365 days later

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary since I flew to Cape Town, and today marks a year after I arrived. This reality is utterly bizarre in my mind; my trip both simultaneously feels like I only left yesterday and that it was a life time ago.

This is one of my pin boards in my uni room, have covered it in memories. Got this beautiful map from the Waterfront. 

This is another board up in my room, the bottom row is photos from my gap year, and all the others are uni photos. The hot air balloon mobile is also from Cape Town as well as the Nelson Mandela postcards (courtesy of Sophie).

I have anticipated these couple of days a lot over the last month or so, and been thinking about where I am at now. On Saturday the Rob Bell talk 'Drops Like Stars' drifted into my mind and I spent the day listening to sections of it until I completed the 2 hours.
It is a beautiful discussion about suffering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNZQOIUjlnM
Rob Bell covers SO many things in the talk but here are a few parts that stuck out to me:

- "God came into the world to scream beside us"
This was helpful to hear, I believe that God can move mountains and turn around the criminal justice system in Cape Town within seconds but that has yet to happen. I also believe that just because God hasn't done that doesn't mean he doesn't care. I rarely cry about my experience in Cape Town, but I often get angry. To know that God's heart breaks for every gang shooting, young person abandoned and child that gets abused helps me trust that he is loving and justice will come.

I read this prayer recently and found it very thought provoking. This is an extract:

' If you look at nothing but sorrow and sin, your heart may first be full of love and pity, but presently anger - righteous perhaps, but still anger - will enter and begin to crowd out love... it is not enough to know the world is full of evil, we must know also that God is good.'

- 'God wastes nothing'
  'This too will shape me'

I had forgotten that this story was included in the 'Drops like Stars' talk: Rob Bell talks of his therapist getting out a sign from the bottom left draw of his desk and holding it up to him every time he got carried away with complaining and spiralling - it says 'The God who wastes nothing'. The therapist would do all of this silently and once Rob had read it, then the sign returns to the draw.
I find this image immensely grounding.

Cape Town isn't the first challenging situation I have had in my life by any means, and when I reflect on past struggles then now I can see what I could not see before - the shaping and strength that I was blessed with throughout. I know myself inside out and that awareness has come from thinking through relationships and events in lots of detail.
The more time that passes between my trip and the present day the more processing I will have done. I hope for the highest appreciation that I can have of the messy reality of my highest of highs and lowest of lows that took place.

- 'Nothing is wasted... and nothing ceases to be precious to me'

The idea that I can treasure every day of my trip is one I am slowly grasping.
Since being at university, a lot of the time I have resented my time working for Projects Abroad Human Rights Law Firm. That is quite a painful sentence to type out. The work was hard, the structures I worked in were unjust, the rate of change was much, much too slow.
And whilst I have the luxury of moving on with my life, and going to university and meeting more amazing people, I know that is not a reality I share with many of the people I worked with in Cape Town.

Whilst I can keep dreaming, it felt like the young people I met had already given up and resigned themselves to a disappointment - allowing life to wash over them. This breaks my heart.

Yesterday started with anxiety and heavy emotion but it didn't take long for that to transform into gratitude. There were even glimpses of excitement for the future.
I can't tell you how special this was.

11 notebook pages were filled.

Over the last two days I have thought several times about what I was doing this time last year. This led to remembering random details of my trip and thinking about what my first week was like. It was full of unknowns.
Right now I also feel like lots of tasks are being asked of me and the structure and timing is unknown. But that is okay.

This is a photo of my new, equally beautiful, city of Bath.

During this time of reflection I have been listening to these songs:

- Spirit Break Out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_TOOXRpn8w (sang this at Every Nation church and it was beautiful, listening to it takes me back to a time of amazing worship)

- One Thing Remains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_KXsMCJgBQ (this is quite an old song, but was sung at church on Sunday and felt really powerful)

- Unsteady https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lw3qylVfY (good to listen to with the volume turned up)

- Even If https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fA35Ved-Y (SUCH a challenging song)

- Stand by You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCIybau9qj8 (this is sung by the Drakensburg Boys Choir and have listened to this on repeat over the last few months)

Some weeks I would write a post and the words and stories would just flow out of me - other times it was challenging to work out what I wanted to communicate. Right now I am definitely more in the second situation.
Part of me wants to end this post with a call to action, and encourage everyone to fly to Cape Town and see the things I saw, but I know that isn't going to happen. However thinking more about prisons and justice is something that I can help you with:

Prison Hope - http://www.prisonhope.org.uk/
Prison Alpha - https://alpha.org/prisons
Is it even worth it? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpl84D-uNmY (yes I am including this AGAIN)

As I write this post, it would be easy to get caught up completely in the past. But there is something that is the same right now as it was this time last year and that is Lent.
I committed to the 40 acts challenge in my early days in Cape Town and am going the same here in Bath. Instead of giving something up I am choosing to do a generous act each day. Having this link is really helpful, and a reminder that no matter where I am in the world then I can make a difference.
If you would like to find out more follow this link - https://40acts.org.uk/?result=success

Today I spent the day at uni, met up with Stephi and chatted about gap years in South Africa, was the BEST. Notice my Table Mountain earrings!

Prayer Requests:

- For the water crisis in Cape Town, the drought was causing really difficult problems when I was there last year and has only got worse. Please pray for rain and wise decisions when it comes to rationing and planning for day zero.

- For the transition from President Zuma to the new President Cyril Ramaphosa - may Ramaphosa learn from the mistakes and chaos of Zuma's time. May this mark a new time of justice in South Africa.

- For Wednesday - I have an important meeting, which is scary but hopefully really helpful.

- For hope.

Thank you for making it to the end of my twenty third blog post. I really appreciate your participation on this journey with me.