If you have been following the international news at all the last couple of weeks you would have seen South Africa making headlines for all the wrong reasons. What has happened is that in the informal settlements and townships anyone that is not a "South African" has been targeted as a threat. This "targeting" has lead to violence, robbery, harassment, and death. Thousands of foreigners who already were marginalized and the poorest of the poor have become victims all over again in the country were they were seeking refuge and a new life.
Why? That really is the question on many peoples lips. From dinner at friend's houses to impromptu campus debates, this is a big deal! I don't presume to know more than others on this crises, but I see close ties to un-employment, the governments non-action on the Zimbabwe crises (I could go on and on about this, but I think I might be the only one who realy cares what I have to say about it!), and in many casses, people from other countries who were willing to work hard at jobs that South Africans just haven't tried to get or don't want and then these people from other countries end up getting more "stuff" then their un-employed South African neighbors do.
But the scary thing has been the silence from the South African government. People are suffering, so we are doing what we can. The photo's are of Ian and I delivering a car full of aid to the refugee camp that was hastily erected behind the University that Kristy and I work at.
We gave blankets, sanitary stuff, baby nappies and then listened and prayed. Most of the people at the refugee camp where we visited were from Malawi. It was hard to hear what happened to these men and women who came to South Africa from one of the poorest neighboring countries. Any of these sad faces could have just as easily been a part of the leadership /Pastors training that I did in Malawi just weeks before. What we heard were sad stoies of abuse, fear, and depressed people who didn't know what to do or how they would survive.
Pray for South Africa, a country that for so many years was leaving it's people in neighboring countries in fear becasue of apartheid and now is violently kicking those countries people out of SA.
