This is the last in a series I call
"Top Ten Things I Would Have Never Said in America"
I know it's long, but it's worth it.
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| Me and Portia outside of the Junxion Center |
1. My best friend lives in the township.
When we first moved to South Africa it was
to join a larger team that was already here – a team of people who worked into
all of Africa- rugged folk that drove 4x4’s and said things like “All for
Jesus” and lived it.
We did a “trial move” before we moved out
here permanently- South Africa was a place we had only visited and we were
advised to see if we could really live here.
The last nine posts have illustrated the “subtle differences” between
life in the USA vs. life in South Africa.
On our trial move, we hunkered down in
Joburg and started attending Junction Church, a cutting edge church that had
its population split right down the middle: half were folk from Northern
suburbs (the upscale neighborhoods that surround us) and half were from
Diepsloot (the local township).
I have not stated the obvious in my last
posts: the disparity between rich and poor; white and black; have and have-nots
here in South Africa was a bucket of ice water in my face. It was shocking and terrible and most days I
screamed within myself; demanding why the world around me wan't as shocked as I was.
Junction Church seemed to be breaking
through economic, social, and racial barriers more than any other church we saw here. We learned so much in
that first year about the whole country.
Our teachers came mainly from the eldership.
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| Portia and Thembe's White Wedding |
The Junction eldership (the people who
steered the church) were as diverse as its membership – I had never met a team
so different in personality and giftings.
One of the elders, Thembe, we had previously met when we did a trip to
Malawi. Thembi and his family lived in
the “church house” – a place that was on the site of our future church
building.
Thembe was from Zimbabwe, married to a
young bride named Portia. They had two
children: Darely (pronounced “Darrell”)
and Ebenezer (Ebi) – young kids that clung close to their mother. Portia was incredibly beautiful and it was
easy to see that she and Thembe were very happy – despite having gone through
an already challenging life together.
“You are older than Portia,” Mario joked
with him one day. “How did you get her
to marry you?”
“I am secretly very wealthy,” Thembe joked
back. “Portia spends all my money.”
We relied on Thembe for something very
important: he translated the Diepsloot culture for us. Should we give money for someone who is
asking us at church? Should we not? Why are funerals held on Saturdays? What is the importance of tribal practices to
the people vs. Christian beliefs?
Thembe never tired of our questions. He had a slow, deliberate explanation for
everything. All the while he
smiled.
After our trial move we decided to come
back and live in South Africa.
When we came back to South Africa, six
months later, Thembe was very sick. He
was remarkably thin and had contracted TB.
The whole church was concerned.
“Thembe, you must get well,” Mario told him
one day when he took him to the clinic.
“When you do, we’ll take you and your family to the ocean.” Thembe and Portia had never seen the ocean –
ever.
“When I get well,” Thembe said,
weakly. “We will go.”
Six months later he weighed so little that
Mario would carry him into the clinic when they went. One day, during a visit, Thembe asked Mario a
favor.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to see the ocean,”
he whispered, weakly. “But will you take
Portia?”
Mario came home weeping. Two days later Thembe died.
All of Junction mourned.
A giant hole was left where he once
was. Then there was the issue of Portia
– his young bride. Darely and Ebi – his
kids. They buried him in Zimbabwe during
the time of starvation under Mugabe’s rule, taking in supplies for the family.
We checked in with Portia every other day
for weeks. I would visit and just sit
there, not knowing what to say. I
couldn’t very well ask her how she was.
She was messed up.
“What can I do for you?” I once asked
her.
“Pray,” she smiled. “All we can really do for each other is
pray.”
She meant it.
Portia soon moved into Diepsloot. The
church house was being leveled in order to make room for the new building. I wondered how she would do it.
“See, there is the tap,” she beamed as she
showed me around her new place. She had
a new home close to a tap.
Portia’s new home was a converted boxcar,
surrounded by shacks in extension 9, one of the outer extensions. It was big enough to hold her bed, her
dressing cupboard, a couch and chair and a cupboard for dishes. It was decorated tastefully, even having curtains
just like ours.
“Did you get those from Georgine?” I asked.
“Yes,” she laughed. “I saw you have the same ones at your place.”
“All of our curtains are from Georgine,” I
said. “We have a lot windows and when we
first got here she covered all of them.”
Mutual friends; mutual interests; a shared
love for God. Portia and I slowly started
to get to know one another better. When Diepsloot was out of water we would
“fetch Portia” to get some. We watched
her come out of her shell and take a job
with ITCC, becoming proficient on the computer.
She was coming into her own, we would say
in the States.
“Do you want to come over one night and
watch a movie?” I asked her. We had a
movie projector and I knew the boys would like it.
