Sometimes in my spare time I like to check-out the CIA World Factbook : ) The Factbook is a compilation of all kinds of information on every country in the world, ranging from population demographics to world maps to country flags to the latest stats in economic development. I was looking at some stunning photos of South Africa when something else caught my attention. And I don’t mean in a good way.

The life expectancy of the average South African is a shocking 48.98 years. This puts South Africa in 212th place out of 224 countries ranked. Alarming indeed. That number leaves South Africa several notches behind Sudan…and secures its place right between Somalia and Guinea-Bissau. The United States, far from the top of the list, has a life expectancy of 78.11 years–nearly 30 years longer!

Worse yet, Southern Africa includes 7 of the lowest 13 nations… South Africa (212), Swaziland (214), Zimbabwe (217), Mozambique (221), Lesotho (222), Zambia (223) and Angola (224). Just to give you a frame of reference…Afghanistan ranks 219.

Sometimes, in South Africa’s beauty and first-world amenities, I forget that there is a whole other part of the country suffering from rampant HIV/AIDS and high crime rates. [Note: South Africa has the fourth highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in the world. More than 18% of the total population is HIV positive.] It’s easy to lose yourself in all of the wonderful things about South Africa, and forget all of the terrible injustices that occur around us every day.

My prayer is that we’ll be able to rally together as a country, and start to provide practical solutions to these very real problems.

Full disclosure: There are not actually 224 “countries” ranked on the CIA’s list. Macau is listed as number one, despite being a “special administrative region” of China. And the European Union comes in at 41; however, last time I checked the EU wasn’t a country (not to mention they rank all European countries independently…). Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States, ranks 42nd–and the list goes on with these types of “non-country” examples. Nevertheless, it still doesn’t change the fact that South Africa ranks 13th from the bottom.

Last Tuesday we began our second Loan Cycle and corresponding business training and discipleship courses. This is the first group of entrepreneurs who have applied for a second round of loans with our program–so it’s particularly exciting! We’ve known some of these entrepreneurs for nearly a full year, and they’ve really welcomed us into their lives.

During the Pursuit of Purpose Course (the discipleship portion of the evening) the entrepreneurs were asked to share with one another one of the greatest moments of their life. We suggested examples such as your wedding day, when your first child was born and the day you begun your business. Through asking this question, we wanted to help our entrepreneurs understand that oftentimes who we share these special moments with is equally as important as the moment itself. Life wasn’t meant to be experienced alone–and neither is God. We can experience God through relationships, through family and through our communities. 

One of our entrepreneurs was asked to share with the group what one of her greatest moments was and at first she was reluctant. She can sometimes be a little shy, so it’s not at all uncommon for her to avoid speaking in front of the group. But without further provocation, she proudly proclaimed:

“Graduating from Paradigm Shift and getting my business training and discipleship certificates was one of the greatest moments of my life. I finished my coursework for my matric (high school graduation) but never got my diploma and didn’t have a celebration. Graduating from Paradigm Shift has taught me that the sky is the limit. You are never too old to do what you want to do and to accomplish your dreams.”

As I sat in the back of the room, my jaw dropped to the floor. I could hardly believe my ears. In some way, in some small way, my being here in South Africa and working with Paradigm Shift has contributed to one of the greatest moments of someone else’s life. One of the greatest moments in someone else’s life! Not something they enjoyed. Not something they thought was useful or beneficial. One of the greatest moments in someone else’s life! Wow.

By earning her certificates, this entrepreneur proved to herself that she IS smart and that she CAN do anything she puts her mind to it. At the core, our program is about empowering individuals to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. I have never felt this concept so deeply as I did last Tuesday night.

One of the most frequent questions I encounter when I tell someone about the work that we do, is, “What types of businesses do your entrepreneurs run?” Consequently, I compiled a fairly comprehensive list of the types of businesses we have worked with over the past year : ) There is certainly no shortage of creativity amongst our entrepreneurs…!

Selling/renting out children’s costumes

Selling custom promotional clothing

Exporting clothes to Zimbabwe

Running an internet café

Sewing handbags and tablecloths

Tailoring clothes

Designing clothes

Making curtains

Selling handbags/knick-knacks on the side of the road

Designing and creating greeting cards (and other products) from recycled paper

Selling perfume and make-up

Selling airtime for a public phone

Baking scones

Catering

Making jewelry

Selling second-hand clothes

Selling pap (traditional African food)

Selling chickens

Exporting clothes to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Designing computer graphics

Crafting bead-work souvenirs

Styling hair

Doing construction projects

Owning a tuck shop/spaza shop*

Owning a crèche (providing childcare services)

Providing administrative services (typing, printing etc.)

