Getting Started

I began working with MCC Alberta a couple weeks ago now. A main part of my job here is the organizing of the Simunye work and learning tour which needs to be done on the Canadian end, regarding flights, orientation planning and packages, and other logistical aspects relating to this upcoming adventure! I am getting very excited to continue getting to know more about the country and the participants as pieces of the puzzle come together.
This blog should now be operational, and we’ll keep it updated from now on through the duration of the trip!

The list of participants are up on the blog already, and there will be more info to come!

David Zentner

Simunye 2012

Hey all!
We are in the process of finalizing our snazzy new poster design and video (soon to come)!  A big thanks to Devon Plett from Sentiment and Laina Brown from Bethany College for working on these items for us.

AND – we are accepting applications for the 2012 learning tour now!  You can find the application form here - applications are due March 9th!  Visit our website for more info or call your Saskatoon/Calgary MCC offices to talk to a knowledgeable staff person…

Coming Home

Traveling can take so much out of a person.  And being sick on top of that is never fun. Our traveling started out on the Monday we woke up at James and Joan’s house in Peitermaritzburg to a warm breakfast and then headed out on the road to drive 7 hours to Joburg to catch our flight to London.  The drive was not long, I think we started to get used to driving long distances.  It also helped that we talked for a good chunk of the drive.  We did a lot of talking about the trip and what are favorite parts were, what stretched us and so on.  Not normally ideal for driving in a car but still good to process with everyone.

Once we got to the Airport we said good-bye to James and headed into the airport to check in our luggage.  Slowly our team was getting smaller and smaller. Next we were saying good-bye to our faithful and swicked leaders!  Myriam and Luke did not come home with us as they wanted to continue their journey to Cape Town where Myriam lived for a year, and are hoping to connect with old friends.  They will be back in Canada on August 2^nd if I am not mistaken.  As we said good-bye to our leaders we headed to security….though without our leaders we got a little lost.  Haha.  It actually took us a few minutes before we actually found where we needed to be going, but we made it.

The flight to London was good. We tried to get some rest on the flight because we knew we would be doing a lot of walking the next day, because we had a twelve hour layover in London.  We decided we could not pass up the opportunity to go and see some sights while we were there.  Rested or not we made our way into the Underground train station, emerging an hour later into the streets of London!  The night before we left South Africa, Spencer and Tiera had made a bit of a plan of what we were going to see, with the help of the rest of us.  We actually saw a lot for the short time we were there. For four of us this was the first time being to London so it was super exciting to see all the new things. We saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Shakespeare Globe, Westminster Abby and so much more! We did tons of walking in this short time, but it was so worth it. We made it back to the airport by 3 as our plane was leaving London by 5ish.

The flight going to Calgary was good.  We were in sunlight the whole way home.  So it was a bit easier to stay awake.  We wanted to try and stay awake a bit during this flight to try and help us adjust better to the time change.  And it was somewhat successful.  The time spent on the plan ride was good.  We got to do a bit of chatting and just hanging out. Once we got to Calgary we had a small group of people welcoming us back home. My parents, two sisters, brother-in-law, my niece and nephew, along with Matt’s mom, Kari from MCC Alberta, and two friends of ours from Bethany, Angel and Nick.  Thank you to those who came!  It was great to see you guys when we got home!

The traveling was not done yet.  At the airport we had to say good-bye to Matt, he was driving home with his mom that night.  The rest of the crew spent the night at my house, because I live in Calgary, and their home flights were leaving early the next morning.  So at 5 in the morning on Wednesday we headed to the airport once again to say good-bye, Joanna and Spencer were off to Winnipeg at 6:30.  Tiera and I went and got a coffee at Tim Horton’s and chatted until she got on her flight at 9:30.  So yes, all of us are back home.

For me it felt like our team was slowing fading away. After spending 3 and a half weeks with a small group of people you become close.  I want to echo what Spencer said in the last blog, “We are going home to our separate lives. But separate isn’t right is it, because we are Simunye, we are one.”  I could not explain it better myself!

