Thank you God that at some point in the future the lights are going to come on for me

Patience needed.

Whilst this wasn't part of the job description is it hardly surprising that this is skill is necessary in my work. If you have ever had a conversation with me around exam results, job interviews or big events like coming here then you know I hate anticipation.
Waiting for something to happen drives me mad.
I care more about knowing the unknown then I do the success or failure of my result (only slightly, but still).
Out here this mind set is being challenged.

It is now a month since I arrived in Cape Town, and it is clear to me that my mind set has already taken two dramatic shifts.

1)      I take one day at a time. 
2) There is a huge difference between my week days and weekends - an extent to which I have never experienced before.

The first one, taking one day at a time is something I have often been advised to do at home and I have listened, nodded my head and thought ‘not likely! I need to plan!’.
I am a worst case scenario (I must plan for all outcomes and know exactly what my week/month/year looks like) person.
I have a 16-56 years plan in my head that I am semi prepared to edit as the years go by.
So with this information in the back of your mind you can appreciate what a step it is for me to say that in one month I have moved from this to looking at each week as isolated, AND emotionally processing only 24 hours at a time is.
This naturally progressed as I realised that no day was the same, and there are so many factors to my work that I am not in control of or responsible for.

The second is oddly comforting, it feels like I swap brains on a Friday afternoon and swap back on a Sunday afternoon ready for the next week. All the way through school I went to school in the week and was at home on the weekends, however the two were always bumping into each other, on a school night I could be going to a drama rehearsal, a church event or meeting up with school friends – equally weekends would include homework and revision.
So they were never truly separate.

This then flipped when I started my gap year in September and I often worked Saturdays and Sunday mornings but rarely on Monday’s and Thursdays, they became my weekend.
My familiar structure and sense of work and home was lost.
Now it is hard to believe I am in the same city on a Wednesday and Saturday! I switch from the workshop organiser to a I must take a photo of everything tourist. This transition takes place every week and it still takes me by surprise, and is probably another reason why I am never without several lines under my eyes.

On the way to the National Art Gallery I spotted this and climbed in.

And then there was a giant one in the form of a swing!
Had a lovely walk through the Company gardens on Saturday morning.

Also went to Bokaap where there are beautiful coloured houses.
This was a Muslim area during apartheid who stood up for black people's rights.

Tuesday was Human Rights Day which is a public holiday in South Africa.
I spent the day in a vintage coffee shop with a view of the mountains.
Read books, did colouring and read more books!

A poster we did at St Anne's last week for Human Rights day, the women wrote things they had learned during the workshop on the hands. We then signed our names and agreed to stand up for our own rights and others.

I am struggling with the balance of wanting to believe that these young people can turn their lives around and achieve anything they want to and actually getting to grips with the reality they come from. I find this battle so draining and as I transition from weekend Amy to work Amy I dread just how drained I know the next week is going to make me rather than the work itself.

This has caused me to really chew over the word ‘persistence’ as I mentioned last week I have many friends and key people in my life who persistently pray, debate and listen to me until I can accept a different opinion to my own.
How can I learn from them now? How can I model persistence when I am such an impatient person who desires change so desperately? Perhaps I have answered my own question, caring SO much, in the way I do comes with consequences.

Because I like a challenge then whilst all this has been going on I have been reading Rob Bell - it's as if I came to South Africa to shake up every thought I’ve ever had (if you haven’t heard of him then I urge you at the earliest possible convenience to grab one of his books and a notebook, (trust me you need a notebook for this) and jump in!). A couple of quotes particularly stick out:

‘Everybody thinks their opinion is the right one. If they didn’t they’d get a new one.’

All the young people I am talking to and disagreeing with believe they are right, they aren’t choosing to give up on turning their lives around because they want to, but because they believe there is no other option.

‘I do not ask for success I ask for wonder’

It is a month since I have been here and naturally I go to weigh up my success and failure rate, but what does this even mean in a world where teny tiny changes in attitude that you might not really see for years may or may not be taking place in front of me.
So instead how do I change the language, what would wonder look like in this context?

‘Thank you God that at some point in the future the lights are going to come on for me’

One day I trust that I will look back on my time here with a different perspective, this could be next week or in a few months’ time when I am home, but it will come and I hope I will understand better.

Prayer Requests:

-        -   I am praying for a break through moment when I either come to accept in a new way my purpose here or my eyes are opened to a different perspective that brings me peace. I really really hope that I get a glimpse of this before I leave. I know that when I get home and have millions of literal miles of distance between this me and that me I will be proud of what I have done, but it would be really nice to feel a bit of that before I go.

-        -  For Tom as he flies to Port Elizabeth on Sunday to spend 9 weeks on a conservation reserve, for safety and for nice people to be nice to him.

-       -   For dominoes to fall in the minds of all the young people I am working with. Whether I say something, do something or model something that causes a shift may it be amongst a whirlwind of comments that past and future volunteers say that tips the balance for them.

In other news I am now on the second series of west wing! And loving it!

Thank you for making it to the end of me ninth blog post. I hope you have a week filled with wonder.