Layers
- Jessica Sanders
- Jan 23, 2018
- 5 min read
Updated: May 31, 2021

My trip to South Africa has been an amazing one. It is a beautiful country filled with layers of culture. It’s a rich culture. It’s vibrant. It’s loud, and it is colorful. I don’t want to compare South Africa to an onion, but culturally speaking, it’s like an onion—you peel back one layer to discover another and yet another. The director of Ignite South Africa, a partner project of ours, has lived in ZA (South Africa) for nine years now but remarked that she is always discovering and learning something new as each region within South Africa is unique.
As I stood in a queue (line) for a restroom, I heard this beautiful humming, which I thought to be music playing over a loudspeaker. It happened to be the worker, who made sure the stalls were tidy, that was singing in her tribal language or, as they call it here, your heart tongue.
There is so much to learn about this culture, and I found it fascinating. Townships—which are a form of community—are only made up of "colored people." Here, "colored people" are of mixed race. They don’t feel that they “fit in” enough to be white, nor are they black enough to be considered tribal. There are several tribes in South Africa—Zulu, Xhosa, and Basotho are just a few. Each tribe has its own heart tongue. Depending on the region you live in, you must learn Afrikaans in school and a tribal language.

Townships are rough. It is here where we minister and where many of our partner projects have also been established. Townships consist of gangsters, drugs, and alcohol, as well as sexual abuse. (It is prevalent for a child to be sexually abused within the family and told to be kept quiet about it.) Protests are common, and the entrance to the township will be blocked by setting tires and rubbish (garbage) on fire. Working in these areas is not for the faint of heart, but the children make it worthwhile.

On the outside, the whites, Afrikaans, colored, and blacks all get along. They will greet each other, carry on back and forth, and, in general, are respectful to one another, but there is still an unseen tension. It has become more challenging for a white person to find work as roughly 90% of the population is colored or black and must hold a certain percentage of the jobs. The director of one of our partner projects—At AIM—told us a story where one of their kids, who was at a soccer camp, was threatened with a knife because he had "supposedly" used profanity at a man when going to retrieve a ball. The director's wife and daughter, who are white, saw what took place and rushed to the boy's defense. The youth pastor, who had also been present, told the director that his wife and daughter had made a powerful statement to the kids who were watching because they never witnessed two white women running to the aide (and ready to protect) a boy of color. Talk about a form of love.
Crime is high in the Western Cape, one of the highest in the world. Cape Town is the murder capital of South Africa. Robberies are also frequent. Houses are known to not only have a door to one's bedroom but a gate to lock yourself in. Water in the Western Cape is also an issue. There has been a severe long-term drought taking place. As of April 12th, it has been reported that there will be no more water in the reservoir. It is a crisis, and prayers for rain are much needed! There is a plan set in place for when the water is no more--a water filling station for every 20,000 people---but the people of this area have yet to see anything in place.
Sports in South Africa are what I would call segregated, and it is government-ordered. Those who are predominately white play cricket. Whites and colored play rugby, and only those of color play soccer. Many colored rugby players often feel like they have to prove themselves worthy of playing at the top, but they also take pride in wearing the national jersey. Many of our kids love a good soccer game, and as soon as they can, they take their school shoes off to play.
There is also much segregation in the churches. It made my heart sad to hear stories where people of color are still forced to enter and exit through a different door. Many churches do not understand that we are "in the Good Fight together" and have a "do it on my own" mentality. The Prosperity Gospel is still very much preached here. I was told a handful of stories where colored "pastors" arrive in Range Rovers with bodyguards to their church. The bodyguards then demand that the congregation rises to hail the "king." Stories like this make me wonder where we went wrong in the Gospel. I thank God for the churches that preach the Gospel according to the Bible. They are few and far and need your prayers!
South Africa is very much family-oriented, but there are also broken homes. Many restaurants, gas stations, and rest stops have playgrounds for children to play on, promoting connectedness. When a child is born, they are named after the condition they were born into. "No Hope" or "Beauty" are examples of these. Living Hope--a partner project--told us a story of a teenage girl who gave birth to a baby born with severe on-set AIDS. The young mother, having no place to go or people to help her, gave the baby a name such as "No Hope." Living Hope came alongside this young mother and helped her with medical treatment. They gave her a place where she could room and provided her with a loving environment where she felt accepted. Several months later, the mother went to a government office to file the proper paperwork to change her baby's name! That baby is now close to five years of age and carries a name where life was spoken into her.
I could say more stories I could share and more cultural insights, but I wanted to form these words while the thoughts were still fresh in my mind.

The Cape of Good Hope...
Because there is hope for South Africa.
Things to PRAY for:
Please pray for South Africa! Pray for the rain to come to the Western Cape.
We have six partner projects in ZA, plus one of our own. Pray for the directors and staff as well as the children that they minister to. Pray for their protection, for open hearts, and their families. So many of these kids come from rough home lives. Yet, the time they spend with us is sometimes the only true form of love they receive.
I am praying and asking for about 20--25 more people to partner with me monthly at either $25/$50 or $75 a month. It is monthly support that keeps me afloat. Your monthly partnership allows you to "travel" with me to Ecuador, Haiti, Kenya, South Africa, Nepal, and the Philippines. In all of these places, we are equipping staff in need, being a voice for children who may have never had someone speak up for them, and reaching out to display the love of our Heavenly Father. To find out how you can join and be a part of something bigger, click on the "Donate" tab at the top of the page.
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