Words cannot express the gratitude that I feel in my heart to God for giving me the opportunity to experience the motherland. We are all so thankful for what we were able to experience together. We will forever be connected because of the memories we shared. I personally thank everyone who shared the journey with me; both persons who traveled via plane and those who traveled via blog!

Yesterday was a long day. It began with a flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg, then from Johannesburg to Washington IAD with a stop in Dakar. We arrived safely and without incident to IAD, only to learn that our flight had been cancelled because of the weather. We were given three options, we could stay the night in Washington and be rebooked on a flight that would leave IAD the next day at 4:47pm, we could travel by Amtrak at a cost of $143, or we could try standby on a flight to Newark. Minister Leslie, her brother, Laurianne and her mother chose option one. They left the airport for the Hilton hotel, where they could rest, relax, and recoup for a flight the next day. The rest of us chose option three; we chose to fly standby into EWR. As we stood at the counter waiting patiently for the agent to key in all of the necessary information, we continued to smile, and some of us began to sing a song we learned in South Africa:

I press toward the mark of the high calling,

I’m pressing forth to reach my goal.

I press toward the mark of the high calling,

I press, I press, I press,

I press, I press, I press.

I believe it was our attitude of gratitude that allowed all six of us to make that flight! Of course we made the flight, and with seats to spare!  On top of that, the six of us would arrive at Newark airport 45 minutes early! Praise the Lord!

Honestly, after reflecting, I realized that this was a journey that reminded us of life’s lessons; lessons that many of us learned as children. Lessons that help us to live in God- the lives we were created to live! Lessons on love, laughter, kindness, patience, giving, gratitude, forgiveness, fearlessness, selflessness and humility. Thank you God for these gentle reminders of what life is all about. Thank you God for another opportunity to live in love. Thank you God for the freedom that we have in you! Thank you God that we are an ever evolving community of visionaries and dreamers, who have been called by You to live the lives we were created to live, commanded by You to love beyond the limits of our prejudices and commissioned by You to serve!

Thank you First Corinthian Baptist church for your prayers, love and support that accompanied us on our journey! Thank you for the journey we took together! We love you all!

Blessings~

In the beginning God created. . . we are God’s creation! ‘From the very beginning, Lord you created us to worship you.’ And we worshiped God yesterday in our flying. Dawn, Katrice, Laurianne, Sharon and I soared with the eagles and flew with the angels. What an amazing experience! I would do it again and again. With tears of joy Dawn said, “we actually jumped out of an airplane. . . if we can do that, we can do anything.” She continued to speak about the jump helping to break the chains of fear; fear of rejection, failure and the unknown. Laurianne said that she felt like she was “in God’s arms.” Katrice said that in the beginning of the year she told God that she wanted to fly, and it came to pass. Sharon was the most fearful of the group. She actually was on the bus to go to Cape Point and asked the driver to pull over at the next safe area where she could get a taxi. She said, “I could not miss this. I had to live.” When I opened my arms in the air, it was as if my whole body opened up, and I felt like my spirit had been waiting my whole life for that moment! We were all very thankful and very appreciative for the opportunity.

I wrote yesterday’s blog at 3am after I finished packing, so there was one additional experience that I wanted to share. Katrice and I were in the ‘Green Market’ looking for a stand that sold shirts. She saw the stand some days before, and wanted to return to purchase a souvenir shirt. We looked for the stand, but it appeared that the owner had already packed up and left for the day. So we asked a lady standing in front of us about the stand. She looked at me and said, “I know you. You look so familiar.” Since I had never been to South Africa before, I was thinking, is this my distant cousin who recognized me in the Spirit? Now that would have been a story to tell. She then asked me, “Did you preach at New Faith Church on Sunday?” I smiled and responded, “Yes, I did.” She said, “that is my church, Pastor Jerome is my pastor. . . you were such a blessing to me. God put a word in your mouth that blessed me!” She went on to say, “Please pick something from my shop that I can give to bless you.” I was overwhelmed. She gave me a beautiful bag. As we continued to talk, she said to Katrice, “I cannot just give one blessing. How could I do that? Please pick something for yourself as well.” Utterly amazing! We both were blessed by our sister, Bibich. When we asked her what her name meant, she couldn’t think of an English word to describe it, but she described it as, “like a fish in water before it is caught. . . like fresh.” What a beautiful name for a beautiful spirit. What a wonderful ending to a wonderful day!

