xenophobia: fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign
Yeah, so if you don't follow the International News, perhaps you don't know, but there were outbreaks of xenophobic violence last month in the townships here in South Africa. The local South Africans are angry that foreigners from countries such as Somalia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe have come to South Africa and taken their jobs and homes. So they acted out in violence. As a result some 50,000 people from other African countries were kicked out of their homes in the townships and are now refugees living in shelters scattered throughout the cities. There were an estimated 15-20,000 such refugees here in Cape Town. Our YFC volunteers helped serve breakfast and 
lunch at a church (His People) here in Cape Town that was housing some of the refugees for 3 weeks. Now they say most of the refugees have left the church because it wasn't an official shelter, so they've either moved to other shelters, moved back to their homes in the townships (the violence has ended for the most part) or they have went back to their home countries. There are still thousands in shelters, waiting on the government and UN to come up with a permanent solution for them. I read that most want to receive passage to other countries - not their home countries - such as France or Canada, but apparently the UN is giving them the options of returning to the townships or ret
urning to their home countries, which I guess they aren't too thrilled about (I don't blame them!) so some have been staging hunger strikes to try to make their plight more widely known. I don't know what the future holds for them...please pray that God will guide them, the government and UN leaders and that God will turn the hearts of the people in the townships that perpetrated the violence, so it will again be a safe place for people to live!! Here are some pics our volunteers took at His People Church where they were volunteering.....
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