selling beans

Owning a business is hard.

Marie can buy dried beans in big bags for about US.70cents per kilogram. She then carries those big bags to the market every day where she lays them all out on a table. At the table to her left, is a woman, selling dried beans. To her right, another table filled with dried beans. The competition makes it difficult to secure customers - and she must keep her prices low to attract buyers who will choose her table above the others. The beans she bought for US.70cents, she sells for US $1. Only a .30cent profit on each kilo, assuming she is able to sell them. And then, those small profits need to be split up into many directions - the rent for her market stall - the materials she needs to sell; bags to put people’s purchases into, a scale to measure her product on. She needs money set aside to be able to buy more beans when these are all sold - and then, if there is anything left, she can use that to take care of her family.

A loan from Turame Microfinance Bank, gave Marie the ability to start with the capital she had not been able to save up from her small profits. Capital she used to find different suppliers for her beans, suppliers who offered new varieties that would make her stand out from the competitors in the market and attract more customers. She was also able to buy in even larger quantities, which brought down her cost and instantly raised her profit margin. Now instead of making US.30cents profit on every kilo of beans she sells, she sees a profit of US.50cents - or even more on some of the fancier varieties. In her first loan cycle, she’ll have to use the extra profit to pay back her loan in every other week installments, and if she uses the rest of the profit to start a savings account, she’ll qualify for an even bigger loan in the next cycle. It will take a few cycles for her to begin seeing the rewards of her hard work - but by then, her business will have grown a lot - and she’ll find herself with a savings account full of her own capital so she no longer needs to borrow from a bank, but has the resources and new business training through Turame, to be independant and successful.

"this is my story" (2)

“You have come to visit our lending group at a good time. A few months ago, I considered myself the least of all these people here. I wouldn’t have been able to go to any of them and ask to borrow BF10,000 (about $8) because I would know I could never earn enough to pay them back. But being invited to join the Pendo Community Lending Group has given me business training so I now have ideas on how to make my efforts a success instead of continuing to stay in a low place, always doing the same things but never getting ahead. And having the people in my lending group and a bank like Turame believe in me has given me the ability to see myself as also worthy. “

*paraphrased from translation

the community speaks - part two

-painting Masekane school

-Zandspruit 23 July 2011

we are HOLIDAY CLUBBING

Every year, our church opens it's doors to hundreds upon hundreds of kids from our area for a week of fabulousity. The past few years, we've grown - grown to numbers topping 1000! That's a lot of kids for one little church to host. And we are keenly aware that those numbers are only limited because of transportation for many of the little ones. Every year we see kids walking 3KM or 5Km - or even further - following the bus after it was too full to carry everyone who had been waiting.

So this year, we do like you do in South Africa ... and we "made a plan". Bussing is one of our biggest expenses, and it limits how many kids get to come join the fun. So we've decided instead of bringing the kids to holiday club - we'd bring holiday club to the kids. 6 separate venues - partnering with local churches and organizations who maybe didn't feel like they could swing an entire production on their own. I'll be popping in and out of the six locations - and then leading the art program at GoLang in Zandspruit.

6 locations - 6 sets of young adult leaders - made up mostly of kids from our Friday night youth group at Community Ministries. It's amazing to see these teenagers taking charge - getting the kids enthused - leading them in games and songs and bible stories, keeping order, sharing love. I'm crazy proud of them! And super excited for the rest of this week.

sweetest thing I heard today in art class: I was busy spraying hairspray on the kids' inked papers today, so that tomorrow when we start layering on the glue, their letters don't smear. There was one particular little one who was standing downwind, just breathing deeply the mist from the spray. I was worried for a moment until I hear a tiny voice say "this smells just like my momma at Christmas."

-precious

I am Samkelo and I can read!

Yes - it's time to celebrate!!!
What a great day!!

We talked a few weeks ago about my friend, Samkelo.
He's just about the bestest kid ever - 12 years old and new to Kingsway school, Samkelo and I get to hang out two times every week to play around with letters and words and sounds. He's a lot like me and always wants to pick a spot in the sunshine - even though it's winter here and around 40 degrees in the mornings. I usually bring hot tea for us to share - but Samkelo only likes it when I make tea sweet with sugar.

