Snow at Zoo Lake.

South Africa is not a country known for snow. In my fifty odd years it has snowed four times in Johannesburg. Once when I wan in primary school and we went away on a school tour. While we were away on tour, it snowed back home in Jo’burg. Once when we had moved to Port Elizabeth, it snowed in Jo’burg. Last year I watched snow falling lightly and gently to the ground then melting immediately.
Last night it snowed. My husband, Brian, phoned to say that he had seen it on his way to work.. About an hour and a half later I drove to Zoo Lake to have a look. Sure enough. There it was. Enough snow on the ground to make a snow ball. We were not the only ones who had come out to look. Mothers were helping children make little snow men. Boys of about twelve had rolled a snowball as big as a soccer ball. I hoped it was for a snow man’s head and not a frozen missile.
Although it was freezing cold outside and our shoes and gloves got wet, it was worth venturing outside to be able to see snow – in Sunny South Africa. Mind you, it was sunny. The blue sky made a stark contrast to the white ground and leafless winter trees.

Water

I have a water feature in my garden. Listening to the sound of running water always inspires peace. Yesterday while drinking coffee in the garden and listening to the water I got to thinking how wonderful water is. It is a miracle. Made chemically from hydrogen, the simplest element and probably the first one around, and oxygen, a much more advanced element but so necessary for life on earth. Oxygen must have been around before water.

Before anything was created (or evolved if that is your faith view), there would have had to be water. All living things are made primarily of water, plant, animal and unicellular organisms. Water keeps us alive. Water comes down from the sky in the form or rain (mostly) and gives life to earth. Primary school children learn about the water cycle. No new water is created. It is all recycled by the process of evaporation and condensation.

Water is the only compound known that if you cool it, does not continue to contract. At 4 degrees C it reaches its most dense then if it is cooled further, it begins to expand. That is why ice floats on water. It is unique in this respect.

God is like water. The Father, the author of life is the liquid form, available everywhere, giving life and sustaining life. The Son is the solid form, ice. Under certain circumstances ice becomes solid. We can handle with our hands, pick up, break and manipulate ice. The Holy Spirit is steam, not always visible but powerful in action. Think of steam turbines. One substance but three phases.

Water is a miracle. Water is life.

Sweetpeas

I have planted some sweetpea seeds. The plan is that in Spring, they will climb up the wrought iron barrier around our front porch. It occurs to me that planting seeds is an act of faith. What is to say that these tiny shrivled balls will really grow to be climbing plants with fragrant flowers? It seems so unlikely. Especially if you've never come across seeds before.
It is faith that encourages me to water them. In my mind's eye I can already see them adding colour to the front of my house. That is faith. I believe the coloured pictures on the front of the seed packet. I believe that if I follow the instructions, I too will get a harvest of fragrant flowers. Faith isn't so difficult, is it?

The Tablecloth

This is a story I read a long time ago and was not able to find again. Now I'm going to store it in my blog for when I want to be inspired.

