Leani's Light

Out of Africa she came, her thoughts

Wrapped in film, vision imparted at age ten,

Emboldened to risk and to write—

To take arms against a sea of indifference

To sound alarm for her people

Esther again, “If I perish, I perish”

Before King America, trembling, kneeling

Interceding for her tribe

Mother inclusive, stretching to put arms around

Faces that have names

Bodies warm but worn

Heroic woman, no longer the girl

Symbol of a Dark Continent consigned to occupy shadows

Barricades to block, seas that separate

Strokes across maps, man’s boundaries etched on earth

Divisions invisible with visible effects

To segregate and relegate

Midday sun erases shadows; the world flattens in glaring light

To reach every hidden place

Theater images pale, celluloid details recede

Words fall off scripts, dialogues cease

Reality revealed at the Son’s Appearing

Whose breath sucks pride from heartless foes

Whose hand reaches for the least of these

Whose heart holds the whole weary world

All at once

Uneven, leveled

Life more than here or there

Mysteries of human connection, faint but real

Tethered to Beyond, centered in One

One Lord One Faith One Baptism

And for now, one friend who embodies a nation

Who personifies love reaching beyond the cinema

by Carol Fruge’ 2006

frozen roses

I saw my first real snow flakes yesterday
faerie stars blowing around my face
like watery seeds waiting to find the soil
dying as they landed on their destiny
– each one unrepeated for eternity.

I saw my first global dream take flight today
random faces introduced
dialects sharing secret ambitions
alike but now owned by all
American and African pilgrims
drawing their experiences together
– expecting crops next year.

I see my first place belonging with the lepers of today
forgotten souls
orphaned children raising families
without guidance or moral reference
God turning Africa’s fate around
needle by needle, pill by pill, hug by hug
– bearing fruit until we see Him again.

Ice-cube Jesus still in tact

'Ice-cube Joseph has lost his staff but Ice-cube Jesus is still intact.'
She stood next to the candy shelves in the book center holding what looked like a miniature swizzle-stick in her hand.
Staring perplexed from the unsuccessful packaging to Ice-cube Mary's husband.
Soon-to-be Christmas time in Texas.
November 2006

'They predict a wintry mix for Thursday!'
They skip past the front desk to the back where textbooks and winter-school-class-notes wait.
Boxes stuffed with fake orange leaves tower in redundancy.
Soon-to-be-forgotten Thanksgiving in Dallas.
November 2006

'A few days, not a few weeks,' Arthur reminds me.
Yesterday we ate Jesus in the church, KFC on the road and cream-cheese in Houston.
Drinking in every conversation like the last swallow from our hike-battered-water-bottle.
Soon-to-be-missed South African in Dallas.
November 2006

America's most powerful day

"By voting on November 7th, every American can get involved in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty, by exercising our most precious and fundamental right," said DNC Communications Director Karen Finney. "We're pleased to join in support of such an important issue and encourage every American to vote and make their voice heard on Election Day."

"This is something all Americans can do together," said RNC Spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. "We are happy to play a part in the critical battle to eradicate poverty and global AIDS."

"ONE Vote" brings together Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Don Cheadle, New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady, singer songwriter Toby Keith, Alfre Woodard, journalist Nick Clooney, faith leaders Pastor Rick Warren and Bishop Charles E. Blake, Democratic and Republican Strategists Mike McCurry and Jack Oliver and even Shayne Moore, a stay-at-home Mom and ONE supporter from Wheaton, Illinois.

"This is a first step toward making fighting global poverty a growing priority for American voters," said Damon, who narrates the spot. "It's not a Republican or Democrat issue, that's the great thing about it. When I was in Zambia recently, I saw faith-based, non faith-based, far right, far left, all working side by side. Everybody is working together to try to solve these issues because there really is only one side."

In the spot, all join together with over 2.4 million supporters of the ONE Campaign to "pledge ONE vote" not for a candidate or party - but instead to help fight global AIDS and extreme poverty and make a better, safer world for us all.

"I feel that we're all called to make a difference in this world." I've been blessed with so many opportunities, and I think about all the things that we as Americans take for granted -- not many people are as fortunate as us," said Tom Brady, Quarterback of the New England Patriots. "Not only sports fans, but all people, all Americans, can get involved - go to ONE.org, pledge your vote, and pledge to learn more about what's going on and see what more you can do."

"AIDS and poverty will never be solved by one group alone, it takes government, it takes churches, and it takes business - and each of them have a role," said Pastor Rick Warren and author of "Purpose Driven Life" "The ONE campaign is mobilizing people to vote and to start to show that we care, so that it gets on the agendas of the people who make our laws and decide how to spend our funding."

"In every village, in every city, and in every nation that I've visited on the continent of Africa, I've observed people who have the ambition, the desire, and the longing, but they don't have the resources," said Bishop Charles E. Blake. "We must join together to make some of those resources available to people who want to do better, who want to help themselves, but who don't have the ability to do so because of lack of resources.

ONE supporters sneak previewed "ONE Vote" at over 676 local events and "house parties" in all 50 states on Sunday, October 15th. As airwaves are filled with campaign ads asking Americans for their vote, ONE is coming to American voters with a bipartisan, hopeful message that ONE is a campaign in which Americans do not have to take a side - there is only ONE side in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty.

America's greatest strength is our compassion and willingness to be engaged on the world stage," said Oliver. "ONE's 'base' is really both bases--Republicans and Democrats can come together to make sure that the voices of the billion people who live on less than $1 a day are heard both in this election and the 2008 presidential cycle."

"This is something all Americans can do together across party lines,"; said McCurry. "For the first time, we have real solutions that work in the fight against global AIDS and extreme poverty, and America can help lead the world in saving and changing lives."

ONE: THE CAMPAIGN TO MAKE POVERTY HISTORY is a new effort by Americans to rally Americans -- ONE by ONE -- to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. ONE is a coalition of over 2.4 million people and 100 of the nation's leading relief, humanitarian and advocacy organizations. For more information, please visit: www.one.org

(all of the above are selected clips from their website)

free market my foot

looking

red

Angry gut-reaction. Flesh is weak. Assuming, misjudging, weary of giving, giving, giving. Cutting whispers creep from dark corners, “You get what you tolerate. Stand up for yourself, because no One else does.” Swirling vortex of circular argument. Biting, tearing, drawing blood. “I do not do what I want. I do what I do not want. Who will free me from this body of death!?”

Red-flashing prayer signals, “Help!”
Red-letter Bible says, “Come to Me.”

His blood encrusts the rough-hewn beam—poured out to save my neck from sin’s guillotine. Viscous liquid douses my fiery mood; smoothes the tatters of my war-torn heart; assures me that One does stand up for me, died for me, lives in me, rescues me.

Red, not white, means peace—with God, with man.
Praise the name of Christ, our Redeemer.



...written by my long-suffering roommate, Rose Ann, after having her first bridal breakdown yesterday...

