ONWARD // UPWARD

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Head over to thedelightedpeople.com,
where the delight continues.

NIECE // NEPHEW

Some special friends came for a visit this weekend!
Lexington sure is lucky to have kids like Baxter and Glory!

LIKE//REALLY

I first forayed into blogging (wow, what a pathetically dorky phrase) when I was in high school. Coming off a rather tragic year as far as family matters were concerned, I decided to inspire some laughter and share lighthearted (usually incredibly embarrassing) personal anecdotes with my friends and family on a site called Like, Really. Despite a pretty impressive readership and about two years of fun, I deleted Like, Really in a bout of impulsivity (which I am quite prone to) that I regret to this day. I recently found one of the few posts that I had saved and just had to share it. This was a real crowd favorite, let me tell you. Prayer circle that I'll stumble across another one! Without further ado....

For reasons that I have yet to discover, I am a member of the Camellia Ball. For those of you who aren't up on all things Montgomery, being in Camellia Ball is liken to being a debutante -- fun if you are cute and rich and well-liked, but not fun if you are me. Each year there is a dance held in which the members of Camellia Ball have a "coming out" (I know you just giggled at that phrase, you homophobe) that consists of the members' walking through a balloon arch in front of a bunch of our friends in the local activity center. I'm not really too close with many of the other girls because they don't like that I usually weigh more than my date does. But alas, I go to the dance every year.

My first Camellia Ball was poised to be a winner. I couldn't drive. I heavily underestimated my dress size. And my bangs were at that wonderfully clumsy mid-pupil length. I was ready to party. My date and I got to the dance and were herded into the lead-out line like cattle, which actually worked nicely considering I looked a lot like a heifer. Because my last name begins with a W, I was the last in line.

Couple after couple, prompted by the announcement of their names by a disembodied microphoned voice, moved through that gleaming balloon arch and into the ballroom.

"Presenting John Smith III, escorting Jane Doe."

I soon realized that the announcer's voice sounded familiar. Very familiar.

Oh, man. How had my father gotten a hold of the microphone?
I walked morosely toward my fate as the lead-out line dwindled. I pondered the possible speeches or jokes my father, milking the power of the mic for all it was worth, would make to the crowd of high schoolers that only knew me as That Girl Who Looks Like Harry Potter.

The moment finally arrived. I stepped into the archway.

"Presenting Benjamin Mangum, escorting THE INCOMPARABLE ALEXANDRA WOLF!"

The room was silent for a full minute as the crowd tried to figure out who this Alexandra Wolf was.

Finally, it struck them.

Oh, Harry Potter. Gotcha.

I distinctly remember hoping that there was a firing squad or a group of terrorists waiting to kidnap me at the end of the lead-out carpet. But there wasn't. And eventually scattered applause and hollers broke out to divert everyone's attention from the boy wizard standing in the archway. I hurried from the front of the room and allowed the Journey cover band and a lot of spiked punch to drown my embarrassment for the rest of the night.

Hey, at least my dad is proud of me.

HEALING//WHOLE

Lettering by Alex Wolf.

FACE//PAINTING

I've been home from Africa for over three weeks, but my mind still spends most of the day there. I had many adventures during my last few weeks in SA, so I'll just keep talking about them until I have something else to talk about! On my final day at Children of Hope we had a party and painted faces! I'm no amateur face painter (which is probably not something to be proud of), so I loved decorating these sweet little faces with whatever I wanted, rather than trying to clumsily fulfill shouted requests for "Spiderman, but in Auburn colors... and with a dragon tail and a Harry Potter scar" at a six-year old's birthday party in the States. I'm missing these baby angels today!

DAY//FOUR

Our final day in Cape Town took us to Robben Island, where political prisoners (most notably, Nelson Mandela) were kept in the days of apartheid. Visiting the island was incredibly special. South Africa has been largely freed from the ugly bonds of segregation and racism thanks to brave men like Mandela. We were guided around by an ex-inmate of the island and got to see the cell where Mandela was imprisoned for over eighteen years. Sadly, we later reluctantly boarded a late-night flight back to Jo'burg and returned to reality. 

photo credit: Hayley and Katy

DAY//THREE

We took to the high seas on Day Three for a little great white shark cage diving. Or, in the case of Hayley and me, a little great white shark sighting from a safe distance. Let's just say the experience was interesting and enlightening... who knew we all suffered from such debilitating seasickness?! Please refer to the "after" photos for our feelings about the day.  Despite pretty rotten weather and getting to see our breakfast in reverse, we did see some HUGE sharks, which was amazing!

photo credit: Hayley and Katy

DAY//TWO

I can confidently say Day Two in Cape Town was one of the best days of my life. I have always dreamed of going to the Cape of Good Hope, so I was in HEAVEN the whole day we were there. We truly were going "to the ends of the earth" as we trekked to the southern-most point of the continent of Africa. Can you imagine the almighty hands that crafted those mountains and poured that ocean?