We have experienced the joy of returning home; a journey that our ancestors could only dream of, but never experience. Thank you God for our ancestors: those that paved the way for us. Thank you God for our ancestors: those that sacrificed their lives so that we could one day return home! I believe that they are smiling down upon us at this moment. What a day of rejoicing that will be, when we worship God together in Glory!

Well, we are now sitting at the Cape Town airport, waiting to board our flight to return to New York. Please pray for traveling mercies for us all!
Blessings~

Words cannot express the gratitude I feel in my heart to God for allowing me to experience the joys of South Africa. I will be forever grateful to Rev. Jessica Ingram’s invitation to First Corinthian to join her on this journey. I believe that when you are obedient to God’s word, the benefits are apparent in the overflow to others. “You anointed my head with oil, and my cup runneth over.” Thank you God for the overflow.

Last night, after I had already written the blog, we had another amazing experience. Now I know you are saying, “Rev. LaKeesha, just how many amazing experiences can you have over there?” My answer is, I don’t know, but I am going to try my best to find out! We attended “A Red Event with a Golden Purpose”; a dinner event at the Gold Museum that was planned by Rev. Mia Wright. Everyone was asked to wear red. For a moment it looked like a Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. sponsored event – shout out to all my Sorors! Actually, the red represented the continued need for HIV/Aids awareness.

Rev. Mia spent some time sharing how we could help the cause here in Africa. I will share that information when I return. The gold represented the great heritage of the kings and queens of Africa. The evening included an interactive drum lesson, a tour of the museum, and dinner, with African singing and dancing. The dinner was a traditional African meal, enjoyed family style. The appetizers included spiced tomato soup with corn pot bread, potato and pea samoosas with chutney cream, peri-peri prawns with oranges, ostrich keema shish kebabs with dhal and smoorvis. The main course included West-African peanut chicken, spiced sweet potato wedges with marsala spice, morog with coconut and peanuts, couscous, roti, and carrot salad. For desert we enjoyed golden boeber and fresh fruit platters. It was an amazing night!

After a good night’s rest, we rose with plans to go on a tour to see the dynamic views of Cape Point. Most of the group attended the tour, and had a phenomenal time. They saw ostrich on the road, and had an opportunity to see the seals, up close and personal.  The rest of us chose to go a different route! We remembered the words of our pastor, words that included; being visionaries and dreamers, living life to the fullest, taking risks, and seizing the divine moment! I will let the pictures speak for themselves. However, know that this was one of the most spiritually high moments that I have ever had in my life! I am now just a bit jealous of the birds! I love you all!

What an honor to rise once again on these distant shores. I woke up this morning with a smile on my face, committed to enjoying these last three days in South Africa. We started our day by going to Table Top Mountain, but unfortunately, due to the strong winds, we were unable to travel to the top of the mountain. We did get some great photos from the base, and took in the incredible scenery.

We left the mountain to go to Robben Island. I sat next to a couple who were traveling the world in eight months. I had never heard of such a thing! People actually do that? I guess they do! They were from Norway, and South Africa was their first stop. They will continue on to North Africa, Asia, Australia, and North America; with the highlight of their trip being Tibet. They will actually be in New York in September, so of course I invited them to FCBC.  Perhaps we will be able to meet with Roel and Priscilla during their stay in NYC. They shared that they will embark upon twenty flights in all, for a total of $3,900 US dollars. They booked stays in hotels, bed and breakfasts, and some hostels. I can’t wait to hear more about their journey. Isn’t God amazing; while we were on our journey, we would meet others on their journey. I hope this gives some of you ideas about seeing the world!