Now having a day and a bit to be home, it has been a process.  Who knew that coming home would be so hard?  Don’t get me wrong I love home, my family and friends here, but right now my heart and I would think the hearts of my other team members are back in South Africa.  Our lives have changed in these past few weeks, even if we have yet to realize it.

Thank you to those who have supported us on our trip through financial help, or prayer. We thank you for this experience, and for following us through our time in South Africa!

And a huge thanks to God for safe travels and experience we could not have done it without you!

Becca

Yebo

     “Ooo look, Nelson Mandela!” “Aww, it’s Mandela!” “Wow! We’re in South Africa on Nelson Mandela’s birthday!” “I love Mandela.” These words could almost be bet on to come out of Myriam’s mouth every time a picture of the beloved leader was in sight. And fair enough. Just like one of the C4L campers said, if it wasn’t for him, “we would not be sitting with Canadians at this camp today.” It was pretty cool to be in South Africa for Mandela Day. All citizens of the world were encouraged to spend 67 minutes doing humanitarian work to commemorate Mandela’s age when he got out of prison. Ironically, we, the team on a service trip to South Africa, spent the whole day driving. From Swaziland through the hills and orchards of the North Coast to arrive at Durban, a beautiful coastal (and warm!!) and developed city. We did put in our 67 minutes the next day however, and a little extra, too. We met up with a lovely Congolese woman, Petronella, who brought us over to the cresh, or day care, that she had envisioned and founded. It was here that we became the subjects of an army of little children, all eager for a chance to jump on our backs, sit on our laps, hang from our arms, or pull our hair. The last activity in that list got shut down pretty fast, but I, for one, loved the attention they gave me as much as they probably loved the attention I gave them. The cresh was set in an apartment complex and not ideal for small children to run outside and play. Really, their only choice was to play inside, and it sucked to see it. But they still LOVED being able to play with us. Some team members were fairly stretched working with kids, but by the end I think they may have enjoyed it more than everyone else.
        Mornings were spent at the cresh and afternoons were a nice chance to see the city and understand the culture even more and from a new urban perspective. The beaches were wonderful, the markets found us successful finds, and we also experienced many “biggests”. We saw the biggest mosque in the southern hemisphere; we went to the biggest mall in the southern hemisphere; Luke climbed the biggest indoor rock climbing wall in the world; and Matt & I jumped 106 metres plummeting closer and closer (at 120 km/h) to the lush, green field of the FIFA World Cup soccer stadium  as we experienced the biggest swing in the world. Yup, we did some sweet stuff. But at the end of the day as we wound down in team time and shared our highs and lows of the day, it was always the people that made the highlights before anything else. A story about some kids loving people, or just a stranger on the street were always tops.
             One story I’d like to share about my time at the cresh came during free time with the 3-4 year olds. There was a bunch of toy animals for the kids to play with. Like lots of them! One kid had hoarded a bunch of them and when another kid took one away, the first burst into tears. Makes sense, right? The kid had found the animals first, claimed them and now they were rightfully his to keep. Then the teacher came over and scolded the “thief” for taking the animals from the kid with the abundance. Still, this made sense to me. But then she did something that I didn’t expect; something that most North Americans wouldn’t expect. She punished the kid who had the animals first. Why? Because he didn’t share what he had an abundance of. He had taken, hoarded, and refused to share. Why was he entitled to those animals? Just because he had gotten them first? Think about it for a second and you might see the microcosm that it really is.
           Today saw us with a Mennonite Brothers church service at 9:30. AWESOME! That is what best describes it. A good hour of singing, a French-translated-to-English message for the same amount of time, followed by more singing, an impromptu introduction of ourselves and a song that we introduced to the congregation, as well as a special music group, a polk-esque welcome song to us, and approximately 10000000000 pictures and videos throughout. We left at quarter after one.
            We are now in Peitermaritzburg, at our hosts James and Joan Alty’s, getting ready to go to bed for our last night in South Africa. Our last team time was very encouraging and it will be hard to say goodbye to Luke & Myriam as they stay in South Africa for a little longer and as we begin our journey back, going home to our separate lives. But separate isn’t right is it, because we are Simunye, we are one.