(she looks stunning in red by the way...
...as does our living-room)

Africa Calling ONE

Experience the Truth for yourself…

“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to walk through the valley of shadow again and again before we reach the mountain tops of our desires.”
– Nelson Mandela, September 1953 –

for Aaron and his new baby Leani in Zimbabwe

Today, a telephone ringing at 7:00a woke me to a clean, rain-washed morning in Texas.

My mom's excited voice could barely contain her joy - "dad has something to tell you" - Aaron, the builder from Mutare, Zimbabwe, and his team of four had finished the new little church building in Manica, Mozambique so far that they could start on the roof this week.
This was almost too good to be true!
I had one tick-bite and my dad - two to show, from setting out the piece of wild veld together with these men in July this year. Shoooing cattle and curious goats away from our boundary markers, I chopped out weeds and dead branches with my manchetti.
Aaron came to look for work in Mozambique almost a year ago in hope of providing better for his wife and little child still living in Zimbabwe. He got to see them perhaps once in every two weeks if things were going well enough for him to travel.

But there was more to rejoice about this morning:
My dad received a phonecall from this meticulous artist with the quiet smile and gentle voice, that works magic with clay and cement when given a chance.
Fourty kilometers away from his small, rented room, probably by candle light in their humble two-room-home without running water, in a country strangled without any medical services under the tiranny of a mad murderer, his precious wife gave birth, alone, to their new baby girl and they named her Leani.

I saw God today

Axel screeched about needing some time alone
as we drove south before sunrise in our own October rain.
Michelle was early and my omelet late
but we still shared it with smiles
along with her prayed-for-raise she heard about last night.
Lisa from Main had lunch with me today
she had something to say, so she finally said:
I apologize on behalf of my country to you,
for not really caring about Africa and her people like you do.
You see, we still believe in this dream,
that if they just work and learn and try hard enough,
they will get to live in heaven, just like we get to do right now.
“Thank you,” I said,
“I’ll cancel my appointment with your president.”

Turning north on the seventy-five,
alone in my eighty-eight Civic at half past nine,
the four-lane highway toward the holy of holies shone slippery and wet
Passing through this first-world Parthenon
their sky-scraping-statue-colonnade, fed by blind fornicators,
exhausted, hungry, missing dinner with their wives and their kids.
A red sign up ahead beckons: hotel.com
two eighteen-wheelers pass me at once, from both sides,
offerings to impatient idols,
transporting more temptations to choose lesser loves.
Their square, rigid gods, barely noticed around here,
only seen from their navels downward,
their feet planted firmly in once-oil-drenched-clay-ground.
All heads and shoulders will eventually bow to this cloud.
Beyond the high-five, I try to stick to the limit, but can't
now at sixty-seven miles an hour, we pass beyond the outer court.
Chinese car dealerships display cheap birds, perfect for a ransom sacrifice.
Far away and all around I see, invisible lampposts casting their cones of yellow light,
hovering halos shine brightly beneath the heaviness of this mist,
like angelic beings leading me along in rapturous delight.
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come.

Who am I to recognize His glory?
What am I?
A mere white, woman, formed form red African dust?
That the One who made the stars
should remember me tonight?
If I should receive that most treasured of gifts,
a father for and from him,
a sweet baby girl,
to feed, to bathe and to dress,
smelling of lavender and chamomile tea,
rocking her down-feathery-soft-head in my palm,
swaddled warm against my breathing chest,
I shall choose this name for her;
Lena Emmanuelle.

lunacy

20:27

Friday night

Still out of milk

Met with God, my roommate and I

worked through some familiar fears

reminding ourselves about our dignity

Putting on mascara side by side

She’s cooking Mexican,

mediating prenuptial misunderstandings

Alone at peace at 40 miles an hour west down Legacy Lane

Solitary parking space on level three kept just for me

Live Cuban tunes hug my shoulders as I cross the street

Same place, another time, I’d sit myself down, have a Pink Martini.

21:09

Lost in Bono’s teenage memories of Dublin

“Because my definition of art started with:

you put your hands under your skin, you break your breastbone,

you rip open your rib cage…”

Determined to dedicate my blood to the word

Asking strangers for the time at the Angelika

“…If you really wanna write, that’s what you ought to do.

Are you ready for that?”

Chilled beers beg me to take them along for the movie

I opt for a hotdog

and a cherry red cupcake with whipped cream on instead

Bloody Bible belt.

23:52

Credits roll over the Isle of Man

Rowan Atkinson quotes Solomon as the music begins.

Leaving last

tarry in the darkness a minute longer

Dreading reality outside on the sidewalk

I pass a Muslim father walking five steps ahead of his wife

She tightens her black silk scarf beneath her lifted chin

Her young son holds on to her bright orange cuff

Solitude screams when she looks me in the eye,

wordless exchange, I search for the moon

Almost completely full, but not quite yet.

“Desire comes out of wanting what is yours,

and still wanting it even if it’s not there, but it is not envy.”

Good night to U2

And we still have no milk.

message from pluto

houston - this is zebra - come in - over

zebra - this is houston - we copy - over

houston - negative on communications - I repeat: NO INTERNET IN PLANO - please confirm - over

copy that zebra - confirm life-support-system ready to go? - over

affirmative houston - departure date still 14 december 2006 - status of tap-water, granola bars and sleeping pills according to schedule - any news from home? - over

negative zebra - over

oh - over?

negative zebra - maintain standard procedure - pack for summer, loose 30pounds, remember bug-spray, read 6000 pages and finish 12 papers - send for light literature if boredom results - over

affirmative houston - wasting time when doing laundry - requesting any biographical material on winston churchill or bono or eve - end of message - over

affirmative zebra - dehidrated version en route - UPS routing number 123456 - now go to bed!

africa rides a bicycle

Her ankles elegantly crossed, her spine upright
Frelimo skirt flaps bright reds, yellows, proud liberty
Sitting behind her husband she faces east, he peddles south
Nursing their baby rocking at her breast they travel to the market
Carrying an empty plastic can for 5 litres of kerosene to light their lantern tonight

His pearled brow squints against the sun with every stride
Korean trucks stir dust toward the morphing road works
Tied to his metal stallion he returns to his children with this catch
Tiger fish from the Rio Reveu for sale to ladies carrying bundles on their heads
Smiling to tourist cameras, surprised by a hand full of Metticais, shouting:gracis Deus

His legs barely reach the ground on his father’s steel chariot
Negotiating peak-traffic in Chimoio, he weaves across paved arteries of humanity
Slowing down in front of our parked cars, he pulls in behind the other bike
He’s early too, thirty minutes at least before the pump-attendant shows up
Two ten year olds, patiently in a grown-up life at five’o clock in Mozambique

joy wat wyk

vanoggend was ek swanger
twee maande ver
vanmiddag is ek nie
vroeë bloed onheilspellend
vreemde doktervingers vroetel

“piepie asseblief weer in die bekertjie, mevrou…
…dit is mevrou, nê?”
urine sê “ja”
sonar sê “nee”
verwys na die en dan na daai
ek ryg deur groue grys gange wat eggo as ek loop
verdwaal in die buise of dalk ‘n gewas?
die gyne se oë kyk myne mis
drie steteskope bondel om my baarmoeder
“ek sien dan niks nie, mis ek iets?”

terug op die plastiek laken met my bene oop
sneeu lê ge-ys op die pieke deur die venster
koue jellie bied min verligting
alles skeur
sy’s weg
of was dit dalk ‘n laaitie?
my menswees verdwyn in ‘n silver bakkie
weggespoel oppad rioolplaas toe

Wie maak die berge wat om Ceres troon?
Wie besluit of ek mag ma wees of nie?
Wie laat die varkore langs die vrugteboorde blom?
Ag Jirre, my hart en lyf is stukkend!