Robben Island, the place where Nelson Mandela was in prison, was another awesome experience. In fact, our tour guide, whose name was Sparks, served six years on Robben Island while Nelson Mandela was there. He said that he went to prison in 1983, (when he was seventeen) for terrorism; as he and other students were fighting for their freedom. He shared many memories with us, but I would like to share two of them with you. The first was that there were Chinese, African and Colored people in prison at the time. Colored people are persons who are mixed with other races so, for example, if a person had a black mother and a white father, or a white mother and an Indian father, that person is considered colored, (even still to this day). He said that in the winter, the Chinese and the Colored people were given long pants, a long shirt, socks and shoes to wear, but Black people were given short pants, a short shirt, and no socks or shoes to wear. He also shared that the meal portions for the Black people was less than that of the Chinese and Colored people.  Now what do you have to say about that?

The second and most powerful experience that he shared was truly a lesson to me on the act of forgiveness. He began by sharing examples of the guards’ cruel treatment toward them. On several occasions he was given a punishment and a thirty day special diet for not following the rules. A punishment meant a beating with special instruments and kicking, and a special diet was two portions of porridge; one in the morning and one in the evening. Then he went on to say, “I am now friends with the same wardens who were so cruel to us.” When I asked him how that happened, he responded;

“When I came to Robben Island, Nelson Mandela asked us what we were going to do if we got out of prison. I told him that I would get revenge. He said that is not the way of our people. We do not seek revenge or hold grudges. We must forgive, or else we will be at war forever. . . it was very painful when I first saw them, but now our children play together.”

Unbelievable! I was so humbled by his testimony, (although, he may not have been aware that he was giving one). I thought about how so often we don’t even forgive people for the smallest acts. I considered how we hold grudges for what to him, would be considered insignificant. Although we are hurt, our pain does have a profound effect on our lives and our perspectives. What a lesson to learn about what God requires of us. “For as you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses”. – Matt 6:14-15 – This is an example of the word becoming flesh!

SMH at unforgiveness~

God is. . . Today we traveled to the Balm of Gilead Center in the township of Wallacedence. This center was a vision that was given to Rev. Dr. Jessica Ingram. We had an awesome life changing experience. We were divided into six teams; registration, food distribution, clothing distribution, toiletries, door monitors/runners and evangelism, which included praise team and preaching. We also offered blood pressure monitoring, diabetes monitoring, HIV/AIDS testing, TB testing and a domestic violence workshop. We arrived at the center at 8:00am and left at 4:40pm. It was a long day, and it took the combined effort of everyone there to accomplish the task. Thank you God; I asked the ladies (who were not sleeping) about their experience of the day.

Sharon served on clothing distribution; where the women were able to choose a bra and one additional item. She spoke of how the women would enter the room and began looking through the clothes. “Several women picked out something for themselves, but when they saw the baby clothes, they would put back their clothing item and pick out an item for their child.” Keemya experienced a woman who randomly walked over to her. The woman said to her, “I want give this to you.” Then she handed Keemya a silver open bracelet. She smiled, and said to Keemya, “every time you look at this you will remember that you got this from Africa!” This was a woman who was in line to get food. She ended blessing Keemya with a gift and a memory that she would treasure for a lifetime.

Akira worked as a runner, bagger and door monitor. She said that the experience that sticks out most in her mind, is when she had a lunch break and was given two pieces of chicken and a bottle of water. As she was eating, she said there were children staring at her. She shared her chicken with three of the children, and was surprised that they did not care that she had already eaten off of it. “They were so grateful, even for the water that I already began to drink.” She said that she had mixed emotions as she watched some people wait on line for hours to get food. “But they did not complain. The only time I ever saw people wait on a line that long was to vote for Obama.” Then she just shook her head, and rubbed her braids as she flashed back over the day.

