Salty Print and Mark Stephenson – at last!

June 25, 2007 Monday

By the way, about current events in the country…
There is a public workers’ strike going on, which affects (at least) teachers and nurses. Students have missed at least three weeks of school, which they will need to make up during their break/vacation (“holiday”).

The restaurant near our hotel has a sign on the door that says there is a shortage of LPG gas due to a “full refinery shutdown”. I am not sure what that is about yet.

Arriving at Salty Print
“Transforming Paper, People and Places”

As we needed a bit of assistance to find this place in the city (not hard; we just lack orientation), Gavin ran out to wave us in. I was SO glad to see that man, now a familiar face on God’s good earth (even if we had just met him last week)!

And finally I met the Rev. Mark Stephenson, who leads the Salty Print ministry, a printing press-related operation described as a “non-profit, employment-creation project of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa”. There we met Tami, Vincent, Lindsay, and many others. Mark showed us some of the work there, and highlighted some city landmarks and loaned us his detailed Cape Town map book to help us navigate a bit more independently. He also took time to sit down together for conversation. A theme we heard from Mark, echoed in the Salty Print project-description booklet, is the need for

1) Inspired leadership;

2) Critical partnership; and

3) Passionate commitment.

We have Mark’s map-book, so we will have to see him again.