While Billy is in the states, he is collecting early reading books from a few of our dear friends, and another has provided us with some JumpStart computer games to work from, and another gave us a huge Amazon gift card that I bought a lot of teacher resources with - and a few reading books as well. It's just amazing when you think about it, that Samkelo's journey into being a reader - a journey that will absolutely shape his life - is being joined by us all. It's just like the best things in life - different ones of us sharing what we have to make the world a better place. All the little bits add up to a GREAT BIG WONDERFUL world.

It's true. And thank you.

One more thing I'd LOVE to have for Samkelo is the PBS series, Between the Lions.
If you have some old copies you can share - or even wanted to set your DVR to record and then send us burned DVDs every few weeks, it would be a treat! I've been scouring the internet and a full season is hard to come by.

Our last story letter was about the value of reading-

*(if you don't get our monthy-ish story letters in your email box, we'd love to include you, just let us know!)

one of the things I that struck me in the book "Shaped by the Story" was a unique validation of raising a generation of readers - especially readers that come out of violent, impoverished backgrounds -

"the process of developing internal images and meaning in response to words in the basis of imagination... The capacity for imagination ha profound implications, not just for academic learning, but for behavior as well. Several recent studies have shown that children who lack imagination are far more prone to violence. Such children can not imagine alternatives to their immediate perceptions of anger or hostility; they're able to react only to what they believe is the situation in front of them. On the other hand, children who posses imagination have a very different experience. they can be exposed to the same hostile situation as an aggressive child, but with their ability to imagine, different solutions can be reached."

I think of the recent strikes (rioting and violence) that have plagued our community. I think of the abuse and neglect. I think of the lack of forward vision or cause-and-effect understanding. I think of the lack of trust toward outsiders and insiders alike. I think of the vast number of uninformed people, both inside and outside of our community, and all around the world. Not uninformed because of a lack of media information, but uninformed because a bigger world view hasn't had the opportunity to influence their experiences and offer alternatives. We live this life all the time when we believe in stereotypes, when we fail to see the individual humanity that weaves through other cultures, when we simply fail to look outside our own worlds into the big one God created.

Eugene Peterson in "Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places" says

"Story is the most natural way of enlarging and deepening our sense of reality, and then enlisting us as participant in it. Stories open doors to areas or aspects of life that we didn't know were there, or had quit noticing out of over-familiarity, or supposed were out of bounds to us. They then welcome us in. Stories are verbal acts of hospitality."

Our ministry here is relational. It's journey-ing life together. It's storytelling and story-living and pouring ourselves out over and over again in an invitation for the people around us to participate in a deepening sense of reality. We pray to live our lives as God's acts of hospitality.

Matthew 5

"You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. ........

—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. "

today at kingsway

painting butterflies

This is where you'll find me on any given Monday.

Bet you kinda' wish you were here now too...

Buyela and GoLang

Buyela and Matla

Matla is the rural school in our wider community I was at a few weeks ago with the Vulendlela team for a career day. We do a lot with Matla, it's where a lot of our kids from community ministries go to school.

Buyela spent the day visiting classrooms it was quick, 40 minutes to introduce yourself, establish who you are - why you are there - that you are relevant enough to listen to and genuine enough to trust - conversations, questions, the bell rings again and it's time to do it all over again with a new group.

The leaders at the school specifically asked Buyela to talk about sexuality or drugs - the two main issues they deal with at this school - and honestly - with most of the schools in this area. Our kids have too much growing up to do too quickly - especially in areas marked by poverty. Tough decisions to make. Tough examples to follow. But they are good kids. They are real good kids.

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Buyela and the shelter

The majority of the first day I spent with Buyela YFC team was doing programs with the teenaged street boys that live at the shelter now. You could make a movie out of them… such history… such a life… such idiosyncrasies now because of their experiences. At one point the team did a drama that included a bullying that turned into a fight. The electrified energy that surged out of the shelter kids when the drama began was actually frightening. They were loving it - and I honestly thought they might jump in and make the play fight real just for the rush that was pulsing through them. Another time a siren went off and I tell you - they scattered - absolutely ran without a moment's hesitation. What Anthony and Pule and Rapule's lives must be like trying to provide consistency and growth for this group of boys - every single day. I had no idea. I mean, I've been there a few times before, but today was the first time I stayed long enough to actually see each boy for themselves - you know? I'm gonna have to step up my prayers for my friends.

