Africa

Africa is beautiful; the people and the land have beauty and grace that is unlike anything seen in the United States. This is a picture I took of some children playing outside a church in Soweto.
We have just arrived in Cape Town, and we will visit Robben Island prison tomorrow. This is the place where Nelson Mandela spent most of his 27 years in prison.
All of the pilgrims have so many stories and pictures that we will be posting to this blog for a long time after we get back, however the internet access here is limited so postings will be limited as we spend our last few days in Africa.

Soccer

For a brief period of time yesterday I forgot what was happening in the world.

I forgot business plans, budgets, sales plans and proxy fights.

I forgot the rising cost of energy, problems in the Middle East, the AIDS pandemic in Africa, budget deficits and divided government.

I forgot any personal issues that seemed so important just briefly before.

The only colors were the bright blue of an African winter sky, the green of an Acacia tree, the brown of a dirt playground and the black and white pattern of a soccer ball.

I played soccer with four young boys with no mothers or fathers. We simply kicked the ball around. We took turns. We all made sure the smaller boys were included in the group. We all smiled as we played.

It isn't possible to really describe the feeling. It might have been thirty minutes. It may have been an hour.

Of course, after we finished it all came rushing back. The problems of the world don't go away. But it was a good day spent with great kids with a tremendous sense of grace.

These are wonderful people in an amazing country. As time goes on I can probably explain it better or how we can help but, for now, it was a fine game of soccer. I'll leave it at that.

A good little story...

We've been here a day now but our trip over is a good little tale:

4:30 AM - Meet at the Nashville airport
5:00 AM - Check in and go through security
5:15 AM - United Airlines cancels our flight
5:30 AM - Rush to US Air flight to Charlotte - denied
6:00 AM - Go back to front desk and United finds us a flight to Reagan National
6:45 AM - We take off for National
10:00 AM - We arrive at National - United buys us 5 cabs which is enough for all but four of us. They truly don't care we need a six. "We have a formula. You only need five cabs."
11:00 AM - We make it to Dulles with our bags. All is good.
12:45 PM - We take off for Africa! It seems the flight actually stops is Dakar, Senegal. No big deal and should only take an hour or so...
8 hours later - We arrive in Dakar. There is a strike and no one can fuel the aircraft. There is also a traffic jam on the tarmac. We leave two hours later for Sol island which is about an hour off the coast to refuel. Takes an hour.
8 hours later again - We arrive in Joburg. Total time on the plane (without exiting) was 20 hours.

We then headed to the hotel via bus. Joburg is a lot like Denver with an arid climate and high altitude. We freshened up a bit and then had a wonder Indian meal with the Bishop of Johannesburg.

More tomorrow as we tour Soweto. That's when the real trip begins.

Packing for the Trip

A group picture of some of the pilgrims packing for the trip to South Africa.

1 Week & 1 Day

One week and one day until we leave on our pilgrimage to South Africa. We are meeting as a group on Wednesday evening to distribute clothes, books and other items that we have collected for the children. Each Pilgrim is responsible for taking an extra suitcase packed for this purpose.

The dates of the pilgrimage are July 11 to 23. We plan to begin each day with Morning Prayer and spend time in group reflection in the evening. Some of the highlights of the trip, in addition to our visit to the Children's Home, will be:

• Visiting the Diocese of Johannesburg, and spending an evening with Bishop Brian Germond;
• Touring Soweto with our former sabbatical priest Thato Molipa and his family;
• Visiting the Diocese of Durban and attending lectures at the University of KwaZulu Natal;
• Visiting Robben Island Prison where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned and where he crafted his vision of a race-free South Africa.

One other item on my agenda is that we get a chance to see the South African Penguins.