Beauty for ashes...

13 February 2008 - Red Hill

Today William, one of the residents I’ve been building a relationship with, suddenly said to me: “Your God must be pleased with what you’re doing here.”
Here’s my opportunity I thought. We got into a conversation about God and it came to the point where he said his favourite book in the Bible was Israel. “Israel?” I queried. “I don’t know that book.”
So he took me into his newly built shack (his shack was the very first one after the fire) and showed me his Shona Bible. William is from Zimbabwe and so speaks Shona.
When he showed me the book, Israel, I realised he mistranslated it and he actually meant, Isaiah.

The past few days God has been speaking to me out of Isaiah "The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is on Me; because Jehovah has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;to preach the acceptable year of Jehovah and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to appoint to those who mourn in Zion, to give to them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the mantle of praise for the spirit of heaviness; so that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of Jehovah, that He might be glorified. And they will build the old wastes, they will raise up the ruins of former times. And they will repair the waste cities, the ruins of many generations." Is. 61:1-4

So I told him to page to Isaiah 61 and he got really exited as he slowly read the Shona and translated it to me in English. He immediately realised the relevancy of the verse to their situation. He is also still a bit rough around the edges and every time he got excited about a verse he exclaimed: “This verse is sh*t!” Meaning of course that it’s great. I almost cracked.

God uses every circumstance to glorify his name. And like the above story he’s been using the Red Hill Disaster in a wonderful way to build up a trust between the community and us that isn’t normally possible.

Today another truckload full of material arrived. Bringing 56 doorframes, 56 wood poles, 56 rafters and a one ton nails. Each day the Lord’s been doing something new and we can’t wait for tomorrow.
Through acts like this and each volunteer group working with his or her family we’ve started to win the community’s trust.
There was also a community meeting where the people agreed to work with us and be honest with each other and us.
During the meeting Archie, a local resident, explained to the people how things would be working. He’s emerging as a potential leader since the community doesn’t really have one.
All of this is leading into a place where the community can start to trust us.
Other great news of today is that we had an interview with Die Burger, the biggest newspaper in Cape Town. And radio CCFM recorded a sound bite of us where we explained the situation and pleaded for more material.
Let’s pray that God will touch Williams’s heart and give us similar opportunities with the rest of the community. Also that more material will arrive so we can finish building the shacks.