Why bother? (Part 2)

Why bother valuing and appreciating creation? In my last blog Blessing shared how she grew up in close contact with nature. Those experiences, along with an inbred desire to understand those experiences, led her to study Nature Conservation here in Cape Town. I’ve taken Blessing and other CPUT students on hikes, but Blessing and Hilda, who also studies Nature Conservation, through their stopping to describe a bug or a bush have given me a deeper appreciation of my surroundings. This, in turn, has led me to a deeper appreciation of the Creator of it all. Let’s hear more from Blessing as to why she continues to bother… 

After completing my diploma in 2012 I acquired a lot of knowledge. I wanted to pursue my degree in Nature Conservation, which is what I am currently working on. Due to the part-time structure of the programme, I realized that I had too much time on my hands and I wanted to get involved where I could meaningfully give back to the South African education system. This was important to me because I wanted to share the knowledge I had acquired through teaching or mentoring other students. I then started volunteering two days a week at a Non-profit organization called South African Education and Environment Programme (SAEP). They work in a disadvantaged township in the Cape Flats. Working at SAEP moved me out of my comfort zone in such a way that I started noticing the reality of South African disparities in socio-economic conditions. As I worked with children coming from backgrounds of adverse poverty, highly polluted environments, very little to no green spaces to play, and lack of opportunities to pursue big dreams, I became passionate about my work as a volunteer. I developed a bond with the children because they saw me as more than just an Environmental Educator, but as a mentor and role model too. Exposing them to clean and pristine environments by doing outdoor classes, hikes and camps opened their eyes to what they had never seen or experienced before. I was so touched when I learned that I was creating a safe place that protected them from the streets full of gangster violence and providing space for them to bond with other friends. I came to understand why hearing their own heartbeat or feeling their pulses for the very first time surprised these children. Their homes and surrounding environments are too noisy and too busy for them to ever pay attention or even listen to themselves think. On my very first hike with some older children on Table Mountain, I was touched when a grade 9 boy testified that he did not know that fynbos was a living thing. In his mind fynbos was a word to describe materials like rocks or soil or “some none living things.”

In case he isn’t the only one who doesn’t know that, fynbos is a biome part of the Cape Floral Kingdom. It contains many (over 7700) plant species and about 70% of these are endemic to the area - that is, they are found nowhere else in the world. For your own information, many tourists visit South Africa to experience the diversity of the Cape Floral Kingdom, yet these children had no idea that it is right on their doorstep. 

When I took a group to the top of Table Mountain for a sunset walk they were amazed by the colours in the sky. One of the boys exclaimed that this was the first time he had seen the sun going down behind the clouds. In the past he had never paid attention to the sunset, but even when he began to notice it would disappear behind the factories on the far side of his shack. He was curious to see the process of how the sun set, but gave up because he couldn’t see it. He was so grateful to see it now.

I was realizing more and more that if God bothered enough to put His sunsets, flora and fauna here, then that is reason enough for me to bother studying it, and enough of a reason to instill in these children a desire to bother!

Why bother? (Part 1)

In the next couple of blogs I want to highlight one of my daughters, Blessing. As I’ve gotten to know her better through the past four years, her desire to grow and mature in every area of life has inspired me. As her name says, I couldn’t keep the blessing to myself and asked her to share with you some of her journey.

I was born in Harare, Zimbabwe. When I was around four years old my granny decided to take care of me so that my mother could pursue another job. I grew up with my grandmother in a small town called Mount Darwin. During the school holidays we would go to the farm. I believe this was the time that I went through different experiences that made me feel the freedom and pleasure found in associating oneself with the natural environment. Some people like to call it a connection with nature, but I don’t think this captures exactly the feeling I had. If I explain it in terms of spirituality, I think my understanding of Genesis 1:28 and God’s love for creation developed when I was a child. This verse, “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” became a reality to me.

Some of the vivid pictures I have of those childhood years are walking into the paddock with my cousin Simbarashe after it had rained the previous morning. We went to a big flat rock (we call it ruvare in Shona). There were several rock pools on this flat rock and we stopped at the first one to wash our small faces to remove the sleep, then at the next one we washed our hands, then at the next one we drank from it and at the last one we played with the water splashing it on each other’s clothes. When we got tired we sat on the rock basking in the sun and watched the brown and white robin birds (a type of bird in Zimbabwe) swimming in the rock pool in front of us.

I refer back to this time as the most amazing moments when I fell in love with the Creator. Biology was my favourite subject in school. This love for creation prompted me to want to do further studies that would equip me to take care of plants and animals. Because Zimbabwe had limited tertiary and career opportunities in this field, I decided to see if educational institutions in South Africa offered such programmes. I received a booklet from Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town and when I scanned through the countless degrees offered, my eyes fell on the name of a certain programme - Nature Conservation. At that moment I could see how the love God gave me for His creation could now become my career.

