A slight correction...

I apologize to all who read the article from the World Update that may have noticed a problem with Stuart McAllister's quote. I somehow mixed his words with mine, put them both in italics and then didn't finish the sentence, only to finish it in the next paragraph. It was missed by the editors somehow.

Hope (from a World Update article)

A short time ago I received an email asking me to contribute a short article to the World Update for Hope International Missions. They said the theme was hope. I agreed to do it and normally would have been at a bit of a loss, but I had just been reading Where Is God When It Hurts by Philip Yancey and the topic was on my mind. I had also just read one of RZIM's daily readings on the subject of hope, written by Stuart McAllister. So, here is the article, or almost the same article.

The concept of hope is nothing new to anyone. In the world it is a currency heavily damaged by ‘inflation.’ Like a country printing limitless quantities of paper currency with nothing to back it. The word “hope” is thrown around as political promises, song lyrics and even vague church rhetoric with no transcendent basis. One political party uses it as a second-rate stump speech and the other as mockery.

I typed the subject #hope into my twitter search bar to get a little feel for what the internet is saying about this word. The results were varied, at times ludicrous.
@Derekitsbieber #Its worth livin if @Justinbeiber my inspiration my everything is not following me: (#Its my 780 tweet to him :) #Hope he follow me now:)

At times humorous
@ramyakannan It is my dream that, one day, I will wake up to mail without spam. #hope

At times ignorant
@inna_yy I want to be fluent with my speak english \(•Δ•)/ #hope it

At times heartbreaking
@hibaFatimaa How can parents bear seeing their children walk through the door every morning, hoping they’d come back home safe? #Pakistan #hope

At times heartbreakingly hopeful
@louiegiglio Remembering my precious mom, Martha Jeane Giglio, a legend of faith and faithfulness. I love you! #Tearsmixedwith hope

John Moe once said; “Sometimes I think the web is designed to be a massive documentation of stupid people getting angry about stupid stuff.” There is a lot of “talk” that goes into the web, but at the same time something is coming through, as you read down through these tweets you get a feeling for the longing that is there. Clearly I do not take my cues from the internet, but I began to wonder; what is hope? If I tell someone on the street that I can bring them hope, what am I saying?

What is this hope? If I say I hope for this or I hope for that, am I wishing or am I making a valued judgment based on concrete evidence of events to come? Stuart McAllister of RZIM put it this way;

…hope as it is defined in the Christian worldview is more robust than a wish, more fixed and sure than a vague longing. It carries the idea of delayed but guaranteed fulfillment. It is the kind of assurance that something set in motion will, in due time, come to fruition. The farmer sows in hope that the seed, though buried, will produce a sure crop. Similarly, the Scriptures ground the concept of hope in the nature of who God is, what God has done, what God has promised.


So if we are taking hope to the world, as our name suggests, what exactly are we delivering? May I submit to you the only surety, the only real hope any of us have in this life, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Take away Christ’s death on the cross and his redemptive work and we have nothing. There is no amount of compassion or social justice, fundraising or humanitarian aid that will provide hope. Gather all the secular humanitarian aid work and place it next to one drop of the blood of Jesus and it pales in comparison. We take hope to the world because we take Christ with us.

Leather

I thought I would show you all a little of what I do to unwind. Whenever I get a chance, usually on a long weekend or holiday, I like to do leatherwork. Working with my hands is for me relaxing and since S.W. van der Merwe has quite a few different stamps and awls and various other tools of the trade, I am able to have a lot of fun with it.

This was the first item I made this year. It is an idea I got from a custom leather site for an iPhone case (if your interested click here. I wanted an extra case besides the Otterbox that I use for my iPod, so I created this. The front design I just made from a combination of stamps.

I tried to make another cover that I could actually use the iPod while in the cover (Otterbox and all) but it was poorly designed. If I ever get it redesigned and made, I'll include it here. If you want to see more of the iPod case, check it out at my photo blog here.