(vir Joy Van Wyk op 7 Augustus 2006)

departing joy

this morning I was pregnant
two months along
this afternoon I am not
premature blood bad premonition
foreign doctor-fingers fidget

“please wee in this little cup for us, Mrs…
…it is Mrs, isn’t it?”
urine says “yes”
sonar says ”no”
referred to here and then to there
I weave down dreary hallways that echo when I walk
lost in the tubes or perhaps a tumour?
the gyne’s eyes avoid mine
three stereoscopes convene around my womb
“I can’t see anything, am I missing something?”

back on the plastic sheet with my legs open
snow lie frozen on the peaks through the window
cold jelly provide little comfort
everything tears
she’s gone
or was perhaps a son?
my humanity disappears in a silver kidney bowl
washed away toward the sewerage yard

Who makes the mountains that reign around Ceres?
Who decides if I may mother a child?
Who allows the wild flowers to grow next to the orchards?
Oh God, my heart and body is broken!

patat

Patat se hand hou myne vas
as ons saam verby die wingerde jaag
Ons loer na die son wat oor miswolke dans
dan volg ons weer die maan wat uit sy broek se sak wil val

Patat se spens hou wag in die nag
langs die Witzenberge swoeg hy as ander siele slaap
Smôrens ry hy zoep-zoep oor die dorp se rivier
na waar rye mense langs Namakwa-Daisies vir hom wag

Patat se hart is so diep soos die hemel
met miljoene sterre wat vir siek kindertjies brand
Met sy glimlagte en inkleurboekpersente
hou hy einas en erge uiteindes so lank as moontlik weg

Patat se oog sien mooigoed raak
waar sneeuklokkies teen die winterreëns buig
Hy verf sy spoke en drome teen groot doeke vas
maar verberg dit onder sy wasgoed en onoopgemaakte pos

Patat se skouers hou myne regop en sterk
as my rugstring wil knak en my moed begin sak
Saam hoop ons vir genade en nog sonskyn in die môre
want Hy hou ons gipsbesmeerde hande elke oomblik in Syne vas

cereal communications

Two friends floated down a current one day—Snap and Crackle.
They ran into a third later that afternoon—Pop.
After months of drifting in a sea of organic 2% fat free milk Snap found the elusive silver spoon.
“I’m taking this break,” he said and hopped out.
Still trying to stay afloat, Crackle and Pop wished him well and blessed him on his new journey.
Shortly after their friend’s departure, Crackle and Pop got separated in unexpected white-water.
Soon they could not see each other any more as the rapids won the battle for control.
Crackle fired one of her two flares in hope of a rescue.
Seeing Pop’s signal fade in the distance she grew terrified.
“Hang on, Pop!” she yelled but couldn’t do anything for herself either.
Suddenly Snap appeared, tossing a life-jacket, calling to Crackle from the edge of the spoon.
“Here…grab this!”
Crackle caught the bright orange floating device, calming down as Snap reeled her into safety.
“Good,” said Snap, offering Crackle some glucose and a space blanket.
“Thanks,” said Crackle “what about Pop?”
“He’s fine by himself. He’s a strong swimmer,” and up he ran along the spoon.
Revived but sad, Crackle zipped up the wet cushion vest and dived back into the white swells.
Swimming as hard as she could, she edged toward where Pop’s LED flashed now-and-then.
Tying him to the life-jacket, she fired her last flare from whence she came.
Snap came running down again as soon as Pop pulled himself out to sit up on the edge of the spoon.
“Why did you waste your last flare like that?” Snap asked Crackle.
“Because I wanted to let you know that I found him.”

●●● — — — ●●●

in praise of an ordinary guy with an extraordinary heart

Dear Mr. Cooper,
I discovered your existence last week Tuesday. A fellow writing-student gave me your book as a gift to enjoy during my summer back home. Not knowing anything about you, I wanted to verify the source of this enticing story, so I researched all I could find out about you. While calling in to my parents between connecting flights, I recognized you in action for the first time on a quick trailer of this interview from a public phone on Concourse B in Hartsfield, Atlanta.
This trip home was my third since I came to the States to study the art of story-telling two years ago. I exchanged my life as a licensed architect building clinics, school and border posts in rural Africa for the First World with the hope of exposing more people to Africa’s needs as well as her courage.
I manage to arrange for the recording of your interview (4:00CAT) before I hit a jet-lag-coma and watched it on the 20th—how appropriate—I felt like I saw my wildest dream come true listening to you and Ms. Jolie share your experiences. Last night, I read an unflattering review about it on the web that lead me to respond on this blog-entry.
It doesn’t take a genius to criticize somebody, but I wanted to tell you how much I respect your work and admire the guts it took to expose your heart in your book. I’m only on p151, past the pictures and I don’t want it to end. Next week Wednesday, I leave on an outreach mission to a community in central Mozambique—barely 15miles east from the Zimbabwean border. We won’t drive through Zim like we did last year because it has become too dangerous but I’m taking my still and video cameras along and plan to document stories of braver people than me when we get there.
Today I received a phone call from a friend in Namibia who also gave birth to a girl last week. She only had praise for Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt’s discreet visit and charity work to the medical facilities in her country.
Your work inspires me. You have blessed Africa and her people in so many ways already and personify a motto in my life: do justice, love kindness and walk humbly. Hang in there and keep moving!