“It’s too late for me,” she laughed. “I fall asleep early.”
“I’ll pick you up at three and then you can
spend the night,” I told her. “Then when
you wake up we can go to church together.”
She considered it.
“Alright,” she said, once she thought about
it. “It will be nice to have one night
out of the township.”
The movie nights on Saturday turned into
monthly times together. Darely and Ebi
became like adopted grandchildren to us.
We would have pizza making nights; hamburger making nights; KFC nights;
parties for the boys’ birthdays… Parties for Portia’s birthdays.
We especially celebrated when Portia turned
30.
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| 30!! |
“I finally have made it,” she laughed. “Now when Craig calls up all the young kids
under thirty I don’t have to go up there.”
I laughed at the stuff she would say.
“I’m getting fat,” I’d tell her.
“I’m worse,” she’d say. We’d laugh together.
“I spilled my Coke Light,” I told her
once. “As soon as I bought it from
Dischem I went outside and I spilled it.”
“That’s worse,” she’d say, laughing.
Portia had little sayings that made me
guffaw. One of them was “That’s worse,”
meaning that life can’t get any harder than that moment. It was always about something trivial, like
spilling a coke or bread getting moldy.
In our second year here, one of our scheduled
movie nights found us without Mario. He
had gone home to be with our family; an emergency that worried me greatly. Portia could tell.
“Let’s go pray while the boys watch the
movie,” she said. We walked out to the
kitchen and Portia brought her Bible.
“I have a verse for you today,” she
said. “It is from first Samuel,
listen. ‘And David said, "Is there
still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for
Jonathan's sake?"’(2 Samuel 9:1)
I listened.
“I think when God considers us,” she
said. “He takes into account that he wants
to be good to our family – He wants to show them kindness for our sake.”
I was touched in my heart. Portia had already been praying for me.
Friendship is something that is very sneaky
sometimes. It comes up behind you and
supports you in a way that you grow dependent on. You even start leaning on it, learning to
trust it. This is how friendship
happens.
I crossed over from “I feel responsible for
Portia” to “Portia is a rather special friend” that night of prayer. I started to ask her for prayer all of the
time. I would confide in her and she
knew my hopes, my fears, and my dreams.
And I knew hers.
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| One of our sleepovers |
She hosted a group of ladies at her house
every Thursday night: prayer for the
neighborhood. She would participate in
all-night prayer meetings; go to other ladies’ prayer retreats where they
fasted for a whole weekend.
“You put my prayer life to shame,” I once
joked with her.
“Don’t say that, Janet!” she laughed. “I am not performing.”
She wasn’t…she was just inspiring me.
The last sleepover we had with Portia was
last Saturday, a night when Dumi and his kids came as well. It was Ebenezer’s ninth birthday.
“You know Ebi has been having birthday
parties at your house since he was three,” Portia said on the drive over.
I couldn’t believe it; then I flashed
back.
I met Ebi when he peeked over Portia’s
shoulder, too shy to lift his head.
Darely was still holding on the the edge of her skirt; now he looked
just like Thembe. I met Portia when she
was twenty five. She was a shy bride
with two babies. Now she was a confident
young woman; a leader in her community.
A woman known for her integrity.
An inspiration to me.
Portia loves me for some strange reason. She has seen me weepy, angry, desperate,
selfish and in traffic. She trusts me,
even though I have failed her more than once.
She prays for me as if she were my sister, my mom or my daughter.
In a way, she is all three.
When I told her I was leaving this year,
she was very quiet. We ate dinner afterwards,
where she told me that I should have delivered the news after dinner . We were both a mess.
“How am I going to say goodbye?” I asked Mario,
tearfully after we went to bed.
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| On our beach vacation in Scottburgh |
“We’ll be back,” he said. “You don’t have to say goodbye.”
I agreed, that we would be back, I just
knew that our everyday lives would be different; on a different continent. Saying goodbye to Portia represents saying
goodbye to all that is right with South Africa and what drew us here.
She represents a warm-heartedness and “surviving
while smiling”. She shines
with special-ness, under the toughest of
circumstances. She inspires me and has
made me a better person; a better friend.
“It’s a shame you can’t take Portia when
you go,” one of my friends said to me.
It is a shame, a shame for me.
But removing Portia from South Africa would
be like shoplifting a blessing from where she lives. As I feel about her, so her neighbors feel in
bucket loads. They rely on her maybe
even more than I do. She ministers and
teaches in her community; in our church; in her family.
She is the egoli of the egoli city.
So I have to strategize how I will tear
myself away, knowing that this kind of ripping means I will be bleeding profusely
as I leave her.
That’s worse.
This smilebox is one I made of the years I have known Portia. Click on the arrow to play.
