Burdens

Over the past few weeks I have been realising again the magnitude of what I'm embarking on. God has been reminding me of His call for me to speak for justice, to love the poor & outcast of society, to share His hope with people whose lives are full of hardship and striving. This is my unescapable destiny for the next season of my life. And I'm excited. But it comes at a cost. I will miss my family and friends here. I will no longer naturally 'fit in'. Living cross-culturally is hard work. I will face situations which devastate & frustrate me. Which push me to what I think are my limits and beyond. I will have to lean on God for strength, as in my own strength I would fail. There will be times when I will sit at the top of the local prayer mountain weeping and crying out to Jesus for people who are dying of AIDS in a tin shack, or children who have no family left. These are the burdens I am carrying.

Here are the lyrics of a song I have on repeat a lot of the time at the moment:

I have a heavy burden of all I've seen and know
It's more than I can handle
But Your word is burning like a fire shut up in my bones
And I can't let it go

And when I'm weary and overwrought
With so many battles left unfought
I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard
I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars
And when the saints go marching in
I want to be one of them

Lord it's all that I can't carry and cannot leave behind
It all can overwhelm me
But when I think of all who've gone before and lived a faithful life
Their courage compels me

And when I'm weary and overwrought
With so many battles left unfought
I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard
I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars
I see the shepherd Moses in the Paraohs court
I hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord
And when the saints go marching in
I want to be one of them

I see the long quiet walk along the underground railroad
I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul
I see the young missionary and the angry spear
I see his family returning with no trace of fear
I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights
I see the sister standing by the dying man's side
I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor
I see the man with a passion come kicking down that door
I see the man of sorrow and his long troubled road
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load

And when the saints go marching in
I want to be one of them

(Sara Groves, When the Saints, from the album Tell Me What You Know)

Indeed, when I think of all those who have gone before me, I do take courage from their lives. I know that my God is faithful. I will not shrink away from His call for me, no matter how hard or costly. I know that when I'm weak and overwhelmed, He will fight for me.

Update

Well it's been a while since I put an update on here. I've had a productive few weeks. I've booked my flight, so am officially leaving on 23rd January 09. It's a little later than I had hoped for but it saved me about £200 so was worth staying in the UK for a couple of weeks! I've opened a new bank account to use in SA which is good. It's amazing how different all the bank charges are. I've opted for Nationwide as they seem to be the cheapest by a long way. I just hope their exchange rates are competitive.

At the moment I don't have anywhere to live in Clarens. Apparently there's nothing up for rent right now, so I'm praying something will become available in the next month or so. Ideally I'd like a small studio flat in a development called La Rola.

I've been getting really excited recently about going - last weekend I met up with the girls I was in Clarens with last time and we did a lot of reminiscing. It was really fun. I'd forgotten what an absolute adventure it all was!

Visa appointment

Well my letter from SA arrived, so I called the embassy and made an appointment to submit my application (20 minutes on a £1 per min line!).

I took it in on Wednesday morning and proceeded to have possibly the most stressful, horrible day of my life so far. The short story is that I saw 3 different people, who all told me different things, I spent 2 hours running (literally) between the embassy and a nearby internet cafe getting faxes sent from SA, photocopying extra documents and printing off possible flights. It was quite simply a nightmare! The staff lived upto their reputation of being difficult and rude - one even called me stupid to my face. But after all that they processed my application same day.

So at 3pm I arrived back at the embassy after a lovely lunch with my friend Lindsey. The queue was enormous and the room appeared to be in disarray. I finally reached the front of the queue to be told that my application was successful. I had been told earlier that there might be a problem with my funding so that was a relief. Such a relief that I didn't immediately notice that they'd given it to me for completely the wrong dates! I had asked for it to start on 3rd January 09 - this is what all my documents stated, was the date of the flight I had printed off, the date Dihlabeng Church stated in their fax. However, the visa began immediately. This is not a problem except that it leaves me 3 months short at the other end.

So then I joined another queue to ask for it to be changed. The long and short of it is that it became quite clear that the lady at the desk didn't have a clue, and was just making stuff up on the spot to deal with the large volume of people with incorrect visa's. In the end she offered to keep my passport and look into changing it - but there was no way after a day like that I was leaving my passport with them - I genuinely think I would probably never see it again! So I walked away - at least I have a visa valid for the first 21 months. I'll cross the bridge of the extra 3 months when I get to it.

Visa update

Just a quick visa progress update - I finally got my medical yesterday. After waiting weeks for the appointment, when I arrived at the surgery I was told that the doctor wasn't in after all! Thankfully a different doctor kindly added me to his list & then happily checked me over, declaring me fit & healthy for my visa application. Hurray! And an added bonus, having been told it could cost me £100 for the xray then £100 for the medical, I've actually paid nothing (if you ignore my tax contributions - and yours!). So now I'm just waiting for a letter to arrive from Clarens stating that I'm going to be volunteering at Dihlabeng Church. As soon as that arrives I will be going to London to put my application in at South Africa House.

