Canadian students immersed in changes

School of Discipleship director Wally Schmidt reflects on a divided society

Students have been in South Africa now for three weeks and already they know they will never be the same.

There are four major self-described people groups in South Africa: Black, Colored, Indian and White. Each sees itself as quite distinct from the others and each operates as a world unto itself. They live separately, worship separately and associate separately.

School of Discipleship students will be breaking with many established practices by travelling throughout South Africa and living within each of these major groupings. Students have just come out of a black township, where they spent their first week. Our sponsors from Alexandra township (between 600,000 and one million people living within one square mile) threw them a feast and butchered a sheep for an evening farewell celebration. Africans and Mennonites sang, clapped and danced together by candlelight.

Many of the students, given a choice, would have stayed at the township school for their three months. Officials providing security and creativity for this experience said that most South Africans have never seen what they have seen and experienced this past week.

It will take many years for students to come to terms with what they have learned as they have travelled across Canada, Guatemala and South Africa. They continue to experience God moving through their hearts and minds. They cannot help but come back different: stronger, more understanding and tolerant, less sure of some things, more sure of others.

The school continues to grow at an extraordinary rate. Applications are 50 percent higher than last year. An additional Guatemala school is being planned and a larger group will go to South Africa. At the end of the journey in April, students will participate in a program review during which they evaluate every aspect of their year. Then, together with team leaders and mentors, they will redesign the year for students who will follow in the next. The expectation is that every year can become stronger than the year before, remaining vibrant and relevant for young people experiencing God and His people of many colours.

—Wally Schmidt, School of Discipleship director

SoD Guatemala – Building homes and relationships

Our time with Habitat for Humanity was a huge success again this year. This is immersion at its best, not only learning the language and culture, but also connecting with the heart of the people we lived and worked with. We participated in building eight homes for needy families in the regions of Chuva and Columba Costa Cuca. Donations and student labour are essential to the project, but most valuable is the time spent building relations with the people of Guatemala and loving their children. As always, the two weeks spent at the Habitat locations are among the most profound experiences of our entire year.

—Lance Luke is Guatemala Field Manager.

Class disparity shakes students

Crystal Wiens in Alexandra

The rural township of Mamelodi sprawled out over the rolling lands just outside of Pretoria, South Africa. Small brick houses sat on large, dusty yards fenced in with barbed wire. One-room plywood shacks were scattered between them. An occasional rosebush brought lively color to the chain-link fences. In the heat of the day, the township was silent. Here and there a person sat on a makeshift bench in the shade by their home, watching us with silent curiosity.

We had left the wealthy white Pretoria homes that hosted us for the week. Some of us stayed in homes with numerous rooms, lavish décor, courtyards, and even swimming pools. Already these families, with their grace, warmth and hospitality, had woven their way into our hearts. These families love God, just like the families we loved in Alexandra, and just like the people we would meet today in Mamelodi.

Once again we faced the disparity between rich and poor. We divided into small groups and, with a translator of Northern Sotho (one of the 11 official languages of South Africa), we were dropped off at various locations along the dusty road to take a door-to-door church survey. We sat on wooden, homemade benches with township residents and discussed the issues plaguing their community – poverty, unemployment and hunger.

Our afternoon concluded in the stifling heat of a small brick church. Frustration coloured our conversation. Is Mamelodi’s poverty and unemployment the result of laziness, or poor transportation, or lack of jobs? How does sustainable development work in a community with such rampant unemployment? What is the church’s responsibility in such a community? We came to no conclusions, but our questioning matured and deepened as we explored this culture. One thing we do know is the healing power of our God, and the uniting power of prayer. For as we joined hands – white and black, brother and sister, Canadian and South African – our English and Sotho prayers reached the ears of the Lord who created us all.

—Crystal Wiens is a team leader with the South African School of Discipleship.