This blog is about to get a whole lot more interesting. It was made two years ago to keep my friends and family aware and up-to-date about my going-ons in South Africa with Sinakekele Children. On May 14th tune in for South Africa II: The Return. Ok, so that’s a lame title. I’ll work on it.

For you that don’t know, here’s the basics. Sinakekele Children is an organization founded and run by Ruth Grobler. It’s primary concern is the tragic consequences of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Every month in Sub-Saharan Africa 180,000 people die of AIDS. Sinakekele’s focus is addressing the care and wellbeing of the thousands of abandoned babies and orphans that have been the result of this social crisis.

Since my last trip, Ruth–single mother and superhuman–has really struggled to keep her family and ministry afloat. However, recently many doors of been openend, and it is my hope that these next couple months will usher Sinakekele into a whole new chapter. This is my reckless hope.

A couple years ago Ruth was given a portion of land to build her facilities on. She’s had the plans for construction completed. About one third of the cost has been raised. If she had the funds, this building could be built in a matter of weeks and Sinakekele would finally have the space to expand and grow. Most of all, there would be room to take in new children, and more lives could be permanently changed.

So here’s where the BRICKS come in. To raise the remaining funds the BRICK Campaign has been launched. The goal is to sell *five thousand* bricks at what works out to be about $58.00 each. “Child’s play!”, you say? Yes, I agree. With your help…this will be a piece of cake.

Dying to help me pay for my expenses for the next six months? No thanks. I’ve got that taken care of; thank you waitressing. I would, however, love you to donate a brick or two to this campaign. This building’s completion will do more for South Africa than I can ever accomplish in six months.

“WONDERFUL!”, you say. I agree. Donating to this campaign is so simple, and upon completion a wall of gratitude is going to be created with the names of all those, from all over the world, who helped in this project. Your name could be on a wall in South Africa! “Stardom!”, you say. I can’t imagine something closer. :)

Ok. So here’s the game plan:

If at any point you have questions about how to donate feel free to contact FEB International at (519) 821-4830.

All donations for Sinakekele Children’s BRICK Campaign are to be made through FEB International. However, I’m requesting that if you make a donation that you contact Grace Vermeer at gevermeer@sympatico.ca with your full name and contact information so we can keep contributors informed as the project progresses.

Donations can be made through the mail or online. One “BRICK” towards this building project is $58.00.

Through the Mail:

1. Go to their website at: http://www.febinternational.ca/
2. Go to the section of the website called “Contribute”, which is located on the far right at the top of the screen.
3. There are three payment methods listed to the left of your screen. The form you are looking for is the middle one called, “Donation Form”.
4. Print this form, fill it out.(The address is included on the form.)
   • The envelope should be addressed to FEB International, Attention: Norman Nielsen.
   • The cheque should be made out to FEB International
   • To direct the donation to Sinakekele Children, include that name on the form in the section titled, “Donation Information.”
   • Important: To direct this donation specifically to the BRICK Campaign, include this in the “Donation Information.” The ministry and project name should then read: Sinakekele Children: BRICK Campaign.

Online:

1. Go to the website http://www.fellowship.ca
2. Click on “Donate” which is the last item listed on the left hand of the website.
3. Scroll down until you get to the “Online Donation” section.
4. Find the box entitled “FEB International.” There is a drop down menu under “Select Recipient.”
5. Select the ministry as being “South Africa- Sinakekele Children” and enter your amount.
6. Important: In the following page include in the memo that this donation is specifically for the BRICK Campaign.

On the top of my “to-do list” is to get a letter out to my friends and family about my upcoming adventure to South Africa and Sinakekele Children. This is a short-term mission trip ritual. Write a letter. Try to get people excited about what you’re going to do, so that they’ll pray for you and support you.

I’ve been hesitating to write this letter, but as of today it’s written.

