My Latest Theory

I have this new theory: anyone who wants to become a pastor, minister, dominee, etc., should be subjected to a verbal interrogation by my children as their final exam.

My kids ask the weirdest questions about the Bible - which is good, as I want them to develop critical thinking skills and not blindly follow the masses - but half the time I have no idea how to answer their questions:

1. "Are there going to be animals in heaven? Because if there are, then there won't be any meat because there's no death or sorrow in heaven. And if there's no meat, then there won't be any salami, bacon or boerewors. That doesn't sound very good to me."
2. "You know that verse in Revelation where it talks about Jesus having the name 'King of kings and Lord of lords' written on His thigh? Do you think he used a sword to carve it in His thigh, or did He just write it with a Sharpie pen?"
3. "There was this king in the Old Testament, and when he was young he loved God and followed His ways, but when he got older he turned away and started worshiping idols. So... will he be in heaven or not?"
4. "You know that verse in Song of Solomon where it says 'Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing?' Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

If every future church leader could pass a test like that, I wonder how different our churches would be. And why is it that when we grow up we tend to accept pat answers?

This is the Girl...

This is the girl who:

• walks around the house singing "Here Comes the Braai"
• tried to teach her seven-year-old brother chord inversions on the piano
• can find the loophole in any given argument
• thinks Jonas Salk got a bum deal because Louis Pasteur won a Nobel Prize for "figuring out how to clean milk and other stuff", while Jonas Salk "invented the polio vaccine and didn't win anything."
• received a term mark of 99% in Economic and Management Sciences
• refers to her left nostril as "Reginald" and her right nostril as "Beatrice" (and then informed me that Reginald was not cooperating today as he's rather stuffy.)
  
• chose Ruby Bridges for the subject of her Hero Speech because "she prayed for the people who were mean to her."

I never, never imagined that having kids could be so wonderful. And the truth is, I think that the soul of a Nobel Laureate lies in each one of us. Everyone is great at something, no matter who they are or where they come from. May we encourage that greatness.

What Do You Think?

"Easy lives don't make great stories. Your life in Christ was meant to be a great story." - Beth Moore

Happy... Choose-Your-Holiday!

Today is either Heritage Day or National Braai Day, depending on who you are and what culture you come from. Either way, it's a public holiday, which means I get a day off.

My kids are keen to celebrate South African holidays since they don't get to celebrate American ones any longer (meaning: they don't get the day off from school). A bit of a dispute ensued as they debated which holiday to celebrate today: Heritage Day or National Braai Day.

As a parent, one develops the finer art of diplomacy. "How about we celebrate both? We can braai something AND celebrate our heritage!" My kids were all smiles until they tried to come up with something to braai that was keeping in line with our heritage.

"Great-Grandpa Erickson was from Sweden, and Mommy's family is of German descent, but we're Americans, so....." We decided on hamburgers, which is an insult to the South African braai (how could anyone possibly braai mince when there are lamb chops, wors, ribs and skilpadjies available?), but it fits our heritage, you can braai it, and everyone in the family is happy.

Besides, it was either hamburgers or lutefisk.

War of the Hoses

We have these neighbours who are a complete mystery to me. When we moved in two years ago and our children were playing in the backyard, the kids across the wall started taunting my kids because they didn't speak Afrikaans. I didn't even know this until a friend of ours translated. Oh well, I thought. Our kids will learn Afrikaans soon enough.

Then the rotten granadillas started flying over the wall. My kids threw them back, but for every granadilla they threw back, three more appeared. We ended up just throwing them away.

Then came the vuvuzela war, which we just ignored, because strangely, vuvuzelas do not annoy me.

But yesterday.... my daughter and I were outside reading when we suddenly got drenched by a hosepipe turned on full blast and aimed carefully over the wall. I tried to be kind - I asked them nicely to stop - but they just giggled and kept at it. What really got me upset was that the dad was out there, too, giggling with his daughters.

The only way to actually see over the fence is to jump on the trampoline, so I climbed on- "Please (jump) stop (jump) spraying us (jump) with water (jump). We're (jump) trying to (jump) read!" They just laughed even harder.

I thought of a million mean things to say - "At least I don't jump on the trampoline naked with a giant beer belly flopping up and down - and by the way, gravity always wins!" or "At least I don't sing drunken versions of Steve Hofmeyr songs at odd hours of the night every weekend!" or "You're ruining my sense of ubuntu!" And just as I was about to say something, my daughter sweetly reminded me, "Mommy, when you were a little girl, didn't you and Uncle David hit dog poo over the fence with badminton rackets into your neighbour's swimming pool?" Umm..... yes. We did.

So to my childhood neighbour, I say: I'm really, REALLY sorry for hitting dog poo over the fence into your swimming pool. That was a horrible thing to do and I'll never do it again. And to our current neighbours: I don't know why you torment us so, but I'll try to be good-natured about it. I might even develop a taste for rotten granadillas. But please, be a little bit nicer to us, and one of these nights I might just sing with you.

Privy to a Beautiful Moment

I went to a meeting at church this morning. I confess, I wasn't looking forward to it. When I got to the church, the tables were set with the most stunning breakfast imaginable: a fresh fruit salad (pineapple, paw paw, granadilla, apple and banana), fresh strawberries, chocolate muffins, croissants, ham, cheese, jam, etc. It was an absolute feast.

What made the morning memorable, however, wasn't the food, as delicious as it was. I was sitting at a table with six other ladies, and each one of us had a different first language. One lady's mother tongue was Setswana. Another's was Tsonga. Afrikaans, isiZulu, Sesotho, and English were the others (and even then there was American English and British/Zimbabwean English represented). We all communicated with one another in South African English.

I sat at that table and just... sat there. It was so hard to fathom that here we were, representing three different countries and seven different cultures, and we were laughing together and sharing our lives. One woman shared a harrowing experience from the 1960's that happened under the Apartheid government. She broke down and began to sob, and the white refugee from Zimbabwe- who has her own story- hugged her and whispered words of comfort into her ear. I wish you could have seen what I saw: it was like a mini version of the TRC with women from the township and women from the wealthiest neighbourhood in Pretoria (and everything in between) hugging and crying and healing. And here I was - the bumbling American - privy to a moment showing humanity at its best, Chrisitanity at its best.

Why did I ever complain about having to go to church?

...Pause...

I love this photo. When I look at it all the sights, smells and tastes of South Africa come alive for me: roasting mealies by the side of the road, juicy pineapple wedges from KZN on skewers sprinkled with chili powder, the air just before a thunderstorm, winter veldfires, the exhaust from a public bus, biting into a sweet naartjie, the sound of a toyi toyi, the hoot of taxis, the red clay soil contrasting with green grass and blue sky, the hum of a thousand vuvuzelas at a soccer match, the sound of singing in a rural church on Sunday morning...

How many blessings do we miss each day because we fail to notice what's right in front of us?