Spencer

 

Click on the images below to enlarge them.

July 17th – Matt

Hello my name is Matt Bergen, a dude on the Simunye team; thus far our experience has included a 10 day stay at the C4L camp. This stay at the camp consisted of 6 days of being camp counsellors and 4 days of chillin’ out with the African camp leaders. There were a number of experiences that really rocked my world in terms of experiencing racism directed at my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
One day in particular I had just finished running morning exercises, and all of the campers and African youth leaders were sitting around and some white folks arrived at the camp to set up their church service. As the pastor and some others arrived my black friends said hello and good morning only to be ignored and stood up. The white folks quickly walked away and I gently said maybe they didn’t understand but my new friends expressed frustration and anger towards the whites. This is just a small snapshot of what we have been dealing with as whites in a country of previous, and ongoing, black oppression.
These experiences have caused me to take a look at my life and reflect on the racism and discrimination that we as whites either consciously or subconsciously direct at the natives of Canada or other societal stereotypes such as the street folk, the poor and needy, the elderly, and so on. We as Canadians do not take racism as serious as the people out here simply because we have not been as effected by it in our lives.
Other experiences we have had while living at C4L have been a trip to Kruger Park, where we saw a bunch of hippos, a lot of elephants, some giraffes, a few cape buffalo, a wildebeast, and numerous different birds. This was something that the director of the camp decided to do for us and the African youth leaders.
We, as Simunye participants and camp counsellors were given African names on stickers (Rebecca – Busi, Tiera – DJ Tira, Spencer – Jabulani, Matt – Vusi, Luke – Manqoba, Joanna – Xola, Myriam – Lindiwe) – naturally we all didn’t wear the same shirt all week so many campers forgot my name, but since I have long hair decided to call me Jesus. I was somewhat used to it as others from Canada have done the same for the past while. Though one particular instance hit home and humbled me as a person. My good friend Lawazi witnessed me giving some money to a guy who was living on the street as well as praying for him. Afterwards, he said to me, “lots of the others call you Jesus because you look like Him, I call you Jesus because you act like Him, and you are the closest representation of Him I’ve ever seen.” I was speechless but said thanks. The friendships we are making out here are priceless and cannot be explained. These experiences will not easily be forgotten and we will take back the friendships, memories, and stories to Canada and share them with others to share how God is moving across the globe.
As for now, we are not even in South Africa, we are in Swaziland, and will be heading back into South Africa, Durban, to be precise, where we will finish the last 4 days of our missionary work and begin debrief on day 5. It has, and I pray, will continue to be, an experience of learning and relationship building. God is great and He reigns even in the darkest places this earth knows. There still is a lot of syncretism with ancestral practises but at C4L, the townships we have visited, and in Swaziland God’s power continues to be a constant force against the traditional worship.
Pray for energy, health, and safety as some of us test our luck trying new foods, meeting new people, and bungee jumping.
Peace! And Much love to y’all!

Matt Bergen

Also, it is Nelson Mandela’s birthday tomorrow!

Time at C4L so far…

For the past three days we’ve been at the C4L camp (Center 4 Leadership) and have been having a blast.

One the first night the counsellors gave us all camps names, some even had clicks in them! Then we were all thoroughly embarrassed when we were forced to dance in front of all of them, needless to say they were all way better than us. Talk about a good first impression. The next day the campers arrived they are between the ages of 15 and 17. Again we were forced to embarrass ourselves by dancing for all of them. As expected they all laughed at our less than impressive dance skills. Next we were all divided into our dream teams which consist of five campers, one counsellor and two Canadians (or one Canadian and one American). In these groups we had team time which has mainly consisted of rotating through different activities and bonding as a team.

The first day was a little rough for some of us and many of us had a hard time branching out but by the second day we were talking to everyone and joining in on their games and even sharing some Canadian games with them. We are looking forward to the next couple days and getting to know the campers even better.
Tiera

On our way from Johannesburg to C4L in Nelspruit

A little video log to record how we felt about the frigid temperatures!