Bright lights and Garbage Pizza.

When we arrived in Johannesburg, it was super dark, which I still don't really understand.  We drove through the city in two "combis" or hand buses - one carrying our team, the other carrying one suitcase per person.   After immediately backing into a light pole in the airport parking lot, we set off, driving on the left side of the road, and sat quietly, looking out the window to see a sprawling city full of lights.  In the dark, it could have been Dallas.  Except, of course, for the burglar cages over the business doors and windows.  It was surprisingly modern, and there were towers and skyscrapers, and restaurants and billboards.  Written in English.  I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting.  I felt suddenly really intimidated, thinking about how much easier it would have been to go to a remote African village than this cold, hard concrete city.  Why had we chosen urban ministry?

As we drove half an hour, it was soon very clear we were getting to the poorer area of town.  The street lights were farther apart, and there was NO ONE out on the streets. Every home was surrounded by ten-foot concrete fences, most topped with barbed wire, broken glass or sharpened iron poles.  You don't see houses. Just fences, locked gates, and guards.  It was so cold, you could see the guards' breath as they stood along the fences. 

One driver (church member) took our things to the church, while the other took us to dinner at Ciro's Pizza in a dark shopping mall.  It looked like we were being let in to a closed mall after hours, but it's just that almost all businesses close as soon as it gets dark as it's unsafe to be outside after sunset.  Theft, assault, and carjacking are the main concerns.  Ciro's was the only store open in the entire mall.  When we parked, we saw a man loitering in the lot, and Kyle pitched him a dollar or so to watch our van while we ate.  He stood there and guarded our car to make sure nothing was stolen.  I'm not sure how we knew he was trustworthy, but it was the first time I saw Pastor Willie's influence as a friend of the community. 

It was clear that the owner of Ciro's Pizza also respected and admired Pastor Willie.  You could tell he had invested in this family for years.  We later find out that Willie has brought them much business, offered the family assistance in hard times and had shared the Gospel with them on many occasions.

< It just hit me how risky it was ordering what we did.  It was called the "Garbage Pizza" and was pretty much described as having "everything" on it.  That it did, and many of the ingredients I couldn't even identify.  Since our last three meals had been on a plane, we scarfed it down.  It was deeelish, but I'm still surprised no one got sick. >

We definitely stood out - fourteen loud Americans at one long u-shaped table.  Futbol was playing on the TV up in the corner of the room.  It kinda felt like we were in Africa, but strangely, it also kinda felt like we were just in downtown San Antonio.  We paid our van-watcher and headed back to the church for the night. 

The men slept in the loft in the sanctuary (think Baptist church, where the sound crew would be.) on thin futon-like "mattresses" with no heat in the middle of winter.  The nearest bathroom was upstairs behind the pulpit through a locked gate.  We left them and headed to where the women were staying, a few miles away. 

I didn't love this idea of being away from the men, and am not sure if I felt better or worse when we were introduced to the male guard who would be assigned to protect our cottage gate all through the night... all week.  We unlocked an iron gate (then locked it behind us) which led to another locked iron door (which we locked behind us), which led to double dead bolts on the wooden cottage door.  We had a pre-paid cell phone and so did the guys.  Kyle told us to "rest up" because ministry would begin bright and early... so we triple locked ourselves in, claimed our beds, and felt a tinge of guilt for how nice our quarters were.  We had space heaters, plenty of blankets, and even had a mini fridge.  Oh, and a hot tea maker.  Oh, and microwave.  We had an enclosed tub, no hot water, but we decided not to tell the guys how nice we had it.  We prayed together, set our alarm for 6:45 am, and turned out the lights.

And if you know me at all, you know I had absolutely no trouble falling or staying asleep the whole night.


(Oh, and I'll get back to the journal entry from the plane. We just had frozen Tony's Pizza for dinner and it reminded me to write about Ciro's.)