D-day: a day for sunflowers

for the eleventh time in my eleven years of school, I missed school that day, it was a Tuesday too
I stayed at home because I had a silly cold
he lay coughing in our parents’ bedroom reminding mom about his afternoon medication
she asked me to bring it to her in the family room keeping my germs away from him
complaining that today I was the patient and that he should bring me something
I fetched the infamous box clutching his deathly drugs

by sunset I had wrapped my sore throat up in a white scarf
matching our school uniforms demanding skirts despite June’s freezing chills
afraid that he might throw up while I try to hug him or get sick because of me
I stood at the door, my heart aching, the metal frame stinging against my left cheek
‘sien jou more*,’ I whispered, he strained to look up from the pillow, smiling
nodding at me with his eyes only, we said goodbye in silence

lining up outside the spooky school buildings our entire class waited in the dark
I climbed on the bus for the compulsory attendance of Animal Farm at the State Theatre
the story was over too quickly and Mr. Owen left me feeling sad and depressed
stepping off the bus I saw mom waiting in the silver Mercedes
walking towards her, I knew Derek was not at home any more
dad would never let her wait out here so late unless there was trouble

we drove the four kilometers home in familiar sighs accepting the unknown again
the one point six litres of bone marrow I gave on Good Friday did not help him
dad would be sleeping on an extra gurney in the ever-recurring isolation ward tonight
instead of waiting three days until the weekend and I could make the visiting hours
I immediately wrote Derek a long letter for mom to take to the hospital tomorrow morning
telling him that I’m tired of this too I tried to encourage him for our nineteenth month under siege

I got to school by myself with mom leaving for Johannesburg before I woke up
I decided to skip assembly and my loyal friend, Marisa, hid out with me in the art class
confessing my selfishness to her, I told her that something’s wrong about this time
hugging my shoulders where we sat on the table, her comforting words painted hope around my heart helping me into the day
after three hours,in the second period of 'library-use' the dreaded announcement fell through the wall into my classroom
somebody was waiting for me at the office to take me to the hospital

family friends tried to smile and look brave as we all piled into the Volkswagen Kombi
driving the same sixty odd kilometers mom, dad and I had done for four months on end
I lead them through the giant buildings without thinking, oncology, turn left over there, smelling the pink sanitizing soap everywhere
walking past the nurses’ station to the isolation wards, I didn’t see my sobbing parents
he lay perfectly still, his arms folded on his motionless chest, like a pharaoh, immortal
I put my hands on his, laid my head down on the linen sheet, feeling sad but joyful

through the huge north-facing window the morning sun cut a strong single ray into the room
‘jy kan my sien jou bliksem!**' I thought, smiling back at his innocent face, I rejoiced
at his funeral, the church packed to its capacity filled up with praises to our Triune God
wearing his favourite colour, yellow, I stood singing, joining him with heaven’s chorus
his body died after thirteen years on earth but his soul went ahead to meet Christ face to face
this morning I asked God to hug my folks for me and a stranger brought them an armful of sunflowers

*see you tomorrow
**you can see me

...lees vir my, Mamma

Donderdag
min het ons geweet dat ambulaansmanne my vyf ure later na die hospitaal toe sou moes ry, maar al wat ek wou hoor is haar stem teen my oor, ‘n bewussyn van haar gebede,
soos kleintyd se maagkrame in die middel van die nag,
het haar soet woorde weer al my vrese kom weggejaag

Sewe tydsones wes van haar skoot,
lê my kop in kouekoors geweek,
alleen in my woonstel stoei ek teen onsigbare spoke wat al my are leeg tap,
“psalm-een-en-negentig”
“ek het nie my bril op nie, skat”
“maak nie saak nie, lees dit net ‘seblief”
stadig fluister sy tydlose smekinge

Moedersdag vandag
volmaan in Dallas, sy maak reg vir die eerste oggenddiens in Pretoria, bel die drie-en-twintig-nommers om weer dankie vir alles te sê
“hi mamma, dis ek”
“hallo, pop”
ek hoor haar glimlag
vrede
sy maak alles beter

essay to Mr. Kristof

UV15 minimum sun-screen, white-gold * and a good sense of humor…

Africa has a heart like a minibus-taxi in Johannesburg, always space for one more.

My heart was consumed by her at the age of ten when I watched Out of Africa until the bloody part where the writer-lady went bezerk with her whip on the lion trying to get her oxen. Twenty years later, I have also taken a few shots at government officials and business men who cared more about protocol than the people dying of Malaria on donkey-carts outside locked clinics.

Three years ago, I traded my blue-prints for words. Today, I have completed four of my six semesters of a graduate degree in Media Communications in this alternate universe called the United States of America. I do most of my time travel in the shower or movie theatres. Amid the torrents of wasted water or the smell of synthetic popcorn, I transport myself back to the burnt reds and ochre of my Mother Continent.

Kenya protected Karen Blixen from death-by-boredom in a potential life of civilized femininity. She began writing her stories trying to survive the long draughts on her farm. I began writing mine after my brother died and my mom’s genetic disease (Muscular Dystrophy) launched its relentless coup on her body. Fighting seems inevitable to my fellow Africans, but equally indigenous is our storytelling.

I migrated to the northern hemisphere in search of mentors, technology and learning from the giants how to dream big. Texas proved the pinnacle of God’s irony but I have grown beyond my wildest imagination amidst this sprawling concrete jungle without any natural forms of oxygen or chlorophyll. My peculiar accent still peaks interest but at least every American friend of mine knows that we have paved roads and internet in my hometown.

It proved easier to switch from the Queen’s English into another version of my second language than accepting my own ethnocentrism and global ignorance. I possess the unique vocabulary to translate Africa into American with a heart knitted to people in both spheres and existential knowledge of their current worldviews.

On a practical level, I am addicted to making life difficult for myself and have a unique knack for storming in where Hummers fear to tread. As a matter of fact, I am actually sneaking into Zimbabwe this summer on my way to building a community centre on the Mozambican side of the border in the province of Manica. I worked on the border post between Namibia and Angola in 2002 when the contractor dug up a live mortar bomb where the storm water drain was supposed to go. I have slept in almost every conceivable position, temperature and precipitation combination and strongly believe that one can judge the level of one’s contentment in life by how much joy the sound of running water can produce.

Individualism has paralyzed the developed world, people long to discover meaning and purpose in their efficient lives. Africa’s humble people have taught me what courage looks like. I would like to go on a reporting trip with you and share it with the rest of the world.

*an extra roll of twin-ply toilet-paper

waking up in the wrong country

Today was Saturday.
Tomorrow will still be May.
Yesterday I woke up in the wrong country.
(Did I take my laundry out of the drier this afternoon?)

Disclaimer: two days from now I start finals-week of my second year of a Masters degree on a foreign continent across the Atlantic and north of the equator in another language. I suspect that my mind has reached the limit of its RAM.

8:27a: after six hours of cold-meds-induced-sleep a telephone interrupts my coma. Expecting my parents calling from another time zone, I greeted Jennifer-from-the-tenth-floor in Afrikaans instead of English. Without opening my eyes I shared a brief but rather bizarre conversation deliberating if Pauline-from-the-ninth-floor would be available to baby-sit Jen’s two kids that evening or not.
I had no clue.
Instead of talking more than was absolutely necessary and waking up in the process, I volunteered to watch them. We said goodbye.

8:30a: I dissolved into my mattress under blue tranquility smelling like fabric softener. I reset my alarm to 9:15a leaving enough contingency-time to get ready for our Senior Chapel at 10:30a despite my limited wardrobe options in dress-code-abiding outfits as I have moved halfway out of my apartment into another home.

