Before leaving for our respected countries, all of the YAGMs received a booklet full of readings, reflections and poems. The cover of the booklet says that these are to accompany us during our journey. Over the last few months in South Africa I have gone back to this booklet to re-read it’s contents. Each time I do this I find that the words written mean something new to me, particularly this one writing titled “A Prayer to the God of All Children” by Marian Wright Edelman. I hope to use this poem to share some of the experiences I have had in South Africa, express many of my struggles and heartaches, and tell why this prayer has helped to accompany me through out my journey.
O God of children of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India
Of Israel, Iraq, and Iran, Jerusalem, and Jericho
Of South and North Korea, Burundi, and Rwanda
Of South Africa, South Carolina, San Francisco, and San Antonio
Help us to love and respect and act now to protect them all.
Being a YAGM is so much more than what is going on around and in me in South Africa. Because of this program I have close friends all through out the world. Here in South Africa, in Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, the United Kingdom, Jerusalem/West Bank and in Malaysia. These people are my friends and for the passed four months have continued to share with the others and myself their journey and what their part of the world has to say. It is an amazing thing to feel so connected to places, some that I have not even been to. I have been given awareness and an appreciation for these parts of the world. We are all children of God, in all the YAGM placement sites, all the areas mentioned in Edelman’s prayer and in every nation of this world.
O God of black and brown and white and albino children
And all those mixed together
Of children who speak English and Russian and Hmong and Spanish and
Chinese and Hebrew and Arabic and languages our ears cannot discern
Help us to love and respect and act now to protect them all.
Coming to live in South Africa I knew that I would gain an opportunity to learn more about Apartheid. What I didn’t realize was that the history of Apartheid and it’s continuing effects would be a part of my daily life. The area that my house is located in Kimberley was a neighborhood for colored people before 1994. Before that time, whites, coloreds and blacks all had their ‘designated’ areas. Though people are now legally able to reside in any neighborhood the racial segregation still exists due to affordability. I see and hear racism everyday. I see how the effects of Apartheid not only separate people into different neighborhoods, but also create a sense of being different, being better than one another, being separate. Racism exists everywhere but for me I am continuing to learn how viewpoints and beliefs are dictated by South Africa’s very recent history of Apartheid. I am seeing how the different generations (the grandparents, parents, teenagers, children) are changing, or not changing, in this struggle. I am learning why things are the way they are and how the younger generations plan to move forward in the future.
Foreign language has never been my forte. Never. I told the other MUD4’s here in South Africa that one of my hopes would be to learn the language spoken in Kimberley, which is Afrikaans. I haven’t got very far and probably won’t leave here with a strong sense for the language. Lucky for me a high percentage of people I come across speak English and quickly switch from Afrikaans the moment I say, “I’m sorry, I only speak English”. The response 90% of the time is, “You ONLY speak English?” For Americans that’s sort of a silly question. Of course I only speak English. Here in South Africa, however, there are 11 official national languages and in my experience everyone I meet speaks AT LEAST 2. Usually they speak between 5 and 6. It is something I admire and envy.
This section of Edelman’s prayer reminds me that God receives His children in every color, in every shape and form. God hears His children regardless of the language spoken. God hears me even though I ONLY speak English and He hears each of the 11 languages of South Africa the same.
O God of the child prodigy and the child prostitute,
Of the child of rapture and the child of rape
Of run or thrown away children who struggle every day
Without parent or place or friend or future
Help us to love and respect and act now to protect them all.
Since working at a children’s home in Kimberley I have met kids ages 8-18 with various backgrounds. The reason they become residents of Thusong vary for different reasons. Some of the kids are there because they are either orphaned or abandoned or have run away from home. Some have been found on the streets and taken to live at Thusong. Some of these children come from homes that simply cannot support them, or have been taken out because the home is stricken with drugs and alcohol. Most of the children have family in Kimberley but chose rather to live at Thusong themselves or are forced to stay there because their parents have decided they would rather have their kids stay at the children’s center than at home with them.
The time I have spent working with these kids has been some of the best and hardest times I’ve had in Kimberley. It can be difficult not to let the reality of these children’s lives weigh heavy on my shoulders. I see them every day and am constantly reminded of the hardships they struggle with each and everyday. At the same time, once you become friends with these individuals you begin to see them for who they are; amazing, talented, funny and kind, rather that seeing them as the ‘street children’ that they are labeled as.
These lines in Edelman’s prayer remind me that no matter where a child comes from, regardless if they have been thrown away or forgotten by people in the past, it will not prevent me from being able to love and respect for who they are.
O God of children who can walk and talk and hear
And see and sing and dance and jump and play and
Of children who wish they could but can’t
Of children who are loved and unloved, wanted and unwanted
Help us to love and respect and act now to protect them all.
Some of my time in Kimberley has been spent in a school for children with disabilities. The children I have spent most of my time with are deaf. Since they are unable to hear, our communication sometimes becomes a challenge considering the only sign language I know is what I have quickly picked up from watching them and their teachers. When trying to communicate something with one of the kids or when they are trying to tell me something we eventually hit this wall where we realize we’re just not getting each other. When this happens I sometimes think, “Man, if only they could hear my voice”. I imagine they are thinking something similar, “Man, why can’t this girl read my signs?” I wish I could read their signs and I imagine they wish they could hear my voice.
The most beautiful thing I have seen and realized in these classrooms is that the students, deaf, blind and physically challenged, do the exact same things I did when I was in the 1st grade. They read and they add and subtract. They sing, dance and play. Sometimes it just looks a little bit different. Singing is singing whether it is a melody that comes from your voice or if it is a movement that comes from flowing arm movements that sign “Old McDonald”.
O God of beggar, beaten, abused, neglected, homeless,
AIDS-, drug-, violence-, and hunger-ravaged children,
Of children who are emotionally and physically and mentally fragile, and
Of children who rebel and ridicule, torment and taunt
Help us to love and respect and act now to protect them all.
HIV/AIDS is a serious reality all through out the world. However, since moving to South Africa it is an issue that has more commonly been on my mind. 30.2%. That is the percentage of individuals infected with HIV/AIDS in South Africa as of 2010. The percentage in the Northern Cape where I live is 18.4%. That’s about 1 out of every 5 people I meet.
Something that I have been much more aware of is the percentage of people not only infected, but affected. I work with many children at Thusong Children’s Center who are there because they have been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS. I see how they have been affected.
It is a terrible reality but what’s also terrible are the reactions I see concerning HIV/AIDS due to myths and stereotypes. I have been apart of conversations where I hear people admit that they never use public restrooms because of a fear of HIV/AIDS transmission and others who say they are also careful who they share silverware and cups with. These are a few examples of ways HIV/AIDS is NOT transmitted. I believe that along with condom use and sex education the world needs to be educated on what is and isn’t true about individuals infected with HIV/AIDS.
O God of children of destiny and of despair, of war and of peace,
Of disfigured, diseased, and dying children,
Of children without hope and of children with hope to spare and to share
Help us to love and respect and act now to protect them all.
This line by Edelman, “spare and to share”, says a lot to me. Regardless of who we are, we all have something to spare and share. That may just be a smile. This reminds me of a phrase that has become important to my experience in MUD and YAGM, ‘Live simply so others may simply live’.
God has his hands on all of us whether we are old, young, black, white, colored, homeless, without parents, infected or affected with illness, deaf, blind, able. I know this because I see and feel it everyday. May God continue to help us to love, respect and act.
