Ek is 'n skip in die Baviaanskloof

    Voordat ons te oud word en nog kon kies om kinderdrome te vervul, wou ons die stad verlaat en op ‘n plaas bly. So het ons opgepak en getrek met alles wat ons het. Ons moes die oop-see aandurf wat toe eintlik die droeë karoo was. Die water het gelydelik om ons mooi skip opgedroog te midde ‘n aangaande droogte wat voor ons tyd begin het. Op ‘n dag erens tussen die toeriste pad en die teerpad, besef ek dat ons gestrand het in ‘n woestyn van pragtige majestueeuse berge en klipharte.

    Eers net skietgebedjies as daar wolke in die lug is. Tussen my kniee en die stof, begin ek te dors na Lewende Water. Hierdie behoefte was nie in my siel met ons aankoms op die vervalle plaas nie. Naderhand kom die smeekgebede van vergifnis oor die mense-gemors wat ons gekoop het saam met die verdorring. Ons word verder getrap en ek leer hoe om vir ons ongenaakbare bure te bid. Uiteindelik toe ek heeltemal plat is, sien gebede vir Herlewing lig. Ek bid vir reën en Herlewing vir die hele kloof, vanaf die N9 tot die N2 in Jeffreys, vir 6 jaar nie verniet nie.

    Saam met die seer kom ‘n groot hongerte na geregtigheid. Hoe meer dinge ondenkend skeef loop hoe meer smag ek na helder, helende Waarheid. Ons is verbeister deur die mense wat hulself oorgee aan skandelike drifte soos dit in Afrikaans beskryf word. Ag en dit was nie lank nie toe kom ek agter die locals het ons gemerk as inkomers. Aanvanklik word dit vermom as diegene wat nie hier gebore is nie, maar eventueel blyk dit dat dit ‘n voorkeur van geselskap is. Tog skuil die oorsprong van die ongeskrewe kulturele reg om te kies wie is in en wie is uit, net onder die vel. Soos alles vat dit tyd om te ontwikkel. ‘Geslote gemeenskap’ was vir my net artikel-woorde totdat my mooi skip in ‘n dig-toe plek kom vasval het. Of die brandmerkery in lyn staan met die Blye Boodskap of nie, mense wat spirituele blinheid kies sodat hul eie wil kan geld, is sout wat laf word.

    ‘n Gesoute kerkganger weet dat die Bybel en eie-kulturele maniere teenstrydig is, die punt van die evangelie. Albei kan nie op dieselfde tyd die Waarheid wees nie. Al stem almal met mekaar saam en maak dit so aanvaarbaar ondermekaar om die skyn van reg te hou. Hoe het dit dan gekom dat die Blye Boodskap kultuurvreemd geword in hierdie kloof- woestyn? Vir alles wat almal weet, lyk dit of daar nog nie ‘n besef is dat Jesus ‘n inkomer is nie. Jesus hou geselskap met inkomers wat Sy kinders is. As jy hulle wegwys, wys jy Hom weg. Die einste Koning van die Jode, Heilige van Israel, is ‘n Hebreuse man wat nie ‘n boere, Afrikaanse Christen is nie, al dink sommiges hulle het die Jode vervang in die Bybel. Hy is inderdaat die Hemelse Bedelaar wat die klowenaars die pad wys hoe om Hom te volg. Hy sien hoe inkomers as swart skape gereken word en waarop onberou gepen word. Die getroue Verlosser wys Sy manier van dinge doen en stel Sy kerk gereeld voor ‘n keuse: as jy nie vir My is nie is jy teen My. Volg My, doen dit op My Koningkryks-manier in die tyd wat daar vir jou gegee is.

