God resides in Langa

The grit and brokenness of poverty thrive in the townships of
Cape Town in the midst of unbelievable beauty of Table Mountain

My God is a god of the poor. He loves His children through the oppression and poverty, seeing them as human beings deserving of dignity and respect. My God puts smiles on the faces of grade R children whose only hope is showing up to school everyday so that they can make their way from the slums of Langa by having the ability to read and write. He teaches ex-offenders in Gugulethu to sing "We Shall Overcome" as they strive to quit the drugs and crime that have kept them in and out of prison. My God takes care of His children, even if we can't seem to see it with human eyes. 

Today we went on a tour of some of the service sites that we will be working at this semester. My eyes were opened to the kind of poverty that you see on TV and pretend does not exist, but also to the simple joy of welcoming people into your space in order to show them everything positive about what seems so hopeless. The group traveled together with Pearnel, our driver, and Melikaya, our program director, to five different non profit organizations through several of the townships and were oriented generally to what they do and what needs they address. The common theme throughout the day was a feeling of welcoming. We were graciously invited into these organizations so that we could see how much the country was progressing and growing after the fall of apartheid. It is this joy and motivation that brought me to this seemingly broken country in the first place.