Dawn worked with registration. She and her team registered over four hundred women, and she said that she was most moved by the joy and hope that she saw in the eyes of the children. They had so little, but yet, they were grateful for what they had. There were four ministers, including myself, who had the opportunity to do a sermonette of about twelve minutes.  The Lord really blessed us, and the ladies were on fire for the Lord. When I preached, the women clapped, shouted out, and were with me every step of the way! After I finished, we sang a praise song, and Rev. Jessica began to speak to them. She asked how many of them spoke English. Out of about two hundred women, only fifteen to twenty raised their hands. I got goose bumps because I realized that God’s spirit is universal. Although many of them could not understand the words I was saying, one would never know it by the way they  responded. The spirit of God truly extends beyond language barriers. Praise the Lord! I am grateful!

Blessings~

Praise the Lord everybody! Praise the Lord. That exhortation made everyone here laugh yesterday, so I thought that I would open up again like that today. It’s hard to believe that we have only been here seven days. The time difference seems to have the days running together, so seven days feels like two weeks to us. But it’s all good! We are having a great time.

Today we worshipped at New Faith Ministries with Pastors Jerome and his wife, Dawn Campher, and their congregation. It was an amazing experience. Pastor Jerome and Pastor Dawn birthed this ministry, and they just got into their new building two months ago. They are finishing the building together as a congregation. From the pulpit, in addition to encouraging the members to give, he also asked for volunteers to paint, level the floor, and lay carpet. The congregation responded overwhelmingly with hand claps and shouts of joy.  The pastor arranged for members of his church to transport us in three cars from the hotel. Katrice, Akira, Laurianne, Mother Lumsby, Keemya, Sharon, Dawn and I were off to worship with our sisters and brothers in South Africa!

The service was wonderful! The praise was exhilarating! The message was on time! One soul came to Christ! Praise the Lord! I won’t tell you about the sermon I preached because it is coming back to FCBC, lol. Katrice was at home at New Faith and strongly encouraged the people to ‘get up and worship God,’ today! At the close of service, the pastor asked me to come back to preach at their evening service at 6:00pm.  As you can see in the photo, I was extremely tired. I was concerned that I might fall asleep in the pulpit. He assured us that there would be plenty of opportunities in the future! Wow! We had an amazing time and I am grateful to God for this divine opportunity!

Praise God for whom all blessings flow! Thank you all for your prayers and comments! Gregory, your wife rushes to my room daily to check out your posts! Mom, thank you for always believing in me, even when I didn’t believe in myself. You are truly a gift from God! Cheryl, Tohma and Shellyce; I do believe God will give us the opportunity to have communion together in South Africa before we leave this earth! Tanay, you are truly an inspiration to all young people! A special thank you to everyone who has posted thus far! We look forward to reading your responses! We love you all!

Blessings~

I neglected to share that on the plane ride over here, I met a pastor from South Africa. He actually walked over to me, and asked if I was a preacher. He said when we were in the airport, he overheard someone say ‘reverend’ in our group, but he wasn’t sure who the person was addressing. After takeoff, he said he felt it was me. After some conversation, Pastor Jerome Campher of New Faith Church Cape Town, extended an invitation for me to preach at his church on Sunday (tomorrow). Now of course we were thirty thousand feet in the air, and less than thirty minutes outside of New York, and I was getting a preaching engagement?? That was crazy to me! He said he had never extended an invite to someone he didn’t know, but he felt the Lord was leading him to have me give a word to the people! What?!

I was overwhelmed! I told him that I would pray about it, and we exchanged information. I asked Reverend Jessica Ingram, the organizer of this journey about Pastor Campher, and realized that it is a small world. Apparently, she knew him because he had preached at her convocations on two occasions in the past several years. So, after prayer, confirmation from Rev. Jessica, and support from my husband, I accepted the engagement. Interestingly enough, he also does a radio show on Saturday nights from 12:00am to 1:30am. He likes this time slot because he finds a unique opportunity to speak to those brothers and sisters who are unable to sleep, and are lying awake because their minds are not able to rest. He asked me to call in for an interview and to give an encouraging word to his audience. So, it is 1:00am here and I just finished speaking with him on Radio KC, 107.7 FM, on his program entitled, ’Shooting the Breeze’. It was truly a divine opportunity and I am grateful to God for his divine favor. Sometimes, I think  I forget that, ‘I am the beloved of God. His favor rests on me, and in me He finds favor’. Thank you Pastor Mike for those words of encouragement!  And. . . of course I gave a shout out to my dynamic Pastor, Reverend Michael A. Walrond, Jr. and the First Corinthian Baptist Church family!

