R2U2… or ‘d’ or something…

so friday nite there was a U2 concert or something, apparently.. you wouldn’t know by being on facebook at all – hardly a person mentioned whether they were going or not going or hating everyone that was going and kept reminding them about it or throwing their Steve Hofmeyer (very pricey tickets) into the Jukskei river (my favourite one) in protest…

and it’s weird cos ever since i knew U2 were coming to South Africa i was super amped to go – they are one of my top four bands (3 now that Tree63 are no more altho have Snow Patrol knocking on that door cos really enjoying them right now) but then when the tickets were released tbV and myself had just bought plane tickets to KZN so we would drive up to Botswana with our good friends Dreadlock Mike and Nancy the Twin and we couldn’t really afford both (not knowing what 2011 held for us incomewise etc)…

so i should have been more bummed or jealous or over the endless stream of statuses counting down etc etc but to be honest i wasn’t – i had actually agreed to speak at a camp for Rondebosch/Rustenburg high school CU groups this past weekend and it was only after meeting with the leaders of the camp and the other speaker (who said he couldn’t do the evenings so i was down for fri and sat nite speaks) that i discovered that the Fri nite was the U2 concert… hm…

and the whole way leading up to the concert i was somewhat convinced in my head that someone would offer us free U2 tickets (happened all around me) for the nite so my head went to ‘”flip, how do i explain to the camp people that i can’t speak on friday nite?” when the tickets come… and then i realised that there was actually no way out of it… and then quite soon after that i realised that actually i didn’t want the tickets to come…

now this is not anything against anyone who went to the U2 concert cos i am flippin stoked for everyone that went and it sounds like it was an incredible show and i am sure i would have loved it – there are some people, like my buddy Craig who is the biggest U2 fan i know, who i am toyoda’ly overjoyed that he was there and still need to hear from him how it was, and my brother and sister in law who got tickets a day before the concert as well, just flippin happy for them… but it was just the realisation for me (as not the biggest live concert guy ever) that for me, i was very amped that my friday was going to be spent with those school peoples at rocklands campsite in simonstown.

i didn’t get offered tickets so i never had to turn them down or anything like that but i had not doubt afterwards that i was in the right place. i don’t think God or those young people particularly needed me there (God could definitely have used a bunch of other people) but i definitely believe He did use me being there and we saw four girls make a commitment to follow Jesus for the first time ever and that really sealed it for me.

i was really encouraged by my good friend bruce collins’ (who was at the U2 concert in Joburg) story of how he was able to have some profound worship moments (during ‘Magnificent’ for example, one of U2’s most blatant lyric’d songs) during the concert and also the story he shared of the girl who got pulled up on stage and so for me it really doesn’t come down to going to the concert was less spiritual than not going to the concert or anything like that – for those who went and had an amazing time whether just a rad time with a favourite band or a great time with a non favourite band (Joel) or a spiritual experience, that is toyoda’ly cool… and for me it was the same not being there.

good weekend all round it seems. hopefully it was for you… as well…

botswanan reflections: a couple to follow

so blah blah blah botswana trip…

we went up with our friends dreadlock mike (dreads) and nancy the twin (twin) and two of their friend couples and i could possibly blog a lot about living with all three for the week…

but the one i want to briefly write about is a couple who were mike and nancy’s groomsman and bridesmaid respectively… a physio for the sharks and a high level manager type product control person for a cement company (and quite possibly not the way around you would expect them to be but both are doing brilliantly at their jobs)

brent and zeldy. married for three years. but together for eleven as they dated for 8 before that. but what a couple. i commented to val the one night that brent is just such a model of a servant in a marriage as i constantly would see him getting drinks or food or a chair or whatever it was for his wife, and not that it was a one sided thing at all (i think i just happened to more notice when he did it cos sadly it doesn’t seem to be like such a normal thing with guys, at least to the extent that i noticed it that week) cos zeldy definitely appears to be an amazing servanthood wife as well, but it was just such an incredible thing to witness

in galatians paul writes that ‘the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love’ and i think that describes what we saw of their relationship – both what we saw and what we heard about how they invest in other peoples relationships and make an effort spoke strongly of an active faith and reflection of God’s love to each other…

i really want to just honour them as a couple – we asked them if they fight and they said not really – they have disagreements and moments when one or both gets a little hard headed about stuff but “we worked out that stuff long ago”

in an age when strong marriages appear on the wane, it is exciting and worth honouring and uplifting and drawing attention to when we see those that are strong and worth learning from and so brent and zeldy, thank you for showing us what can and is being lived out.

botswanan reflections: dreadlocked humour

so we just came back from a trip to botswana with our good friends dreadlock mike (i call him that because his name is mike and he has, well, you know…) and nancy the twin (name is nancy and…) and friends and both of these incidents happened on either side of the botswanan trip, but they are related and quite funny so i thort i’d share…

the beautiful val and i fly up to the kwazulu of natal to connect with d mike and nancy tt and the plan is to drive to joburg, sleep over and then drive up to botswana together, meeting their friends on the way…

so as we are leaving kzn we stop at a pharmacy so tbv can buy some adrenalin to protect her from the deathly effects of being stung by bees and her and d mike are in the pharmacy while nancy and i head off to the atms to draw money (why do they call it drawing money cos clearly no drawing takes place?) and when we join up again, tbv has a story

the one old bat (no, really) behind the counter is looking at d mike and turns to val, who is waiting to pay, and says something about ‘wo, look at that hair of mankiness’ and so val responds, ‘that’s my friend’ and so the lady (in possibly a top ten of the all-time finest back-pedals) reresponds with, “oh i’m sure he must be a nice guy, but imagine making love to that hair” – this is like a 60yr plus lady – VERY funny…