    Jesus se manier was om die Heilige Gees as ons voortdurende Metgesel te stuur as Heilige Deelnemer in mense se lewens. As die Heilige Gees onteien word in ‘n geselskap, het Hy nie ‘n probleem as ‘n onwelkome inkomer om die binne-kring te verlaat nie. As hulle Barnabas bo Jesus gekies het, wie dink jy gaan hulle bo jou kies? En so wrintiewaar daar reën dit op ‘n slag! Man, die natuur reageer met jubelsang en eer aan die Heerser, die berge en bome basuin Sy eer uit, die rivier vloei met helder Lewe! Maar wat, die mense bly onveranderd, of nee, ongesteurd in aandrang dat dit nie die Skepper is wat aan harts-deure klop nie, dis net die natuur se manier. In werklikheid versterk dit lawwe ongeloof en lei tot meer harteloosheid.

 

Die regverdiges vra dan,

"Wanneer het ons jou 'n vreemdeling gesien en jou verwelkom?"

Christus antwoord,

"Voorwaar Ek sê vir julle, soos julle dit aan een van die minste van hierdie my broers gedoen het, het julle dit aan my gedoen."

    Jesus het die diere met ‘n sweep uit die tempelforum gejaag, wat die plek was waar die wêreld se nasies die God van Israel kon aanbid as onbesnydenis. Die standaard is, hoe lyk die hart van God teenoor diegene wat nie soos jy is nie. Van die begin af gee die Almagtige voorkeur aan die buite-nasies wat nie deel is van Israel se binne-sirkel nie. Sy patroon om die buitestaander en die swerfling hartelik binne te nooi en waarlik te verwelkom, het oorsprong in Sy eie identitieit as verwerpte God. Daarom hou Hy juis altyd ‘n deur oop vir almal. Deur Judah se ongeloof word die nasies ‘n kans gegun om ingeënt te word as wilde olyf takke, en dit net binne ‘n beperkte tydvlak. Die vaandel van handeldryf met toerisme-geld, is nie die wigpunt van gasvryheid nie. Ter wille van geld het Judas Jesus verraai.

    Die Vader stuur Jesus as ‘n soenoffer na elke vervreemde nasie toe. Jesus daag op as inkomer met ‘n huweliks-aanbod van Vrede en Vryheid. Sy lewe vir joune. Dit is die Vader se Verlossingsplan dat Sy Seun se Bruid bestaan uit elke nasie, stam, volk en taal. Dit is Sy droom vir elke mens op aarde, om by Sy tafel in Sy Koningkryk aan te sit. Almal is genooi maar nie almal verwelkom die Heilige Gees as geëerde gas nie. Ook nie Sy metgeselle nie. Sonder die Dominus krag van die Heilige Gees as ongewenste vreemdeling, raak die sout nutteloos en geskik vir uitgooi. Die mens kan nie in homself geloof opwek nie. Hy kan nie self besef en sien hoe naak en leeg hy geword het teenoor die mense wat God na hom toe stuur juis hieroor nie, want wat sien hy nou eintlik?

    Magriet het uitbundig vir my gesê, ‘ag moenie worry nie, ons is al 30 jaar hier en nog steed inkomers! Leef oor dit’. En sowaar sy en Piet het hulle lewens geien in die kloof, sy het nie geskroom om op te staan en gereken te word tot by haar strydpunt nie. Soos Griet, het Paulus talle gevare trotseer. Al sy seereise was nie net verfrissende briese en uitgestrekte horisonne nie. Hy het 3 keer skipbreuk gely en ’n hele nag en dag op die oop see oorleef. Op ‘n dag ontmoet Paulus Sy Meester. Slegs toe hy sy eie krag heeltemal verloor het, het hy tot inkeer kom. Hy het nie geweet wat op hom wag ten einde die Blye Boodskap van God se Koninkryk te verkondig nie, maar was bereid om teen al die voor-winde te beur. Anders as Magriet hulle, is ons maar onlangs eers hier ingevoeg te midde die aangaande kloof-storie, selfs tot ons verbasing! Ons ronde pen en die vierkantige gat pas mekaar steeds nie. Ek vermoed die rede hoekom Hy ons hierna toe trekpas gegee het.

