South Africa Pilgrimage: Homeward Bound

Making sense of a remarkable experience

On top of Table Mountain

I am currently sitting in seat 54F on the South African Airlines flight to Melbourne. I am sitting next to Andrew Braun who helped coordinate the Pilgrimage and has been back and forth between Australia and South Africa seven times in 18 months.

Yesterday we met with the team who pulled the event off. It was great to be able to celebrate what worked well and name what could have been better. At the end of the day Jo Ireson shared some of the thinking about what comes next, and it was clear that Fusion South Africa is off and away.

There are two communities in particular that I am proud that Fusion will be having an ongoing work in. Atlantis near Capetown is a very poor community that we were told Fusion’s programs would never work in. During the pilgrimage our teams connected strongly there and it is clear that Fusion will have an ongoing work in Atlantis.

Alexandra is one of the more famous Townships, in fact Mandela himself lived there earlier in his life, but again it is a community in significant need of hope. I wrote earlier about Stella, a remarkable woman who I admire greatly. We will be continuing to work with Stella and be aiming to grow the work in Alex as a base that can support others.

These are just two of the communities we will be having ongoing contact with, there are many more.

The Fusion headquarters will be in Athlone, Cape Town, where a very entrepreneurial local man, Derek Trout, has agreed to be part of the National and continental leadership.

Another highlight for me was to see the way that the team were looking at the whole continent. Fusion Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa will be working much more closely together in future.

One of the recommendations that the African Leadership has made is that we have another pilgrimage next year. One of the things I am left with is the firm belief that the South African story is one not only for the whole of Africa but for the whole world.

We are also exploring whether the pilgrimage might have two streams, one for younger people who want to serve and engage with the “real” South Africa and another for leaders who will engage with South African leaders and explore the journeys of Ghandi and Mandela in particular, as well as engaging with life in the country.

I wouldn’t normally go into this level of detail about my work with Fusion, but I think I am still processing what it is that I have just been involved with, and I thought you might be interested in what the outcomes were.

Mostly what I love about the last couple of weeks is that I have seen afresh how much people are hungering for the Kingdom.

I also love that when Fusion is at its best (and it was here a number of times) we bring hope.

Thanks for travelling some of this journey with me. I will get back to more normal “blogging” tomorrow.