Navigation

Our team left the hotel in Sandton early on Wednesday October 18, allowing for a generous time budget to arrive safely on-time to the start of a Purpose Driven Church conference for local Gauteng east-side provence pastors.  The conference, organized by Pastor Titus from Memelodi was held in the township of Springs at the Covenant Christian Church.  We planned for an on-time or early arrival because our team promised to help with the greeting and registration process.  We also planned to engage the pastors in supplying information for a spiritual and ethnic mapping of their district.  As advised and requested from a few sources, this mapping can help churches and evangelical groups to plan and to work together effectively to reach the communities.

After quite an adventure, we arrived early for a late starting conference.  Our drivers had GPS navigators, but they proved useless after leaving the highway and turning into the neighborhood.  No street signs and no house numbers exist in the neighborhood.  We immediately resorted to cell phones, calling the event organizers for directions.  Unfortunately the organizers were from out-of-town and not familiar enough to really help.

We happened upon a local police station.  The drivers went inside to get help.  The information given was vague and not sufficient.  Continuing on, we stopped a few different locals to ask for directions.  The locals were quite willing to help, but their directions led to no success.  

Finally, we ran across a police car on patrol.  We asked them to please lead us to the Covenant Christian Church.  We followed as they led us out of the maze back to a recognizable start point.  The police then instructed us to call once again the church pastor on our cell phone.  Tell the pastor the named street that we are on located between the gas station and a sports field.  The pastor should then then guide us to his church.   

Wow.  What would happen if a shooting, or crime in progress was reported at the Covenant Christian Church?  Would the police be able to respond?  The instructions from the pastor did successfully navigate us.  When we arrived, we saw that the church had no sign identifying itself.  In this community, churches, homes, and streets are not identified.  Local knowledge is essential for getting around.

This navigation scenario is strange and cumbersome, but represents a good metaphor for life.  We lose our way and often rely upon our own instincts and possibly ask advice from whoever we run across.  What did the police finally do?  They took us back to a recognizable place and instructed us to communicate with a source of truth.  When we are in trouble, we need to retreat to a known good place and communicate with God, the source of truth.