then botswana happens and on the last nite as we feast on the most amazing (and cheap, from a place called all days on the way up to the bots) fillet, dreadlock mike manages to snap off and swallow one of his teeth (one of the two false teeth he has either side of his two main top row teeth) and so with dreadlocks and now missing tooth, when he does the mike redneck shoulder-raising laugh it is truly a sight to behold

we arrive back in durban on the fri nite and sat morning we head to the spca for a good breakfast (yes, yes, that sentence could be a blog in itself but this particular spca in kloof is like spca city so there is a restaurant and craft market and kareoke lady and a bunch of other stuff happening and they have a cheap slow tea garden vibe so we stopped for breakfast before the flight out)

d mike goes to the counter to order and the lady behind the counter looks at him and says, “how many girlfriends do you have?” [much funnier story when d mike tells it in accent] and he responds by showing her his wedding ring and says, “no, no, i’m married so there is just the one lady in my life” and she looks at him again and says, “no, i am pretty sure i saw you on Cheaters” and so d mike returns to our table with a very emphatic, “i need to get that tooth fixed!”

on a sad note, my hair was not quite long enuff for the dreadlocking of it by mike, so waiting will have to occur…

botswanan reflections: next year

so botswana was hot. very hot. hotter than the camembert cheese (or lack thereof) in the monty python ‘the cheese shop’ skit was runny. and so a lot of the time it was a case of existing and surviving and seeking shade.

but there was some contemplation that took place, in between the gaps (surely you mean ‘in the gaps?’ – yes, quite, i clearly panic’d!) about life, the universe, and a whole bunch of stuff. well seven. seven stuffs. at least, and maybe eight.

but one of those was next year and for those of you who don’t know (or haven’t asked in a while), the plan for next year is waiting on God for a plan for next year. not a kind of random, let’s wait around and hope something turns up kind of waiting, but a more purposeful i-believe-God-has-lead-us-to-specifically-wait-on-Him-for-the-next-life-plan-and-journey plan kind of thing…

i resigned my job after working for 6 years at the vineyard church in stellenbosch and the beautiful val is in the final throes (or throws, perhaps) of finishing her masters thesis in development studies at the u of ct (first draft handed in, waiting for it back so changes can be made, if necessary, before final submission)

so we are waiting, and it is both tremendously exciting and slightly nerve-wracking cos what if God doesn’t show up? what if i heard wrong? what if a wood chuck could chuck all that wood, or if anyone knew what chucking was in the wood chuckian context?

and the closer it gets, the more nerve-wracking it should become i would imagine, according to latent locked-away mathematical propositionals lurking in the grey matter of my brain… yet botswana somehow proved the opposite… i really wanted to spend a lot more time in prayer and contemplation and thinking and dreaming and co-dreaming with tbv and so on, but the heat and context took care of a lot of that. but i did do a bunch. i managed to get up on a few mornings before manyone else and sat in the funky camp deckchair (with foot rest) next to the fire and mused.

amused. at times. and just plain contemplative at others. and chatted to God a bit. and read some ezekiel (wo!)

and i didn’t hear anything much. but i did feel a lot more peace. and calm. i really haven’t been much stressed about the whole thing at all, altho i think that is more likely more due to my ostrichsitis than my calm prevailing trust (which does exist, but possibly not quite as much as my maybeifidontthinkaboutititwillgoawayorjusthappen’ness) and botswana for me was a lot of just reducing the one and increasing the other, and so now, altho january is soon, i am fine with that. i have been still and known that He is God, and i really believe that He has this one. and it excites me.

and the moment i hear anything about next year and know what is going to happen, you will be one of the top ten to know so PLEASE STOP ASKING ME THE FLIPPIN QUESTION? cough. thankx. i know you care. it means a lot. but until we know, we don’t know. it’s that simple.

[oh and we’re not particularly wanting to have kids at any stage and val’s thesis is going well, thankx.]

botswanan reflection: the animals

so the beautiful val and i just got back from a rad and timely botswana trip with good friends dreadlock mike and nancy the twin and also some friends of theirs (brent, zeldy, norm and kate) and have some incredible memories of a stunning, stunning place

we were really spoilt with the animal sightings – elephant (including the smallest baby elephants i have ever seen), giraffe, wildebeest (including the lesser known pussybeest and the lonely Nigel-no-friends who was always wondering around by himself while the rest of the herd was sneaking away over the hill somewhere), warthog, eland, kudu, impala, steenbok, ostrich, hyena, jackal (and very cute baby jackal who resemble paris hilton’s handbag dog), spring hare (which is a very boring name for the nocturnal cross between a rabbit and a kangaroo and one of the highlights of our frequent nite drives), zebra and tortoise, not to mention lion and cubs (which we got to see from uber uber close as they rested under a thick bush after a recent kill)

one of the highlights for me was seeing a jackal run past our vehicle with the complete head and neck of an impala hanging out of its mouth – nature in full 3D action…

armed with Gerrie the ranger (who can identify an animal at night purely by seeing the colour of the eyes shining back from the spotlight sweep across the bushes) we got to do early morning, mid-afternoon, sundowner and late nite drives and every day would see a new animal or new animal experience which we had not seen before (vultures – and friends – circling a dead hyena, elephants taking a mud bath, a jackal family with some very young pups, an empty tortoise shell) and just really soak up the beauty – and very green – that is botswana, or the part of it in the south-east that we were in anyways…