Day Two: Cape Point, the Cape of Good Hope, V&A Waterfront

photo credit: Hayley and Katy

DAY//ONE

Last week a few of us flew down to Cape Town for a little holiday. I've heard rave reviews of Cape Town, so I wasn't quite sure if it would live up to all the hype. Well, it exceeded my every expectation! I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I was blessed enough to be alive in that spectacular city. I couldn't narrow down the photos for just one post, so I'll cover each day of the trip. The whole week was one huge "hallelujah!" as we worshiped the Creator in the midst of His finest work. My heart is so full it almost hurts. 

Day One: Table Mountain, Chapman's Peak, Penguin Colony, and Simon's Town

photo credit: Hayley and Katy

GUEST//BLOG

Jay and Katherine granted me the enormous privilege of guest blogging on Hope Heals today! Check it out here!

MAY//PLAYLIST

RATANG//BANA

We spend Wednesday afternoons playing with friends in a little green oasis in the center of Alex. We tell Bible stories, play cards, make crafts, and compete in some pretty heated Duck-Duck-Goose. The Lord is allowing our numbers to grow, so we now have about forty kids coming each week. These clever, hilarious, sweet children have become true friends, and I love them dearly!

BIBLE//STUDY

Tandiwe, Amanda, Nomhle, Doreen, and Thambi.

Wednesdays are the best days. We do design work in the office, head into Alex to hang out with orphans and vulnerable children at a non-profit called Ratang Bana, and finally have an evening bible study with some teenage girls who live in our neighborhood. Although these girls come from more modern and affluent households than our friends in Alex, they are still plagued by very traditional problems like polygamy and deep-rooted superstition. They have a very earnest desire to follow Jesus, but have been taught many false ideas. Months ago on one of my first nights with them, Amanda said matter-of-factly that when she died she would have to watch all the bad things she'd ever done on a big television screen, and she'd get into heaven only if the good outweighed the bad. Sadly, this is the reality of Africa. Jesus is known by many and twisted by many. He comes in countless flavors, almost none of which are biblically sound. Africa believes in God, just not the one true God who gave His beloved Son to bear our sin and reconcile us to Himself. Needless to say, we parked on Ephesians 2:8 for a long while: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not from yourselves, but is a gift from God. We're now working our way through the Big Story, seeing how God's redemptive hand has been intervening from Creation to Christ to now. What a journey!

HOPE//HEALS

Yesterday, from Los Angeles to Johannesburg, we celebrated Katherine Lived Day. Most of you are well-acquainted with this story, but for those of you who are not: you need to be. Check it out here. This particularly weighty anniversary marked five years since that dark day in 2008 when life took an unexpected twist.

To adequately express my deep adoration for Jay and Katherine Wolf would require a rather long book, so this will have to do: I love you, my treasures. Our boast is in Christ for how you have journeyed these past five years. You are missionaries of hope and have accepted this most complicated call with unimaginable grace.

Jay and Katherine celebrated the anniversary with a new website, which unveils their gorgeous new short film and future ministry endeavors. I had the huge honor of helping design parts of the website (all the way from Africa... I mean, really, how amazing is the internet?) and encourage you to take a look. And if you already took a look yesterday, take another because we've worked out a few of the kinks!

Visit: www.hopeheals.com 

TEAM//GRAY

Pray for Will & Angie Gray from jams 90025 on Vimeo.

Join me in praying for Will and Angie Gray. 

#GoTeamGray

OF//HOPE

Some of South Africa's sweetest faces. Also, we might have brought cake to the creche last week. Who needs forks?

A//FUNERAL

Each Friday Hannah and I hang out with a group of young orphans at a crèche in the township of Alex. Granny Evelyn, the Mother Theresa of Alex, cares for the children from 7 am to 5 pm each day out of the goodness of her heart and without monetary compensation. Many of the children even live with Granny, who offers them asylum from their atrocious family situations. My days with these kids are a life highlight, so I was very disturbed by a call I received from Hannah late one night this week. Gomolemo, one of the youngest children at the crèche, died of a chest virus on Monday. Gomolemo had been in my arms just days before. I had fed him and hugged him. And now this sweet baby is dead. 

I committed to doing life with these people. This week I learned that doing life together means doing death together. 

Early Thursday morning Hannah and I traveled into the heart of Alex to the home of Gomolemo's family. We were invited inside as relatives gathered to mourn the loss of this child, whose body lay in the back room, from which a stream of silently sobbing people continuously flowed all morning. Later, under the shade of a white tent, a pastor poured words of encouragement and prayer over the bereaved family, and the crowd sang hymn after hymn. The repeated lyrics were a salve rubbed into their still bleeding wounds of grief. I was struck with how the chorus of African a cappella voices, at times the world's most joyful noise, could sound so mournful. Although mainly Zulu was spoken, the sorrow of the words needed no translation. 

