Last Week in Cape Town

Update 30 August 2009

My team is getting ready for the last week of ministry we have in Cape Town before heading to Worcester (the South Africans pronounce it as “Wooster,” so that's how we're saying it too... their English is all sorts of messed up). Friday is the last day of ministry / a fun group outing, and I will be home two weeks from Friday 4th. I'm excited for Worcester, because the South Africa team will be reunited with the teams that went to Panama, and we'll have a solid, fun two weeks together.

But I'm just beginning to feel like Cape Town, specifically the Muizenberg area, is my home after being here for a month. During middle school and high school, I moved from city to city enough times that I got used to it, but I always had at least a year. I need a year in Cape Town as well. God willing, I'll come back for a year, or maybe three years, to do ministry and work with YWAM. I have no idea when that would even be possible, but YWAM seems to make the world a lot smaller and make many more connections. I'll be praying about coming back someday, so please feel free to join me praying into coming back to South Africa.

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I watched my first rugby match ever. (Kettie, I hope you're proud of me. =P) South Africa vs. Australia. South Africa demolished Australia in the first half. The second half the Ausies came back a bit, but not nearly enough. It was sweet to see the team representing the nation I've been in for so long play well in one of the best loved sports, and against a rival like Australia. The only thing that could have been better is watching the Springboks destroy the All Blacks. But all in due time, hey?

That said, while rugby was entertaining to watch, I still much prefer soccer, or better still, Ultimate Frisbee.

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I now have plans for next year I did not expect when I started DTS. I've told a few people about my plans for next year, I'm I'm anxious to tell everyone, but I want to tell you all in person, and I really want to talk and pray about this with my pastor and some folks from my home church.

Sorry for the teaser. Feel free to ask me. My plans are not definite yet, but I believe God will sort of the details and take care of any aspect I cannot to see this work out. Please continue to pray for me about working out my twenty-third year of this business that I usually refer to as life.

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I don't have a lot to report now. I'm doing very well, the team is doing well, and we are all looking forward to getting back together with the Panama folks, and (those of us returning home) are looking forward to having internet we can use to upload and share photos.

I'll be home the 18th or 19th of September, and while I will be resting and sleeping and busy taking care of a few things, if you are around CO and want to get together for coffee or lunch or anything, let me know. I would love to meet up and chat about SA and catch up with you.

Yours by and in God's grace,

Chris

Of the Illicit Trade of Narcotics, Arms, and Human Beings

25 August 2009

Abstract:
My ministry group (John, Ashley, Hannah and myself) has been focusing on doing work related to human trafficking, i.e. modern day slavery, the dehumanization of children and young women for financial or social gain. We have been focusing on raising awareness in the areas of Cape Town we are closest to; in Muizenberg, Kalk Bay, Fish Hoek, Capricorn, and Masipumalele. We are working with established organizations that are combating trafficking, blessing them by doing things they need done. I plan to have a presentation on human trafficking, in South Africa specifically, and a something on the work my group has done.

Micah 6:8 – “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love [mercy], and to walk humbly with your God?”

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Trafficking is much older than the 2000 United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, that addressed this emerging injustice known as “trafficking.” Now, there are a lot of documents about trafficking, from intergovernmental organizations like IOM (the International Organization for Migration), from non-governmental organizations like the Cape Town based Justice ACTs or Molo Sangoglolo. Plenty of literature, information, booklets have been produced to inform people who are at risk of being trafficked and many more people who are not really at risk.

Because the thing about trafficking is it nearly always involves deception on the part of the trafficker and willful agreement on the part of the person being trafficked.

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Saartjie Baartman is probably the most famous victim of human trafficking in history. (If you are like me, you had never heard the name before; I was too young in 1994 to know anything that was happening in the news, so maybe some of you remember this....) Dr. William Dunlop, a surgeon from England visiting Cape Town on business or holiday, approached Saartjie Baartman with promises of fame and riches away from her home and job in Cape Town, I think most people would accept an offer like this if we were employed as servants on a farm, or whatever the modern equivalent would be.