Providing skills training services

Exporting batteries to Zimbabwe

Welding metal services

Landscaping

*A tuck shop or spaza shop is somewhat similar to a community convenience store. A shop owner will sell items like food (bread, soup etc.) in addition to personal items (such as hair products, deodorant etc.). The physical appearance of the shop depends on the community they’re serving. A shop can be as simple as a table outside one’s house, selling random candy and parafin wax, such as our entrepreneur Joseph in Zandspruit. Or it can be as sophisticated an entire room in one’s house fully stocked with everyday essentials and a window that acts as a sort of “drive through” (or rather “walk through”), such as Rose in Cosmo City. This is a very common type of business in townships and informal settlements, where the nearest traditional store may be several kilometers away.

As the Johannesburg Training Manager for Paradigm Shift, a large part of my job is helping to train local volunteers to serve as Business Trainers within our program. Business Trainers facilitate all of our business training materials for our entrepreneurs, including: the Business Experience Course, the Business Growth Course, and the Business Advancement Course. Our Business Trainers are all business professionals with a wide range of business experience and an incredible heart to serve the poor entrepreneurs of Johannesburg. It has been such a blessing to work with them and to play a part in this ministry.

Starting this month, I am sending out a monthly publication called, Business Trainer Times. The purpose of this newsletter is to help the trainers feel connected to one another, to suggest facilitation tips and to serve as a reminder of why we do what we do.

Below you will find the first issue of the Business Trainer Times : ) Click on the image to read the newletter!

Check out this 3 minute slideshow to get a glimpse of my life (and work) in South Africa!

The funniest thing about accents is that it’s nearly impossible to hear your own…

After spending several weeks back in the U.S., I arrived safely in South Africa last Saturday. This past week has consisted mostly of settling back in to things, catching up on work, and touching base with a few friends.

Upon having coffee with a South African friend of mine, she turned to me and said, “Oh my hat! How did your accent get so strong?” Apparently all of the South African inflections and vernacular I worked so hard to acquire over the past few months have (not so subtly) left me. I guess I’ll be spending the next month or so trying to change my phraseology and intonation to once again suit a South African audience. No big deal I suppose, just one of the dangers of straddling two continents…

“And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful.” Luke 6:33-36

Reading this verse recently really challenged me. Jesus totally calls us out here… It’s not hard to be nice to someone who’s always nice to you. Where is the love in that? Where is the grace in that? But being nice to someone who is continually mean to you–or disingenuous with you–now that’s a totally different story. That takes patience. That takes love. That takes God.

And while we definitely hope that people pay us back for our microloans…we don’t want them to pay us back for our sake. We want them to be able to repay for their sake. Repayment is a sign that their business is growing; it’s a sign that they’re able to manage their cash-flow. Of course, the more capital they pay back, the more we are able to lend out to others, but the most important lessons are those of honoring a commitment and learning to plan for the future.

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that bring us the greatest joy.

One such example came when I was at the mall with a friend of mine the week before last. As we were leaving a store, I smiled and nodded to the security guard, saying, ”Hello.” He smiled back at my friend and me and said, “Hi, Sisi. Have a nice day.” I don’t know that I’ve ever been so excited to hear such simple words! The fact that the black African guard called me “sisi” elated my heart and filled me with intense joy. By calling me “sisi,” he instantaneously made me feel welcomed. He made me feel like I belonged. 

Perhaps I should explain…

One thing I deeply admire about African culture is their intrinsic and unrelenting focus on community. Perhaps you’ve heard the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.” This is a great example of how they place a significant level of emphasis on people outside their immediate family. Also, their conception of family goes way beyond our Western construct of a “nuclear family.” In fact, some African languages don’t even contain words that are equivalent to our “cousin” or “uncle.” Instead, the languages refer to anyone who we would define as a “cousin” (e.g., your father’s brother’s son) as either “brother” or “sister.” And someone we would define as “uncle” or “aunt” can be referred to as some derivative of your parent (e.g. your dad’s younger brother might be called your “young father”). [Note: This gets extremely complicated if you're trying to figure out how people within a community are actually related!]