    Ek verstaan deur die Ou Testamentiese voorbeeld, dat spysoffers aan God ook met sout moes voorberei word. Die simboliese betekenis spreek van ‘n geestelike waarheid wat by die mens moes vestig dat God Gees is. Dit wat jy aan God offer moet aanneemlik wees vir Hom as Heilige Gees. ‘n Offer is altyd duur. 'n Opoffering wat vir Jesus aanneemlik is, is ‘n besnyde hart wat wegstaan van die eie-ek maniere. 'n Siel wat angstig dors en honger na Hom. Hy verduidelik Sy manier vir die wat Hom wil volg, wees bereid om sout te wees en dus as sout gebruik te word. In Sy tyd was een van die gebruike om fisies sout op menslike afval te gooi om dit te steriliseer. Die beeldspraak vra dat gesoutes die gevolge van morele verval en geestelike agteruitgang daadwerklik teenwerk. En as die sout nie meer lewensvatbaar is nie, is dit selgs van nut om buite Sy Koningkryk vertrap te word waar Satan di opperhand het. Satan is boos maar nie dom nie. Hy is wetties tot in die fynste detail en vergeet nooit niks nie. Hy sal jou aanklae tot in die geringste. Net soos God en die engele, is hy en die demone, geestelike wesens. Eenige gemeenskap wat interne twis ontwikkel sal uiteindelik self vernietig. Selfs in Satan se domein werk dit so. Hy is bo alles verbind tot sy eie selfbehoud en hou die demone onder sy mag waar sy magdom nie bedreig of verminder word nie. En God haat die wat tweespalk veroorsaak en onderhou. Hoe bekend klink dit?

En elke keer as die onreine geeste Hom sien, het hulle voor Hom neergeval en geskreeu en gesê:

U is die Seun van God!

    Dit pas Satan uitstekend dat die Heilige Gees ontken word want Hy is die krag van gelowiges om in Eenheid met hul Vader te bly asook om met ander gelowiges in Eenheid te leef. En daar, die HereHere vind groot behae in sout en in Eenheid!

    Sela – staan stil en dink hieroor

    Wanneer Eenheid in die Heilige Gees verbreek word deur die enorme punt wat die inkomers-ysberg eintlik verklap, word die werk van die Heilige Gees verwerp. Ondenkbaar dat God se voorsienning vir Sy kinders verwerp word. Maar as jy nie ‘n kind is nie maak dit nie saak nie. Handelinge is geskryf en ingesluit in die Volle Evangelie, vir die wat glo en wat kinders wil wees.

 7:7 Daar was 'n plaas in daardie omgewing wat aan die hoof van die eiland, 'n man met die naam Publius, behoort het. Hy het ons vriendelik ontvang en ons drie dae lank as sy gaste gehuisves. 8Publius se pa was in die bed, siek aan maagkoors. Paulus het na hom toe gegaan, en nadat hy gebid het, het hy hom die hande opgelê en hom gesond gemaak.

28:23 Van vroeg die môre tot laat die aand het Paulus die koninkryk van God vir hulle verduidelik en hulle uit die wet van Moses en uit die profete probeer oortuig van Jesus. 24Deur sy uiteensetting het daar party oortuig geraak, maar ander wou nie glo nie. 25Hulle was dit nie met mekaar eens nie en het weggegaan, maar Paulus het nog eers dít vir hulle gesê:

 “Hoe waar is dit tog wat die Heilige Gees by monde van die profeet Jesaja vir julle voorvaders gesê het! 26Hy het gesê: “Gaan na hierdie volk toe en sê vir hulle:

Julle sal hoor en hoor en tog niks verstaan nie; en kyk en kyk en tog niks sien nie. 27Hierdie volk se verstand is afgestomp:

hulle het hulle ore toegedruk en hulle oë toegemaak,

sodat hulle nie met hulle oë kan sien en met hulle ore kan hoor

en met hulle verstand verstaan en hulle bekeer en Ek hulle gesond maak nie.

