Spelling Relief in Africa

Marketing the product Rolaids, the advertisement on television asked: “How do you spell relief?” A Google search’s first hit: R-O-L-A-I-D-S Spells Relief®
When you feel the uncomfortable rumblings of acid indigestion begin, turn to ROLAIDS® for relief. The question at hand though, how to spell relief when feeling the uncomfortable rumblings of poverty. How does the world spell relief?

Thursday’s visit with Anne & Walter in their new home in Athlone we were reminiscing about how we met in District Six five years ago. Anne shared how she and Walter were stranded on the street one night in the pouring down rain, Marshall offered them shelter at his place, a tumbled down, man-made shack he’d put together on his own. It wasn’t the greatest but it was a place to come in out of the rain and rest. Walter and Anne made several improvements to the “hokkie” in District Six as Marshall chose to share his home with them. In turn, they became like spiritual parents for Marshall who had gotten in trouble as a young man. After being released from a reformatory he lost track of his parents and family. “God sets the lonely in family” became a true covenant between Anne, Walter and Marshall. The older couple looked after Marshall when he became sick; and remembered those even less fortunate by sharing meals and prayer with the needy and poor they met in town, as Marshall had done for them.

Morlena introduced us all. I was pouring out my heart to God one day like Habakkuk: “How long Oh Lord must I wait and groan and pray for you to release me to do the work you sent me here to do?” Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a one legged woman on crutches battling furiously to get up the steep hill of a street I was about to drive up myself. I couldn’t pass her by! “Want a ride?” You bet she did! I asked where she was from, what she was doing, where she was going. Morlena was on her way to the store for a loaf of bread. Waiting while she purchased the bread, I remembered God’s response to Habakkuk: “Look and watch and be utterly amazed, for I am about to do something that even if told you wouldn’t believe.” Hmmm, I found myself in a “suddenly” scenario that had I been told I probably wouldn’t have believed it! I gave Morlena a ride back to her place; which turned out to be this shack I’d seen many times on my prayer walks. Hunkered down inside the shack providing shelter from the strong Southeaster blowing through Cape Town, Auntie Anne was making tea on her paraffin stove and Morlena returned with the bread and me. After tea we prayed and I promised to return. Sunday morning Laura and I returned with a big thermos of coffee and muffins. We began to meet regularly on Sunday morning and Anne started inviting friends from all over Cape Town to join us. We met in that field of high grass in District Six where 60,000 had been previously displaced, their homes torn down. Out in front of the hokkie, everyone would bring something to share. 1 Corinthians 14:26 became very real as often upon arrival I’d sense something to say and others would join in with their “two cents” as well. We prayed for the sick to be healed, for folks to be able to find jobs and homes, for God’s favor to come when they met with housing council staff about government housing available for them. But we weren’t the great white hope. We all prayed, there was something about unity that brought about God’s blessing.
Psalm 133 says: “How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity…, there I can command the blessing, even life forevermore.”

Diane, Monica, Maria, Marshall, David, Morlena, and countless others became members of the Kingdom of God through Anne’s little “hokkie” church. God helped Walter and Anne find a more permanent home outside of the shack in District Six, too. Marshall was admitted to a TB treatment center in Retreat where we visited him on Saturdays. Anne & Walter moved into a complex for elderly in Athlone. They have a nice flat with a lounge, kitchen and bathroom. It’s more like a small row house as they all share a shower and bath at the end of the passage. But they feel relatively safe and secure and are very happy to have running water, electricity and a private, indoor toilet versus the outdoors that put them on display every day and the plastic bucket of water that was used for bathing. Morlena once got hold of a 12 volt battery that was charged and managed to hook it up to a television so they could watch it back at the shack. Now Anne has a real stove, fridge and kitchen sink and a television. Their only complaint: it isn’t close enough to town to invite the poor. You see, Anne has this theory that when God blesses you must give back to others as well.

That’s how we got talking on Thursday. Anne was perplexed as to how to help her old friends who hadn’t yet found the courage or ability to rise from the economic ashes of poverty and all its trappings. Marshall had gotten out of the hospital but ended up back on the street despite the pension he received from the government. He abused the pension purchasing alcohol instead of going to the shelter we found for him. He died last month. There was no money to pay for a funeral. I suggested to Anne we just let the government take care of the body. We all had taken care of Marshall as best we could and we hoped we’d see him in heaven. Aside from that there really wasn’t much else we could do for Marshall now. So we bowed our heads in Anne & Walter’s little flat and thanked God for our friend Marshall. We remembered the funny, quirky things about him that we loved. The white suit he used to don on Sundays as he sauntered down to the church. And that was our last memory of our friend, smiling in his pearly white suit. We promised to one another not to forget him and to go to those he’d been with last to visit them, encourage them and pray for them to find a better way in the world.

Anne reminded us of that promise while telling about two of those folks who’d showed up at the door to ask Anne for food as they had nothing. Anne shared what she had and gave the last of her money to them to get back to town on the taxi bus. Now she was crying out to God in her heart… ‘How can I help them?’ Another ‘suddenly’ occurred. Maybe we could all donate something to give Anne to take to her friends. She couldn’t have them all over to her house as it wasn’t allowed. But Anne could go to them and take food. How would she get there? She could have taken a taxi but there was something about the relationship we share with one another that compelled us to say, “How about we come get you guys and go with you?” She was thrilled! She’d wanted to ask me about doing that but didn’t quite know how to get the answer she wanted. She didn’t want to overwhelm me with more to do. Who was she to ask? She worried that perhaps I would think she was ungrateful for the visit we made to her. Ha!