When Saartjie Baartman got to London, William Dunlop made a show exhibiting Saartjie nude, for the admission price of one shilling. She died six years after leaving Cape Town, discarded by her trafficker, alone in France. This happened in 1810 (Trafficking Report 3rd Ed., IOM, 2003).

Trafficking is not a new problem – although as it gains exposure in media it may be the new fad issue that is cool to be angry and upset about. In some way it is easy to say what trafficking is: human trafficking is slavery, with a slight twist. It is as simple as that. People who have been trafficked were promised a fame, money, a great job, or even just a better job in a romanticized city. What they get from their traffickers is an addiction to heavy drugs, a demand to work as a prostitute or a domestic servant in horrific working circumstances, or hawking candy in the city. The traffickers do not pay their victims, but withhold money by saying the victim owes thousands of dollars, and the work they are forced to do is to pay that debt back. The traffickers, especially in regards to sex work, threaten the victims by saying their families will be hurt. The girls, women and little boys trafficked for sex work are raped and beat and threatened and demeaned until their spirits are broken and they stop fighting. Then any client can use them without resistance.

Where trafficking gets not-so-simple is the fact that slavery is illegal, and traffickers know what they are doing is promoting slavery. The whole trade has to go underground, and that makes it hard to get a lot of solid evidence or statistics. And that makes human trafficking difficult to talk about.

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Estimates on human trafficking numbers worldwide are all over the place. The International Labour Organization says 1,800,000 children are exploited through prostitution and pornography. Every year (Bill H2737, Child Protection Compact Act of 2009, p.3). I have heard numbers ranging from around one million children and young women in forced sex work and pornography to as many as hundreds of millions. But no traffickers are going to give quarterly and yearly reports about their sales and figures and dealings. So the best the government and trafficking assistance IGOs and NGOs have to work from are well educated guesses based on cases they know that have been dealt with. One word sums this all up: Hectic.

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IOM is an intergovernmental organization with especially strong presence in Southern Africa. The IOM has trafficking helplines set up that victims or people who suspect a case of trafficking can call for free in a number of African nations, including South Africa, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The IOM made posters to raise awareness about trafficking and spread the helpline number. The posters are eye catching, very well designed, high quality. I have seen them around the country. The first thing I noticed at the customs check in at Cape Town airport was these IOM posters. I am sure these posters have helped spread the helpline number.

And then my team met with an IOM staff person, a women who works in the Cape Town office. She told us the helpline gets only 2000 calls a year, and of those 40 are trafficking related. 40 calls about trafficking out of a country of almost 48 million, with thousands of trafficking victims in South Africa alone, and only 40 calls trafficking related per year. Unbelievable. The helpline number has to be known by more than 2000 people, and surely by more than 40 people who have some knowledge of trafficking. But it's not being used that much.

And again, we come to the aspect of trafficking that could be hard to discern. Justice ACTs talks about four sort of phases of trafficking: tricked, transported, trapped, and used. Tricked and transported are two phases that might not be clear, and tricked is where traffickers get their sources of livelihood. By and large trafficking victims are not kidnapped or forced to go anywhere against their will. They are only held against their will once they are far from home. They trick victims by offering good jobs, travel, something good far from home. The majority of the people in Southern Africa dream of the propositions children and young women are getting from traffickers. Few would think to check deep into who the traffickers say they are or try to notice anything fishy about the situation. There are so many components working in favor of traffickers and against prime victims.

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So that is just part of what I have learned and unpacked about human trafficking. The more I think about it, the more I realize this is so huge and beyond me and I ask “What can I really do?” As much as organizations like IOM and IJM and Justice ACTs have done to raise awareness in South Africa, trafficking is still not really known about or understood. My team will continue working to raise awareness locally. And not only awareness, but some way to respond, to act, to see this specific injustice stopped. We want to see the church engaged and mobilized, living out Micah 6:8 and all of Isaiah 58. And I think one piece of that will be in ministry focused toward human trafficking.

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So my prayer points for this week are human trafficking related:

Pray against trafficking as this is clearly a scheme of the enemy. In the Bible God talks extensively about orphans, about the fatherless, about people who cannot defend themselves or cry for help. The Devil would like nothing more than to keep young people away from any place they can be discipled and follow God.

