The look in Jabu’s eyes
speaks volumes. The tall young South African has just been telling me about his
afternoon visiting architecture schools with my architect friend Randy. Jabu has
a dream of building a new hospice and cultural village in his home town of
Winterveldt, South
Africa. “We even talked to the registrar about what it would take to get in,” he
says, with that look of longing that grabs my heart and doesn’t let go.
My heart hasn’t been the same since I first walked on a dusty South African path seven years ago—since I sat for teatime with women friends who were eking out a living stitching beautiful embroidery, since I heard the soft song of a dying woman in a tiny AIDS hospice on that most memorable Easter morning of my life.
Since then, with Seekers Church, an ecumenical church in Washington, DC, I’ve been walking on a deeply rewarding spiritual journey with Jabu and his fellow South Africans.
Jabu came to the United States with the Bokamoso Youth Theatre, which empowers youth to speak through art to their desperately poor township 40 kilometers north of Pretoria. The Bokamoso Youth Centre counters crime and despair in this place where schools are inadequate, unemployment is 60 percent, and HIV infection is at 25 percent. All of these factors put these youth at great risk.
For three weeks every January since 2003, the youth have come to the United States to tell their stories through plays and music. Their arrival here has been a work of love, largely crafted by Roy Barber, a Seekers member and a music and drama teacher at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland.
Roy’s catalytic work has engaged many on both sides of the Atlantic in a true exchange. St. Andrew’s students and their families host the youth, who in turn host the St. Andrew’s students over spring break in Winterveldt, where they deepen life-changing bonds. Each summer, Roy, with Leslie Jacobson, Chair of Theatre and Dance at George Washington University, visit Bokamoso in South Africa to create musicals in the youths’ own words.
In Washington, the Bokamoso youth participate in a workshop with Seekers members in which they explore their dreams for the future and begin making them a reality. This collaboration among Bokamoso, Seekers, and St. Andrew’s has meant that 20+ youth so far have gone on to higher education in South Africa. For Seekers it means growth in understanding, not only of life in the new South Africa, but of what it means to be fellow travelers. And we all get a chance to name our dreams: mine is to do more writing.
Walking side by side as friends, we recognize there are differences—not only disparities in material resources, but also a great variety of gifts—cultural blessings, spiritual insights, and needed moral perspectives. The call is to exchange them in ways that make us all more fully human. It’s not easy. As Americans we keep falling into the trap of “doing for” the other instead of being who we are, authentically, asking for help when we need it, cheering all our growing edges, and listening for what we need to learn from each other.
One thing we’re learning is that “not doing for” doesn’t mean “not doing.” These young people are doing. They have named their dreams and are taking steps to make them real. Sipho enrolled in a computer graphics program that eventually qualified him for a job at a South African department store. Togo’s nursing training prepared her to combat the AIDS epidemic. They had the courage to believe in their dreams, but the schooling might never have been possible without the scholarships the American partners contributed.
When our walk together involves material goods that are distributed so unevenly, one challenge is to remember we are walking side by side—not in front or in back. A way of doing that is to make sure the mutual flow of other gifts is equally important.
Prayer is one of many gifts we can give and receive in abundance. Asked once how he was able to calm an angry crowd, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu responded, “You see, I do believe very fervently that I’m being prayed for….A solitary nun in California once told me that she prayed for me at two o’clock in the morning. In a scientific, materialistic, secular society, that would be described as nonsense. For me, it brings a kind of confidence that things will be all right.”
The look I remember in Jabu’s eyes grabs my heart anew and reminds me of the side-by-side walkers who have given me so much. I am aware that a little will go far toward making Jabu’s dream real. This week I will write a check to Seekers Church, with “Bokamoso” on the notation line. And I’ll keep on praying, keep on writing, keep on walking in the company of friends.
Your help for this empowering work is welcome! Checks may be sent to Seekers at 276 Carroll St NW, Washington, DC 20012. For more information: WriteSeekers@SeekersChurch.org.
Kathy Tobias works for the Small Business Administration and lives in Cheverly MD.