There's important info at the end of this blog about our upcoming women's camp. If you're in a hurry, you can skip everything else and go straight to that!

A JOBURG STYLE HOLIDAY

A couple weeks ago Ellie and I, and our friend Jacci decided to have a little "get away" in Johannesburg before Ellie started back to her 2^nd term at school. Since then, I've re-thought the wisdom of taking a holiday in one of the major crime capitals of the world. J We did have a few really good days...shopping, seeing "monsters vs. aliens," and camel rides. On Sunday we packed up all of our things to drive back to Swaziland. Since it was Mother's Day, we stopped at the mall with another friend for a nice lunch before hitting the road. Our little holiday started to go south when we came out of the mall to find that we couldn't find our car-it had gone off to join the ranks of the 10,000+ plus cars that are stolen in Johannesburg each year. (Thirteen years ago when Jacci and I were both living in Mexico I also had a car stolen...how many friends get to endure 2 auto thefts together? We may not be able to be friends anymore if we want to keep our car insurance costs down!)

We flagged down the nearby parking lot "security guard" (a term we've now used to use a little more loosely than we once did) who felt really bad for us, but couldn't even tell us how to call the police. Jacci went back inside to get help calling the police, while Ellie sat by me on the curb and announced to everyone passing by, "the car is gone."  The police finally came, assured us that our car and all it's contents were probably already half way to Mozambique, and then led us to the police station to file a report. GOD BLESS our Baptist missionary friends in Johannesburg who helped us out in a million ways for the next 2 days as we tried to replace some things that had been stolen, got me a new passport, and made many sarcastic comments about the whole situation.

We were of course frustrated about the things we had lost...2 laptops, my video camera, about a week's  worth of clothes for each of us, a bunch of Ellie's toys, and the purchases we'd made (including enough tortilla chips, parmesan cheese and mandarin oranges to last us til we leave for the States in July! J). The car we were driving was an AIM car that I was borrowing (since my car has been in the shop for more than 8 months now!). Now I'm driving an AIM van that resembles one my family owned in the 80's...it's got curtains and everything (which I think might actually serve as an anti-theft device).

ANYWAY, it's frustrating to lose all the stuff, but it's just stuff and it's to my benefit to hold on to it loosely. And the truth is, even after losing a significant amount of ‘stuff,' I still returned home to a house full of more. I live surrounded by poverty, which adds a whole other humbling perspective to the situation. The value of my computer alone is about four times the yearly salary of many Swazis, and people have already sent in money to replace it. There is really no room for complaining, and days like yesterday emphasize that fact...

THOKO AND NOMSA

I met as usual yesterday with the Timbali women to cut fabric. At the end we had our  Bible study and prayer time together, and Nomsa, who I wrote about in my last blog, shared with the group. Her mother, who lived in a community about an hour away, had been missing for a couple of weeks. They finally found her last week in the woods, where it evident that she had been murdered.  I've rarely seen Nomsa without a smile on her face, but yesterday you could see the sadness there.  (Can you believe even before Nomas shared her tragic news with me, she came and said how sorry she was for the car being stolen?)

Afterwards about 17 of us piled into the van to go and visit Thoko. I heard on Sunday that Thoko's daughter, had passed away over the weekend. About 9 months ago I blogged about a couple of trips I'd made to a local HIV/AIDS clinic with Thoko's daughter Lindiwe. At only 24 she had been too weak to walk, barely able to speak, and had to be pushed in a wheel barrowdown a small path to the road where I could pick them up. Lindiwe had been doing pretty well for a while, but in the last couple weeks grew weak again, and finally passed away on Friday. This is the third child Thoko has lost in the last few years, and her husband is also very sick.

We drove as far as we could in the van, then walked across a small valley to Thoko's homestead. As we got close one of the women started singing a song and the others joined in. Everyone took their shoes off at the door and crowded into the small 7'x7' stick and mud hut. We sat on the floor and sang, prayed and shared scripture with Thoko. It's hard to imagine the heaviness of Thoko's grief.

During the afternoon Psalm 62:8 kept coming to mind, and I shared it with the women while we were sitting in Thoko's house: "Trust in the Lord at all times, O people. Pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge." It's strange how common-place death seems to be here, and how little people sometimes react to it. I pray that Thoko and Nomsa will know that they can pour out their hearts to the Lord, that they can trust Him and that they can find refuge in Him.

NEW LIFE: WOMEN'S CAMP 09

"NEW LIFE" is the theme for our women's camp coming up June 12-14. After getting a new glimpse yesterday of the death that so often surrounds these women, I'm getting really excited about God is going to do during our weekend focused on LIFE...true life found in Jesus. The camp will hopefully have close to 80 women in attendance, including the 40+ women from Nsoko who just started sewing for Timbali last fall. This will be the first time all of the women have been together and they are excited for the opportunity.

Normally costs like this would be covered by our Timbali profits, but because of the shipping fiasco earlier this year, we don't have a lot of extra funds to work with. So we're asking you to please consider giving to help make this special weekend possible for the women!