So then at lunch, the neighborhood comes to Ikusasa shelter to have a meal. A smartly dressed woman with tears in her eyes and something heavy on her heart. Another, with that scared look to her eyes huddled off by herself not talking to anyone. A family who brought their dog. A friendly husband and wife. Men in their prime who have fallen on hard times. Old men who look as if they have seen many seasons on the streets. Everyone gets lunch, and friendship. Anthony says they feed about 100-150 people M-F.

Anthony, by the way, absolutely amazes me. He's young - not much older than the street kids he has such a heart for. Yet, he runs this center with precision and excellence. While he was explaining to the YFC team about their lunch time duties he said "We are young here - and many of these people we'll be serving are much older than we are. I don't care if they are belligerent, or filthy or so drunk they can't stand. We will treat each one of them them with respect because they are our seniors and they deserve that dignity."

One of the men called me over - saying he'd like me to take his picture - but first he'd like to take off his jacket. He fumbles with the zipper because one of his arms is casted up and unusable - so his friend comes to his rescue - unzipping the fleece to reveal a bare chest. Oh my goodness. We try to convince the man to keep his shirt on. It's cold. It's indecent. But he is insistent. He wants his picture with his shirt off. He's been assaulted. By white people. He's been to the hospital. He has a note. He wants a picture with his shirt off…

And ooooooooohhhhhhh - the face he pulled when I held the camera up to my eye.
Makes me laugh.

Believe it or not 9although I think you'll believe it), the rest of the time he was flirting and laughing and telling stories.
He wouldn't let me take a picture of that though…

the Buyela team

So, last week was super busy over here in dicoccoville - but I'm gonna make it up to ya'll by posting every day this week. really, it's gonna be fun for me because I've got a lot of fun stuff to share.

Last week our church hosted the fabulously talented Buyela team from YFC-SA. A group of 12 college aged students who have chosen to give a year of their lives to traveling the country using dance and drama to earn a way into people's lives and talk about some pretty important stuff. Bullying, drugs, sexuality, hiv/aids, family relationships, fatherlessness - all of these are huge issues in our youth's realities - and all were spoken about with candid-ness, awareness and hope.

I was spoiled to spend a couple of days with them as they presented their programs. The first day in our friend's street shelter. Remember a few weeks ago when the 20 boys were dropped off by police? Same shelter. Ikusasa in Krugersdorp.

The team had a great morning hosting a class with a dozen of the teenage-ish boys who have to come off the streets to live at the Ikusasa. I've been to the shelter a couple times to drop things off or say hello - but spending the entire day there with Anthony and the boys has given me a whole new value to speaking my prayers for that space.

Here's a couple images from those moments... enjoy - and I'll see you tomorrow with the story of my new homeless friend.

matla career day

Our guys at Vulendlela's biggest concern- or at least one of them- are the kids in our local high school. Matla is a severely under resourced school with a big heart. Placed in one of the most beautiful campuses I've walked through (think: a rich old farm with small brick buildings scattered throughout being used as classrooms) hundreds of kids attend this combined primary/high school - many from our own church neighborhood. In fact, many of last years' Vulendlela guys graduated from Matla. These are also the same kids that came to the matric classes last year during the teachers strike. We heard from the principal that the school was awarded as having the highest improvement rate on the matric exams in the entire district last year - and, in part, he credits Vulendlela's involvment at their school, including those three weeks when we carried on with holding an impromtu school and prepping the 12th graders for the upcoming exams. That's pretty big stuff. Especially, when you remember that Vulendlela is made up of guys having just graduated from that, and similar, high schools in our area.

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Our church has dreamy dreams of opening a grade 12 school - specifically for these kids - after seeing the success of alternative teaching that we had last year with only three short weeks. Another thing we pray for a windfall of resources for.

Anyway, Vulendlela coordinated a "career day" for the kids at Matla. Student representatives from local universities & colleges came and talked to the grade 12s about their choices for next year - and to the grade 9s about their how their class path choices for grades 10-11-12 will effect their options for further study - and what they should be focusing on for different career paths. Great idea. It was so good to see representatives from our top universities and organizations out at Matla, encouraging these kids that they are smart enough and have access to resources to get them wherever they want to go. It's a message we all need from time to time.