From: Richard Wyngaard [mailto:richard@stmartins.co.za]
Sent: 01 September 2006 10:15 AM
To: MANDISA
Subject: article for website

 We are the future, the present, the now. Our struggle is over. But now we have a new struggle; drugs, money, alcohol and HIV. The world is not an easy place to be.

You have to fight, fight to be listened to, fight to be heard, fight to worship God the way we want to. Our elders tell us to be quiet, to have some respect. But we are young, we are loud and we have energy. So our young people run to the places where they are welcome, in the arms of liquor and dagga, the shebeens and the streets.

The shebeens never tell us we can’t celebrate, they never tell us to be quiet. Instead they tell us to dance and shout and be happy. And when we are sad we turn to the arms of our boyfriends and our girlfriends. Why won’t our leaders understand, if we could be ourselves at church then maybe our needs would be satisfied. Sometimes we think even God doesn’t understand us!

Is God an old man, stuck and rigid like a dead tree? NO! Jesus was a revolutionary, like Mandela, Sisulu and father Huddleston. He stood up and shouted at those who were stuck in their old ways! He changed the world, and he was a young person, he died young. He lived young. He had the first youth group. His disciples were all young people. He believed in young people. He loved them … and he loves us. In all our brokenness, our post-apartheid struggle, he hears us. 

We still cry FREEDOM!, AMANDLA! This is our time, this is our generation. This is our CHURCH!

We call on the leaders to let us have our freedom. Let us have our place in the church, let us worship God with dancing and shouting and very loud music. 

Without young people, sooner or later there won’t be any church, we will lose the struggle and the world will win. Instead our young people will go to their shebeens, their drugs and their HIV, they will go. And then the church will be dead.

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