9:12a: I wake up with Michelle-from-the-sixth-floor standing next to my bed waving three different denim-type items in the air―no jeans allowed at school though.
Without a word she starts tearing through my open suitcase and cupboards diging for more suitable attire.
I get up.
I shuffle my way to the window past boxes and class-notes to open the blinds. Instead of our main campus in Dallas, I see those familiar hills surrounding Windhoek where I stayed for three years.

“We’re going to be late, get dressed,” Michelle says and tosses a horrid-but-tumble-dryable-wash-and-wear-floral-below-the-knee-cut-dress at my feet.
"Get dressed. We have ten minutes to get to the bible study.”
“What about the Senior Chapel? Aren’t we going anymore?”

9:15a: The alarm-clock goes off scaring away the untamed wilderness of Namibia as I emerge from this parallel universe.

I am in America.
This is the third floor.
I don't own any floral dresses.

(I did baby-sit the kids, but that's another story.)

after Pauline's wedding shower

Six months after Thanksgiving:

Writing on the first crisp page in an unused diary
reminds me of waking up on New Year’s Day.
It signals the birth of dreams to reach and hopes to believe.
Leaving behind a dead history in a growing stack of written prayers on my book shelve.
Forgetting the mistakes and failures contained in tear-smeared paper leaves.
I choose to depart from bad habits and expect endorsements of inching growth inside myself.

Having more authentic conversations in a fledgling friendship
reminds me of birthday parties on Valentine’s Day.
Weeks pass and good intentions postponed due to urgent busy-ness and factual priorities.
Pink hearts and red decorated window fronts portray perfection and unrealistic ideals.
Reminded of sad endings in the past I feel incompetent yet again.
I hide behind what seems acceptable on the outside and feel lonely with him watching my confusion.

Talking to God at breakfast this morning
reminds me of Christmas and the fact that He made the stars.
Years of vulnerability to You and still You choose to sit with me every day and listen to my ramblings.
You see all that has wrecked my broken heart and still You love me despite what You know about me.
Reminding me that You chose to forget my shame, still smiling at me each morning with fresh mercy.
Hold my trembling hand dear Father! Take away this fear of being known by man because I know You know me already.

Fighting with this foe for twenty-four hours
reminds me of Easter Sunday and the concept of grace.
All I can offer to anybody is this new creation I have become because of Your patient loving-kindness.
Like a chrysalis, Your empty tomb is proof of my new life and beautiful future.
Inside this mortal body glow the jewels You made within me, through my eyes they shine.
Confident I walk toward this gift You still offer us, trusting You to open his heart to mine.

the passion - to see or not to see

Passover 2006 equates to my memories of the New Year’s Eve of 1999―it will always remain in a class of its own. Watching Mr. Gibson’s The Passion after experiencing my first Jewish Seder lead by a family of Messianic believers dramatically affected my perspective on the events portrayed in this film.

I have never eaten horseradish in my life before, not to mention straight up on a tiny piece of Matzos. I had tears running down my face before tasting the bitter herbs just at the thought of how God instituted this unique menu in the time of Moses with the purpose of revealing Himself to us. Like a mom giving her little girl her first doll to “play” with―on the surface it seems insignificant, but on a deeper level she intentionally prepares her daughter for an important purpose later in life. The mother steps out in faith from her perspective, based on several assumptions that she will have no control over; will she grow up to see the age of puberty and adulthood, will she find a husband who chooses her to become his bride, will God grant them the gift of children?

As I switched on the DVD I braced my heart to look upon the most significant event in humankind, still lost upon most of God’s chosen people living in the Holy City today.

Hearing Christ pray ancient Psalms written by His human predecessor, David, in vulnerable cries to His Almighty Father under the full moon, my thoughts raced back two thousand years from that point in time to the moment when God called Abram from his moon-worshipping culture to become the first Jew. How sad Jesus must have felt there in the garden to see the suffering ahead for the Jews who would not understand His sacrifice and consequent salvation. Why does He allow some to see and some not, I wondered. When He wakes his disciples for the second time, they don’t get it either. They respond in human logic at His arrest and think that swords will solve this misunderstanding and preserve Jesus for his destiny to free them from Rome’s oppression.

I found two motives repeating in my mind throughout watching this film; Christ’s human submission to human abuse despite His divine dominion over all creation and the irony that the least likely human souls who began to understand His true identity were gentiles who knew nothing about the Passover Lamb but still Jesus treats the misguided Jews involved with loving forgiveness.

Some of the moments that I recall the best are these:
● When Judas and the mob shows up and asks Jesus to identify Himself, he answers before Judas points Him out, almost as if He wants to protect His betrayer from committing that sin.
● When Peter cuts off the ear of the Sanhedrin’s soldier, I see Jesus rebuking His own disciple for wanting to interfere with God’s plan for His life and responds with gentle love to the frightened man who listened to the wrong religious leadership.
● The inquisition before the Sanhedrin tore my heart apart as I thought of how easily we judge the disbelief of Judaism today. When the most educated scholars of the Law and the Prophets asked Jesus if he was the Son of God and He responds with the same Name that Moses spoke to the Pharaoh―I AM―the Sanhedrin tore their robes as a sign of obedience to their understanding of what Yahweh expected from them when somebody blasphemed His precious Name.

At that moment I was sobbing over every Jewish man and woman on this planet who did not recognize Yeshua as the Meshiach. I still don’t understand why God showed me-a selfish nobody-the grace of seeing who He is. I still don’t know what I can say or do or pray that might reveal the God of Israel to Israel today. “Lord, have mercy on Your people! Use me!”

Watching the Roman soldiers rip Christ’s human body apart I felt the Spirit touching my own in a gentle reminder that I do exactly the same through the words I speak and write. When this torture ends periodically, these men who were given life through the Word of His drags Jesus' limp body across the white marble paving, smearing His blood like a brush stroke before the dirty sandals of the feet He came down from heaven to wash.

I remembered the drops of wine against the white of my plate next to the striped and pierced matzos. With my pinky finger, I lifted out dark red drops resembling the plagues of Egypt from my cup during the Seder. Every harmful word I have spoken or written in my life and every one I will after this moment lay splattered on the stone of that courtyard two thousand years ago.

love

architecture

people

animals

colour

light

water

I want to serve those who serve

Have you ever considered volunteering with a relief agency that serves in places where human need is so bad that everybody is just trying to keep those people groups alive to begin with?

Imagine joining a team of non-religious doctors, mechanics and councilors who need your testimony and Christ-driven encouragement to sustain a feeding program in a refugee camp in Uganda, or counsel a thirteen year-old prostitute dying of AIDS after a failed abortion necessary while she tries to earn enough money to feed her younger siblings after losing their parents to landmines or genocide.

I don’t want to be a missionary.

