Yesterday was a great day for my brother and his new wife... Yes there was a wedding at home and I wasn't there.
I think these are the things that we all miss most.
Friends of ours have twins and they describe the experience as 10 times worse than they could ever have imagined it to be. That is referring to the first 2 years only I am sure...Those two girls are so cute, I cannot imagine them being difficult to handle.
Living in a country that is just too far away to pop over for a quick visit whenever you feel like it, is also many times worse than you anticipated.
We all know that you can live 2 blocks away from someone and not see them for years. At that point you can say you should visit more often, and not do it anyway, but if you are so many miles away, it is a little more difficult to deal with.
To make up for that, we received an invitation to go to the Afrikaans speaking church today as their minister was away on leave and they organised someone from Sydney to come and give a message.
This was a gift in its own right, as this man and his wife, formerly from Rhodesia and later from South Africa had many experiences to share. The main theme of his message was that we should stop waiting for the church to do the work and start spreading the message of salvation ourselves.
He spoke about the 50 year old man who would say that he is not going to church because the minister had not made his appearance to invite him in the last few months.... well I did not know that these people still exist, but I can remember those conversations as a child.
Urging us all to grow up and stand up for Christ and spread the message as we go out in the world.
He mentioned something that I always accused people of in South Africa... stop saying you cannot talk and you don't know enough or that you have another qualification and you are not a minister... Pray when someone needs a prayer; speak when you see someone who looks lost. We did not go to all the trouble to leave our beloved country just to leave our beliefs behind as well. We actually have a mission even if we did not think so when we left South Africa.
This has always been my point of view and it helps me to keep going as it gives me a better perspective on life in general. The point that he did not make though, which I would like to add is that people who stay in South Africa also do that because they have a mission of their own.
Stop wishing that you were somewhere else and stop saying stupid things like..." yeah well you earn dollars and we have to cope with Rands" just deal with it or make a plan...
We all live our lives where we live it, because we think that is where we should be and if this is not the case, maybe we should reposition ourselves.
What are we doing and who are we doing it for? What is the value that you are gaining from the situation you are in? How is it working for you? Stop saying "yes but".... and move on with your own life and your own mission as long as you know it is in line with what God has told you to do.
Yes there are some of us who don't understand the "what God has told you" bit, but if you doubt about what you next step should be: write all the information on a piece of paper, make a list of the pros and cons, and the buts; make a choice and I promise you if you make the wrong one, God will know how to get you back on the track that He wants you to be on, no matter how long it takes.
All the experiences along the way will make up an essential part of what you need to know for you journey and your future so just get going.
You know just as well as I know that you cannot move forward if you are standing still.
Experiencing everyone’s reactions to our leaving South Africa to immigrate to Australia was very interesting. Some were grieving, some were really disappointed and others were angry. All these emotions were normal, but the reaction of some who would warn us that we are not doing our Christian duty and that we will come to a fall, those friends did not understand why we were leaving South Africa.
Even now, 5 years later, we still have some telling us, we should have stayed in South Africa; we could have made a difference. Well, you know what, we did make a difference and it was for the better.
We would have loved to have our country and live in it, but our message was to leave.
Losing contact with friends is always part of leaving and moving to a new place, but it is still strange that some friends (the ones who were disappointed and angry) just never communicated with us again. When we did go home to visit everyone, they were still in that angry place, telling us how wrong it is to leave. Actually there words were, "so does this mean you are back then...?" If the answer is "no", then they are disappointed because we haven’t seen the light yet...well, maybe they are right, maybe not. Maybe they were the ones who had to see “the Light”… who knows.
The experience of making new friends, meeting South Africans in Australia is somehow the same as going to a new school. You meet people with similar experiences in leaving South Africa and building new friendships in a new place. Great people and obviously some not so great people, but we all have something in common, we all have to start over again whether we like it or not.
It all comes down to attitude, doesn’t it?
Some enjoy the new lifestyle, and other are just as annoyed with all the new rules they have to learn as they were with the rules everyone broke at home. Some find jobs very easily and others lose their new jobs even before they land.
But one thing is for sure, if you are a believer, you have a mission and if you are not a grown up in the faith, you have to learn to grow up very fast. There is a great deal of work to do in this country. There are amazing Christians with great faith and great knowledge in this country, but not enough to show the way to the nonbelievers.
The question is, are we up for the job?
