After over a year, when Busisiwe saw me outside her classroom, she beamed and walked directly into my arms and hugged me.
Zimkhitha Qotoi and Busisiwe Shabangu, eighth grade girls in Masiphumelele High School, each have severe to profound, bilateral hearing losses. Zimkhitha, fit with two hearing aids last year, lost them in the July shack fires. We took them from school to the Bastian School for the Deaf near Cape Town to have their ear molds made, which took two trips, because of faulty materials.
The highlight for the girls was their KFC lunches with ice cream cones. Busisiwe says little, and her speech has touches of “deaf speech” when she talks, but she watches intently. Zimkhitha, a regular hearing aid wearer, was valuable in helping teach Busi about wearing her aids because Busi lipreads her native Xhosa far better than English. As I turned up the volume of her aids for the first time, her body stiffened and she broke into the most amazing, wide-eyed, mouth-open smile. Yes, Starkey Hearing Foundation provided the hearing aids and the year’s supply of batteries, and St. Paul’s provided me.
Psalm 62:5 “For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him.”
Thank you St. Paul’s for helping break their silence.
Gratefully,
Richard Nodar
Filed under: Experiencing South Africa, Letters To St. Pauls, Spirituality, St Mathew's Chapelry, Township Life, Uncategorized
After two years of prayer, St. Paul’s gives thanks continually for the gift of Alan Gates. St. Matthew’s has been praying for a priest to help lead them through their wilderness to a vibrant Anglican community in Masiphumelele. It seems, God has raised up leaders for both groups.
Fr. Lulamile (Lulameeleh) Ngesi (long a) the new Xhosa Commander of the South African Fleet of Navy chaplains, arrived with his wife, Linda, and four children at the Simon’s Town Navy Base in January of this year. Born in Walmer, a township near Port Elizabeth, his mother was raped and murdered when he was six, and he was brought up by his great grandparents. His great grandfather was a lay minister of “Anglican catechism,” so Lulamile, a child of the church from the beginning, decided to become a priest at age six. Because of township apartheid education, he did not matriculate until he was 24.
Fr. Ngesi stands in front of the room, holding his Bible to preach. Looking directly at everyone, his eyes travel from face to face, and he speaks and gestures with simple eloquence. Heads nod, occasionally a soft “Yes,” comes from someone. When blessing the children after communion, Father looks at every child, and each one knows he or she has had a moment of grace. Leaving Fr. Ingesi’s first service in Masi, I shook his hand and said,
“I understood everything you said, even though I understood nothing you said.”
Perhaps that is part of the mystery of the spirit of the Lord being upon someone.
Faithfully,
Mary Nodar
Filed under: Letters To St. Pauls, Spirituality, St Mathew's Chapelry, Township Life
Dear St. Paul’s Family,
Ash Wednesday was Ash Thursday here, because Fr. Ngesi was traveling for the Navy.
“We are going to light the fires of Anglicanism in Masiphumelele by having Wednesday Lenten services in people’s homes,” announced Fr. Ngesi. With their permission, the Wednesday evening Lenten service was in the shack of an Anglican couple not currently active in the Chapelry.
Children in red acolyte robes were kicking a ball outside, while members of the Mother’s Union and St. Bernard Mezeki Men’s Guild in black and purple uniforms and others squeezed into two rooms about the size of St. Paul’s clergy room. Occupying every possible inch, we perched on scant furniture, and borrowed chairs, benches, and stools. The tightly packed group sang in harmony; swaying, clapping, almost breathing as one. Folks stood in place to do the readings and prayers, and Father Ngesi preached in the doorway, so those inside and out could hear. At the end of the service, the host couple thanked the Chapelry.
We poured out into the darkness still singing, swaying, clapping to the music, and hugging goodnight. As we climbed into our parked car between a numbers of shacks, I said,
“Father, what do you call this?”
“It’s like a revival,” he answered. “They recommitted themselves tonight, so we are two more.”
Faithfully,
Mary Nodar
Filed under: Experiencing South Africa, Spirituality, St Mathew's Chapelry
Dear St. Paul’s Family,
Whenever I hold a child in South Africa, I am greatly comforted.
This morning at St. Clare’s in Ocean View, a toddler with dimples like our granddaughter’s, allowed himself to be lifted into my lap and sat leaning against me for about ten minutes. He touched my fingers, my painted fingernails, my watch, and then lifted each finger over and over again. When we stood for a hymn, he tottered off to his parents.
Forty-five minutes later, we sat on one of three tables in back of the rented room of Xhosa worshipers in Masiphumelele. (Members of St. Paul’s Global Mission Action Group and the Apostleship Commission sent funds with us to buy greatly needed plastic chairs, hymnals, and prayer books.) Sitting with us were three children , and the smallest girl leaned against me, encircled by my arm. Like the toddler, she played with my fingers through much of the service.