This is something I made recently. In between the third and fourth school terms we had a one week holiday. Delani was had in-service courses at her school and could not come to the farm until that weekend when my parents arrived, so I stayed on the farm and just relaxed. In between helping S.W. with farm work, going into town for some projects and just generally taking it a bit easier, I worked on this. It is a saddle as well as back scabbard for an old Winchester .22 single-shot.

In action...

I also worked on a butt stock slip cover a few weeks before that.

If you want to see a little more of this, check it out at my photo blog here.

A rambling update...

I thought something on the lighter side of life wouldn't hurt after the last post. I thought perhaps an amalgam of the last few days or weeks here in Africa. My parents came as my father does every year to visit the mission and my mother was able to come along as well. It was wonderful to be with my parents again. As usual, though, I took very few pictures and if you would like to see cute candids of us on the porch or perhaps drinking coffee while downing unhealthy amounts of chocolate at our favorite little oasis, Living Life; then you will have to subpoena the records from my parents camera. I am terrible at hauling my giant Canon to such events.
Here is a picture of my parents and Delani plotting out our future in what will hopefully (a few dollars and hours of toil later) be the future mission residents of Mr. and Mrs. Howard (not my parents, if you get what I mean).

That's us if anyone is particularly slow today.

My parents were able to bring several things of mine that I had been wanting them to bring. In fact, as I type I am kicking myself for not being like my sister over there in Korea who always takes all these great photos of everything she does. I could have had a picture of the back of my Rav-4 in the Johannesburg airport, stuffed to the rafters with suitcases that largely held my junk. Anyways, I was able to get my Bose stereo as well as several books that I had been longing for. I also got M&Ms and chocolate chip cookies (you just gotta love moms).

We attended an in-service training session with Dr. McElwain that was very inspiring and helpful. The subject was, Jesus as the Master Teacher.

My Dad and Dr. McElwain had a pastor's retreat that weekend, but I stayed behind to have a chance to visit with my mom. I was also looking after and feeding S.W.'s cattle that weekend with Joreth while he was away and I woke up Saturday morning to have a restful day with my mom. I fed the cows and hopped on the horse to go see the cows down below. When I did I saw that a fire that had been put out the night before, had flared back up. I turned the horse there, tied her off and crossed the creek and tried to put out the flames with my shirt, but they had already gone from fledgling to full-blown. So, I spent the majority of my Saturday, not visiting with my mom, but fighting a fire on the side of this little plateau. A bit of dehydration and one massive headache later and I was able to visit a bit.

And this is just a great picture of Bok.

Today, we climbed the mountain behind the school for PE. I like this shot. I will try and put more up on my photo blog. Thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend.

Dancing with...um...on the Dictators

Qaddafi. I have known that name nearly as long as I can remember. I don’t think I knew how to spell it until the events of the last couple of months. I suppose it was familiar to me because of growing up a few thousand miles from his regime, but perhaps it was because we were more likely to hear BBC growing up than Rush Limbaugh and American news sources haven’t always focused too keenly on Africa and its “(less than) benevolent” dictators.

Thanks to Steve Jobs (another recent major news item), I am able to read the news most mornings from sources like NPR, Fox News and The New York Times-I like my news varied. This can be a bit depressing since I can only do this on the internet as soon as I get to school, but it helps me feel a little more connected with the world around me. I suppose I have the best of both worlds here, connected in town and nearly cut off at the farm; like a little oasis from all the problems in the world.

I was given the gift of freedom. I have never (even in Africa) lived under oppression and fear. These are buzzwords that I hear from talking heads, but have no experience of myself. I say this to preface the remarks to follow should anyone wish to castigate me for speaking out of turn.

My heart has been troubled. This started actually when Osama bin Laden was executed by our armed forces (not by Obama personally as you would nearly gather from the gushing in the media). I have never seen such unbridled hatred and vengeance spewed out through social media from those that call themselves Christ followers. Twitter accounts and Facebook statuses became the western equivalent of dancing in the streets with an AK-47 in an impish display of glee. I never thought I would see so many Christ followers actually delighted when someone was, quite literally, shot to hell.