Pastor Rob Reid, right out of divinity school and fresh from ordination, was assigned to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn. He arrived in early October, excited about his opportunities. His new church building was very run down, in need of a lot of repairs. Undaunted, he set a goal to have everything done in time to give his first service on Christmas Eve.
He worked hard, shoring up pews, plastering walls, and painting. On December 18th, he was just about finished – ahead of schedule. But the next night, a driving rainstorm blew into the area and lasted for two days.
On the 21st, Rob stopped in at the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary, just above the pulpit. The young pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and, wondering if he should postpone his opening service, headed home.
On the way, he noticed that a local business was having a flea market as a benefit for charity; he stopped in. One of the items for sale was a beautiful, handmade tablecloth. It was ivory colored, its border exquisitely crocheted in beautiful, muted colors. There was a cross embroidered right in the middle. He held it up and an idea formed in his mind: It just might cover up the mess on the church’s front wall. He bought it and, guardedly excited, headed back to the church.
It began to snow as he pulled up to the church. As Rob got out of the car to go into the church, an old woman passed him, walking quickly in the opposite direction, trying to catch the bus. She missed it. Rob invited her to wait inside the church for the next bus, which wouldn’t be coming for another forty-five minutes.
The old woman sat down in a pew to wait, and paid no attention to Rob as he set up a ladder and climbed up to hang the tablecloth. It fit! The ruined plaster and paint were completely covered. And it looked beautiful.
The old woman looked up, stood slowly, and walked toward him, down the center aisle. Her voice sounded strained as she asked, "Pastor, where did you get that tablecloth?" Rob explained. The old woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials "EBG" were embroidered there. They were.
These were none other than the old woman’s initials, she said; it was she who had made this very tablecloth thirty-five years earlier, in Austria. She could hardly believe it as the pastor told her how he had come across the tablecloth. The old woman explained that, before the war, she and her husband were a well-to-do young couple, living in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to flee. He husband planned to follow her the next week, but she was captured, sent to a camp, and never saw her husband or her home again.
Rob insisted on giving her the tablecloth; she, in turn, insisted that he keep it for the church. He asked if, at the very least, she would let him drive her home; she lived across the city and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job. She agreed.
And then it was Christmas Eve. Rob stood in the pulpit before the little congregation of his new parish, beaming with pride. It was a wonderful service. At the end of the evening, he greeted everyone at the door; many said they would return. One old man, whom Rob recognized from the neighborhood, continued to sit in his pew. When Rob went to speak with him, the old man asked him where he had gotten the tablecloth on the front wall. It was identical, he said, to the one that his wife had made years ago, when they lived in Austria before the war. How could there be two tablecloths so much alike?
He told Rob how the Nazis had come, how he had urged his wife to flee for her safety. He was supposed to follow her, he said, but had been arrested by the Gestapo and put in prison. He never saw his beloved wife or his home again. Thirty-five years had passed.
On that night of miracles, Pastor Rob Reid asked the old man if he would come with him for a little ride. He drove to the same house where he had taken the old woman, three days earlier. He helped the old man climb the three flights to the old woman’s apartment, and knocked on the door. And there, he witnessed yet another Christmas miracle.

Murder Mysteries and Science Expos

Yesterday was a different day. The plan was reasonably simple. As it was a Tuesday, I had a standing appointment with my best friend for coffee and praying for our families. In the evening we had planned a family Murder Mystey dinner to celebrate my daughter-in-laws Birthday. A Tuesday evening was not ideal - a weekend would have been much better - but it was the only day close enough to her birthday that we could all make it. We had decided to start early - 6pm- which meant that those husbasnds who worked in the city would have to rush home. I told my best friend that I had a lot of things to prepare (including a peppermint crisp pudding for desert) and I would only come to her for an hour between 3pm and 4pm.





After work (I work at a high school and we are writing exams so I got to get out of the gate soon after 2) I quickly made a detour to "Showbiz" where I planned to buy some stick on moustaches and a pith helmet for our Murder Mystery.





As I was driving, my cell phone rang. I try not to talk on the phone while I'm driving so I let it take a message. When I had parked at Cresta, I listened to it. It was Lois, a lady who had been a judge when I had organised our school's Science Expo. The arrangement had been that she would judge our Expo and I would come and help judge at her school's Science Expo.


"Just wanted to confirm for this afternoon" the voice message blared at me. In the stress of our Expo, where one judge hadn't pitched and I'd had to do collateral damage control, I had omitted to transfer the details into my cell phone's calender and subsequently had totally forgotton it.



I phoned her back, established that they did really need me, and changed plans.



I prayed that I would not stress. I repeated to myself a modified line I had once come across of psalm 23. "The Lord is my Pacesetter, I shall not rush." As the traffic continued to crawl down Jan Smuts Avenue, and the time continued to race beyond the starting time, I continued to recite the line to myself.

I was only 15 minutes late for the Expo and they had barely started. I managed to enjoy interacting with the students and being amazed at what they had come up with. I had been told that I could prabably be gone by 6, even though the Expo continued till 7 but at 6 o' clock we stil had four projects to judge. The last one turned out to be the best of the batch. It was very inspiring, but I had to excuse myself and rush away. I figured if traffic was reasonable, I could still be home at quarter to seven and change into my character before everybody came at seven. Then I remembered. We had agreed we would start at six. I had to stop myself from breaking the speed limit and jumping robots. There was nothing I could doa about my lateness, I was going as fast as I could.

