Finally

We finally arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa yesterday at 4:40pm, or 14:40 here. We had a stop in Dakar, Senegal (approximately 12:50am EST Friday), refueled for an hour and then continued onto our destination. Surprisingly, the 17 hour flight was painless. We flew on an Airbus A340-600. The A340-600 is the largest plane in South African Airways fleet, which if my memory serves me right, is larger than Airforce One. It had a maximum capacity of 317 and was filled to the brim. I had an aisle seat so I was not bothering anyone when I got up every hour. I even managed to do a couple of laps around the plane. We were served three meals throughout the flight. I had meatloaf for dinner, an omelet for breakfast and pasta for lunch. They tasted pretty good for being an in flight meal.

Anyways, upon arrival we checked into our hotel and made our way to dinner. We ate at The Tribes Steak House. It was our first real chance to experience South African game. With the motto “Go big or go home,” I enjoyed ostrich, wild boar, impala, and kudu. All of the meats had a different texture but were amazing. Of course, dinner is where I had my first blunder of the trip. I attempted to order a glass of wine and ended up with the whole bottle. So, I had to share.

Today we traveled to Mamelodi. Located about one hour outside of Johannesburg, Mamelodi is a township of about 1 million people. The scenes were unforgettable. At every stoplight there were people walking down the streets selling everything from the day’s newspaper to sunglasses to fruit. The streets were lined with people selling everything; tires, used mufflers, chickens, goats and probably more that I did not pick up on. The middle class homes make the worst projects in America look like 7,600 square foot mansions. Most homes have barbed wire at the top of their six foot walls. The lower class lives literally in whatever they can make out of materials available on the streets. The walls are made out of sheet metal tied together with more metal laying flat on top with rocks to hold it down. The houses are maybe two or three feet apart from one another and go on as far in one direction as you can see. The South African government is starting to build two bed, one bath, and kitchen homes that are not much bigger than a small dorm room in order to relocate people out of the “informal townships.” They have a proper roof with running water and electricity; which is a huge improvement. These new townships also have enough land to plant a small garden so that the people living there can be self sustainable.

Throughout all of this, Pastor Titus Sithole has created a truly remarkable campus for the area. Pastor Titus leads a church in the township and after a mission trip to Ethopia ten plus years ago, decided he had to do more than just lead a church. Pastor Sithole and the church were able to raise enough money to buy land on the outskirts of the township. They built a church first and then began work on the hospice. The hospice is a two story brick building. The first floor was originally dedicated entirely to victims of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Through their counseling and outreach program, Titus has reduced the number of patients dying of the disease enough so that they now only use half of the floor. The other half, within the past six months, has been converted into primary care. There are general practitioners, a dentist, and an optometrist. Preventative care is a large part of the business model in place now. The second floor houses social work for the government. The government pays rent to occupy the space. Next, a private school was built. They started small with just one grade. Every year since, they have added an additional grade. Next year the school will offer kindergarten through eighth grade. An HIV/AIDS orphanage opened around 2008. It now was 19 children. These orphans typically ended up here after their mothers passed away. The fathers are either dead or not involved. Usually, the grandmother then begins to take care of the children at this point. However, some grandparents are simply too old to handle this responsibility. This is where the orphanage came into play. However, family ties are an extremely important part of the culture. With this in mind, Pastor Titus and his church are currently building a retirement home. The retirement home will serve as a way the orphanage children can learn about their culture and roots. A counseling and test center was also built recently. This center specializes in HIV/AIDS. Counseling is pre and post-test. The lastest project currently under construction on the campus is a home for quadriplegics. Quadriplegics are typically removed from hospitals because they take up too many of the resources of the hospital. The project should be done in the next couple of months.

I have a few more key points on our visit:

• The church gets help from other churches in New York and Ohio.As a matter of fact, there was a group of 160 (from Cincinnati) coming down on the same flight as our group.They are staying in Mamelodi and helping Pastor Titus with construction.
• The culture of many South Africans does not help the HIV/AIDS situation. It is a polygamist society. So, if one is infected, all will be infected.
• The campus is debt free. All of this building was possible via donations, the church and grants.
• Some of the excess land is currently being used by the locals to grow a garden. This facilitates an entrepreneurial spirit and adds to the quality of life.
• This is the type of development that would have to be in place in order to establish an effective micro-lending system.
• Pastor Titus is in the process of taking his model continent wide.

Finally, as an advisory note, this post barely scratches the surface of everything going on there. Pastor Titus’ story is only one success and more need to be done. His vision is providing a means to an end of the poverty/HIV/AIDS problems so prevalent in South Africa.