the gift and the giver

When my daughter was three, we lived in an apartment complex.  Our next-door neighbors were a lovely elderly couple who adored our kids.  Almost every time the wife saw our daughter, she had something deliciously sweet to offer.  Hard candies, lollipops, biscuits,...

community

This weekend, I witnessed community. I witnessed community when a friend’s toilet got blocked and he called us to borrow our plunger.  He could’ve just gone to the store to buy one, but he chose to drive to our house to borrow ours. Community. At church,...

lean on me

Some may have seen it as a normal, run-of-the-mill, Friday night music rehearsal in preparation for the Sunday morning church service. For me, it was more than that. For me, it was a tangible portrait of the interdependency of the body of Christ. You see, there were...

blessed be the name

This morning, our home church in Cape Town (for 17 years for Kagiso and 10 years for me) had a special farewell service for our family in conjunction with the annual Thanksgiving service.  During the service, I had an opportunity to share the following: In the song,...

thanksgiving

In school, we’ve been studying American history, with a focus this year on how America was colonized and how the Europeans first settled and established the early colonies and later formed the United States. It baffles my mind to consider what it must have been...

letter from dad

I stumbled upon this piece of paper today, folded in six in the bottom of a keepsake box.  Yes, it’s dated as the 15th of September 1994.  18 years old.  Almost ready to become a museum exhibit.  It has made its way from the zipped pocket of my tennis racket...