28“Julle moet nou goed verstaan dat God se boodskap van redding na die heidennasies toe gestuur word. Húlle sal luister.”

Wat bly van die mens oor sonder God se Geestes teenwoordigheid? ‘n Geskende beeld van ‘n Skepper wat nie alomteenwoordig is nie, wat nie almagtig is nie, wat nie bevoeg is nie, wat nie betrokke is nie, wat nie goed genoeg is vir die kloof nie, wat nie van ander afgode onderskei kan word nie. Niemand kom eens agter dat Hy die stoor verlaat het nie. Wag, laat ek bid vir HERLEWINGS-REëN om op my uitgediende droeë skip te val, die hout saf maak sodat dit kan een word met die kloofsand, want die ou skip kan nie die nuwe seisoen hou nie, dit gaan ‘n Rooi Ferrari* vat om hierdie berge te omseil.

 

*Evangelistiese Bedienning

OMyOtherHat

It is time for a change. Speekhout Farm is switching from a website to a BlogSpot

        This I can manage, update and publish myself. Where I live, if you don't do it yourself, sorry ne. So ja, welcome to our farming life. By now we have realised we are not farmers in the true sense of the old way, but since we live on agricultural land (and are white, go figure), we are called boere. Not by choice but by default of where we live. No matter that we say we are not, we are. 

    

        Mark is a tree planter and loves to get into the dirt to plant especially seeds. He has pockets full of seeds, his eyes always catching those little beauties wherever we go. He loves seeds and is always ready to reach when the trees and plants are ripe to present their gifts to him. Seeds give Mark such joy. He is one of those collectors, and what a happy day when he happens to meet another collector! The most precious gift to Mark: seeds. There is always more no matter where we go.

        And then the day those tiny little green spruces bumps the soil up.... he notices it hey. And then the finger pictures - I take snapshots with his finger pointing to that minute little teeny bit of life in the soil. He calls me to proudly show me the tiniest first new leaves. It is what we do here too. There is time to watch things grow.... okay only joking, on our farm the work turns out to be the activator of growth, and omyhat, how I have grown.

        

        In the city I had the luxury of paying somebody to attend to our gardens while I attended to many other things. Here I am a make-shift garden boy of sorts. After the rains I pull weeds, the energy mass is super for compost. I water the collection of flower pots of joyful colors that fringes our karoo garden. Man, they are really so beautiful. Mark is also a lawn-guy. We have a multi-purpose lawn, mostly on the western side of the farm house. It keeps the ground cool and holds the sprinkler's moisture around the trees and bushes. This helps to cool the house down during those hell hot months. As the sprinkler rotates, it gracefully slows down the heat-up rate of the house. Each little water droplet from the wobbler has a microscopic change on each microbe of heat. I love the lawn here more than ever, and so do the dogs.

        The trees together with the grasses create their own micro atmosphere. There came a day my sister sent us a photo of what it looked like here when she came to visit the first time. We cried because it is not what we saw when we came to view the farm. Honestly, it was horribly backwards but that’s not what we saw. In hind sight it was most probably the catch to think we can do it. The bait to fix and renew, the prospect of a promise not fulfilled. The chance to re-create something of meaningfulness and purpose. The chance to start something new and different while we still had time.

        So, the next thing is watering the new beginnings. Mark planted a myriad of trees around the farm house and 6 years later we have our own cool shade. We brought saplings from our own variety of thorns trees Mark planted in Orange Grove, and came to the farm and re-planted the offspring. Yes, we transported as many of our plants with us as we could practically manage. We also brought the outdoor orchids which is a family heirloom from Mark’s parents’ days.

        Mark was so inspired, he propagated indigenous cedar trees that once grew here in this very kloof. 1890 the last giant cedar tree was chopped down and hauled out of this kloof we read in the recorded writings.... We cried. We tell the story to guests who are all ears about the kloof. Mark harvested the seeds of the local cedars and embarked on a simulated process to germinate it. He then re-planted them everywhere where water can reach. They die as a still burnt-orange crackle, from a fungus we suspected. If they live, the sheep love to eat them kaal, and every now and again they grow green and tall. A real krismis tree of sorts. They are future giants we will never see tower above the humble landscape they once reigned.