Short term missions trips make me a bit uneasy. Let’s be clear, I don’t want to undermine the importance of short-term mission trips. I can’t think of a more effective way to jolt people out of their complacent North American lifestyle and open their eyes. I have certainly benefited from the generosity of others and of these experiences.

However, another part of me finds it hard to justify spending thousands of dollars to transport ourselves to a new and exciting place for a couple weeks. Often we’re visiting ministries that could have done so much with that money. Often we’re doing very little to minister to the needs in our own country.

Honestly, who wouldn’t want an all-expense paid trip to an exotic country? Sure, it’ll be hard work, but its an adventure all the same. Maybe you’ll even get a tan. This seems a bit harsh; I’m being a bit jaded to make a point. The point being, let’s be a bit critical here.

Most of you know that I’m a couple weeks shy of returning to South Africa for six months. Naturally, all my conflicting ideas about short term missions have been plagueing my thoughts this past year. But I’ve come to a decision that I feel comfortable with, and I hope will be an encouragement to others. I’ve decided to cover my own expenses, and have any fundraising go directly to Sinakekele Children’s recent fundraising campaign.

I put my cheery personality (ya right!) and multi-tasking skills to work this semester and became Symposium’s waitress extraordinaire. This coupled with the wonderful support of some friends—including 3 a.m. pick ups and futons—I was able to work about 20 hours a week. Thanks to the generous tipping of my patrons and Ontario’s spectacular waitress minimum wage of $6.85/hour, I have enough money now to pay for all my personal expenses for the next six months! More often then not relationships, school and personal hygiene, blogging suffered, but it was worth it!

It’s pretty hard to even write that because its not really part of my personality to market myself. I feel bad writing this post cause I don’t want people to think I’m patting myself on the back. Rather, I want to encourage people to think of the possiblities. If you really want something like this, and your willing to put the sweat and tears into it…anything is possible. God will meet you there. This experience has really been a good one, and I’m convicted that personal sacrifice is integeral to serving. At the root of things, its not really about money. It’s about much bigger things.

Making change is hard work.

Above all, I’m completely and absolutely floored that I can use the generosity of those around me to support Sinakekele Children.

There are going to be tough parts about the next six months. I know I’m going to be heartsick to see my friends and family, but honestly, more than any sacrifice I feel overwhelmingly privileged to have this opportunity. I’m so blessed!

Tomorrow I’m going to go sit in the sun with Sarah and celebrate the art of doing nothing, or very little at least. I’m done with my undergraduate. I was absolutely slaughtered by my German exam, but I sort of saw that coming. Let’s all just assume that I passed the course.

My immediate plans, visa/passport/tickets in hand, to take off to South Africa on May 14th are distracting me from the vast unknown that is my future. I’m packing up my things in Waterloo and moving things to Sarnia, and at the same time packing my suitcases and figuring out what I will need for the next six months. I’ve already taken things off my shelves and walls…and suddenly my home feels empty. The feeling is all too familiar…an empty room that propels me to the season.

The future is so wide open, too open. It’s like my life is an empty room and I’m sitting in the corner staring at the ceiling and the empty walls and deciding what I need to fill it with. What will I fill it with?
I’m glad that I have the next six months planned. It defers a certain panic that I’ll feel when I return in November.  Sometimes I’m very easy going about all of this, and just assume I’ll figure it out. It’s the more immediate decisions that get me into a panic. Where am I going to live? With who? Where should I look for jobs?

I’ll get back to you on that, eh.

**A post that has been half-written for far too long. Such are the casualties of busy life and end of term.**

My grandfather’s funeral was the first funeral I’ve ever attended, but as I told a friend, even though I have no point of comparison, I cannot imagine a something more beautiful.

On a Thursday morning we drove through flooded Ohio to Orrville for the funeral. Past Detroit and Toledo, everything sort of opens up. It’s hard to describe and even though I’ve never lived there, somehow it always feels like home. Everything was melting and the countryside was muddy and brown, but it still felt like winter. At one point a flooded farmer’s field had taken over the entire road, which was now used only by the pair of swans we saw floating by.

