Speechless

This last weekend we had to leave the country, as our temporary visa expired. The plan was to drive to Swaziland, spend the weekend, and come back in to South Africa on another visitor's visa, while we wait for our long-term work visas. Funny how one weekend can change your life (more on that later).

The countryside on the way from Pretoria to Swaziland is breathtakingly beautiful; I felt like I was in The Sound of Music movie! It was green - SO green - mountainous, and cows were grazing along the side of the freeway (or meandering across the freeway... there are no fences to keep them out). I was looking out of the window, trying to take in the scenery, when I decided to turn my head and check out the view through the other window. When I looked, I drew in my breath sharply, for on the other side of the freeway was a township, with row upon row of tin shacks, almost touching each other. The poverty - the lack of running water and proper plumbing or garbage services - were so overwhelming that I got physically nauseous. I found myself wanting to turn away and look back on the other side of the car at the beautiful mountains (how can such beauty and such squalor live side by side, with only a road separating them?).

But no... the Lord was telling me gently that not only must I look upon it, I must also walk among it, smell the stench, taste the anguish, touch the sores, hear the cries, feel the pain. For surely that is why we're here - not to enjoy beautiful scenery, but to love the country's greatest resource, its people. And my heart broke a little more that day, for the people of South Africa. I cried all the way to Swaziland.