Two girls, sitting next to Rich, repeatedly pointed to the correct place in his red Xhosa service booklet and then leaned forward to watch Rich’s mouth carefully to see how he was saying and singing the words. They smiled broadly throughout the service, and when a word needed one of the Xhosa clicks, they simultaneously made the sound for him.
Is this the ministry of presence? But whose ministry, and whose presence?
Faithfully,
Mary Nodar
Thanks to a 2008 Apostleship grant of $150, twelve Anglican high school students who attend St. Matthew’s Chapelry in Masiphumelele were able to attend an all day Girls’/Boys’ Friends Society Conference this past Sunday. Students paid their own registration, and St. Paul’s provided the transport, a taxi-van which took them to St. Peter’s Church in Khyalitsha for 400 rand ($40 U.S.)
“Youth” in Anglican parishes is defined differently in different racial groups:
Xhosa: 18 to 35,
Colored: 15 to 25,
White: 10 to 18,
Youth activities are still largely racially segregated. At the end of March, Bishop Merwyn is sponsoring a Youth Indaba (gathering) for the Diocese to provide an opportunity for the groups to discuss ways of coming together. With St. Paul’s help, St. Matthew’s Chapelry youth will be part of this important step into the future of South African Anglicanism.
Thanks be to God, and to St. Paul’s outreach for making this possible.
Faithfully,
Mary and Richard Nodar
Filed under: Audiology, Experiencing South Africa, Letters to Family and Friends, St Mathew's Chapelry
Dear Children,
It has been a long day, (Thursday) and I have been finishing up the additional documents to send to the Fraud Unit of Keybank. We discovered today, February 19th, that there were additional illegal withdrawals not printed in the original account printout we sent. What a bear to do the figuring all over again.
Our South African friend, Peter, who is a banker and Christine’s husband, opened a savings account in his own name, and added us as able to withdraw from it. It solved all our problems about depositing money here. God bless his expertise. Christine is an audiologist from Cape Town University, and she and her family have been dear friends since the first year we arrived.
We just made reservations at a place for Saturday night, the 21st of March, to go with them to a lovely place in the wine country. They have always tried to show us interesting things here in South Africa. We are still short of cash-cash, and tomorrow Dad hopes to initiate a wire transfer from the US into the account here. We have to be sure to leave enough money in the US account to cover any automatic withdrawals that come up.
In addition to our rent here, we have moneys from the US that we are responsible for spending and leaving here, plus a small, personal pledge for St. Matthew’s, which we feel is an important part of truly belonging to this church, plus moneys we can only spend in cash – like the hearing aid ear molds we had made on Friday at the School for the Deaf in Claremont.
We went to Masiphumelele High School on Wednesday, and we took two girls (Zimkita and Busisiwe) with us to have ear molds made. Each needs to wear two hearing aids. Then we went for KFC “dinners” and an ice cream cone. What a big deal! Nelson needs new glasses, and an older woman, Priscilla, needs at least one new aid. Nobabalo, a seventh grader in Ukhanyo Primary, was teste d by Rich this week with an audiometer borrowed from Christine. Gertrude, one of the grandmothers in St. Matthew’s in Masi bringing up a flock of grandchildren, insists Nobabalo has a hearing loss! Dad picked up a slight loss, when he tested her, which he thinks may be due to severely impacted wax in one ear. Now he must get that taken care of and then retest her. If that doesn’t work, we will take her to the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, where they will test her again, and give her an aid, we hope.
Tomorrow, Rev. Pamela Parenzi, Head of HIV/Aids Outreach for the Diocese of False Bay, is meeting us at Fish Hoek Galley Restaurant on the beach at 9:00 a.m. for coffee, before we go to Ocean View to look at properties for the foster home St. Paul’s has offered to help build. The “Mother’s Union” has a meeting on Saturday in Somerset West, about an hour away. They awkwardly gave us a letter describing the meeting and the MU shirts for sale at 67 Rand ($6.70 US.) lunch for 33 ($3.30 US). The cost of transport all the way to Somerset West will be formidable for them, so it looks as if we will take three of them on Saturday. I think there might be a Saturday outdoor market there.
We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner tonight and a pear each. Our landlord left another jar of marmalade made by his wife, which Dad loves, in the refrigerator. Joan, the old lady with the three-legged dog, canceled dinner on Wednesday, and rescheduled it for next Wednesday. Shrove Tuesday means crepes with fillings in St. Francis Church in Simon’s Town. It is really fun to see them make crepes for so many over four burners, and the ladies bring dinner fillings and dessert filling, and everyone brings their own wine.
