The Ceiling Light

It's currently 11:44 PM and I have spent the last hour in my double size bed staring up, thinking, gazing and contemplating my bedroom’s light connected to the ceiling of a solid, sound, well-structured South African home.  Oh how I take such a seemingly insignificant structure for granted.

Today I visited the informal settlement in Johannesburg called Zandspruit. The benign term “informal settlement” doesn’t even begin to paint the picture of the poverty, hopelessness and brokenness that exists in this community. As we drove closer to this informal settlement, I started to see this densely populated area with makeshift buildings not really thinking that tens of thousands of people actually inhabited these structures. These homes were extremely small, held up by a mixture of cement and tin and many without electricity. Some homes may have had outhouses but many do not have running water. There were stand-alone shops everywhere where people were selling everything imaginable just hoping to get enough money to get by.  It’s shocking to think that actual people live every day in this situation.  It opens my eyes to a completely new perspective when I come back to the comforts of my South African bedroom.

But the irony of it all is, as I sit in my light illuminated, cozy bedroom in Northcliff while utter darkness covers the electricity-less Zandspruit, there does shine a small ray of hope, of redemption, of change in Zandspruit. While we were there, we visited two entrepreneurs who have been impacted tremendously by the ministry of Paradigm Shift.  We spent 2 hours chatting, enjoying the company of Francinah, a 57 year old go-go (grandmother) who has developed the business skills to sell adorable baby onsies in SA and in fair trade retailers in the States. We meet Sylvia, who manages the 29 person cleaning crew of Zandspruit who has aspirations in the future to take her passions for bread making by managing a bakery. These two individuals, having God-given skills, talents and passions were helped tremendously by the coaching, mentoring and encouragement offered by Paradigm Shift. While these are only two stories amongst the thousands in the community, God is doing a work. We also trained a group of highly qualified, God-fearing, business professionals to launch the first stage of the Paradigm Shift program this Saturday in the Zandspruit.  This will be opening up the door of future opportunity to the thousands in the area so that more stories like Sylvia and Francinah can arise.

While we all may be blind to the amazing blessing of the comforts that we inhabit, let us also not be blind to the work that God is doing in individuals lives even among the most poverty stricken, seemingly God forsaken areas.