MINNESOTA - NINE - SOUTH AFRICA - TWO
A Cape Town Visitor Comes to the Twin Cities: November, 2000
Background
This is a story of eleven people, men and women who live very different lives, but people who, as some of us believe, were invited to participate in a small miracle. Two of the eleven people live in South Africa and one, Spiwo Xapile, lives in the township of Guguletu, home to 330 black (Xhosa) South Africans citizens. The other, Jan du Toit, is a white Afrikaner Professor from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. All the others are Minnesotans, 2 nurses, Kristin Grage and Leone Flaa; a nun, Sister Joanne Lucid; a priest, Jim Cassidy; a travel agent, Kiersten Chace; a business woman, Pat Murphy; an agency director, Kevin Winge; an insurance worker, Rita Commodore; and a retired volunteer, Chuck MacDonald. These nine people in two separate trips went to South Africa and each can tell you their stories of the journey, and of the man we all call Spiwo. What you must know for the story to make any sense is that Spiwo, a 42-year-old black Presbyterian minister, had never met anyone from Minnesota until the first group visited him in July. After the second group came, Spiwo decided that on a pre-arranged trip to the United States, he would make changes and fly north to see, talk, touch and be with these nine new friends, who he believed would somehow help him and his desperate race to save his people.
Wednesday, November 15, 2000
Spiwo Xapile came bouncing down the runway on the wings of inspiration. As he arrived we were having our first snow and putting on our winter emotions. His goal was to see these men and women who had come to his country and spent time with his people. He had shown them the orphanages, clinics, hospices, the streets and shacks of the township that housed his people, and now he wanted to know more about us. Spiwo and charming warmth go together.
Wednesday evening he was the guest of honor at Beth MacDonald’s party for him and when 35 guests finished eating, they sat quietly as this man from the homeland of Nelson Mandela talked about growing up in an Apartheid system. His was a fatherless childhood, explaining that his father worked in the copper mines and came home briefly, once a year. He spoke of his own fears when he became a father since he had no role model. He talked about how Apartheid had destroyed black family units so that so many young people today in South Africa have no concept of family relationships or basic moral codes. He talked about the devastation of HIV/AIDS and the rise of an orphan population or of young men and women at 14 or 15 left to raise their bothers and sisters with little or no resources because all the others have died of AIDS. He thanked the nine Minnesota friends who had come to be with him and when he finished, Father Cassidy stood beside him and told him that we would help. Taking a deep breath Cassidy said, “ I will promise to raise $160,000 and that money will build a building so that your people will have some place to come to learn, to meet, to gain some support, to find ways to survive.”
The J L Zwane Centre for Training and Development is a blueprint of a building desperately needed because Guguletu has few, if any, such structures. Spiwo and most other experts know that the primary source of helping the people of South Africa will be through education. There are not enough medicines and there is no vaccine. The more they can reach through education, the more they can save.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 20
Sometimes we run across people who as they move, seem to bring life with them. Spiwo Xapile is one such person and each day he had many experiences and brought life to each event. Spiwo is a tactile man, he wants to see and he wants to touch. It was very important that he experiences those things that his Minnesota friends represent, so I drove him to St. Joan’s and we walked through building’s hallways so he could feel the spirit of those that might help him. He had to go where Kevin Winge worked at Open Arms of Minnesota so he could understand and see men and women who would come to pick up meals to feed the sick. Spiwo repeatedly said that he wanted to see Pat and Leone, he wanted to talk to Sister Joanne, he wanted to see Kiersten and Kristen and Rita and he wanted to meet their friends and families and all the others who had helped.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2000
In three days time Spiwo Xapile had many Minnesota experiences. He had coffee at Maria’s on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis and talked for an hour with three men who mostly sat in awe of this humble man talking about his people and of finding ways to save them. He sat in a very small chair and spoke Xhosa to a group of 5-year-olds at a Montessori school. He brought tears to the eyes of a reporter who interviewed him, he garnered a promise from a high-end government operative to visit his people next August, and he eloquently spoke to some 70 people at Open Arms of Minnesota about the rising crisis in South Africa. The staff at Open Arms had anticipated about 20 people to meet Spiwo but by 6:30 that evening the room was full. Those present not only heard Spiwo talk but he was joined by a woman from Cameroon and another from Zimbabwe, both attesting to the rising crisis of HIV/AIDS in their respective African countries.
I, Chuck MacDonald, was his host and driver and I had the best seat in the house. I sat with him at a restaurant one evening and listened quietly as he talked about his two grown brothers and their struggle for food and work . I listened to a poignant story of his first experience wearing shoes at 14 years of age. When I drove him from one appointment to the next, he would ask me wonderful questions like what I thought of God or what is the core message of the gospel. He always asked these questions when I was in the heaviest of traffic on 94 or the Crosstown. Once he fell in the slippery new snow and he enjoyed telling everyone for the rest of the day, pointing to me, 
that the White Man had pushed him down. He would walk into a room and people would warm to him. Always, always he would bring the plight of his people. Always, always he talked about each of the nine people who had come across an ocean to be with him and his people. He talked about Kevin and Sister Joanne and that they would bring others and come back in February to see him. He seemed to be so proud to have all of these people as his friends. When Father Jim Cassidy announced that St. Joan’s would raise money for Spiwo to build a building . Spiwo got up the next morning and announced, “ I did not sleep all night and I did not mind because I lay awake and thought about the building and I could see my people and I felt hope.”
Saturday, November 19, 2000
Two men drive to the airport mostly in silence, one white, one black, but brothers in a cause. For almost three days they had been together rushing around the Twin Cities to meet those that might somehow help. Their time together was at an end and the bond between them had become very strong, so that leaving was painful.
When I dropped him off at the airport, he said to me, “Chuck, please tell them all that I can never thank them enough for their hearts. Tell all of them that when we dedicate the building, that Jan and I hope that some, or all of them will come to be with us”. The next day I was told that one couple who had met and been with Spiwo, had called all their grown children and told them that for Christmas, any money that might have been spent on them, to be sent to Spiwo’s cause. All of us can tell stories of Spiwo Xapile and his friend Jan. All of us who have gone to South Africa are dedicated to helping in any way we can.
-Chuck MacDonald
| If you are interested in making a donation please make your check payable to: St. Joan of Arc( with a notation to African Mission) and mail to: St. Joan of Arc 4537 Third Ave. S. Mpls., MN. 55409 Attn: Father Jim Cassidy |
See the Reports from South Africa
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