This often translates into Africans calling anyone around their same age either “sister” or “brother.” And if there is someone who is the age of your mother, and you don’t know her name, it’s very polite to call her “mama.” And if there is someone who is the age of your grandmother, and you don’t know her name, you can call her “granny” or “gogo” (Zulu for grandmad). Make sense?

Consequently, by calling me “sisi,” the security guard brought me into his community…and I couldn’t have been more excited!

It’s undeniable. South Africans have perfected the art of the strike. Don’t know what I mean? Let me share with you a story…

Last week my coworker Greg and I had made a plan to head to the post office. We both had nearly a dozen postcards to mail to friends and supporters, and I had a birthday card I wanted to send to my brother. Much to our chagrin, we got to the post office only to find out that the postal workers were on strike and the post office was closed. The Communication Workers Union (i.e. postal workers) had been on strike for several days, yet neither of us had read about it in any of the local South African newspapers.

Upon coming home, I went online to check out the Mail & Guardian, a South African newspaper I have come to enjoy reading. I expected to find an article on the homepage of their website, so I could read about the strike and figure out when it was speculated to end. The homepage hosted several articles about strikes…but none of them were about the post office. Of the ten articles represented on their homepage, four articles were directly related to some type of protest or strike. Yes four. And no, none about the post office.

On the M&G homepage I read: two articles about the military strike in Pretoria (yeah…the police actually resorted to using water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse approximately 1000 members of the South African National Defense Force [SANDF] who were protesting low salaries), an article about 20,000 miners striking at the Impala Platinum Mine in Rustenberg, and an article on a potential strike by taxi drivers as the government introduces a new bus system.

Furthermore, since moving to South Africa in March the following organizations have either gone on strike or threatened to go on strike (or hold some sort of protest):

• Taxi Drivers (twice)
• Construction workers building stadiums for the 2010 World Cup
• JMPD (Johannesburg Metro Police Department)
• EMTs
• South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (rail workers)
• National Union of Mineworkers (several times…)
• Municipal Workers (which included Sanitary workers!)
• South African Revenue Service
• Telkom workers
• Massmart Holdings workers (including those at Makro and Game)
• SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) workers
• Doctors (in KwaZulu Natal and Free State)

And I’m sure there’s more that I missed… Needless to say, going on strike seems to be the norm here. And when you chat with South Africans about one organization or another going on strike, they never seem to be surprised. Afterall, how many countries do you know that have their own official protest/strike dance? Here it’s called the toyi-toyi.

But in all seriousness, I think it’s deeper than simply a desire to strike. During the apartheid era, strikes, along with other types of non-violent demonstrations, served as popular forms of protest. Despite my inclination to be annoyed, I have to admit it’s neat to see democracy in full swing here in South Africa : ) As I ponder more on the relationship between present day strikes and apartheid era protests…I’ll let you know.

Earlier this month Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa, turned 91 years old. Born on 18 July 1918, President Mandela devoted his life to the struggle of his people. Spending more than 27 years in jail (18 years of which he served on Robben Island) as a political prisoner, President Mandela made significant sacrifices in an attempt to achieve equality for all South Africans under the Apartheid-era Nationalist regime. In South Africa, he is revered as a national hero, as well as a sort of “savior of the nation.” Perhaps not dissimilar to how Americans view figures like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of my goals this year is to familiarize myself with South African culture. I am a little embarrassed to admit that my prior knowledge of the “Rainbow Nation” was limited to say the very least. I am currently about two-thirds of the way through President Mandela’s 750-page autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. I am thoroughly enjoying the book and love that I’m learning more about South Africa’s complex and difficult history. Each time I read about an unfamiliar figure I immediately take the opportunity to look him/her up online and to enlighten myself in the moment. I have tons and tons of books on my “reading list,” but I think the next one up is South Africa’s famed, Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton.

Note: Have you ever wondered why he’s called Madiba? Well, as I recently learned, Nelson Mandela hails from the Xhosa tribe of the Transkei region of South Africa. Within the Xhosa tribe, he is a member of the Thembu people. Within the Thembu people, he is a member of the Madiba clan. Addressing President Mandela as “Madiba” (his clan name) is a sign of respect!