Gogo's Mangoes

I’m happy to report that I turn on the windshield wipers less often than I did at first, and have begun to adapt to my turn signal being on the right hand (wrong) side of the steering wheel. Since the kids have started school, we get an average of 25 messages per day from their respective grade WhatsApp groups. I wish I could mute them all, but there is really important information that is hidden between someone’s picture of a rainbow and someone else asking if the soccer program is good or not. Information like “Don’t forget there’s a race after school today so be sure to pack them the right takkies (sneakers). When Hanne told me that this school has a tendency to over-communicate, she wasn’t joking. As the kids have started school, so have Eric and I been introduced to different work responsibilities and opportunities here at the Hub.

Eric, well he’s doing Eric type things. A little bit of maintenance team, a little bit of communications team, and when Josh the lead builder comes back from being away I imagine he and Eric will be building something together.

Me? Well, my first morning was with the hospitality team. Ma Agnes (all older women are addressed with a “Ma” before their first name), Gift, and Nathaltha (her name sounds like “No Salsa” (this is actually how I remember her name) but with a whispery lisp where I’ve inserted the “th”). When Nathaltha was introduced to me she said “I’ve been told to tell you that my name is “Fortunate.” I immediately inquired what her real name is. It took me a few tries, but I feel confident calling her by the name her friends and coworkers call her, and she seemed to smile brighter to be called by her first name. I found out later in the day that she used to be one of the kids that attended a Hands care point. Now she is grown and works here with Hands. It’s a beautiful and humbling testimony to witness what God has done for her - in His provision, in His faithfulness to provide for her needs, in His love to reveal himself to her through these people.

But You Yourself have seen trouble and grief, observing it in order to take the matter into Your hands. The helpless entrusts himself to You; You are a helper of the fatherless.

Psalm 10:14 CSB

To think now that we get to join their ranks in this work here for a time; such an honor, such a weighty responsibility. I haven’t quite wrapped my head around the extent of the significance of the work being done here, but I catch glimpses here and there. I’m sure that God is only revealing what I can handle, because He knows me better than I do.

Twice a week, for the next few weeks at least, Eric and I will take turns heading out into community. By this, I mean that we go with a team of people from Hands at Work to visit and check on various care points that are within driving distance of the Hub. I have only been to two different communities so far, and this last week I got to revisit a care point called Sommerset. The credit for the fancy paint job on Somerset’s care point comes from an Australian team that came between the time I visited in 2021 and this past week. Nice work team. I love it and it seems that everyone else does too!

This care point is a 1.5 to 2 hour drive from the Hub depending on traffic and who's driving. I could not yet tell you how to get there if I tried, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist on Google maps. Here they receive one hot meal a day with protein, carbs, and veggies and have a safe space to play away from home.

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As you can see, the road makes for challenging access by car, but that doesn’t stop the kids from coming to the point.

What did I do while I was there? Well, let me admit first off that I definitely did not feel very helpful. I filled my arms with cabbages and helped carry them from the trunk of the car to the countertop they call their kitchen, shredded some carrots, visited a grandmother (gogo) who is caring for one of her grandsons, and served veggies to the kids (some of whom clearly did not want veggies). Just so you first world parents know, even some very very very hungry children would rather have all carbs and protein and no serving of vegetables on the side. I personally think this meal is quite tasty (having had some on a previous visit) and I was secretly disappointed to not have been offered any of the leftovers.

My glimpse of the Kingdom this week came from the grandmother of one of the boys at the care point who we met on a Holy Home Visit near the care point in Sommerset. This gogo looks about as old as my 99 year old Lola, but still gets around from one place to another. Instead of sitting on one of her plastic chairs, she sits herself down on the woven mat made of grass and trash on the earthen floor.

Holy Home Visits are what Hands at Work calls their visits to the homes of the children and caregivers, the most vulnerable persons in the community. This gogo (grandmother) is what we call a Primary Caregiver. She takes care of her grandson and receives about 500 ZAR (~$25) from the government approximately once a month. While I say approximately, I mean that it doesn’t always make it to her, so some months she goes without. The care point here is her lifeline.

Today her home is without soap--because she can’t afford it. The careworkers that I accompanied on this visit run back to the care point to get some soap in order to help her wash the dishes. A young mother and careworker with her 3 year old son clinging to her side wastes no time in laboring to wash the dishes while this gogo prepares a dinner of pumpkin leaves and maze for herself. The leaves she harvested yesterday in the field, and the maze is from the most recent harvest that she grew, processed and stored herself.

Today she tells the careworkers that she is so grateful for the seeds that she was given last year, but she doesn’t need any new seeds for the upcoming season. She saved seeds from the last harvest in preparation for the next.  This woman is not trying to bleed any system of resources or abstain from participating in providing for herself. This woman is strong, smart, grateful for the help she has been given, but not greedy to receive more than her needs.

When we first entered her “living room” the dirt floor was uneven and littered with small pieces of trash. The careworkers raked the floor and used that trash to kindle the fire that heated the dishwater. The only other food in the place was a bowl of mangoes that sat in a pot of water by the doorless doorway. She offered them to us and I wish I could have refused, but to do so would have been an insult to her hospitality. Eric had a similar experience the day prior in a different community where another gogo offered Eric a mango and he ate it. Don’t tell the gogos, but Eric hates mangoes. He ate too many when he was living in Puerto Rico as a kid and got sick of the taste. But for a gogo, Eric will eat another mango.

We sit in a semicircle of plastic chairs away from the fire and the corner of the building that is missing some roof and so lets in the rain that has begun. The sweet and messy mango makes me wish that I had a napkin and some floss for all of the threads that are now stuck between my teeth. I don’t understand what she’s saying, but there is laughter even amidst these circumstances. There are smiles. There is hope here where it doesn’t seem to fit or belong. There is community and care where there wasn’t before. This woman, in her lack of complaining, hospitality with only mangoes to offer, and dirt-floor doorless living room is teaching me to be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. This woman is teaching me to trust God by accepting help from brothers and sisters in Christ when I need it. This woman with her weathered face and generous smile is reminding me that giving is a privilege that even she deserves to practice as she shares her lunch with us. Her giving reflects the Father’s giving. Her giving is from the Father’s gifts.

I tucked the mango seed into a plastic bag that had held some cashews that I brought to snack on. The careworker looked at me and asked what I was doing. I told her that I was going to try to grow the seed to save the memory. She told me that these mangoes will not grow where I live. I’m not sure if she meant where I live in California, or where I live now in White River, but either way, I hope she is wrong. I hope the seeds of her story will grow into a tree that produces more fruit. I hope that the seed of this mango will also produce some more mangoes for future Hub residents and their families as they come to serve their neighbors and receive good gifts from the Father. If the physical tree dies, at least the allegorical seed has been planted here.

The community of Sommerset is planned to graduate this year. This means that the careworkers and community volunteers from surrounding churches have learned how to care for their own and no longer need our (Hands’) assistance. They have reached the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder and can now begin to climb on their own. Hands will onboard new communities that have yet to exist on a map, where churches have yet to identify or address the needs of the most vulnerable in their midst and on the fringes, who will be called and equipped to action to fulfill their Biblical mandate to serve and care for them.

There’s a satisfying relief and hopeful exhale when a community graduates. It signifies growth, hope, local churches acting in obedience to love and serve their neighbors, and God's faithfulness. The work is not done, but more work can begin and continue elsewhere.