        Yes, the Living Water. Water works is another full time aspect of our farming life. When we weed-eat the bossies down, it looks like lawn too! MondayWednesdayFriday, our watering motto, every day could be Tuesday, there is no telling what day it is. Thus the drought gave us a new rhythm. In the beginning, GNT in the one hand and the hose in the other, I watered the groupings of bags and pots, sometime I watered just weeds in the black bags, but not the smoking stuff. (I smoked my last cigar 22 years ago on someone else's wedding right before our own.)  I don't pull weeds out of the bags anymore, I flippen land up pulling those finger picture spruces as well. During the drought, even the quarts just couldn't keep up with the watering. Nor could I. There is simply not enough booze in the world to douse a drought.

        So, I prayed. And watered the pots. When water is at a premium, you close the nozzle between the pots and the bags to save water. While the hose is open, I count. Close and open. Pray, twist and turn. The bags and pots and I survived the drought but just that. There was nothing left for me to do but pray. I have been praying for rain for more than 5 years now. I have also been praying for revival here for the same time. Revival-rain. The rain did come but not yet revival. It rained somewhere on the Kouga mountains again, funneling the gift down the slopes into the Baviaanskloof river, giving us a continues flow not seen here by us in 7 years. What a joy to drive through the water every single time. Endless pictures, stop before the river click. Once in the water windows down, click click both ways. Kill the engine so we can listen to the water flow.... The amazing veld flowers and the abundance of water, ‘n ware skouspel

        The psalmist wrote, the life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. Peter penned it like this, for you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, all people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

Falling water

We are giving it our all. Mark and I have lived 10 years in the last 2, never a day without something out of the ordinary happening, it’s like living an Adventure on steroids. Not that we were ever your typical adventure bunnies, more like venturous souls at times when and how it suited us. I was mostly planning our calendar ahead, knowing what’s coming with little interference in our time, unless it was mostly appointed. We were totally private and carefree in our anonymity once our little castle’s gates were closed and the high walls shielded us from our neighborhood’s busyness. We had a small, neat, organized and mostly easy life in the city, carefully going about our lives and taking care of ourselves, doing just about everything together, especially cooking together at night

Here Mark has become the farmer he is. Everywhere I look I see his green heart and hands. Broken skin, bruises, dirty calluses, dirtier ripped nails, rough hands, we have both aged quickly here. Our bodies are used heavily and the injuries are just stupid and way out. Of course, Mark has only 2 hands and his hands are also my hands, which often brings a conflict of work-interest about, when I want sparre erected to visually create a fence, he wants to in-bed meticulous small seeds one by one before the season changes yet again. By the time he comes into the house and wants to know what’s there to eat, I am normally in the middle of something and have lost my appetite as I’v just finished cooking and feeding our 3 dog-children. Then he gets dog food, that is Woester sauce chicken, carrots and pumpkin, rice mixed in. Gone are the nights cooking, drinking wine and canoodling together, what can I say? Many nights biltong, cheese and crackers kept us going

First there was mist for 3 days, 32mm of falling mist…. Followed by 68mm of thundering hard night-rain, blinding lightening and sheer flooding destruction. For 2 hours we were ecstatically scared, we could hear the stumps and rocks coming down the mountain with the water, blasting and breaking as gravity pulls it to earth. The rain-scape lights up in silver white and greys, the smell of drenched earth and crushed foliage pushes up in our nostrils, deep drafts of rain-night air filling our dry lungs, again and again we breathe heavily, our senses still starved for life giving water after such a long time without. Even our strong torch is not sharp enough to show the rushing waterfalls that gets louder and louder. Tons of gallons of water pouring over the familiar mountain face, unseen by human eyes but clearly heard by our humbled ears