Working on my main project for one of my classes here at DTS, I have done three month’s worth of research on the current reality in Africa’s refugee camps, the statistics of health-related epidemics and the inter-connectedness between political unrest, violence against women, and the blood-diamond-trade paying for small arms that (stolen and enslaved) child-soldiers use. “What are Christians doing about this?” I wondered.

I studied at a secular university for seven years. Today the Christians who have the most fruit hanging on their trees planted among corporate business decisions and political reform were not the tokkelokke (nickname for theology majors who always had to wear ties to classes) but the guys doing medicine (most of them took up smoking to get the smell of formalin off their fingers), counseling (some of them also spending time in the dark valleys of depression) and the engineers (either the wild party-animals who liked extreme sports or the socially evasive ones who never left their desks).

The athletic physiotherapists who invested long hours helping African kids who had never walked properly because their moms carried them on their backs since birth and their hips never recovered or their insufficient diets prevented them from developing completely. The aspiring teachers who sat under trees in the dust to encourage exhausted nurses from a mobile clinic that had to send patients back untreated every time.

Dr. Pocock requested a response paper to our annual World Evangelization Conference and the only vivid response that rang in my mind was: I don’t want to be a missionary!

I have no personal desire to preach and the idea of handing out tracts to strangers and never seeing them again does not appeal to me either. I have endless hang-ups with the stereotype of how a “missionary” is supposedly different from any regular Christian. I avoid recruiting agents from mission agencies who try to psyche me up with opportunities to manipulate Christ’s return by reaching x numbers of people groups somewhere in the jungle or 10/40 window. When I find myself forced to hear sincerely missionaries speak and still leave with the impression that missionaries are the only faithful Christians obeying the Great Commandment, I cringe.

Who are we (yes, I do consider myself a sent-one into foreign cultures) to proclaim that we know the only solutions to stop the world’s sickness, violence, and immorality? Where are the mission agencies at WEC-week who support our incarnations to reach prostitutes or drug-lords in our own suburbs? Who teaches the new languages of post-modern executives stuck in the chains of first-world economies?

Maybe my skin color (white) and citizenship (South African) contributed to an early disillusionment with this coveted ministry description when I ventured as a teenager into poor black settlements during the Apartheid years giving away Bibles in their local dialect.

After everybody (whether they could read it or not) had received their free copy, basic explanations about who Jesus is were often interrupted by someone’s wheezing cough from TB lungs or an urgent request for a new borehole with a water pump to replace the dangerous well in which a toddler almost drowned again last week. Granted, our outreach usually included shared meals, gifts of books, clothes and pens for the kids going to school but we paid taxes and voted for government officials to deal with the long-term needs of these grateful souls or the hopelessness of their unemployment.

Please hear my heart on this: nothing is worth anything in life without knowing Christ.

While reading the DTS statement of purpose during spring break I found myself asking the next question: if training those of us who choose to remain in our professions (outside the church?) is considered a secondary purpose to those who plan to do vocational ministry (inside the church?), are there other DTS students with specific passions, gifts and perhaps even professional qualifications who also feel suffocated by the prescriptions of many mission agencies about who draws the boundaries concerning Christian involvement as appropriate, or not?

I want to serve those who serve; by working alongside non-institutionalized teams of relief-workers albeit feeding displaced Israelis or distributing medicine to Palestinian patients, or drawing Christ’s parables with my finger in the red African dirt to entertain forgotten orphans dying of malaria.

Perhaps these affiliations forfeits any chance to recount my good works before financial committees and apply for tax-deductible donations, God owns all the cows on all the hills in every capitol on this planet.

I want to share the Truth behind my eternal source of hope who helps me love even machete-bearing mercenaries and zealous car-bombers.

pretty dirty feet

There’s a story in the Bible, in John’s gospel around chapter 9 of a blind man who had trouble seeing life for what it really was. He begged Jesus to heal his eyes. God restored his sight and everybody in the region knew that a miracle had occurred. The educated, high society of the day had many explanations. These skeptics argued that his disability was the just consequence of his parents and/or his own sins. Jesus disagreed. When asked to defend the reason for this poor man’s suffering, humiliation and pain during all of his life, the God-man responded: “No, it was allowed into his life for the sake of God’s glory…”

On the last Sunday before I left South Africa, this passage was branded upon my soul. It defined the unspoken question confronting me as an African leaving for a foreign land in search of greater understanding.

Is Africa poor, hungry and left desolate to suffer alone because of her own sins or those perpetrated by her colonial parents?

I believe Jesus’ reply would be the same: “No, but that the glorious power of the Living God might be revealed to all the earth.”

How will I respond to this challenge?

May each day of my life tell His story of sacrificial love. May I never cease to inspire every mortal He sends across my path to put their trust in Him. May I grow in skillfulness and influence to mobilize more souls as part of His supernatural solution to the need of Africa!

being an alien in Texas ain't for sissies

This is the first year in which I’ve had the privilege of seeing winter set in TWICE! It’s only Fall according to the locals, who’re still walking around in short sleeves (mostly migrants from the North) while I have already reached the limit on polar items in my wardrobe. Stuck in bed with a Texas-size cold, I’ve time to ponder life in America again…

11.5.2004, Friday : sick but warm with all of life’s luxuries

Toast with apricot jam and Earl Grey tea… Just over four years ago, I emigrated for the 2^nd time into uncharted territory. I took all my belongings that could fit into “Wittes” (white one) my ’62 Series II Land Rover and settled in a magical land of endless horizons where I discovered freedom in simplicity. Living in a rugged desert country the size of Texas with only 1,6 million individuals to crowd one’s space brought the assumption of having drinkable water, immediate electricity and shelter into a new light.

In Namibia, I decided that toast is the ultimate artifact of the civilized world.

In order to enjoy a slice of warm toast with butter and apricot jam the following blessings are implied : I have enough means to have bread, I am living in a dwelling with connected electricity, I own a toaster or any other sophisticated appliance to grill my piece of bread. Adding the excess of putting butter and jam, implies that I have some means of keeping my butter cold and the added lavishness of a good rainy season protected from pests for my apricots to be edible and the time to make jam. Making tea in the bush is less problematic, but still, it relies on a few critical parameters that are not a given to my fellow Africans.

So…let me raise my mug and celebrate another splendid day of basking in my Father’s sufficiency! A toast to Thomas Edison, to Tannie (auntie) Rita Rautenbach, a lady on a farm in Mpumalanga (where the sun comes from – in Zulu) who could make the best apricot jam in all of Africa and the clever people working at Zicam LLC Phoenix in Arizona, for making this funky “in your nose” medicine that enables some of my taste buds to participate in this grand occasion! To ya’all!!

11.3.2004, Wednesday : long lives the president (again)

“DRUG FACTS : When using this product – drowsiness may occur….excitability may occur..” How can this be true in both cases? Am I drowsy or am I excited? My eyes avoid the prescribed text books as I reach for the sponsored toilet roll on the floor where a small colony of used white bundles are resembling what I suspect snow could look like. Amidst (not too unpleasant side effects of my Tylenol Cold) my theory is proven again : Americans must have a genetic resistance to this stuff induced by many years of use. If they knew how potent it is on an unsuspecting central nervous system I might be required to sign an agreement not to use medication containing Acetaminophen while I’m a studying representative of this seminary.

