I went on a vision trip to South Africa two and a half years ago. It was an incredible experience in several ways. First, it’s absolutely amazing to get on a plane here in the States at the end of Fall when the leaves are falling off the trees and it’s getting dark at 5:30 at night and then arrive 20 hours later in a land where Spring in full bloom with jacaranda trees and their beautiful purple colors decorating a scenery where it doesn’t get dark until 8:30 or so. I’ve travelled all over the world, but that seasonal change was the closest thing I’ve ever felt to time travel. Second, the trip was full of visits to incredible missions. We saw an AIDS clinic, orphanages, two seminaries, a school and met with local entrepreneurs in 3 different areas of the country, mostly with the accompaniment of Michael Cassidy (a man who has been referred to as the South African Billy Graham). It’s in the third way that the trip impacted me though, that is the inspiration for this blog.

South Africa is a land of incredible contrasts, mountains and oceans, lush beauty and dry deserts, but no where is the contrast stronger than in the differences between rich and poor. When I mean rich, I mean very, very rich. Johannesburg has the nicest residential neighborhoods that I’ve seen anywhere. Huge mansions look like they’ve been plucked from the English countryside and put into a lush garden that unlike Britain, in in bloom 9 months out of the year. We stayed in one of these incredible homes during several nights from our trip. During the day we went into the townships and saw squalor that would shock most and deplorable living conditions that have only since been matched by what we saw in India recently. At night we’d come back to our host families and have dinner.

I’ll never forget one of the hosts asking me what we had done during the day and I replied by telling them that we had been to Alex Township. They replied “oh, and what’s it like there” I couldn’t believe that they had never been. They shared the same faith as I, and I had thought were moved to take care of the poor, but they had never been to a township which was two miles away from where there own house stood, and I had travelled across the world just to see it! I didn’t say anything at the time, but I couldn’t believe it.

Fast forward to 1 year later. I’m in Durham and someone says to me something about a new project at the corner of Angier and Driver. Where’s that I ask?  Then boom, just like that I’m hit with a bolt of sudden awareness of my own hypocrisy. The only thing worse, of course, would have been being told this from visitors from half a world away who had come to serve in my own backyard. Alas, this has, of course, happened. Ever see that great brick fence around the Good Samaritan Inn? It was built by a church that sent a group from Michigan—a group that now knows what some of our downtrodden neighborhoods look like and how to serve them and frankly in some (and many) cases more so than we do.

At DurhamCares, we’re hoping that the new DurhamCares trips initiative will help to serve as a way for Durham residents to learn about how they might serve together in the world through 12 trips going to places like Guatemala, India, Uganda, and yes, South Africa, as we think it’s very important to live out the broader definition of neighbor as taught to us in the Parable of the Good Samaritan where a stranger from a foreign (and hated) land came to the aid of the wounded traveller, but it’s the initiative to take DurhamCares trips to DURHAM that has us most excited. We’d ultimately like to scale these up to 1 a week and give Durham citizens an opportunity to learn more about the city in their backyard. Through these trips led by local leaders like Elaine Bushfan (Durham’s Chief District Court Judge), we’ll see what’s going great in our neighborhoods, who’s transforming the city, and what still needs fixing. Most of all, we’re hoping that this trip might serve as a catalyst for groups of folks to get involved in encouraging and supporting the initiatives that are building momentum, and working hard to start yet new movements to come alongside other people to fix what hasn’t yet been tackled.

Please check out the Trips section of the site at: http://www.durhamcares.org/index.php/trips and please tell a friend.

Thank you for loving your neighbor!

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