Since I grew up in such close contact with nature, concepts like ecosystem services that include products like clean drinking water and processes like decomposition of wastes were not difficult for me to understand. Indeed the theory taught at University was like breathing in and out. It was fascinating to discover that what my cousin and I had witnessed as children when the brown and white robins splashed in those rock pools was meant to refresh them in the heat. This was called thermoregulation! All the dots were starting to connect into a more complete picture…

Noisy Neighbours! (Part 2)

I took them chocolate cake! I asked the Holy Spirit what He wanted me to do, and He led me to take my upstairs' neighbours chocolate cake and properly introduce myself. I didn’t want them to have to endure my own baking so I bought someone else’s. The cake and I were received with a warm welcome, and it opened up a lengthy conversation that did not include the issue of the noise. I left knowing I had obeyed the Father.

In these cases it would be natural for us to want our desired outcome to be a change in the circumstances. I believe this is true because we remain the centre of our world and want things to turn out the way we think is best. Most of us don’t stop and ask God what He wants to get out of a situation. Our pleasure is priority, not His.

His pleasure is becoming my priority. That has only come about through a process of purification. How does purification happen? Through crisis. I had another noisy neighbour in the not-so-distant past that I took biscuits to, and my gift was belligerently refused. That wasn’t the only thing that was rejected, but also my unconditional love and grace extended in the midst of blatant persecution. The crazy thing is that is exactly where God led me. Yes, He has a way of leading us right into the fiery furnace. Why? Because He knows that a crisis will separate our flesh from our spirit. The word crisis comes from the Greek words “krisis” and “krino,” which means ‘”a separating.” The root word implies that our crises can be a time of severing from old ways. And would you believe that the Chinese word for crisis is composed of two characters; the one on the top is the sign for “danger,” and the one on the bottom is the sign for “opportunity”? So, we have a choice in any given crisis to either view it as a dreaded place of danger and want to find the quickest way of escape or see it as an opportunity to sever from our old ways of thinking and behaving. If we run away from our crisis then we have missed out on a beautiful opportunity for God to do His best work in us. His desired outcome isn’t a change in our circumstances, but in us! Where we approach our circumstances with Jesus’ life of obedience and oneness with the Father shining through.

I remember praying John 14:31 over my life before knowing that God would lead me into that crisis. In the Amplified Bible it reads, “But [Satan is coming and] I do as the Father has commanded Me, so that the world may know (be convinced) that I love the Father and I do only what the Father has instructed Me to do [I act in full agreement with His orders.]” Little did I know He would take me up on that prayer in such a “in-my-face” way. Despite the intensity of the situation I am glad that He did. Obedience was moving from duty to delight; from “have to” to “want to.”

So what crisis are you in at the moment? Are you seeing it as a dreaded place of danger or as a beautiful opportunity?

Noisy Neighbours! (Part 1)

I live in a three-floored apartment complex. My one-bedroom flat is in the middle. Now when older people say, “They don’t make things like they used to,” they really know what they are talking about. Because now that I am older, and have lots of living situations to compare, I can say the same thing. In the past, houses were made solid like oak trees. It seems in the not-so-distant past, houses were made thin, like paper milled from the oak tree! Consequently, the floor of my upstairs neighbours’ is paper-thin. So much so, I can hear when they drop a pen! Thus, you can imagine when they drop something heavier - it is like bombs going off over my head! I won’t go into the gory details of life “down under,” but suffice to say I am challenged.

The other day I was reading from Ephesians 6:10-20 where Paul writes about the whole armour of God. During past readings of that Scripture I had underlined the word “stand.” Paul says we need to “stand” against the wiles of the devil; we need to “withstand” in the evil day, and having done all, to “stand.” He goes onto say, “Stand, therefore, having girded your waist with truth…” He really wanted the Ephesian church to understand their need to “stand.” This is when readers back then had an advantage over readers today. They knew Greek - the language of the New Testament. They would have understood that the word “stand” is a translation from the Greek word, “histemi.” One of the meanings of that word is “abide.” The Greek word for “abide” as found in John 15:7 is “meno” and one of its meanings is “stand.” So, in many ways, to “stand” is to “abide,” and to “abide” is to “stand.”

This is so interesting to me, especially of late, because God has had me in a season of abiding in Him, and letting His Words abide in me. I’m definitely not in an outwardly active place of “doing,” but an inwardly active place of “being.” According to the Scriptures, by the simple fact that I am “abiding,” means that I am “standing” against the wiles of the devil.

So back to my noisy neighbours. There are plenty of options out there of how to solve this problem – move, pray they move, make as much noise as they are making, shout at them for making so much noise, etc. OR see it as my opportunity to “abide” and “stand” in the midst of what the enemy would want to use to distract me and keep me from seeing God’s love and heart towards them. When they make a lot of noise at 4am, I have my speaker right beside my ear and turn it on so it repeats an instrumental song. I chose the particular song for its instrumental composition, not because of the name. The wild thing is I chose the old hymn “Abide with Me,” long before I had this revelation about “abiding” and “standing.” God knew I needed that truth repeating itself in my ears nearly every night. This is yet another opportunity to learn that the “abiding” position is a place of power.

Many of us have noisy neighbours, perhaps in the literal sense or the figurative. They are people or things that are irritants in our lives – that have the potential to disturb our peace. But, from God’s perspective, they are the very people or things that God is using to test our ability to remain at peace. Amongst His many promises, He promised that in this world we would have trouble, but when we found ourselves “abiding” and “standing” in Him we would have peace. Will we find inward peace in the midst of our noisy neighbours?