The Website of Miah and Michelle Collins

We live in a mobile world. I was reading a book chronicling the life of a faithful missionary to South Africa a couple of hundred of years ago (I wasn’t actually reading it a couple hundred years ago). When he left England it was seen as his final departure. There was very little likelihood of him ever returning to his home country, and he never did.

As I sit here in a coffee shop in South Africa, Michelle is back in the States just months after our arrival here, to be with her family as they mourn the loss of Michelle’s grandmother and family matriarch. I’m waiting eagerly for her return on Tuesday.

Michelle and I have settled into a church home. Acts Church meets at a farm house about half an hour’s drive from where we live. The church is about a year and a half old and a lot of the J-Life staffs attends there. John, our ministries’ director, is an elder there.

It is a privilege to have an English speaking home church. When you live here, you realize that English is just one language among many, and although many people here speak English, those of us who would prefer to watch the news, write a love letter, or speak to God in English are in the minority.

I always have felt I’m a small church kind of guy caught in a mega-church so this is a real pleasant change for me. People speak candidly during services about common subjects like depression, crime, economic strain, questions about the future of the country and the constant lure of “the lucky country,” more commonly know as Australia, as well as New Zealand, the UK and the USA. (When America or Europe experiences an economic shakeup, a country like South Africa feels it much worse because developing nations are considered “risky markets” and economists tend to avoid them when there is global economic insecurity as we are experiencing now.)

Michelle and I have found ourselves drawn to this church where a great majority of its tithe goes to projects outside of the church. They are also not interested at all in attracting people from other congregations. It is the responsibility of every person in the church to build meaningful relationships with people in their communities. Once a month the church gathers together not for a service but simply to share a big breakfast which has earned them the nickname “the breakfast church.” I enjoy that a lot.

Over the past week or so a wild fire of violence against immigrants has been sweeping across poor areas of Johannesburg and elsewhere around the country. There is said to be 2 to 3 million Zimbabweans living in South Africa along with many others from across Africa, India, China and the Middle East. Foreigners have been blamed from everything from crime, to stealing jobs and girlfriends. They say about 50 people have been killed so far. I left the controversial issue of immigration in the States and found it quickly gaining attention here. When I realize how much foreigners are despised around the world, and then I realize that we are also a foreigners where we live, it makes me very thankful for the many people who have treated Michelle and I with so much love and hospitality over the past four months.

Michelle and I will be going to neighboring country, Swaziland this weekend. I am excited for Michelle to see the place and the people for the first time. Then we will be going on a trip along the east coast to visit teams and meet with pastors and church leaders to talk about J-Life.

We continue to pray for Zimbabwe, our neighboring country to the north, which will hold its “run-off” election soon. We also remember our friends there: Richmond, Nhlanhla, and Terasiah, who continue to trust God in incredibly difficult circumstances.