My grandfather left the Amish farm of his parents when he was about my age. This was a decision that separated him from much of his family, and propelled him on his own spiritual journey. He spent time as a Mennonite missionary, school teacher and pastor. He moved his family from state to state in what could only be described an exhausting pilgrimage. He made many mistakes. But his family remembers him for his amazing ability, even in his old age, to accept change and growth, to soften and embrace grace.

Shortly before he passed away, my grandfather finished his first book entitled, “God Can Be Trusted.” He told my mom in November that after all those years of moving and searching, what he needed all along was to write this book. The Amish believe that you cannot know for sure that you have salvation until you meet God. My grandfather wrote this book for his Amish relatives, to assure them of God’s grace and mercy. There was some wild plan involving thousands of copies, an RV and a journey across the country. Knowing my Grandpa, this was entirely possible. Of course, a few weeks later he passed away.

Many of our Amish family hired drivers and came a great distance for the funeral. At his own funeral my grandfather’s desire to share what he had written with his family was fulfilled as the pastor read the introduction of his book to everyone.

My grandfather’s love for nature was overwhelmingly remembered. And the moment when he took a reel-to-reel recorder into the woods to captuer the sounds of the crickets and bullfrogs was referred to again and again. My mom and her sister found someone who would make the floral arrangement look like something you could stumble upon while wandering through the woods, something that my grandfather wouuld point out to you so you could admire it.

He was buried on Good Friday. The funeral procession drove through the winding roads, through the hills and trees of the Amish countryside. It felt like going back in time, the simple farmhouses and the Amish children walking along the road. But most of all, it felt like traveling back through my grandfather’s life, back to the very beginning. Life in a full circle. At one point the entire procession came to a crawling stop as the hearse got stuck behind an Amish buggy. It was, as I think so many of us thought at the same time, completely fitting that this buggy should lead the procession. It was if there was an angel driving that buggy…bringing my grandfather home at last.

He was buried in the corner of a small cemetery overlooking an expanse of bare trees, which will change with the passing seasons. The pastor read this poem by Wendel Berry:

Sabbaths: 1998

VI

By expenditure of hope,
Intelligence, and work,
You think you have it fixed.
It is unfixed by rule.
Within the darkness, all
Is being changed, and you
Also will be changed.

Now I recall to mind
a costly year: Jane Kenyon,
Bill Lippert, Philip Sherrard,
All in the same spring dead,
So much companionship
Gone as the river goes.

And my good workhorse Nick
Dead, who called out to me
In his conclusive pain
To ask my help. I had
No help to give. And flood
Covered the cropland twice.
By summer’s end there are
No more perfect leaves.

But won’t you be ashamed
To count the passing year
At its mere cost, your debt
Inevitably paid?

For every year is costly,
As you know well. Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a gift.

The gift is balanced by
Its total loss, and yet,
And yet the light breaks in,
Heaven seizing its moments
That are at once its own
And yours. The day ends
And is unending where
The summer tanager,
Warbler, and vireo
Sing as they move among illuminated leaves.

IV

The woods and pastures are joyous
in their abundance now
in a season of warmth and much rain.
We walk amidst foliage, amidst
song. The sheep and cattle graze
like souls in bliss (except for flies)
and lie down satisfied. Who now
can believe in winter? In winter
who could have hoped for this?

It would take many more words to capture everything that happened that weekend.

My Grandpa was buried on Good Friday, a reminder of the pain and sting of death, and his memorial service was on Easter Sunday, a reminder of our joy through grace. He would have been very pleased. He will be missed by my entire family. I will remember him in striking and poetic images that have been passed on to me: as the farm boy who sketched faces onto the whitewash barn, as the Amish boy who stood in a field with his younger sister gesturing the melodies of hymns for her to guess, as my grandfather who took my brothers and I into the woods and to the creek.

Linford and Karin sang “Angel Band” at the funeral…a song that my grandpa played on his harmonica.