This week I am in the northern part of S. Africa (Mafikeng—near the Batswana border) on a personal vacation/missions trip.  I am walking alongside an incredible couple by the name of Mike and Michelle Tessendorf.  They are pastors and founders of an organization called Orchard: Africa (www.orchardafrica.org).  It is movement of sustainable compassion amidst suffering and hardship that for many of us is inconceivable.

I wish I had pictures to post but those will come later.  For now imagine looking over row after row after row of fresh graves—children and young adults from one day old to thirty years old. The AIDS pandemic has brought great misery and suffering in Africa, but in the midst of it all is a kind of hope that defies logic.  I’ve been learning so much from Mike and Michelle about causes and solutions and the more I learn the more I realize how little I know.  The issues are as complex as we human beings.  To say I am humbled is an understatement.

I met several courageous, beautiful people today—all HIV+, some with full blown AIDS. To offer them the gift of encouraging words, human touch, and compassion was all I had to offer.  I hope it was enough.

Through Mike and Michelle’s wise leadership they are creating a network of leaders who are addressing systemic problems (overwhelming in many ways) with grace, compassion, foresight and enormous wisdom.  Michelle has written simply amazing curriculum on AIDS for students and has also developed equally effective curriculum to assist children in grieving the loss of parents to AIDS (death, as I have learned, is simply not spoken of in this culture—therefore children are living with enormous trauma by the loss of parents who seemingly just disappear).

I am with friends Herb and Chris Fluharty, a couple in their late 60’s who in recent years decided to step out of their personal comfort zone and get involved in a deeply personal way.  Rather than sitting comfortably on the substantial resources God has entrusted to them, Herb and Chris are giving and serving in ways that both inspire me and humble me.  They are living examples of what I talked about in the series we conclude this weekend (Oct. 2, 2011)—MOVE.  

But what impresses me most is the wisdom of God at work to bring long-term, sustainable solutions to deep, systemic problems.  Coming on a trip like this and getting all emotionally entangled in a way that results in “shoot from the hip” solutions won’t work.  In spite of my best efforts I keep spouting off ideas like, “What if we…” as if a thousand people before me haven’t thought of that!  Sometimes I want to smack myself.

But Mike and Michelle have made a long-term commitment, and with that comes experience.  And with experience comes wisdom.  And with Godly wisdom comes Godly solutions.

Though I am here on personal vacation and orchard: africa is not a Bay Pointe partner, I am honored to meet, know, respect and love leaders like Pastor Jephthe Lucien in Pignon, Haiti, Pastor Benjamin Francis and Pastor Robert Tamang in Kolkata and Siliguary, India, and now Pastors Mike and Michelle Tessendorf in Mafikeng, S. Africa.  

Amazing people doing amazing work in the name of Jesus.  What an honor to be a small part of it all.