Lessons Learning...

Over the last couple of months we have put a couple of quotes on the blog from a book called "Friendship at the Margins" by our 'friend' Chris Heuertz. We hadn't actually read the book yet, because we couldn't buy it in South Africa, but we knew we were going to love it. With the recent arrival of new Ubuntu volunteers we finally received the book. I just started reading yesterday, and haven't finished reading the introduction, but it helped me realize something.
Our focus in living in Ocean View is so that we can develop real and authentic friendships with people that are poor, struggling, and in need of hope. We didn't want to be the Christian people that come in, offer something to help, and then take off to our safe environment. You can't build real friendships that way. And we used to say that we wanted to be there for people in the beautiful and hard times in life. We wanted to be at weddings, funerals, graduations, when somebody got a new job, when somebody was abused by their husband; we want to be there for the best and worst parts of life.
Well, the tables were turned last week in an instant. Suddenly that really hard part of life was happening to us. But that's not how it was supposed to be, we were supposed to be there for them. The beautiful part of this story is that the friendships we have built since October allowed the "donor-recipient" roles (as Heuertz calls them) to be reversed. Our community here has been able to pray for us, provide us with meals, and serve us in other ways. Had we worked in Ocean View, but lived elsewhere the friendships wouldn't have been deep enough to allow that to happen. There would have been too much distance.
Yes, most of what happens here is us loving, serving, and empowering them; but often, and especially in this case, the roles were reversed and they were doing it for us. So, I'm thankful that God showed me that. There have been many blessings to come out of this whole struggle, but this is one of them. Our ministry in Ocean View is stronger and our relationships are deeper because of what happened to Kieren. We aren't removed or above the people of Ocean View. In many ways we are ONE of them. We have come with a unique set of skills, passions, and calling that will help build the community, but we are only part of what God is doing to build that community.
I know that God is going to teach us so much more through reading the book. To think I already got revelation and I haven't even started! What's going to happen when I get into the meat of it!?!? Be looking for a review of it really soon!

Casey