I wrote this yesterday, but waited to check with my friends before publishing it.
I'd like to take a nap. I should sleep while I can. Devin has been sleeping very poorly the last three or four nights. Last night was better because we gave him some Tylenol before bed, but he still seemed uncomfortable when he woke up. I mostly kept him right beside me - with his head on my arm - because he seems to sleep best that way and I didn't want to take chances.
The reason I'm not sleeping right now is that I was listening to some radio coverage about the life of Nelson Mandela while taking Liam to school. I tried to explain to Liam why Mandela was important. The best I could think of was to compare him to Martin Luther King Jr. Liam decided that he liked Mandela but "hated" the people who disagreed with him - or at least their ideas. I tried to help him see that hating people isn't the answer, but didn't get far into that discussion. Hopefully it's a truth he can see lived out around him.
I thought I might cry when I was talking to Liam about Mandela, but I didn't. I was thinking of my friends Noel and Jean Livesy and the impact they had on my life. Let me explain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up.
I met Noel and Jean when I was seven years old. We were in Singapore where they and my parents were in "orientation" with the mission group they were both with. This was the beginning of life in Southeast Asia for all of us. Our family had three kids. They were my parents age but had not had kids yet. They were from South Africa. They were "colored," a term which was not un-pc in their country the way it is here.
I called Noel and Jean "Uncle" and "Auntie." That was normal in that community - a term of respect. But it was more than that in this case. They felt to me like an uncle and aunt - like my aunts and uncles who didn't have kids of their own and enjoyed the times they spent with children they could play with and spoil a little and give back. Auntie Jean loved to have her hair combed and played with - a "job" I was good at. Uncle Noel showed up at my birthday - the first one in the dorm in Manila, away from my parents. Somewhere I think we have a picture.
I'm not sure when I became aware of the political situation in South Africa. I learned that Noel and Jean had trouble getting support from SA because of regulations about how much currency could leave the country. Something, I think, to do with international sanctions due to apartheid. Over time I learned about the oppression and injustice that was formalized in that system. It was actually years before I met a white South African - after the situation in the country had changed.
But because of Noel and Jean South Africa seemed to me like a magical and beautiful place. Because their home was filled with laughter and friends and good food. Because they made time for a little girl who's whole life was changing. Because giving affection and friendship always seemed to be their greatest pleasure. That's how I thought of South Africa.
Of course as I grew up I learned that no place in the world is enchanted. Each place is as beautiful or kind or ugly and cruel as the people in it. And every place in the world is full of people who make it all of those ways all the time. But South Africa's transformation under the leadership of Nelson Mandela helped it maintain a sort of charmed place in my thoughts. Something magical must have happened in a country where a man who lost so many years of his life to cruel incarceration could work to bring about such a move toward equality and justice.
Noel and Jean are back in South Africa now and through the wonders of social media I can see pictures of their kids and hear about their ministry to farmers in their homeland. I learn from Uncle Noel a truth that should be a surprise to no one. That even when the formal and legal barriers to equality are torn down social and financial ones continue. That problems entrenched over generations will not be solved in a few years or even decades. It's a truth that the U.S., with our first black president, is a prime example of.
But I feel hopeful about the future of South Africa. Not just because of what has already been accomplished. But because I know that in at least one household friendship and laughter and love are being practiced and extended with passion and joy.
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