Not long after arriving and getting settled in Durban, the COPT team started to fill our schedule with a variety of special events and recurring weekly events.  Sister Yvette van Rooyen emphasized that she wanted us working in areas that utilized our strengths.  As such, Hannah soon became a regular at the Christianenberg school in Clermont where her love for children and skills as a healthcare provider intersected perfectly in a health class.  She coordinated gift bags containing a variety of items.  Each week, the kids received a new item (soap, toothpaste, stress balls homemade out of balloons) that complemented the lesson for the week, and at the end of the year they got to take home their bags.   

One of the special events Hannah was asked to lead was a health seminar for the gogos (grandmothers).  This session was attended by 70 women who traveled from Marrianhill, Lamontville and Clermont to attend the event.  Hannah presented an interactive session focused on the mind-body connection and how various activities (exercise, reading, crafting, conversations with friends) can support physical, mental and spiritual well-being.  Everyone enjoyed good conversation, dancing and eating lunch together.

Hannah also supported the Lamontville creche (preschool) where she helped coordinate arts and crafts activities and assisted the regular teachers in their duties.  The creche is an important part of COPT’s mission because it teaches children the value of education, gives them a meal and provides spiritual value through lessons and music.  It gives the children a safe place to be while their parents are working and is an avenue whereby COPT connects with the community and forms relationships with parents.  This was especially evident at the creche graduation where family members were invited to the Good News Center to  witness their adorable children “walk across the stage” in caps and gowns, then perform Bible  songs they had been practicing all year. After the graduation ceremony and performances, everyone enjoyed a lunch at the Good News Centre and we had an opportunity to greet the parents and get to know the neighbors a little better.

One of our favorite things to do in South Africa has been to visit the home of Lihle and Rosie, a brother and sister couple who were first described to us as the “Priscilla and Aquilla” of the Durban ecclesia - a real husband-and-wife powerhouse.  Rosie, Lihle and their children live in the Inanda township where they host a Bible class with their neighbors every Tuesday afternoon.  There’s a range of attendees including young women with infant children, a Pentecostal preacher and several gogos (grandmothers).  

The class usually begins with informal chit-chat and questions that reflect the neighbors’ careful reading of scripture between the weekly sessions, such as questions about vegetarianism prior to the Noahic covenant, the Hebrew calendar and the significance of the archangel’s trumpet to mention just a few of the thought-provoking topics.  Other times, the questions seem to reflect issues in the culture; for example, one gentleman wanted to know about the witch of Endor after the account was invoked by someone to support the practices of sangomas (practitioners of traditional medicine that can be very influential in the Zulu culture).

After our class finishes, Rosie appears with an enormous pot of chicken biryani.  She has been cooking since the predawn hours and now it’s time to feed the neighbors.  Rosie’s boys carry the biryani and a folding table up the hill to the main road where a queue of thirty or more children are already waiting in anticipation.  This number swells once the food is dished, but before anyone eats, Rosie speaks to the children in Zulu.  I ask Funo for a translation and he explains, “she’s asking how long Jesus was in the grave.” These children get a taste of the gospel: there is hope in Christ’s resurrection, there is love in a cup of cold water offered to the little ones (or hot biryani, in this case) and there are good people modelling Jesus’ example even in troubled communities like Inanda.  

The demographics of South African Christadelphians have changed significantly over the years.  The Durban ecclesia was once composed mostly of members with European ancestry but many of those families have emigrated to places like New Zealand and Australia. Now the ecclesia predominantly consists of Africans with ancestry from KwaZulu-Natal (the province in which Durban is located) as well as immigrants who came to Durban after fleeing violence and warfare in central Africa.  Many of these brothers and sisters were first introduced to Christadelphians through the Bible Education Center (BEC) in Durban, and some even continue to work there. 

On my first day at the Durban BEC, Brother Bright brought me to a plaza near the city center where open air preachers can be heard.  There was a Pentecostal gentleman preaching when we arrived, but upon recognizing Bright, he wrapped up his message and invited us to speak to the audience sitting around the fountain area.  Taking in the scene, I observed drifters looking for work, vendors selling food and trinkets, city officials on break, men sharing pulls from a bottle, and another young man, nervously leafing through his Bible and rehearsing lines as he waited his turn to preach.  This last one wasn’t from our group, but it was inspiring to see someone taking their responsibility to teach so seriously despite their evident discomfort!

Christadelphians are not the only Christian church in town, but the others tend to emphasize signs and wonders, and a gospel of prosperity. These messages do well considering the rampant poverty; median annual household income* in South Africa is $5,217 and Durban has unemployment of 26%**. Still others preach that the Zulu Isaiah Shembe (1865-1935) was the manifestation of messiah to the African people, presenting a strange but powerful opposition to biblical Christianity that leverages cultural pride, blends African traditional beliefs and offers an alternative to those who perceive Christianity as a religion for Europeans.

Despite these competing messages, the BECs are full of regulars who attend classes with Bright and Lihle and other brethren who teach seminars on a variety of topics throughout the week. These brethren are well-known by the community in which they preach and are respected for their bible knowledge and ability to explain challenging ideas in the light of scripture.  Hannah and I hope that our visit to Durban encourages these brethren to persist in their efforts so that in due season they may reap an abundant harvest.  

Our brothers and sisters in Durban have been so welcoming and hospitable to us.  They are eager to bring us into their world and share the challenges and rewards of serving Christ in this environment.  We hope that our visit has been refreshing for them in some ways, but also recognize that they have been laboring in the Lord’s vineyard long before we arrived and will continue long after we depart.  Upon reflection, we recognize that much of the benefit of this experience has actually been to Hannah and myself:

1. Though we have despaired at the unfruitfulness of preaching efforts back home, here we clearly see the power of God’s word at work.  It is incredibly encouraging to see firsthand the blossoming faith of those who are responding to the call of the gospel.  

2. Whereas at home it seems possible to cloister oneself in a segment of society that’s a step removed from many social problems, here it is impossible not to see the real problems of sin and out-of-control human nature.  This fills us with renewed gratitude for Christ’s redeeming work and the saving grace he provides.

3. Recognizing our desperate condition apart from God’s grace and our responsibility as his agents, we have seen there are so many opportunities to be an extension of his hands and do good to all people and especially to the household of faith.  The COPT team takes this commission to heart and we are inspired by everything they do.

These are all things we probably knew but now see with greater clarity and more vivid color than before.  It is important for us to actualize our beliefs and transform them from being theoretical concepts we assent to and turn them into a living statement of faith that pervades every activity and behavior of our life.   When the time comes for us to return home, we seek to take these lessons with us and serve our ecclesia and community with a renewed sense of purpose and determination.

Ben and Hannah Link
Durban, South Africa

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* Phelps, Glenn, and Steve Crabtree. Worldwide, Median Household Income About $10,000. Gallup, 16 Dec. 2013, https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-household-income-000.aspx.

** Magubane, Thami.  40 percent of unemployed people in Durban have given up looking for jobs.  IOL, 10 Sep. 2021, https://www.iol.co.za/mercury/news/40-percent-of-unemployed-people-in-durban-have-given-up-looking-for-jobs-20e5a3d6-2749-4a88-bdcd-512c0c12dece