Anita and Rick serve in Durban South Africa together with IM partners, the Baptist Mission of South Africa and the Baptist Association of South Africa. They deal with many health challenges especially those associated with cardiovascular diseases, HIV, diabetes, and other health screening services.
Anita writes: For the past few months, we have been training health builders in a squatter shack settlement in Cato Manor.  I have yet to shake a mild sense of claustrophobia when I go down the narrow corridor separating the shacks and enter the one room home of our hostess.  Dirt shows through the broken parts of heavy plastic covering the ground.  On this day, I wonder how I would react if a rat ran through the shack built from odd bits of discarded wood, metal and plastic. 

We start our session by continuing our Bible study with our students.  A neighbor wanders in and joins the study.  Like most of the people in the area, she practices a blend of traditional African ancestral worship and Christianity.  This day we study Deuteronomy 18 and what the Bible says about spiritual powers.  While discussing these things, we can hear a number of voices mumbling together from a nearby shack so I ask what they are saying.  Our hostess explains that her neighbor thought that there was a Tokoloshe (an evil spiritual being which looks like a small hairy man and is widely feared by Zulus) in her shack last night and was terrified, so people are praying this morning. 

On our visits to Zulu homes, we have commonly seen people’s beds propped up on bricks in order to deter the Tokoloshe.  People who are thought to possess spiritual power are paid to pray over things like water, salt and thick black cleaning fluid that are placed around homes to ward off evil spirits.

After the Bible study, we teach the students how to measure blood sugar and keep medical records.  Thandi confesses that she feels shaky.  We encourage her and explain that it is normal to feel some level of anxiety while learning new skills. The students screen some of the neighbors.

Thandi has lived here for five years and hopes that the government will soon provide her with a small house.  Many residents have left children, wives and parents in rural areas so that they can find work in the city.  Diabetes, heart disease, stroke and AIDS are widespread and loved ones are commonly seriously ill or dying.  The inhabitants have no bathrooms, refrigerators, stoves, washers or dryers.  Lately, it has rained on most days which results in a thick slimy mud which covers children when they play outside.  In the windowless shacks at night, no electric lights can be quickly switched on to investigate mysterious noises.  I wonder how people can cope with all of this as it takes far less to discourage me.  

Before we leave, we give Thandi a Zulu tract.  A smile lights up her face as she reads the title, “Ungesabi.”  We remember that it means, “Do not be afraid.”

•    Pray for Thandi and others in her village to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior and to grow in him.
•    Pray for Rick and Anita as they serve the people of South Africa in the name of Jesus.
•    Pray also for their children, Marc (14) and Paul (11).