This site is a supplement to www.i3L.org, which is the home site for Ibandla lami linge lakho / My church is your church, which is an effort to forge relationship connections between churches of the KwaZulu-Natal Region of the South Africa Synod of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, and of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ.  This temporary and supplemental site provides a record of Jan and Ruthann Hall's visit to KwaZulu-Natal, August-September 2008, for the 'i3L' effort.

This visit was different than the 'planned' visits of earlier years, but in the event served as a significant reconnection with several of the most active of the i3L relationship churches in KZN.

It all happened most quickly, with the Mass relationship churches alerted only weeks before the trip, by the following message:

[The text below went out on July 3, 2008 to the Massachusetts i3L churches and to the folks at the Conference. A further e-mail was separately directed to those involved with the i3L effort at the Trinitarian (Concord), Townsend, and Westborough churches. The announcement confirmed news of which some of them were already, though just recently, aware; as we said:

We’re going to KZN for a one month visit, leaving August 20. Regarding the plans outlined below, it is with the KwaMashu, Lamontville, and Table Mountain churches that we know we’re planning to worship while in KZN. We’d of course be glad also to bring greetings on your behalf when we worship there – similarly to the arrangements made last year when we visited those churches. So if you wish us to deliver such greetings from you individually or your church when we worship with the KZN church in August-September, please provide text for this to us in advance of our departure! This, besides anything else you might wish us to ferry over for you, as is the ‘offer’ in the following message. Best, Jan and Ruthann.]

The text of the general e-mail to the Massachusetts churches follows:

To the i3L churches in Massachusetts …

“Kepha yena wayengasemuva emkhunjini elele esicamelweni…” Ngokukamarku 4:38.
“But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion …” Mark 4:38.

This may seem an odd scripture reference, but it reminds us of a lesson learned from our time in Africa, which has helped – with the prayers, thoughts, cards and messages of concern, and indeed love of church people both near and far – to sustain us over the past months when, as you know, we’ve been on turbulent waters. The verse is part of Mark’s account of the crossing of the Sea of Galilee, when the storm came up.

Back in 2001, at one of the local church community outreach workshops we helped conduct for the UCCSA’s KwaZulu-Natal Region’s Mission Council, one of the speakers we’d arranged from locally active community organizations was Bongiwe Nzimande, a remarkable woman working to organize mutual support groups for PWA’s – people living with AIDS – in and around Pietermaritzburg in the Midlands of KZN. One of the regular activities of these support groups was Bible study. Bongiwe told of how she had introduced, for discussion in one such group, this story of the disciples’ fear as the wind and waves rose, their waking Jesus and questioning ‘Teacher, do you not care if we perish?’, and Jesus’ rebuking the wind and calming the waves and then questioning why the disciples had been afraid – ‘Have you no faith?’

Bongiwe said she had asked the ladies in the Bible study group what they took from this scripture account. How did they think it related to their lives as people struggling medically and socio-culturally with AIDS?

Bongiwe told the workshop how she had carried with her, forward from the day of that Bible study session, the PWA women’s extraordinary answer to her fairly standard ‘how does that make you feel?’ discussion priming question:

“We think of the boat in the storm as our lives now,” they told her. And what they thought the scripture story meant for them was not that Jesus would make things right for them, but that “Jesus is in the boat with us.” He is with us, they said, as we sail the storms of our troubles.

We have learned much from our friends and contacts in Africa over these past years. This is one such lesson. The insight of Bongiwe’s study group women has helped us immeasurably as we have confronted the difficulties of the past months. And He is with us.

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We have reason to rejoice that many prayers have been heard, and hopes have been exceeded:

We have within the past few days been told by Ruthann’s doctors that the chemotherapy treatment regimen she has been undergoing has done what it was intended to do; that they are ceasing the treatment cycles earlier than originally … threatened, is the word that comes to mind; and that it is appropriate for her to take a several months’ break from this regimen. Monitoring will continue, and how this charts out going forward, we’ll only know in time, but for now, we’re done with the all-consuming treatment regimen that has been our lives for the past months.

The immediate question from this news was whether, if Ruthann’s strength and stamina continued to improve over the next few weeks, we would be allowed a short visit back to Durban? We’ve just been told that yes, this can be done.

We thought hard about this for, oh, maybe five seconds, and have checked flights and accommodations, and have contacted several of our closest friends and co-workers in the KZN churches to discuss the possibilities. And yes, we have scheduled a five-week trip over to visit KZN, leaving from Boston on August 20.

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In our current situation generally, and also in light of the short notice – to us, and of course to you – of this trip, we cannot seek to accomplish, with this visit, the number of contacts with the KZN churches that we’ve done in prior years. In particular, we’re only planning to worship with three or four of the churches with whom we have had the longest working relationships over our years of time in South Africa.

But as always, if your church has something you’d like ferried over to your KZN church, or if you’d especially like us to make contact with someone in that church during our time there, we will be pleased to do all we can to be of assistance in those regards, also on this trip. Please let us know, as soon as possible, if so.

We will not be seeking to chase down communications from you to your KZN church, as you may have experienced with our prior trips. If you wish us to do something, you’ll have to let us know. But if you do let us know that you wish us to do something, and this can be arranged in the time we’ve got available in and around this upcoming trip, we’ll try to help.

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We have received many messages, cards and e-mails and more, from so many of you. These thoughts of concern and assurances of prayers have been a source of great strength to us, through this time.

But while we are aware from some of you, of ongoing questions and events in your connections with your KZN churches, we have been out of communication in that regard with most of you for many months. We hope that you have maintained contacts and connections with your extended church families in the KZN churches, over this time. We have cautioned all along that the ‘mission’ of these church to church connections cannot be, cannot depend upon, contacts through us – they must be, should be, contacts directly between you and the people of the churches in KZN. So our necessary absence from direct involvement in the ‘i3L’ activities over this time, and as may be going forward, should not stop you. So we hope and pray.

We still don’t know whether, and to what extent, we can from this point commit substantial effort to ongoing assistance to the connection efforts over time. We have a number of hopes and plans for such activity, cut short by Ruthann’s illness manifesting itself during this past winter, and we will hope that over the coming time these may be possible. We will let you know, as we know.

But just for now, we have an unexpected, and joyous, moment of opportunity allowing us to share with the people of the KZN churches, in a medically sanctioned window of time, and this we intend to do. If you think that during this moment we can assist your mission of connection, we will do so, as we are able. Let us hear from you, if so.

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To summarize: We’re going to South Africa, leaving August 20. If on this trip you want us to contact your KZN church, or wish us to ferry materials to that church on your behalf, please let us know soonest. We know that this is short notice, and that you’re coming into summer hiatus at your church, but the timing hasn’t exactly been planned … We only just found out we’re going, ourselves!

Thanks again for your prayers and concern for Ruthann and for us over this past difficult time. – Jan and Ruthann.

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In the event, we were allowed to visit and worship with a number of the KZN churches, including those reported on the following pages.

Click on the links in the menu to the left.