Masipumpelele, Apartheid, and AIDS

This morning we started the day by worshipping at King of Kings Baptist Church (also known as Fish Hoek Baptist Church). This is a predominantly white church led by Pastor John Thomas. We were blessed by an African Children's choir, which is composed of children from all over South Africa, that sang beautiful songs about God. I was moved to tears when these young children, living amongst such poverty, loudly sang "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus." We also heard Pastor Thomas preach and then we went to then we headed to Masipumpelele, which is a suburb of Cape Town. It's almost the same distance from Masipumpelele to Cape Town as Brentwood is from Nashville (minus all the winding roads through the mountains here). Masi, as the locals call it, is a black community of some 16,000 or so people who speak Xhosa (pronounced Ko-sa) as well as English. This is a settlement, or squatter camp. These people were forced into this settlement during Apartheid. Incidentally, a lot of the ministry issues that the Living Hope Centre, Fish Hoek Baptist, and Masipumpelele deal with are a result of Apartheid. Let me explain...

The blacks (that's not a derogatory or slang term here, as it is sometimes in America) were basically told during Apartheid that they would never gain a better life and that they might as well endure a life without hope for employment, fulfilling life dreams, etc. When Apartheid ended in 1994, these people in Masi were excited about the opportunity to gain employment, support their families, and live life to the fullest. Unfortunately, so were thousands of others all across South Africa. Many people traveled from all over the country to Masi (and the hundreds of other squatter camps) for these same reasons. Employment that was promised never really took shape, but the number of people in these settlements increased rapidly. You can figure out the recipe that you have when thousands of people continue to be drawn to one area without money, or a means to gain a better life. They built homes made of sheet metal, cardboard, brick and any other supplies they could find. In these shanty-towns, the HIV/AIDS pandemic began to incubate at an unfathomable rate.

First Baptist Church in Masipumpelele (through the Living Hope Centre) is in the middle of ALL of this. Brentwood Baptist's missions funding supports the early education about HIV, testing and post counseling, and then facilitates the eternal spiritual concern for the infected individual. This is a great thing, and our church is making a difference here. You see, if the government does the testing then the results remain confidential and 99% of the time the patient will not tell others that they are infected because of the stigma that revolves around this dreaded disease. Thus, it continues to spread. When Living Hope administers testing to the people of Masi, then they can do post counseling, medical care, and most importantly - care for that person on a spiritual level. This is very holistic approach. As a result, men and women who would never attend church or give Christianity a chance are now seeing the love and compassion of Jesus Christ through this program. Better yet, many of them are accepting Christ as their Savior! Our church's mission efforts are prolonging the life of HIV patients, so that infected mothers can be with their children longer, the nucleus of the family can stay in-tact longer, and people can see the Gospel in action - with a chance to respond. Praise God for his grace and faithfulness!