When you are in Johannesburg on a Sunday and with a minister,

You are not sleeping in. One of the women working at Nkosi’s Haven invited Linda, Leigh-Ann, Greg and me to her church in the township of Soweto. The Riverside Church in NY played an important role during apartheid, sending payments to the African National Congress. Later, it, and Linda, twice hosted Nelson Mandela – once right after he was released from prison in 1990 and then on his last visit to the U.S. a few years ago. It has been wonderful to trail her around, as she knows many people and seems to be very well-loved.

Soweto, like all of Johannesburg, is sprawling. It really just goes on as far as the eye can see. We passed Winnie Mandela’s house there, on the way to the church. What seemed amazing to me is that many blacks still choose to live in Soweto, even as they become more "affluent." Driving around, you will see everything from tin shacks, not fit for dogs, piled on top of each other, to relatively nice, albeit modest, homes, to a few homes of the obviously more wealthy - all in Soweto. It seems that the first upgrade people make as they move up the income ladder is to surround their home with a wall and a Fort Knox-like gate, then they renovate or build a new home on the same property. But they don’t move. (Like everything I'm finding here, the reasons are complex. I'm sure this also is a result of market forces and property title issues.)

Our driver got lost on the way there so we were 45 minutes late (which, in my opinion, turned out not so bad a result, since the service lasted from 9 – 12:00). We were treated like honored guests and had seats at the front of the church reserved for us (which was uncomfortable, walking in late and then leaving midway through to find a bathroom, but at least we were with Linda). The service took me a little aback. It was very evangelical – I could have been sitting in the United States. The preacher started his sermon talking about people’s "confusion," these days. What are people confused about? Homosexuality and gay marriage. I could not believe what I was hearing, sitting there in Soweto - where most live in extreme poverty - and the lesson that day is about the sins of homosexuality!?!? But, for those 3 hours, looking around at the several hundred in that church who hung on every word of that preacher, they seemed happy in the moment and alleviated from what might be their situation in life - the church seemed to be giving them that at least...