I think we feel removed from Qaddafi. Those old enough to remember know him as Reagan’s “mad dog from the Middle East.” He paraded around in harlequin robes of grandeur and made seemingly unremitting speeches at the United Nations. I haven’t studied the matter personally, but according to the media it would seem he was something of a devil cloaked in human flesh, and that being true, then he deserved justice.

There is a sense of “justice” that rises up in all of us when we see a bully begging for mercy at those he abused. We enjoy the switch of power, the sudden twist, the falling towards a denouement where all is returned to order once again and chaos is destroyed. In a sermon entitled, “God of Love, God of Judgment,” Michael Ramsden looks at the life of Jonah and his misinterpretation of justice for vengeance. Pointing to popular media (movies) he shows how popular vengeance is as a substitute for God’s justice.

I expect this sort of attitude in popular media and in Twitter trends. The vengeful spirit is a hallmark of fallen man (i.e. Cain who thought he was wronged in his offering). To see unregenerate man taking photos and laughing while holding the bloodied corpse of a violent man is not only ironic, it is expected. But this morning I read in Proverbs 17:5b:

“…he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.” (ESV)

But shouldn’t we as followers of Christ be different? In my reading of the Gospels I cannot see that Christ would advocate such behavior. Yes, it says that God will laugh at their calamity, but He is perfect in justice and vengeance; we are fallen and do not have the right to play God in that respect. Look at the beautiful stories of redemption that we love and see if you see the trend that I saw on Twitter and Facebook statuses. Look at Corrie Ten Boom and the soldier who made her endure untold humiliation and suffering and then asking her for forgiveness. What if she had reacted like those freedom fighters?

I am not condemning the U.S. intelligence decision to take out a threat to national security. I do not condemn the longing for freedom in the hearts of the Libyan people who disposed a man who had made their life stagnate in misery while he glided throughout the world in opulence. What I do condemn is my reaction of joy at the news. I applaud justice, but I will not, I cannot dance in the streets.


*Image from CBSNews.com

A royal engagement...

I told you some time ago that an important post was on its way...here is the promised important post. Many of you may be aware of a very important fact, that I was engaged to be married to the love of my life, Delani, back in June of this year. At the time, I decided that I wouldn't blog about it since it was of a very personal nature; however, it is important and therefore I think worth sharing here. I am a fairly private person. I do not have much time for Facebook or much of what goes on there. The self-revelatory phase of my life where I drew my estimation of myself or my value from comments and friend's approvals or "likes" is now past. I don't say that to mock people who are on Facebook as that would be highly hypocritical since I still have a Facebook account. I have, however, seen the value in sharing little details of my life, especially since I am on the other side of the world from most of my friends and family. So, here is a faithful narrative of all my dealings with blackouts, Greyhound bus service and one of the most magical places on earth, Cape Point.

If I want to keep a secret, I mean REALLY keep a secret; I have found a fool proof plan. Tell no one. When I decided in my mind, after much thought and prayer (my fiancee and my mother would say, MUCH thought and prayer) that Delani Smith was the woman that I wanted to spend the rest of my days with, I began to put a plan into action of how I would ask her. I knew that it would not be a simple matter. Delani's parents are divorced and her father keeps a fairly busy schedule and all I had was a weekend in which to accomplish this. So, here was the original plan. I was to board a Greyhound bus in Bloemfontein and travel all through the night, arrive in Cape Town the next morning where Delani and I would go to lunch with her father. That was as far as that plan had gotten. I did not yet know how I would single him out and ask his blessing with out Delani getting suspicious. Since I would be staying at her mother's house, that plan had little or no contingents.