The next morning, we woke up like kids on Christmas morning. Fly out of bed, grabbed some clothes to get out of the house half decent, running to see the waterfalls which is

audible from just about anywhere. How could we have ever imagined to live in a place that sings glory to its Creator by just letting the water flow? How would we have ever known that coming here, we will behold the spectacular sight and sound of 3 waterfalls? That crushing water on stone and more water, draws us as we make our way through wet-wet bush to get to that point of loud awe. Crystal clear water scattering down, dowsing out our talking as we got closer. Our eyes gingerly picking out the water course from right up there, traversing down, tracing the age-old paths funneling their precious gift between the mountain’s rock face, accelerating until it hits the water bak below, declaring it’s Victory for all to hear. Then we see the point of collision…. we stare and gape and look again, our eyes and minds not nearly big enough to take in the terrible beauty of falling crushing water….. It is paradise, unequivocal awesome natural beauty, fantastical waves our senses stagger under…. Unbelievable natural mercy and grace from His Nature….. overwhelming Living Water, holy ground, our souls exuberantly alive with a gift we cannot contain

We make our way back through the drop-hugging bushes, to the second waterfall, which is best seen from the road going to Klipspringer. We come up to the fountain-dam and the 2 water pipes are both pushing out a thick stream of slightly orange-brownish mineral water, forcing the abundant gift into an already brimming dam, just sooooo much goodness. Now we can clearly hear the second waterfall and hurry to get as close as we can, more difficult as it flows down into a dense and deep kloofie, before it furrows out in a ravine of dongas and down to the river at the front of the farm. Through the binocs it cascades in a spray from one rock to the next outcrop, disappearing into the thicket. But just as we make our way up the path, we can hear another rushing and our ears draw us higher up and further on to the 3^rd waterfall. We have never seen it overflowing and only scrambled the dry bed from the bottom up with the dogs, up to the Old Cattle Trail, and could not go further as the boulders we just huge and the rock faces too high

Our pants and shoes are sopping wet and so are the dogs, their coats drenched in all the different types of water we are exploring through. We make our way up and on the first saddle and can clearly hear the falling water. It’s unbelievable, so much water, so loud, so fast, so strong…. And then we see a smaller waterfall through a gap in the bush, and slip-slide down the koppie to just touch it. Beautiful clear, fresh, rain water streaming and gushing over the most beautiful colored stones…. We look through the mountain’s water into the rock pools, those pools that were once bone dry and sacred, made for a sole purpose - to furrow life-giving water down the mountainous landscape, to a river that runs to the sea and nourishes everything along its course

The dogs are exuberant in their joy. The are loving every single bush and tree and grass tuft and can’t contain their excitement more that us. Wagging tails, hastily sniffing and climbing all around us, up and down the mountain, also drawn by the gushing water. I have never seen them so alive, I feel so young. We make our way back up towards the loudest epicenter, climbing hastily, navigating the Trail behind the dogs. The air we breathe in is green-fresh and the rising sun casts misty, steaming mountain shadows as we climb in and out of the bright sun. I simply can’t take enough photos. Up and up we climb, the falling water now very close and there we are – a huge bak to the left receiving the cascading water and pushing it over the edge to the 3 bakke on the right, stepping down the cliff in sequence, and then out of sight. It is so loud we can’t hear each other

The dogs are everywhere at the same time, also not getting enough. How utterly beautiful. We stare and sit down. We are quiet and take in as much as we can, allowing the water to wash over our souls and receiving the gift of being here now. I shout out His names and bless the farm for His goodness and Mercy. The unbelief of all of this abundance takes me back in a moment to the bitter fist fights I had with Him when the drought suffocated us and nature was dying in front of our eyes. I feel an immediate and immense need to deeply ask forgiveness for not being able to believe that this could be true, never imagining how it would be when the water is falling down the mountains. I am stunned at seeing Him in all of His splendor, bewondered that He is always magnificent here, even when we are not present. I have never felt so special to be part of a God-moment as now