When asked what I wanted to share with the audience, I reminded them that we serve a God who neither slumbers nor sleeps. If we know that God is awake, we should also know that we can rest a little easier. God is so amazing! Tomorrow morning, I will be preaching, worshipping and praising with the Faith Church, Cape Town family. Please pray that God gives a fresh word for us all on tomorrow!  Also, isn’t it ironic that we have a praise team here with us in South Africa? Keemya, Sharon, Katrice, Laurianne, and Akira will be singing, ‘You Are An Heir’ and ‘Created to Worship’.  I heard them practicing tonight and they sounded wonderful. I can’t wait to see what God will do on tomorrow. This was a set up!

Blessings

Ironically, God met us there, because when we arrived, there was a sign at the entrance that read, “Raphael’s,” with a picture of two swords beneath it. For those of you who don’t know, Raphael was one of the archangels whose primary assignment was healing. His name together with those swords, made me realize that sometimes, we have to “fight for our healing.” Before we went into the estate, God met us with words of life! We had a great time, and the scenery was breathtaking.  When we turned the corner, we saw hills, mountains, water, and green, green, green everywhere.  It was majestic! Truly a work of the Almighty God! I thought, if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains! Faith Moves Mountains! Wow! I also thought of Jesus teaching on the Mount of Olives. I wonder if it looked like this! There was certainly enough room for thousands in this place! In my mind, I could see Him teaching the multitude here.

While we were at the winery we also had the occasion to meet Giurlo, a Dutch South African, also known as an Afrikaan. Interestingly enough, we were able to have conversation with him about how he felt about apartheid. He was very honest, which we appreciated, but we were not too pleased with his response. He basically said that it was not a big deal to him. Since he was born in 1985, he was only a child during the protests and rioting. He said that his father and grandfather both thought it was a ‘noble’ idea, but he thought it was stupid. Then he said, “The problem is that we named it. You all have racism in American right? If we hadn’t named it apartheid, it probably wouldn’t have gotten so much attention.” Well, we thanked him for his honesty, and thanked God that Sharon didn’t pull out a sword!

We also went to a women’s convocation tonight at the Sun Hotel. There were over three hundred women worshiping and praising God together, with only thirty-nine of us from the states. We praised, prayed, and worshiped together the one true God who created us all. There were familiar songs including “How Great Is Our God” and “Alpha and Omega”. We also sang African songs. My favorite is “Jalo, Jalo.” When interpreted the song means ‘always pray, always give, always praise the Lord.’ It was amazing to sing songs of praise in different languages to God in community with our South African brothers and sisters.  The speaker tonight was minister Amanda Buys, who delivered a message called “Standing Steadfast In the Faith.” She talked about how our experiences give us ranking, and our ranking gives us anointing. The interpretation is, the greater the suffering, the greater the anointing.

We ended the night by having room service. Chicken noodle soup and rolls with butter. A nice ending to a beautiful day!

Peace and Blessings~

We rose this morning, packed our bags, and left Johannesburg on South African Airlines flight 327 at 11am to travel to Cape Town, South Africa. We arrived safely in Cape Town at 1pm and made our way to The Table Bay at the Waterfront Hotel. Katrice, who took this journey for the first time in 2008, told me the hotel was immaculate, so I was very excited to see where we would be spending the next week. When we arrived at the hotel, I realized she was not exaggerating! We were given the keys to our room and up we went. Now Katrice said in her previous visit, she stayed in a room that faced Table Top Mountain. She talked about the glory of the room.  I walked into my room expecting to see the glory of those beautiful mountains. Boy was I surprised! When I walked to the balcony and opened the curtains, all I could see was water. Our room faced the beautiful waters of the Atlantic Ocean! In Johannesburg, we basked in the red soil, the dust from which we were created. Here in Cape Town, we bask in the waters that carried us to another continent. I am excited to see what Cape Town has in store for us!