Pray for traffickers to come to repentance and turn around from destroying young innocent lives for their personal profit. Pray for ex-traffickers who will be instrumental in bringing trafficking to an end worldwide.

Pray for women and children who are trapped to be freed, to find in Christ both healing for themselves and forgiveness for their traffickers. Pray that trafficking victims will not stay silent but will become a voice for the voiceless...

Lastly, there is a bill going through the House of Representatives right now, the Child Protection Compact Act of 2009, H.R. 2737. I have read through the act, and it could definitely help a country like South Africa that is busy putting forward legislation that specifically and thoroughly addresses the legal precedings regarding trafficking of persons. Congress is making a good effort, and this would be something good to read through and weigh and pray into. If you feel an importance weighed on you, right to your representative. I have already done so.

That is that for now. Hope to fill you in on more soon. Thank you,

Grace and peace in Christ Jesus,

Christopher

P.S. I love you all. = )

I Am Alive and in Africa

Comprehensive Update

Abstract: I'm doing very well, still dealing with the differences between South Africa and most of America, and working almost everyday. I appreciate all your prayers! Please keep my team in your prayers, especially for team unity, for the Holy Spirit to release spiritual gifts in us as we minister, and that we would harvest a field white and ready for harvest here in Cape Town.

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I have been in Cape Town now for almost four weeks.

We started our time back debriefing, remembering and talking about our time in the Eastern Cape in smaller cities and a rural communities, doing a variety of ministries. We took some much needed down time before starting ministry again in Cape Town.

Since we've been in Cape Town, we have seen a few of the townships, or “informal settlements” that are scattered throughout Cape Town and cities throughout South Africa. Townships are communities with houses built from sheets of metal and scraps of wood, and maybe windows placed into the metal sheets. A “shantytown” would be the right idea. Townships can have populations from a number of thousands to over two million. Few of the people residing in South African townships are squatters. These are actually legal residences.

The official unemployment rate in South Africa as a nation is about 25 percent, but the actual rate is almost definitely higher. The unemployment rate is townships is easily between 60-70 percent. Only a number of people in these communities have steady jobs, and the salaries most of these people make are minimal. Many people will be hired for a day, or a few days a week for a month, but nothing permanent or reliable. Any costs of living in overcrowded townships and building their own shelters are far easier to pay out of the modest wages most earn. Adding to this cycle of inadequate housing is a propensity to spend what little money people make on clothes, on TVs (yes, they do have TVs and many unexpected things in these shacks), even on expensive cars; basically many will spend money on anything material that will make them look wealthier outside (or inside) the community.

This is not to say the situation in townships is any way simple or straightforward. Life in township communities is a complicated, multifaceted thing. Even with any opportunity to leave the township for a home in a nice neighborhood, many might never consider such an option because it would mean leaving their friends, a place they feel they belong and have purpose. Most people living in townships in Cape Town are from villages in rural South Africa, or from other African nations. Essentially all have come to Cape Town seeking work, although many do not find the opportunities they were seeking or were promised. The same happens in Johannesberg, the biggest city in South Africa and the financial/business hub of Southern Africa; and again, but to a lesser degree, people will seek jobs and find nothing in smaller towns, usually tourist hub towns.

And so you have these townships springing up all over the country, filled with folks from rural villages in South Africa, or migrants from Southern African countries. They've left their families (and the families expect that you will send home money from your well paying job...), and now the closest thing to family they have is the township community. Neighbors in townships look out and care for each other. So few people would want to leave a familial environment a second time by moving out of the township. So the people who could move into a good house may instead buy a nice car, nice shoes, and keep the family they have been adopted into.

Half our team of 13 is working daily in Capricorn Park, the nearest township to Muizenberg. Capricorn has unemployment of at least 80 percent. I have gone in a couple times now, each time doing ministry with teenagers. Working with these kids, who many people might just overlook, has been the most rewarding experience I've had in South Africa. And I've only been in the township three or four times.

I'm doing well, writing as often as possible, and wanting desperately to share what I'm doing with everyone. I'll be updating weekly now. Thank you for everything, prayers, thoughts, talking with people about me, everything.

Grace and Peace!

C.R.R. Wolf