News from Cape Town

Zani tells me that she can tell that Florence is dying. She sees it in her nose, “it is dead.” She sees it in her eyes “she has given up all hope.” I don’t want to believe what she is telling me about Florence is true, but it is. After that visit when I drop her at the train station, Florence asks me for the last time whether or not I will adopt her children, Fozia, 11 and Barbara (named after the doctor that saver her life) 11 months. I tell her that I will help her find a good family for them. Her husband is “up continent” in Kenya, burying his mother. Although he has refuge status in South Africa he is finding it difficult to return here.

Zani tells me that she can tell that Florence is dying. She sees it in her nose, “it is dead.” She sees it in her eyes “she has given up all hope.” I don’t want to believe what she is telling me about Florence is true, but it is. After that visit when I drop her at the train station, Florence asks me for the last time whether or not I will adopt her children, Fozia, 11 and Barbara (named after the doctor that saver her life) 11 months. I tell her that I will help her find a good family for them. Her husband is “up continent” in Kenya, burying his mother. Although he has refuge status in South Africa he is finding it difficult to return here.

In “America” I would have lost my Social Work license for letting an 11-year-old child care for her mother and 11-month-old sister, forsaking school. If I take the 11 month old away, I take away all hope and will to live. If she gets through this TB treatment she will be on Anti-Retrovirals and live to parent these children up to another 10 years.

I visit the crèche (day care) where many of our HIV positive children from the Sisonke Beading Co-operative stay. They have nothing. I bring donations from our local church of paints and paper. I tell them that our offering will pay for mattresses, tables and chairs for their 30 children. I tell them we will pay for transport for training them. They are grateful.
If I report this unlicensed, unequipped day care to the authorities, the women lose work, income and proper nutrition to feed their HIV positive children and themselves.

I wonder what this is all about as we come to an end of our post here. I see God everywhere – in “the mountain”, in the smells and in the music. Florence is ready to give up and I don’t blame her. She has relied on our God to pull her through so many travesties. She is ready to cash in and rely on God’s grace that she and her children will be provided for. The workers at the day care are volunteers; they get no remuneration, but are watching the children due to their Christian values.

It moves me beyond words to see people living out their Christian ethic, in attempts to create a better world. Their compassion, inspired by Jesus Christ, is bearing witness to the Living Word.

I will be sad to leave this place where faith, belief and compassion play such vital roles in peoples lives.

Anne Marsh
Cape Town, South Africa

Scott Lovaas and Anne Marsh serve as missionaries in South Africa with the South African Council of Churches. Scott is a policy analyst in the policy unit. Anne serves with the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, assigned to the Rondebosch United Church as an outreach assistant.