My brother Paul is a professor of Political Theory and Political Science at Gordon College in Boston. His main interest in political theory is the relationship between faith and politics. At the same time that we were choosing South Africa as the country from which to adopt our child, Paul was, coincidentally, choosing South Africa as his focus for studying the relationship between faith and politics. In the past year, South Africa has become a special place in the lives of both our families and has taken on special meaning and significance.
This June, Paul traveled to South Africa with a group of academics from Canada and the United States to meet with African Colleagues. They learned from each other and from prominent South Africans for several weeks and are currently working on publishing projects together.
The Brink family camped together in July and Paul shared pictures and told stories of his experience in South Africa. It was great to hear about his experiences and to catch a glimpse of the incredible scenery in South Africa.
Some of the places Paul visited were historically significant. I had brought along the New History of South Africa that I was reading and it was interesting to see the context of the pictures in a historical light.
Paul also gave this gorgeous piece of cloth to Marc and I as a gift from South Africa. We use it as a table cloth over our dining room table. The colours look beautiful with our dark piano and orange curtains.
The table that it covers is a significant one. It is the one piece of furniture that my Opa and Oma DeRaaf brought with them when they immigrated from the Netherlands in 1953. When my Oma died, I inherited the table. Slowly our Dutch Canadian culture is beginning to blend with a new South African one. We look forward to many happy memories in our transracial dining room!
One of the most moving experiences in South Africa that Paul shared with us was when he and his colleagues attended a church service in Gaguletu, a poor township outside CapeTown. That Sunday they witnessed the baptism of 32 infants, a joyful day (Thankfully, many in Paul's group were ordained pastors and could participate in the baptism ceremonies). The sad part of the experience was that only two of the 32 babies still had their birth parents. All the other babies were being raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles and others in the Gaguletu community. Paul wrote an article about the church in Gaguletu for The Christian Courier and Stillpoint which he has given permission for me to include in our blog as well.
This Church Has AIDS
Our morning began as most of our other mornings had begun on this extraordinary trip. Up at 6:30, murmurs of greeting to my roommate, Chris Byaruhanga, and then a quick inventory of what we might need for the day: water, cameras and notebooks. We dressed perhaps a little more formally than other days—we were going to church after all—though little could be done to disguise the fact that we were visitors. Somehow professors always look like professors, even if they hail from more than half a dozen different countries in North America and Africa.
Breakfast, as always, was a lively and friendly affair; shared meals are generally good for community. A brief outline of the day was provided by Bob Evans, our team leader from Plowshares International, and in very short order, we were headed for church. This Sunday it would be the J. L. Zwane Memorial Presbyterian Church located in Guguletu, a poor township outside Cape Town.
This was our second week in South Africa, and by now, we were prepared to expect the unexpected. After all, post-apartheid South Africa is a country that confounds predictions and upsets expectations—often tragically, but occasionally wonderfully. But none of us were quite prepared for the particular unexpected that is J. L. Zwane Memorial Presbyterian Church. Partly this was due to the tremendous welcome we received from the congregation. Partly this was due to the remarkable beauty of the church building, especially given the poverty of the community. But this was true especially because J. L. Zwane Church has AIDS.
I knew this, first, because of the big sign that said so. Even in a country where nearly 20% of the adult population is HIV-positive, and where infection rates are far higher for women than men, the stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS remains pervasive. Accordingly, as is true for so many other uncomfortable realities the church must confront, the first great challenge has been to create space for ministry. Very deliberately, J. L. Zwane church has confronted head-on the prejudices and the judgments inflicted upon the victims of this global crisis. Announcing to all who enter the building and proclaiming to the Guguletu community at large that the church identifies and shares in the suffering of those with AIDS was crucial to the church’s ministry and to their identity as members of Christ’s church.
Besides, the church really does have AIDS. No church member can remain unaffected: family members fall to the disease, or family sizes increase as new orphans arrive. Rev. Spiwo Xapile, pastor of the congregation, himself has lost five family members to AIDS. The pandemic forces congregations to deal with the reality of human suffering in ways that the North American church only dimly appreciates. Rev. Xapile’s words stopped us short: “we are dying.” His weekend activities support his statement: Sundays are for worship; Saturdays are for funerals.
But Rev. Xapile also made clear that the church suffers in hope. Indeed, conditioned as it is by hope, perhaps it is the suffering of the church that supports both its warm welcome to strangers and its concern for beauty. Hope amid suffering also is what sustains the church’s HIV/AIDS programs: support groups, counseling services, hospice care, education programs, medical care (in the church lobby after Sunday services!), and care for orphans. The work of the church in the larger Guguletu community is particularly inspiring—and challenging.
We met Priscilla, an elderly grandmother who has accepted AIDS orphans, one by one, into her small home, and now is “grandmother” to twelve. J. L. Zwane church has become a crucial lifeline to Priscilla and other similar de facto social service organizations.
But perhaps the greatest sign of the solidarity of the church with the suffering has been the integration of HIV/AIDS into the very liturgy of the Sunday morning service. Corporate worship—the time when God and his people engage one another most directly—surely is at the very heart of church life. And at J. L. Zwane, the topic of HIV/AIDS is very much part of that conversation. Each Sunday, as the choir and congregation sing “Bambelela—Never Give Up,” someone who is HIV-positive rises to tell his or her story of what it is to live with HIV/AIDS. Prayers are offered, difficult questions are asked, and the scarcity of answers is confronted. In the very heart of church life, the good news of the Gospel is brought against the bad news of disease.
After the service and a generous lunch, our group reboarded the bus, but much more quietly than when we had entered—some sobered by the extent of the disease, others encouraged by the church’s response to it, but none unchanged. For me, the implications of what I had experienced were extremely challenging. These Guguletu Christians are my brothers and sisters. And if J. L. Zwane Memorial Presbyterian Church has AIDS, then surely the body of Christ—of which I am also a member—has AIDS. Does my own church reflect this reality? Does yours?
