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South Africa – Day 1

Our crazy schedule so far for the Campus Harvest 2011 Tour in South Africa:

Friday

7:00 AM – Arrive in Johannesburg, meet Vuyo, event coordinator for Campus Harvest, and Jude, campus missionary on one of the universities there. They’re hilarious. We hit it off immediately. I pretended I didn’t have a message prepared and they threatened to take us back to the airport and send us back. Best way to break the ice for Filipinos and Africans is to joke.

8:30 AM – Arrive at the house we’re staying in for the night. Paolo and Liz Zambonini. Yes, he’s of Italian descent. They have a really beautiful home and very welcoming family. We go to the guest room and freshen up.

9:45 AM – Jude picks us up for breakfast. This is the beginning of being fed too much. We talk on the way to the mall. Apparently, his name means prince and he is a prince from his tribe back in Uganda.

10:45 AM – Breakfast with Jude and Vuyo. They explain that vegetarianism is a weird concept in South Africa. Everyone eats meat, all the time. If you’re asked to bring vegetables you bring chicken, pork, or fish. So they regard Carla’s choice of food with curioisity.

11:30 AM – Visit the His People Johannesburg church office.

1:15 PM – Lunch at Nando’s with Pastor Simon Lerafolo, one of the apostolic leaders in South Africa, and Dr. Augustin Hibaile, pastor from Central African Republic. Dr. Augustin has a ministry to government leaders of his country. He teaches them ethical leadership princinples from the Bible. He also has a weekly discipleship meeting with the Prime Minister of his country. I’m thinking, “This is the man I’m going to be speaking with?” (Check out the speakers’ profiles for the event.)

It’s like saying your leadership seminar speakers were John Maxwell and a boy scout troop leader. But it’s an honor to be speaking and traveling with him. We’re learning so much from this humble, wise man whose motto is, “I was born to serve.”

 

3:30 PM – (Yes, it was a long lunch and coffee.) Vuyo and Jude take the two of us to Soweto (South West Township), where black people in South Africa where ordered to live during the days of the apartheid government. We visit the Hector Pieterson Museum, which documented the events leading up to, during, and coming from the Soweto uprising. It is the story of high school students protesting the use of Afrikaans as a means of instruction in school – a language they did not relate with as a culture. 20,000 students organized themselves and marched in peaceful protest when the police opened fire on them. Low guesses say 200 people were killed, though some estimates put it nearer to 600. One of the first was 12 year old Hector Pieterson. We all blink back tears as we maintain a respectful distance from each other at the museum.

6:30 PM – Back at the Zambonini residence. We have a good time chatting with the family. Then we freshen up, I take a nap, before we go to dinner with Jude, Vuyo, and Vuyo’s fiancée, Lindy.

7:45 PM – Dinner time. I don’t think there’s time to get hungry here. It’s a fun evening as we connect with each other with humor, ministry, songs, and our faith in God.

10:00 PM – Back at the Zambonini’s. Gotta rest and pack, because we leave for Durban the next day.

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