Clouds of hope

A lot of talk has surfaced over the last year at Duke about what "privilege" means and about what it means to take advantage of that privilege. While I have always known that I am a privileged person, over the past few days, my privilege - its definition, its cost, and its responsibility - have become dramatically real and equally confusing to me.

My privilege is that I can walk into a place like Clouds of Hope, a home for abandoned and orphaned children, in the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains (Dragon Mountains), over two hours from the nearest city - and I can walk out again. I can parade in with my camera, which cost more than the house mothers there make in months and months. I can take pictures with the children, like the sweet boy sitting with me in my blog picture. I can hold their hands and carry them and go to visit their pigs. I can learn all about how one sweet baby, named in Zulu after the 'will of God', came to the orphanage after his mother had tried to abort him by swallowing every poison possible and attempting numerous times to drown him after he was born, and still he survived to go live in Clouds of Hope with house mothers who envision this baby survivor as president of South Africa someday.

It is my privilege that allows me to walk in and out of every one of life's circumstances, knowing that I have a hundred options in a future beyond the sugar cane plantation or the wealthy South African's kitchen or the church where I work.

Or, is it? Would it be a greater privilege to nurse "God's will" into health, nurture him, and remain with him in the foothills of the Drakensberg until he reaches the presidency, or just a job at the local Spar grocery store?

Sipho, one of the Manning Road Church custodians, is absolutely fascinated with the United States - he does not speak a lot of English, but when he sees me, he constantly asks questions about life in America and loves to see pictures of American people and places like the Atlantic Ocean. He is forty-two years old and lives at the church all week long, keeping watch over the grounds to make sure everyone is safe, and yet today he told me he has eight children at home, whom he barely sees. He had ten, but two of them died. He says he is too old to go to the United States. It is very expensive, he nods. But hopefully, he says, his children will get to go.

I never once second-guessed whether or not I would be able to afford to come to this country. The issue never crossed my mind.

I am privileged to come here, and I am privileged to be able to go back to the United States - the place that so many people here seem to see as a utopia. Their eager smiles fade a little, when they ask me how life is in America, and I tell them that in many ways, it is not very different from here. And yet, the privilege that I sense simply because I have an American passport locked up in a safe, at my disposal whenever I need it, is tangible.

I am privileged that I've never before had to live a life where I say "when" not "if my car is ever hijacked, I hope I will respond in a safe and Christian way." This is the life that young people, in appearance, just like me, live here.

And yet, does it make me privileged that I never before have held the value of a day so tenderly - like manna - as I do here? Knowing the security risks, knowing the often legitimate frustration and anger and fear of people in this country, never before have I fallen asleep at night so grateful for a day lived. Perhaps that is true privilege - to better feel the value and precious nature of life each day.

I am privileged to be able to walk into the Office of Home Affairs in Durban and speak in English, politely attaining help for Beghi, a homeless, mostly Zulu-speaking, illiterate man, who needed a temporary id card so that he could receive his disability benefits. I am privileged that I have the use of both hands, while Beghi's birth deformity has rendered his left hand so unusable that the woman in charge of fingerprinting was so at a loss as to how to obtain his fingerprints that she gave up. I am privileged that I have the use of all my teeth, while Beghi's have mostly rotted, even though he is not much old than I. I am privileged that to drive in this country, all I had to do was pay 15 dollars, show AAA my driver's license, borrow a car, and get a few lessons. Beghi has to ride in the back of my friend Paul's pickup truck.

And yet, when we called for people to come to the communion rail for prayer during worship on Sunday, after I gave a testimonial sermon on the presence of God amidst our fears and God's seeming silence, it was Beghi who came to the communion rail. It was Beghi who was brave enough to admit that he's had enough of anger and fear. It was Beghi who folded both his hands, bowing in prayer, as we sang:

"I've had questions without answers...I've known sorrow. I have known pain. But there's one thing that I'll cling to - you are faithful - Jesus you're true. When hope is lost, I'll call you saviour. When pain surrounds, I'll call you healer. When silence falls, you'll be the song within my heart..." (Tim Hughes).

One thing I know - that is it is my privilege to hear and see the stories of people here, and it is my privilege that allows me to pass them on to you. Other than that, I simply know it is my privilege to be given life and to have it abundantly.