We made our way to the graveyard and, under the white hot sun, watched as the tiny coffin was lowered into the ground. The crowd stood in silence as friends of the family shoveled dirt into the hole, then covered the mound with flowers. My heart is still heavy with the memory of Gomolemo's young mother, with Gomolemo's bright round eyes, hunched and sobbing at the graveside. As we stood on the cusp of Good Friday, I understood the despair of this day in a fresh way. But the attending pastor offered this resonant thought: When a parent buries her child, she buries that which was her future. But today we must refuse to bury our hope with the body of that baby. 

I can think of a few people whose hope was sealed in a tomb with the lifeless body of that which was their future, their Messiah, their Jesus. Good Friday realized the greatest fears of Christ's followers. Fortunately, Sunday soon follows Friday.

While precious Gomolemo's death is final, our hope still abounds. In fact, it is because our Jesus died and rose again that we can even bear this baby's death. Christ's death and resurrection supply us with the gift of eternity with Him and are, therefore, the wellsprings of every hope we have in this life. I firmly believe that Gomolemo is now whole and free in the presence of his Maker. Although he was spared what likely would have been an ugly life, the loss is no less agonizing. As we mourn the life of our baby angel this week, I'm claiming the triumphant truth spoken by Pope John Paul II:

Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the people of Easter and Hallelujah is our song.

Refuse to bury your hope, because our Hope is alive. Today the tomb is empty. 

MARCH//PLAYLIST

SUN//CITY

A few weeks ago we were given the really tough job of hanging out with nine awesome missionary kids while their parents attended a retreat at the fabulous Sun City, about 2.5 hours outside of Jo'burg. Among our many adventures of the week: two game drives, one at sunrise and one at sunset. We saw Africa in all its glory, my friends. 

photo credit: Hayley and Katy

HUNTER//STREET

I've been trying to form this post for a few weeks now. The experience I'm about to describe was so unique, so special that I can't seem to capture it effectively with words. Truly, you had to be here. But I'll attempt to provide you a glimpse into my time in an abandoned house on Hunter Street in downtown Jo'burg.

Some context: I've been attending a fabulously vibrant black church called Bellevue Baptist. The church is adjacent to a crumbling old house, long condemned and abandoned. A variegated group of  people (ranging from infants to grandmothers) have been squatting on the property for years now, and, despite their efforts, the members of Bellevue Baptist have had very little success in reaching the residents of this home. Most notably, several young prostitutes live there. These are the women we have been called to befriend. 

A few Saturdays ago we, accompanied by two men from Bellevue, decided to knock on the gate of this decaying mustard yellow house. In typical African fashion, chairs were offered from the house and we sat on the veranda in the company of four gorgeous young women for the entire afternoon. We talked for hours of their backgrounds, children, hopes, and (finally) beliefs. Without agenda, we discussed Jesus and sin and judgement and the mystery of justification through faith. The four women listened so carefully, weighed in with their own opinions, and asked lots of questions. In some of the most precious moments of my life, we were able to communicate the truth of grace -- mystifying, undeserved, scandalous grace -- to ears who had never heard. These women, so kind and charming and confused and entrapped, shed tears over this novel idea that even they could be forgiven. The fading light of evening, the shadow of the crowded clothesline striping our faces, the still summer air, our hands grasped together in prayer. These are details I will never forget because they accompanied one of the most beautiful presentations of the Gospel I have ever witnessed. I heard the Gospel with new ears that night, because I saw all of mankind represented in those four women. We are all harlots, unfaithful to the One who loves us most. 

As I sat with these four beautiful prostitutes, I couldn't help but remember an encounter with four burqa-clad women during a visit to a mosque several weeks ago. Although poised at the opposite end of the spectrum, these Muslim women were as lost as the prostitutes. As different as the situations were, they both serve as such vivid portraits of entrapment. Antithetical, yet interchangeable, portraits. And the Gospel found it's way to all of them. To God be the glory for this miracle. 

As I write I'm listening to one of my favorite songs, "Wedding Dress" by Derek Webb. 'Cause I am so easily satisfied by the call of a lover so less wild… I am a whore, I do confess, and I put you  on just like a wedding dress and run down the aisle. I'm a prodigal with no way home. I put you on just like a ring of gold, and I run down the aisle to you. 

It is only by God's unfathomable grace that I do not live in that yellow house on Hunter Street, forced into prostitution just to be able to eat. But my life -- all our lives -- is marked by unfaithfulness to the ever-faithful Jesus. Allured by the call of countless other lovers, I abandon the perfect call of Christ. Our "prostitution" may be manifested literally (as in the case of my four new friends), but probably comes as rebellion, greed, pride, or self-obsession. But as the Bible so beautifully reminds us in the stories of Gomer and Rahab and Mary Magdelene, our whoredom is forgiven and cured by Jesus. His unconditional love transcends my sedition. He has even given me the honor of inviting four lost lambs in to the fold. 

I ask you to pray for the salvation of these four women. We have continued to visit them weekly, and one friend has come to Bellevue several Sundays in a row. This is huge progress and celebration is undoubtedly erupting in Heaven as the Lord draws these women closer to Himself. Pray for my friends to accept the sweet call of the one and only Lover of their souls.