Christina, who was with us, was longing for some curry; she just didn’t want to have to cook it. Curry it was! We shopped on the following Thursday and Saturday Natasha, cooked up a big pot of chicken curry. Sunday morning we took it out of the fridge and put it back on the heat. Caitlin came along and made the rice. By two o’clock we were preparing to go. Laura showed up from work with about twenty loaves of leftover bread Charmaine sent. Patricia had purchased plates, forks, cups and some cold drinks. We brought along some extra juice and the feast was on!

There were about twenty-five people already waiting. A few sick ones waited back at the shacks hoping there would be enough for them, too, and a few were working as parking guards so plates were saved for them for later.

We didn’t organize a hug line where they paid us by letting us give them a hug. No, instead we dished up the plates and served each person individually. We introduced ourselves and hopefully will remember their names when we return. Felicity, William, Ashley, Martin, Regina, Miriam, Jonathon…. as you can see there aren’t 25 names listed here. Faces help us remember better. Gilbert thanked us on his way off to work: “Thank you so much for making a meal for us. This is probably the only decent meal we will eat all week. Some of us are able to work and we try to share what we have but there doesn’t seem to be enough to go around often. This has helped us more than you know. Thank you so much.” Several of them asked for prayer and still others asked if we’d be back. We said, ‘ask Anne’. It was after all, the church God was building through Anne. We were her back up, her support team. Afterward in the car she was so thankful and grateful for what we’d been able to do for the folks. She told stories of folks that we had met long ago in District Six whom God had helped get homes in Delft, Athlone and jobs, etc. She’d run into them often and they’d say, ‘please tell Susan thanks for the prayers and that we are doing great.’

Anne and I often prayed for a certain special one, Sena. Over the years we’d both told Sena how God had helped Anne and how he would help her, too, if she wanted it. Anne ran into Sena a few weeks back. Off the street, Sena was staying at the Night Haven shelter. It wasn’t far from where we’d served the lunch so we popped in to see if she was there. They found her hiding in the back watching her laundry dry on the line. She was thinner than we’d ever seen her. Emaciated and pallid, she pulled up her shirt to show us the massive tumor in her breast. We prayed, asking God for a miracle. Sena said she had peace that God would heal her. She was going to the hospital for the removal of the tumor and she believed she would be healed from TB as well. She wanted us to pray that the newspaper would help her find her daughter and grandchildren. She’d been on the street so long they’d lost touch with one another. So we prayed again and promised to come back to see her now that we’d found her again.

Thinking over the events of the past few days the Rolaids commercial came to mind. I’d been wondering how to start a writer’s workshop. I didn’t even know if any of these folks could write. I decided I would begin the writing for them, in their own words of course and together we would begin the rebuilding journey Nehemiah had begun centuries before. At first he didn’t tell anyone about the favor of God and the King. Instead he went about inspecting the ruins. And we’d done the same, prayer walking through the streets of Cape Town; crying out for change, transformation, rebuilding and along the way God began to establish relationships among us and people He would bring across our paths.

Years before I’d asked him to confirm for me that I was really obeying Him and not being deceived by leaving the church I’d grown up in to attend one my husband requested we attend as a family. It was so very different from all I’d been raised to believe, or so I thought. He promised to build a church through us that didn’t have any name upon it but His own.

Now I was beginning to glimpse, maybe only dimly still, that that church had something in common with those gates they began rebuilding in the book of Nehemiah. I’d written a note in my Bible once to ask Johnny Crist about those gates. What did they represent? I don’t know why I was to ask Johnny. Perhaps at the time I saw him as wise, experienced, and knowledgeable? Perhaps God wanted to use that question for Johnny?

Now I was seeing that the gates are those places in our hearts that have broken down. The Bible says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” Hope that has been deferred by circumstances beyond our control can be devastating. For Walter and Anne that night in the rain, Marshall was Jesus in skin. He didn’t represent salvation but perhaps the beginning of transformation came in the one small act of kindness as Marshall stretched out his hand to help strangers in need. I’d written another couple of words in my bible: ‘pray for the love deficits’ while praying for transformation for Cape Town.

Born into captivity in Babylon, Nehemiah had grown up hearing stories about the homeland of his ancestors. He heard about the exiles that were back in the city attempting to rebuild. Being told of the ruins and the gates having been burned by fire Nehemiah got down on his knees, fasted and prayed and wept crying out to the God who promised to restore. Receiving the grace, blessing and favor of God and the King he went to help rebuild. He didn’t immediately announce that he had come to be the ‘great hope’ but after careful inspection he revealed all God had done in answer to his prayer and what the King had said. They replied, “Let us begin this good work.” And so they began to rebuild the gates of the city. The priests were the first to begin and then the heads of every household and their families joined in. That’s our prayer, too, that you will hear about those in exile, in sickness and in extreme poverty; even the spiritually rejected, broken and homeless ones and as the King provided supplies and permission for Nehemiah to leave aside his regular employment; we too, will be able to do the same, helping the broken and rejected, exiles of a dark continent to rebuild their lives.


Susan Hill
Blood N Fire, RSA
Cape Town, South Africa
14 January 2008