants; concrete is crumbling. In Dinokana the son of an MU member is the
builder, and he waits till they have money to do a little more work and then
does it. It is slow progress but they are getting there, not helped by thieves
who broke into the existing church recently and stole the door and scaffolding!
From there we moved on to Ke-Barona,
an elderly and disabled care home. The
name means ‘Ours’, and highlights the fact that for the families the residents
are not ‘ours’, until they die that is and then they want to claim the
insurance money! There are 22 elderly and 9 disabled residents, looked after by
14 staff. Every day they have ‘Church’, which they must all attend. When we
arrived they were sitting outside getting some ‘exercise’. There are 4
dormitories, so about 9 beds in a room with almost no space between the beds. Funding
is difficult, but the care is loving and good.
Next it was a crèche, called
‘Banapele’, which means children first. They had just been making mud hand
prints and were standing outside holding them up to the sun to dry them. The
children chanted and sang for us. I've tried to attach a video, but failed. I'll try again sometime because it needs to be seen!! A child must be able to know and write their
own and their family names, and hold a pencil and use it before they can go to
school. From the crèche we went across the ‘road’ to the house of the Chief of
the Moilwa family, part of the Bahurutshe tribe. The chiefs still have power
and there are Houses of Chiefs in each Province and in Pretoria. They safeguard
the traditional affairs and rights of their people. After that, it is quite
difficult to understand!
Friday 3pm I have now arrived in Promosa, one of the
townships of Potchefstroom, where Canon Sydney Magobotla is priest. There is total cloud cover, it's windy and I am sure I just heard thunder. Please God it herald's rain! I shall not be staying here, but with a church warden and his family, somewhere on the outskirts of Potch. Yet more new experiences! I think this might be a more restful couple of days, though I have to preach on Sunday. Come, Holy Spirit , come.
No comments:
Post a Comment