11.2.2004, Tuesday : election week seen from the southern hemisphere

“Do you know who’s boss yet?” asks my dad in his good night email before I get into bed.

Will this man be God’s instrument in the AIDS crisis of my continent? Will his voice remain silent about our neighbor’s insane dictatorship that is preventing placement of the last peaceful puzzle piece in Southern Africa? Being the boss isn’t easy, but somebody’s got to do it…

9.29.2004, Sunday : Mormons under cover

Still shopping for a local congregation, one of my 3^rd floor neighbors and her visitor from Austin offered me a lift today. Getting lost has become a given on our journeys about town, as neither of us have ever lived here before. We finally found the friendly building and received a warm welcome at the door.

Assuming that my neighbor and her friend was married, the lady made a comment implying different sermon, Sunday school and seating possibilities for the various visitors. Simplifying all the choices the Austin man responded “They’re both my wives, we’re Mormons”….she remained hospitable after a shocked silence and invited us both to their next women’s retreat. I loved the place and the people but it’s to far away…

9.2.2004, Wednesday : online shopping for idiots

After spending four weeks investigating the different options in laptop computers, I have decided that I have to put an end to this non-stop argument in my mind : Mac vs. PC, PC vs. Mac…all the fancy functions plus the software for making movies at twice the price for six years or half the price for all the fancy functions with the software to edit videos at half the price for four years.

The final verdict is as follows : PC, HP (no support for Dell back home) ASAP!!

I stumble into the basement where my AV hero works. He knows how to do all sorts of clever tricks with a computer and has been the patient soundboard of endless technical enquiries. Today I shall spend the most money on a single item ever!

He confidently waits for the telephone sales operator somewhere on this continent to complete all the necessary details. My palms sweat and I want to cry for not being able to do this on my own. I am trusting a stranger who is speaking to another stranger to get my thousands from a strange bank in order to have a piece of equipment I don’t know how to work, with a plug that will never fit in the wall sockets back home!

9.20.2004, Monday : farewell to the men with their green meal trays

I have been the happy employee at the cafeteria for more than a month. Since school started, and real life dawned plus reading requirements, assignments due and trying to learn Greek from scratch, my RAM has been exposed to unmanageable levels of intensity! Thus, I am terribly sad to say, that I resigned today.

No more fashion-statements in my hairnet, no more sauna sessions in the kitchen with my cooking colleagues, no more last minute chance of orders to the ever popular and safe but boring choice of “grilled chicken sandwich” with some curly fries on the side to my friendly customers after a long, hungry afternoon.

What memories do I take with me from this lavish career in the catering ministry? You get apple-stick-lovers, adamant veggie-sticks-lovers, undecided eaters that couldn’t be bothered by either seasoned or unseasoned sides, the explosive sports channel watching crowd who always go for the whole spectrum of prepared beans and hot tortillas, with appetites the likes I have never seen before!

10.8.2004, Friday, : chamomile tea amidst geraniums at midnight

A kind group of warm hearted Americans invited me to join a social sacrament where authentic hospitality leaves a sweet scent everywhere you go. Pizza’s and Friday nights seem to go together in most households here and this one gave me my very first taste.

I was staring at the star studded night sky with some American girlfriends on the hammock. We were completely carefree for a few hours. Talking nonsense and pretending to be back in our own home back yards, wherever “home” was for each of us. Hearing the dog muffle for attention and the screen door open to get orders for the after-meal tea and coffee. The candle lights were beginning to flicker more rapidly as a soft breeze picked up. Kind hands offer a lovely big mug, prepared just for me and served with the love and dearness of a father. For a brief evening I was feeling safe at home…content.

10.9.2004, Saturday : lovers and friends, bubbles and chocolate

My first American wedding! What a rush…a whole mass of classy black dresses and suits lined up in front with three little angels slanting down like organ pipes in white. A proud dad and teary mom, a grinning groom and a peaceful bride with her Spanish eyes locked onto her man, staring dreamily and floating through the ceremony. I sat next to the two grandmothers of the party, ancient, wrinkled and powdered. Both of them wearing screaming pink and lime green somewhere in their sophisticated silk scarves and Jackie O outfits…what a treat!

The reception was at the top of a very tall building with bright orange fall colors sprinkled over the tables. Even the bathrooms had a view over the entire city, like the dining room in three directions. The room buzzed as the couple entered and I stood in awe at yet another miracle completed before my eyes. Two human beings chosen from different corners of the world, being friends for years and one day seeing each other for the first time. I cried and I smiled as Sting sang his beautiful song : I must have loved you…

10.14.2004, Thursday : drumming black America all the way to Africa!

The pastor and his wife at my local church are great “normal” people, in the sense that their heaven centeredness do not disable their earthly use to God. They invited me to join them for a performance of the first female troupe of djembe drummers all the way from Guinea in West Africa. At the last minute, it became clear that the pastor and his wife would not be able to go and I tried frantically to get two other culture vultures to come along. Everybody seemed very busy and I was beginning to wonder why I thought I was available to go in the first place…what homework was I not aware off!!

Well, the show was incredible! We were about twenty white people in the packed audience and everybody was clapping and dancing at the end. I felt like I was back in the dust covered markets where live chickens and goats wander among the merchant stalls. The musicians’ bright costumes shone like textile turquoise with tiny shells and beads dancing at the ends of their cords to the rhythm of ancient ancestors. I was missing my black brothers and sisters…but proud to be an original from the precious reputation of drums and dance they’ve given to Africa.

10.15.2004, Friday : my first Halloween

Pumpkins everywhere and straw stuffed scare-crows guarding front doors along the hallways of our apartment complex. Halloween masks and costumes crowd the stores and I still can not believe that people actually want to have their front lawn look like an unearthed graveyard with skeletons emerging from below…what exactly is the point? Our Fall Fest at school presented a more digestible flavor of celebrations…providing endless amounts of food, drinks and entertainment for old and new. I sent an unexpecting baby boy crying hysterically when I unknowingly put my dark glasses on while making smiley faces at him. Oops…

10.29.2004, Friday : home alone

I was sad today. Yesterday was my brother’s birthday. Had he been on earth, he would have turned 28, but he’s been in a state of glory for fourteen years. As a family, my parents and I always go out for dinner on his birthday, celebrating the guy he was. We speculate about how he’s worshiping in heaven and smile about how close we feel to him in certain places where we used to spend time together. Mostly we recall how faithful the Triune God’s been in the remainder of our earth years together, affirming our faith to each other and remind ourselves not to hold back any expression of love and appreciation to anybody, not being certain that all of us might be around to do it later.

