Sunday, June 22nd

Our worship focused on my family's recent trip to Guguletu, South Africa this last Sunday. The Sermon.

Also, I had failed to add my May 18th Sermon to the Website. Here it is as well.


Rev. Chris Bullock

From the Journal: Time in South Africa: A Journey with Bongoni

On Thursday, June 5th, we traveled with Bongoni, a young, black Presbyterian pastor to his church in Khayamandi, right outside of Stellenbosch.

As you approach the area, you are literally awed by the beauty of Stellenbosch. It looks very much like a Swiss resort. People drive porsches and BMWs and there are fancy wineries, restaurants and hotels wherever you look.

Then, Bongoni told me to "turn right." (Unbelievably, I hired a car in South Africa and did all kinds of driving). As we passed over the railroad tracks, we entered an entirely different world. A world just out of view of the affluence of "white" Stellenbosch.

We were now in the drastically poor informal township of Khayamandi. During Apartheid, this is where the blacks in the area were forced to live.

Here is a picture of Bongoni, Noah and I walking between the "shacks" of the township. These shacks, which house the majority of the 100,000 people who live there, do not have plumbing and only have what I would call precarious electricity because so much water gets into the shacks.

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Our goal that day was to spend time with Bongoni to better understand the issues facing his ministry in Khayamandi: Rampant alcoholism (the Africaners used to pay their black workers on occasion with cheap wine instead of money) and poor education (blacks were denied any real education under Apartheid).

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Here we are at his church as the childern in their preschool (the equivalent of our Headstart) briefly interrupt their work to come give us a hug.

My wife, Karen, knew Bongoni from her previous visit to South Africa in 2003. If I understand her correctly, Bongoni has suffered from the incredible challenges facing young Black pastors as they seek to minister to churches in the midst of great poverty and large groups of people infected with HIV/AIDS. Of course, he must also feed and take care of his family on his salary of $500 a month (compared to the average of salary of white Presbyterian pastors in that same Presbytery of $3,300 a month.

Here he he points out to me one of his Outpost churches in the nearby town of Kraaifontein.

Please keep him in your prayers. I am currently working with the J.L. Zwane Church in Gugeletu to develop a program to provide peer support for Bongoni and other pastors nearby with similar challenges.

Chris