The family were wonderful. The peppemint crisp tart was delicious. The table was set and the diningroom decorated to suit the theme. Everybody was understanding and we had a great evening. Although I would not like to make a habit of arriving late for my own organised dinner, it did show me that I was not indispensible and any old person could make a peppermint pudding. Quite often stress and the rushing syndrome is all in our minds. We would do well to remember that God controlls the universe. time is in His hand and He has plenty of it.
"The Lord is my pace setter. I shall not rush."

Treasures in Heaven.

Jesus said we must lay up treasures for ourselves in heaven. Every time we do something kind for somebody, or give to somebody, we are making a deposit in our heavenly bank account. Recently I got cynical when a man came to the door with a sob story about how he was mistreated in his own country and by our police because he was an illegal immigrant. My husband gave him a suit so he could go to a job interview.

Unfortunately for him he also went and gave a different sob story to my friend down the road. He told her that he had been given a suit and had sold it. He was just conning us.

But it occurred to me, if I do somebody kind and he takes advantage of me, if he makes a fool of me because I believed his story, what's happened to my treasure in heaven? It's still there. I may look a gullible fool on earth, but my investment in eternity has not diminished.

Spare wheels and twelth man

Today my husband went to buy a spare wheel for our new caravan. It's not really new, but it's the one we bought to replace the one the insurance wrote off. (A strong wind blew the front window in, causing the top to pop and messing up the securing works.) I thought about spending hundreds of Rand on something we might never use. It reminds me of the time my sporty son was playing cricket and he had to go to a match as twelth man. He didn't want to go. He would be bored just sitting watching other eleven year olds play. I had to explain to him that a twelth man was a very important part of the team. All he had to do was pitch up. A team was not complete without a twelth man. That same day I was on healing duty at church in the evening. Iknew very well that there would probably be no one to pray for because it wasn't a "youth thing". I didn't feel like going. I had been to church in the morning and I would be bored. I thought about what I had told my son. "Sometimes we just have to pitch up, whether we are used or not."
Sometimes God just wants us at a certain spot at a certain time. Sometimes our job is just to be the twelth man, the back up. Sometimes we are the spare wheel. We might think it's not important, but it is. Our whole caravan won't be going camping this weekend if my husband doesn't get the spare wheel.

More balloons!

I've been thinking a lot about balloons. They are nothing but a thin sheet of coloured rubber mouled to a specific shape for a specific purpose. You buy them in a packet and they don't look all that exciting. But once they are blown up, they take on a whole new life - they bounce, they float, they can be attached to walls by static.
We are a lot like balloons. WE are created for a specific purpose, in different colours and shapes. It is only when the Spirit of God blows into us that we can achieve our true potential. We can do a whole lot of new things we never could before. The more we allow God's Spirit into us, the more we can live the abundant life - the Party Life.

Yesterday's Balloons.

There is nothing as depressing as half blown balloons hanging limply from the postbox. Yesterday was my son's twentieth birthday. Fourteen people had confirmed. The plan was to go to Emerentia Dam with the boat, have fun out of doors, have a picnic. Then come back and watch videos. By leaving time there were four people, including my son, Chris, and his girlfriend, Geraldine. Some of the others had to be phoned to find our whether they were coming. One was visited because her phone was out of order.
My husband had got the boat down from the rafters with the help of Chris and his best friend, Mavuso, and attached it to the trailer so we could tow it to the dam.
It never went. Three more people drifted in and out. They watched movies and a bit of rugby.
I thought of all the preparations. Chris had asked me to buy 36 rolls. Geraldine, his girl friend,had made two big salads, a cake, muffins. She was the one who hung out the balloons.
Today Chris and Geraldine took ham rolls to all the beggars and security guards they could find.
My husband and I are eating a lot of salad. The lettuce gets fished out as it turns brown.
What went wrong? Or is this standard for modern day parties?