Pastor Mike

In my early twenties, I got a chance to spend part of a year helping out at an orphanage* in Johannesburg.

*technically not the most accurate word, but this isn’t the time for that.

When I arrived, I didn’t have a set role. I was told I would figure that out with Pastor Mike, the care center’s founder. At the time, though, he was recovering from a foot operation following diabetes complications, so it took a while for us to meet in person. All the while I heard bits and pieces of his story. How he and his wife sold most of their stuff to move into what was perhaps Africa’s most dangerous neighborhood. How they were robbed of most of their things very shortly afterwards. How he founded the center to care for children whose family lives were disrupted, particularly during the terrible AIDS epidemic.

When we finally met, he was the kind of person all those stories would suggest. He gave me a list of teenage boys he wanted me to mentor and he and I would meet weekly. We talked about a lot of things. He grew up in the apartheid South Africa in the 1950s, lived long enough to support kids from the Born Free Generation, and traveled throughout much of Southern Africa. He saw worlds of change.

I learned so much from Pastor Mike, from the persistence of racial division- “apartheid ended a long time ago,” he told me, “but South Africa is still very much four countries.” to the urgency in caring for its kids- “there are many things in life that can wait,” he would always say, “but the needs of a child is not one of them.”

True to his word, when he retired, he moved into the orphanage. It was his idea of a retirement home. He wanted to spend more time with the kids.

A couple days ago, I learned about Pastor Mike’s passing at the age of 74.

I am thankful I got the chance to visit again a few years ago with Deanna and I am so thankful the South African kids I’ve gotten to know grew up with him in their corner. In all the work I do, I’ll always be influenced by his blend of urgency and tenderness, and the way he left nothing in life undone when it could be done to help others.