living in mud huts again

This last month has been crazy.  I’ve been working with a DTS (discipleship training school) team from Kona Hawaii, and I’ve had a lot of fun working with them.
 
It all started about 4 weeks ago, I was supposed to meet up with the team in the middle of the Eastern Cape so I had a few options: option one I could fly, option two take the train, option three take a 21 hour bus ride completely by myself to the middle of the most dodgy town in South Africa called Mthatha (without actually knowing it’s a dodgy town).  It’s fairly obvious which option I chose, and I will say if you have never taken a really long bus trip in Africa, I highly recommend it. 

 I’ll skip the actual details of the bus ride and jump to when I arrived at Mthatha.  Upon arrival, I called the backpackers I was staying with because they were supposed to pick me up from the bus station. The lady responsible forgot I was coming and happened to be out of town so I was left with one option… Local transport… Again if you have never hopped on local transport in Africa, I highly recommend it. 
 
I wave down a “taxi” which is an old minivan, with about 20 other people in it. Only one spoke English.  Everyone in the taxi is starring at me and thinking what is this umlungoo (white person) doing in here.  I tell them where I need to go and we take off.  About 5 minuets later we arrive at a grocery store and they tell me this is my stop.  I tell them no it’s not, and they reply by telling it it’s the only safe place they can drop me off. I assure them I know what I’m doing, I take taxi’s all the time in Cape Town, which they inform me this isn’t Cape Town. 
 
So I get out thinking to myself, “I don’t know anyone in 1700 miles - what good is it to drop me off in a grocery store?”. I walk across the street to a taxi ring where I struggle to find someone who speaks English and someone who knows where I’m going. Again I end up with a lot of blank stares like, “what are you doing here?”  After about 30 minuets of pestering the taxi drivers and telling people to leave me alone when they asked me to follow them (never follow someone in Africa when they tell you to), I finally find someone who helps me tell someone where I’m going. It was a real TIA (this is Africa) moment, but by the grace of God I arrived safely and was able to meet up with the team the next day and feel completely safe at last.
 
Once I met up with the team we went on a 7.5-mile hike through mountains, beaches, hills, and rivers over the most beautiful terrain you have ever seen to get to the place where we were to do ministry.  Once we got there we stayed in mud huts with some of the local African families. They cooked us traditional African food and brought us water from the town tap to wash. 
 
This is the third time I’ve stayed in mud huts and every time I’ve always been amazed at the simplicity of the life they live and how complicated we make our lives.  Yes they have enough food to eat, but no they don’t have that really nice SUV. Yes they have shelter but that second story was never added on. Yes they have water - just not in their house.  Though having a lot of things is by no means bad and can actually be a blessing from God, I am amazed that most of the happiest people I know literally have nothing at all.  I’ve also come to the conclusion that no amount of money can fix the problems in Africa. Though money could help, the thing people really need is Jesus and education.  I really believe it is that simple. Jesus to show people how to live, and education to show people how to make a living.  South Africa gives away thousands of free houses a year, gives grants to every single mom, everyone with HIV, and everyone has free health care. If the government took the money they use for all their free hand outs and put them to education it would solve poverty in this country, I’m pretty sure. 
 
I’ve been seriously considering actually moving in with a family sometime next year for a few months so I can really build relationships with the people and learn more about their culture and what Gods heart is for them.  After that, I’d like to publish a story called, “Living As the Africans Do”.
 
After about 2 weeks of building a playground, doing different programs with the youth group, and ministering to our families, I parted ways with the team. They flew back to Cape Town, and I took the bus.  I’m still working with the team in Cape Town. They are helping us a lot with little things that we usually don’t have time for, and things that we wouldn’t actually think of doing, but I’ll talk more about that next time.