Two wet loads of clean laundry lies in anticipation beside the couch and I’ve just been invited for an ad-hoc ladies night up stairs with my two pregnant girlfriends…decisions, decisions!

- White Chocolate -

a moment in the life on an legal alien

29 July 2004, passenger plane entering, New York, JFK
“ …please ensure that your seats are in the upright position and…”
I am offered my last taste of biltong (dried raw meat) by one of four young guys in the middle seats to my right as they try to stuff down a month’s supply of a traditional snack before reaching this port of entry, forbidding any perishable foods from foreign countries.

1 August 2004, Sunday! What does a church look like in North America?
I pull the dark green towel over my face in an attempt to filter out the day-and-night light and droning of yellow cabs crawling along the Avenue of the Americans, The Village, Manhattan. So this is what jet lag is like: feeling brain-dead when the sun-shines outside and getting a head-ache as soon as your nose hits the sticky humidity outside the freezing air-conditioned buildings.

2 August 2004, my 1st Starbucks coffee under code orange
With gratitude for waking up after my first experience of a Korean diner with my hosts, I inspect the collateral damage inflicted upon my winter-white skin by the local colony of mosquitoes. Hmm, the locals appear addicted to my applied Peaceful Sleep (indigenous insect repellant). Two more days of surviving the city with its dirty sidewalks where fellow pedestrians don’t look you in the eye. I still do not understanding why I am supposed to go downstairs, across the road and then pay someone else to get me my first cup of tea for the day. Don’t Americans use electrical kettles at home?

3 August 2004, in transition…with the entire Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir!
Flying over suburban Chicago, I am relieved to see some “natural” vegetation again. Upon arrival I am frantically sent from one point of a very large U-shaped building to the other. The load of my earthly treasures are protesting against my shoulder blades as I consume three open chairs waiting to board a plane to Texas. Everybody seems to be chewing gum. I am dizzy and tired. On board I’m seated besides a thirteen year old boy all dressed in pink. He’s on his way home after visiting with his dad for the holiday. The practical jokes end as the movie screens fold back before descending into Dallas.

…still 3 August 2004, waiting for the shuttle with a soldier from Arkansas
Recognizing the Beach Boys in the air outside the terminal makes me feel welcomed into the South. My heart is sad as I wave to this young father as he takes a mournful drag from his cigarette. It is a sunny Tuesday afternoon, as he leaves for another desert country. I like the heat and openness down here. I would never have survived the winters had I decided to go to Moody!!

4 August 2004, landing on planet DTS…
“…Huston, this is Tranquility…”
I must be early. There’s nobody else to be seen outside.
Student services are amazing and I am ushered into the smartest dwelling I’ve ever been privileged to live in. I’ll be sleeping on the floor and eating out of a mug, but I feel like the Queen nevertheless. The living area looks out upon a pool ,shimmering in peace before the on-slaught of bopping babies, tired mothers and tanned girls.

17 August 2004, boot camp : immigration laws, identity theft & free wallets
The annual gathering of American visa holders for Fall 2004 is now in session : official representatives round up the sheep and explain everything before two ’o clock. Tomorrow the sheep will be driven to the social security office and we’ll become part of the manual-mass-monitoring-machine. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to apply for phone lines, electricity services and a banking card in two to three weeks. For now we should just be patient in our disconnected, dark little world until further notice.

19 August 2004, it’s raining people!
Excited, they’ve come from all the corners of this country! We’ve presented ourselves as western as possible with the outfits available this side of the Pacific. Everywhere you look, you see arms, food, drinks and confused people. We hear awe-inspiring messages from giants who’ve gone before us. We learn songs and names I’ve never heard of and we are sent home with the anticipation of a tomorrow, drenched in tests of all sorts…

two weeks somewhere in 2004, “…two lost souls swimming in a fish-bowl…”
It seems like class started half a year ago and I’m still trying to decipher the titles of my text books! Only eight days of formal training and I’ve learned much about myself, the orbiting sub-cultures of Satellites: Swiss, Lincoln and Sterns, and that with only one eye open you can see further than most people do with both.

- White Chocolate -

pass over legal aliens

Wearing blue jeans and white T-shirts

Mexican protestors ignore the red pedestrian light

Carrying toddlers on their shoulders―strengthened by years of cheap labor

Running across Live Oak waving their Stars and Stripes smiling

Hosanna to the kings of America

Safe us!

I AM

youthful beloved

Jewish

Lion, Lamb, Liberty

how do I love?

at any cost

Love

Forgiveness, Friendship, Ferocity

how do I love?

in all ways

Suffering

Distance, Days, Delays

how do I love?

under every circumstance

all your heart, all your soul, all your might

our thoughts, our prayers, our hopes

sustained obedience, determined completion, enduring patience

pleasing You

Who is Israel?

are you the moon-worshipping nomad who ate lunch with the One who prepared the universe?

are you the son of two senior citizens laughing at your first word spoken―A-b-b-a?

are you the adulterous caravan who missed the right turn-off from Egypt 2078 times?

are you the amnesiacs dancing on the edge of a fiery furnace with thunder rolling down the hill?

are you the screaming refugees who raided the Middle-East deserts under constant shade?

are you the new tenants of twelve fully furnished states with instant crops and running cisterns?

are you the fat farmers who refused to let the soil rest insisting on a visible sovereign instead?

are you the mighty men fighting for a murderer who married too many wives in the end?

are you the silent singers crying rivers in a foreign land where you finally began to remember?

are you the seed from which all creation came who grew inside a teenage virgin?

are you the perplexed fathers who sat learning from a boy twelve months before His bar mitzvah?

are you the desperate followers of a vegetarian hermit who showed up from nowhere to preach?

are you the proletariat guarded by Latin mercenaries and Greek philosophy who saw the dove on His head?

are you the angry militia waving palm leafs and throwing rocks in the same week?

are you the faithful few baking bread and drinking wine while fighting over His crown again?

are you the generation who saw dead people walking around for three hours during an earthquake?

are you the group locked away on top of the roof dispelling rumors and seeing Him holes and all eating fish?

are you the enemies of the Roman State who made peace and order impossible to maintain?

are you the illegal aliens stowed away on ships between purple cloth and Turkish Delight?

are you the secret societies hiding in tombs and singing on the inside hearing Paul’s letters read?

are you the family who designed the world’s first printing press?

are you the tragic victims of the Reformers’ Arian insanity?

are you the brave chameleons blending in to every tribe and tongue across the globe?

are you the clever merchants, eating Chinese take-aways and pizzas once a week in New York?

are you the defending Rottweilers who were forced to become lap-dogs to Allied colonialists?

are you the unspoken envy of every aspiring scientist dreaming about apples and relativity?

are you the genius behind science fiction and merchandized action heroes?

are you the forgotten first-born who is running out of land?

are you the icon of hopelessness violated by journalists, archeologists and seminarians?

are you the point of my heart, the centre of their prayers, the choice of our Father?

Amen