Dispatch Cape Town: Tuesday, May 24

It was my mistake, and I take full responsibility, and I’m sorry. That was my speech to Jeanne a few minutes ago. I misread our rental car return time and our ticket a week ago, and I determined that we had to be at the Cape Town airport at 11:30 a.m. when we actually return the car at 2:30 p.m. and the flight is at 7:30 p.m. So here we are at another airport—a really pleasant one though I argued—instead of a few more hours exploring (meaning shopping) in Cape Town.
But let me back up, as usual. Sunday morning we woke up in our Franschhoek cottage, had some breakfast (our newfound really good muesli and yoghurt and boiled eggs), packed up (again), and headed for church in Stellenbosh, just 30 minutes away. We had arranged to meet Al Plantinga’s brother Terry and his wife Jane for church that morning, and lunch at their home afterward. Terry has been living and working in SA since the early 90’s. Jane, a native South African, had fled “(wiping the dust of my feet”) after college, and decided to come back with Terry, who fell in love with the country, when it was clear that apartheid was over, feeling a deep urge to participate in building a new society.
We met then in the beautiful and historical old university town of Stellenbosch in a small United Church just around the corner from the huge Dutch Reformed Church. The United Church is a union of the Bantu Congregational Church and the Presbyterian Church of SA (begun by Scottish immigrants back in the 19th century). In other words, the church is involved in a continuing effort to bring together Reformed Christians across racial and denominational lines. Jane is the Education Director of the congregation, Terry teaches a class, and son Adam plays clarinet in the orchestra.
It was interesting to be back in a Protestant church for the first time in nearly two months of traveling. The service began when an elder brought the Pulpit Bible to the lectern while everyone stood—no question about what’s important here. David, who’s been Pastor there for about the same time I’ve been in South Bend, appeared in a long Presbyterian robe with the distinctive bow at the neck, but all white instead of the typical black. The service began with the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy,” which warmed our souls to sing on that Trinity Sunday (Holy, holy holy, blessed Trinity.” One difference Jeanne and I both noticed was that the service was very much Pastor led, with very little participation from the congregation apart from the singing. I believe this is typical of Scottish Presbyterians, and David was very well prepared with slow and deeply thoughtful prayers all through the service. He preached on Deuteronomy 5 and Matthew 5, focusing on Jesus’ statement that he had come not to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.” The sermon very rightly and evangelically focused on the person of Jesus as the one who keeps the law perfectly on our behalf and enables us to follow, rather than as the one who demands that we keep his new and stricter version of it. It was deeply a thought and deeply felt sermon which we appreciated. Of course, there was a hole in the service, especially after traveling so long among Catholics—you guessed it, the Eucharist. We’ve always loved the weekly Eucharist, and this trip has made that even more important. This trip has also often given us the daily meal of Christ’s presence.
After the service, and a brief tour of the old town, Terry took us to his home up in the foothills above Stellenbosch. What a lovely setting! No matter Terry had invited us to see his little corner of paradise, Not that it was ostentatious at all, but a simple dwelling, surrounded by overgrown gardens, with a view of granite peaks pointing straight up for the valley. There were a few others for lunch, including a woman whose husband had been murdered a couple of months earlier in his office at the University of Cape Town by a disaffected employee.
Jeanne was having trouble keeping up with her folks by phone, and it looked for a little while that she might have to return early. Terry and Jane were so hospitable, sympathetic, and helpful with their advice (it turned out that Jeanne does not have to interrupt the trip early at least at this time). The next day Terry discovered that his own aged mother (and Al’s) was gravely ill.
Sunday afternoon it was off to Cape Town, the third great city of South Africa after Jo’burg and Durban. This remarkable metropolis is built around several very large granite peaked mountains that occupy at least 40% of the city’s land. This, of course, is Cape Town’s most appealing feature, and every visitor must take the cable car (or the four hour hike) up Table Mountain for a spectacular view of the city and all the way down Cape Horn to the tip. That’s true when the weather’s good, which it was not during most of our visit. We did take the cable car up yesterday in the late afternoon when it looked clear at the top. About 15 minutes after we got to the top the cold winds brought in the dark heavy rain clouds that sometimes cover the mountain like a “tablecloth,” and then they parted for a spectacular view complete with rainbow.
We shopped, went sightseeing, just watched people on the street, bought some food for a destitute woman and her baby, and took in the ambience of the city. Like Durban, terrible shanty towns spread out onto the “flats” south and east of the city, which you can see from the highway—miles of them, with “street” lights and miles of wires looping off them to the huts below. One of the biggest of South Africa’s problems is the 40% or so unemployment, and its biggest source is that black South Africans were displaced from their rural homelands to work in the mines by whites, breaking their ties with the land and agriculture. So now they swarm to the cities, trying to get ahead. The conditions are appalling, but the spirit of the people is amazing.
Well, the flight time is finally slowly getting closer, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to reflect and catch up on my blog. We’re off to London and then Scotland, where we’ll spend a day with the Torrances in St. Andrews who many of you remember, and then to Iona on Saturday.