I was shocked when the bus arrived at the bus station in Bloem on time or very nearly on time. This almost NEVER happens. I settled into a comfortable, downstairs seat and tried to think out how I was going to do everything up on my arrival in Cape Town. Somewhere during the middle of the night, after passing Colesberg on the N1, I fell fast asleep. I recall vaguely wondering if we had hit a section of roadworks where there was no tar, but it felt rather rough to be a graded road. The bus seemed to be lurching its way through some heavy dirt track (which it turns out we were making). Apparently, the driver had a "blackout" and drove off the road, through a barbed wire fence, across a ditch (which should have rolled us if not for God's protection) and into the open field of some poor Karoo farmer's land. For those who were awake, I heard it was a terrifying experience; particularly for one poor guy on the top level sitting at the front window who saw it all. So we had a three or four hour delay standing in the cold Karoo, making new friends and jokes about the incident. One man said that all the dirt piled up on the floor of the cab was where the stewardess, "Fred-Flinstoned" the bus to a stop. I found myself sitting on the steps of another bus, then finally into a seat and at least arriving in Cape Town much too late for a dinner with Delani's father and not sure what to do about it.

I took her to dinner that night at a place called "The Cattle Baron" and I think she secretly thought I was going to ask her, but a pleasant evening passed and no question was asked. The next day, I was fortunate enough to eat a private lunch with her father while she went to visit with a friend. God worked it out perfectly. I asked his blessing, he gave it and that night I asked her mother (while being violently ill in-between the two and drinking the most beastly medicine). I was scheduled to leave Saturday afternoon and so I suggested that we rise very early Saturday morning and get into Cape Point just as the sun rises and have a picnic. To my surprise, Delani agreed. It was the most magical time I have ever spent at Cape Point. There was hardly a soul in sight and certainly no tourists; just some surfers and a photographer.

We set up our picnic spot in between two sand dunes looking over False Bay where the sun would rise over the mountains on the other side. There were baboon tracks everywhere and so I was a little nervous about our picnic being interrupted, but luckily we ate undisturbed. I was very nervous, though I don't think she knew that and so before I asked, I am not sure I really enjoyed the ambience of the spot and the moment so much.

I told her I wanted a picture of her against the rising sun and so stepped back and had her look away; thereby giving me enough time to get on my knee and get the ring from my pocket (a struggle in itself). She nearly turned around, which would have been a bit disastrous, but I was able to stop her, get the picture and be ready to ask her when she did turn around.

Oh, and she said "Yes."...she also said I should blog this; and I think she was right, it was a good idea.

Twin Oaks...

Part of the program at Hope Christian Academy, is a reward system. This system has various forms, but perhaps the biggest is at the end of every term. At the close of the term (the last day generally) we take the children on a Field Trip. This is a non-academic field trip designed entirely around having a good time. The school year here goes from January to December and is made up of four different terms with short breaks in between each term; a longer break being in the winter months (generally part of June and into July) and a longer break in the summer months at Christmas. Attending this field trip is contingent upon a few factors. First the student must achieve at least 21 PACEs passed within that term and it must be done with academic balance. Secondly, the student must have all their Scriptures recited to date. This is perhaps the biggest hurdle. So, after boring you with the 'nuts and bolts' of what happens, on to the field trip. We went to a guest farm called "Twin Oaks" that belongs to one of my student's family. It is a beautiful farm set in a slight valley with plateaus behind it and open ground to the front extending on into more plateaus in the distance. It was my first time there. We don't have a school bus per se, so it required some careful manipulation of bodies and the compressing of pelvic and collar bones to make everyone fit, but it worked. The students are always supercharged on a field trip day, so discipline and decorum always become a bit of a challenge, but fortunately, on a farm there is plenty of room for "venting" of those energies. There was a jump castle lined up by our hosts as well as four-wheeler, pony and canoe rides.

Probably the highlight, as far as laughs are concerned, was playing "musical clothes." We took an old bag of clothes, mostly large and very out-of-fashion. The students had to pass the bag around the circle while the music played; if the music stopped while the bag was in their hand, they had to take an article of clothing out of the bag, without looking, and put it on. Many of them were fairly normal apart from size differences.

To the very funny...

Sorry for the quality of this picture, but here is the whole group.