While our stay in South Africa has been great so far, there is one more thing I want to share. On the way to the airport today, our tour guide Meshach, shared his true feelings about our visit to South Africa. His words were very deep, and truly pierced our souls. Meshach said:

“We are going to miss you. I can’t believe this. Let me say this to you. God made everything possible for us. It was God’s plan for you to have an opportunity to come to the Motherland. And tell our other brothers and sisters who are still making their plans to come over, that we are waiting for them!  And it will be possible to happen actually. So here is home! You have fulfilled life expectancy to be home!  We love you all. I can say this to you. I’ve never got an opportunity to go out of Africa to the states.  So it is going to be in my future plans to do that. You know we as South Africans are not a well traveled society because of Apartheid and many factors that contributed to that. And me as a tourist guide. . . it poses a challenge because I ask myself, you know initially, it was only meant for rich people to travel, but I was wrong. When I got into tourist travel, I realized that people save up for years. And that it is possible, I can also do it. So one day you will see me walking down your neighborhood.  That is one of the things I will do in my lifetime. . . We have learned a lot, especially from your side, because if you look at it, we’ve got the same kind of struggle. Because a lot of times people would wonder, how are our brothers and sisters in the states? How do they manage? . . . In Africa there is no late start. We are making our advances. . . How do you suppose that you are actually far more advanced than we are? We are learning. We are coming. We have a lot of work to do.”

What profound words from our brother! What profound words from our home!

Blessings~

So, day three – first of all we are exhausted because we only got four hours of sleep last night. But we were up early for a nice full breakfast; I had banana nut French toast with eggs and bacon (for all of you who love food as much as I do). Then off we went! We met in the lobby to leave at 8:30am – again which would be 1:30am EST.  We began by going to Soweto (acronym for South Western Townships). We visited Nelson Mandela’s house. We were all overwhelmed by the history of the house. There were bullet holes still in the brick from when police shot at Winnie while Nelson was in prison. There was also a trash can top with bullet indentures in it from Winnie holding the can to the window to prevent the bullets from coming into the house. The guide’s name was Oarabile, which means ‘God has answered’. By the way – that is my adopted African name now, Oarabile. She gave us a plethora of information about the Mandelas, their family and their home. For example, Nelson’s father was married to four women at the same time. Also, Nelson’s third and current wife is in the book of world records as the only woman to marry two men who were presidents of a country at the time that she married them.

Oarabile also shared with us how the umbilical cords of Winnie and Nelson’s children and grandchildren were buried under a tree in the front yard next to where we were standing. She went on to say that it was an African tradition to bury the cords to connect the children to their ancestors and to the land. I immediately got chills. Why? Well, after I gave birth to my son, Tre, my mother asked me if I was going to bury his umbilical cord under the tree in front of my grandmother’s house.  When I asked her the significance, she responded by saying, “It ties the child to the family. If you bury the chord, the child will never leave home in his heart.” Of course as a nineteen-year-old twentieth century female, I was not at all interested in keeping that tradition, especially when I didn’t know where it came from, and it just didn’t make much sense to me.  Only to find out today that it was not a Texas tradition, but an African tradition! What?! I was speechless: I got chills… All I could think about was the missed opportunity. When I went over to share what my mother told me about Tre’s cord, her response was, “You are African.” I began to think about the strength of my own family and extended family to carry such a tradition down through the generations. I was closer to Africa than I thought.  Even though I did not participate in the tradition, I still know of it; another connection to my homeland. I have an African/family tradition that I can pass on to my own children. What they do with the information is up to them; but they will know of their own connection to a time before we were Americans; before we were slaves!

As we ate lunch, one of the ladies said to us, “Welcome Home!” -  Another tearful moment for me.  I felt like she was genuinely glad that we were here. I said, “Thank you!” She responded, “They didn’t think that we would ever see each other again.” I smiled, realizing that she was absolutely right. They thought that the sea could keep us apart. How wrong they were. In that moment I appreciated even more the resilience of our forefathers. I was proud to be an American of African descent.

Blessings~