Dad’s Valentine’s bouquet of red and white roses and Queen Ann’s lace is almost gone except for four of roses. He snuck up the street to Dennis’s before I got up to retrieve them from Dennis’s house where he stashed them. Then he brought me tea and roses in bed for Valentine’s Day. Not bad for 73, huh? I do love him so very, very much. Dad has gone to bed while I’ve been writing this. We didn’t get home from church until 8:15, and I just heard a page turn, so I know he is reading.
Be well, live well, and go well.
Love always,
Mom
Filed under: Experiencing South Africa, Letters To St. Pauls, Township Life
The toddler looked up at Rich as he jiggled her with his knees and flapped the end of his belt to make a noise. Her eyes crinkled in amusement and her body responded with little shakes, as though she was laughing, but no sound came out.
“Look, she doesn’t know how to laugh,” said Rich.She had just been brought from a “Safe House” to spend a day or two here while renovations on their facility were completed.
The other “Safe House” visitor was a 13 months old boy with irregular, blue-black patches over his tawny body, supposedly due to his mother’s drug addiction, and weighing about as much as a 5-month-old baby. Mary was holding him and showing him how to clap two blocks together to make a noise. The two foster boys, who belong there, were playing in the dirt outside the door.
Rev. Pamela Parenzi, the Diocese Coordinator for Fikelela Outreach, brought us to visit Hawston Home from Home Community Foster Home which opened on December 15. Imagine a small. box-like, cement house with three, little bedrooms; one for the foster mother, and two with twin beds and a single bed for three children in each.
Today, we found the bathroom tub full of laundry, although there is a washing machine available. The foster mother is used to washing daily by hand, and needs to be shown how to utilize the washing machine. The main room of the house is a combination kitchen and living room with a kitchen table and chairs, a couch, a chair, and two TV’s, neither of which gets reception. Children’s laundry was hanging outside on lines shared with the Health Center next door.
Currently, there is nothing but dirt and rubble around the foster home, but soon a yard will be fenced in, and grass will be “encouraged” to grow. St. Andrew’s Church, upon whose land the home is built, their rector, Fr. Rodney Uren, and Rev Pamela Parenzi from the Diocese, will watch over and support this home. Rev Pamela says there are currently 1.5 million children orphaned in South Africa.
St. Paul’s will be part of building such a foster home for HIV/AIDS effected or affected children and abused/abandoned children in Ocean View and Masiphumelele. Although St. Paul’s is thousands of miles away, six South African children will have a home and safety with our help.
“Suffer the little ones to come unto me,” is what must be echoed over and over again throughout this country and the world.
In peace,
Mary and Richard Nodar
Dear Children and all our grandchildren,
Hi, it’s Dad, Rich, and Grandpa!
Mary( Mom, Grandma) said I never write to you, so here is my letter!!!
I type so slowly that I may not finish this before I get home in April. So here goes….
Hi. how are you ( fill in your name) today? We are fine. Today we drove to Constansha for Mary ( Mom, Grandma) to have her hair done. While we were there. I also had mine done, although it ALWAYS looks good 
We’re presently in an internet cafe (please explain to the youngest ones) while Mary ( Mom, Grandma) is preparing the forms for the reciprocal (please explain to the youngest ones) Pilgrimage from St Clare’s and St Matthews to St Paul’s.
I have just been informed that if I type anymore slowly, I’ll have to pay rent.
I love you all, as does Mary ( Mom, Grandma), Take care, God bless, and I love… Banana Splits!!!(please explain to the youngest ones),
Dad
Filed under: Experiencing South Africa, Letters To St. Pauls, Spirituality
Dear St. Paul’s Family,
Because Zimbabwe borders South Africa, and Zimbabwean refugees continue to filter across the border, news in our papers is graphic.
As few as six million Zimbabweans remain in their country. About 4.5 million are children. Grave diggers report to journalists they are burying more children than adults.
Deaths are estimated at between 4,000 and 5,000 a week. About 50% of children are orphans.
The most recent life expectancy rate in Zimbabwe, reported in 2005, was 35 years. The figure is now about 20 years.
The genocide in Zimbabwe is largely genocide of children.
In an open letter in The Cape Times, The Right Rev. Dr. Jo Seoka, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Pretoria (capital of South Africa) writes:
“We, as the church, must be a means of hope to people who are compelled to live lives of fear, suffering, torture, and possible murder in that country. We have a legacy of bringing about non-violent change in situations of inhuman oppression. The situation in Zimbabwe demands our response.”
“In a scathing attack following their consultative meeting in the Western Cape, Archbishop Tahbo Makgoba of the Anglican Church, Bishop Ivan Abrahams of the Methodist Church, Cardinal Wilfred Napier of the Catholic Church, and others, accused both the South African Development Community and the SA government of failing the people of Zimbabwe. . .”
May the one God of us all show the world how to help these people.
In peace,
Mary and Richard Nodar