I also managed to get my international driving licence at the weekend. It's a pretty strange document - it looks like it's come straight out of WW2!

On Saturday I'm hosting my first of 5 craft fair fundraisers. The last couple of weeks have been a bit manic getting ready for it, but I think I'm there now. All we need is some sunshine so that people can enjoy their cream teas in the garden!

Generous Giving

The last few weeks have been amazing in terms of God's provision for me. So many people have made generous financial gifts to me - thank you all so much! It has been really encouraging to go from not really knowing what was going to happen, to knowing at least how I'm going to pay rent! People always say 'if it's God's will He'll provide.' It sounds like a cliche but now I'm finding the truth in it.

I have my medical next week, and thanks to some friends have managed to track down the specific forms I need the doctor to fill in & it seems I don't need such an indepth medical after all which is good!

Unfortunately I overlooked a couple of things I need for my visa so am now trying to pull everything together so that I can go straight to South Africa House with my application after I have my medical. The most important thing is that an official letter arrives from Dihlabeng Christian Church stating that I will be volunteering with them. Unsuprisingly the whole visa system would appear a little more complicated than originally anticipated - South African Home Affairs department has quite a reputation for red tape!

Calendar update - 14/100 now sold!

I finally had my xray....

Yesterday I finally got around to getting my chest xray done. It was actually a pretty painless experience aside from the part where I couldn't suss-out how to put the gown on. First I tried it backwards, then forwards, then backwards, then forwards at which point the radiographer came to get me and said it needed to go backwards so I had to change it again. Those things really should come with instructions!

So now I have to make a doctor's appointment for 2 weeks time to get the results. I have to prove to the SA authorities that I don't have TB. This seems a little weird as SA is pretty rife with TB so one more person arriving with it wouldn't make much of a difference! While I'm at the doctor's getting the results, he's also going to give me a medical for my visa application. This really does scare me a bit. But I have to have it done, or I can't apply for temporary residence, so I'll just have to be brave.

Quick calendar update - 8/100 sold already!

Calendars!

Well today has been pretty exciting as I finally picked up my calendars from the printers. I designed them a while ago using photos from my time in Clarens. I'm going to sell them to raise money for my move. I'm really pleased with how they've turned out - they look really professional (see above for a couple of page examples). So if anyone's looking for a 2009 wall calendar let me know!

Jersey and Shuttleworth (and then Africa)

Last week I went to Jersey with old uni friends for our annual holiday. We had such a fab time, and while I was away I got to tell my 'africa story' again. Andy, who's been away for 6 months, hadn't heard it yet. It was so exciting to get to share again how God has planned this for my future & how He has made it so clear to me what my immediate destiny is. Plus trading Africa stories from our times there with Andy and others made it all seem very real again to me. God is good!

But back home I'm struggling to even think about Africa. My nan called me today and through our conversation reminded me of all the things I still have to do.....get my xray (I still haven't visited the hospital), get my medical, apply for my visa, have calendars printed, sort out insurance, buy my flight, sort out a suitable bank account, plan more fundraising etc etc....but at the moment I can't think past the end of August.

August 22-25 we are going to Together@Shuttleworth. This weekend has taken over my life in recent weeks. I'm helping with the organisation of the conference, and I feel like my life is on hold until it's over. But I'm really enjoying the experience of working on something this big & I'm learning a lot of new skills which I'm sure will be useful in the future. So roll on Shuttleworth08 - it's going to be fab! (and afterwards I can get back to planning for Africa....)

Off to Clarens

So I thought I'd start a blog for anyone who's interested to keep upto date with my move to the sunny Southern Hemisphere. Here are my plans so far...

Sometime in January 2009 I plan to relocate to Clarens, South Africa. I lived in this beautiful village for six months in 2007 which makes it a little less daunting.

Clarens is a tiny village in South Africa on the border of the kingdom of Lesotho. It's on the edge of the Maluti and Drakensburg mountain ranges, and sits at a height of 6207 feet (compared with Ben Nevis at 4409 feet). This is high enough to take a few days to acclimatise to the thinner air. There are around 400 permanent white residents in Clarens, and around 2000 permanent Basotho residents. There are 3 main languages spoken; English, Southern Sesotho and Afrikaans. Clarens is beautiful, and attracts many tourists in high season, mainly from Johannesburg.

I will be working on a voluntary basis for Dihlabeng Christian Church (part of the Newfrontiers family of churches), probably looking at how the church can care for vulnerable children. It is estimated that 1 in 3 of the local population are HIV positive. This obviously has a huge effect, particularly on children.

I have many jobs to do before I can leave, but at the moment I'm focusing on getting my visa application in. This requires a police check, medical report and a TB report. So far I have only got my police clearance. I'm off to the hospital sometime this week to get my x-ray for the TB report taken. Once that's done I can book my medical report.