City shoes

 Unpacking boxes. After the initial necessities made life functional, it didn’t much continue until we started looking for specifics. Things that we needed and we knew we had somewhere. Out comes the numbered box list, contents abbreviated in my great handwriting, accurate up to a point because we didn’t pack all the boxes ourselves, we also had helping hands. Thank goodness we had help to pack all of our stuff, stuff we have been cavorting, keeping safe, storing, hedging, hording in a sort of a way. We were hanging on to our good, valuable, practical, irreplaceable, good, and ordentelike inheritance plus our own accumulated stuff for as long as we can remember. Why, because one day we were going to need it on the farm, and here we are, one day has arrived.

It actually arrived in a myriad of days, one hectic day blending into an unbelievable reality conundrum. In the meantime the boxes were moved as the furniture got unwrapped and space became more functional. Finally all the unopened boxed were re-moved to one spot and became a wall of beige on the left as you walk through our front door. Simply put there were nowhere to put the stuff once a box was opened, it wasn’t like we were building off-spec or had the time to renovate a precious pondokie into a bespoke home. But the boxes had to be unsealed, re-folded, contents moved around to adapt to the new priorities here, and so the stuff started to move from box to box which didn’t help when I was relying on my 3^rd G&T recollecting of where I last had it in hand.  A couple of hunting episodes later and square becomes organic and the wall became a shanty town, and still nowhere to put the stuff once it was out of its controlled parameter.  It seems that average previously disadvantaged farm houses were not fitted with built-in kitchen or bedroom cupboards, linen cupboards or storage solutions for all of life’s wonderful man-made stuff. 

Eventually I parked it - the old farm people simply didn’t have as much stuff here in the kloof, besides it being so flippen far from good shops, they had no time to do what we learned to do so well:

(read this very fast or skip it altogether)

work very hard so we could carefully choose, craft, control, functionally select to satisfyingly accumulate precious, decorative, matching memorabilia, gifts, refined and pleasing objects, abundantly available in an insane amount of mesmerizing shops and spaces over filled with multiple bling-ching, delicious, must-have, bright lights in all colors, sizes and amounts, whatever pleases and suits and fits that very specific thing we want right now. And do it all over again next week.

In one of the last boxes I found my city shoes and wow was that a surprise, I had totally forgotten they existed! Mostly pretty sandals with different heels depending on the city venue and activity. So my city shoes got unpacked next to my real shoes, and they are still there. In hind sight I am so incredibly glad at the time I was packing them that I had no idea my lovelies would become dust collectors. In fact, I had no inkling that my farm shoes would help me make the very, very hard and unbelievable difficult exchange from our previous life in the upper world, as oom Boetie calls every town past Colesberg, to the realities of the farm. Mark and I did not have the foggiest blimmin notion what was to come and what we had to face to get through it all. Dainty sexy sandals are not quite what prepared me that day when I needed to fetch the sheep, driven higher and higher on the mountain slope by our lovely untrained border collie. I try to get above and ahead by striding up over loose rocks, grabbing on grasses and boulders, getting branch wipped, calling to Nina and High Heavens and anybody else that can deliver me from this unpredictable and uncontrollable madness. Ag within 5 meters you lose your halo and your shit. That’s when you need reality shoes, to save you from breaking your whatever on your way down of course, cause by now the flock is running down and in the wrong direction, splintering off and dividing the chase, the madness extending, helplessness burning in my lungs and legs and feet and cuts. Then utter relief when the madness evens out, our sheepies find direction and everything calms down with the dust settling on me and my farm shoes. At the end of the day I finally undo the knotted laces and shake the gravel out of my socks, washing the dirt off my feet and sokkie tan, an everyday thing now.

Mark's sketchers

My city shoes became my symbol for the unknown exchanges we were not able to calculate, or were prepared for, or ever comprehended we were making once we decided to believe God and follow Him to the kloof. Honestly, Mark and I would have never ever willingly submit ourselves to the extremities this faith step would maneuver us in, if we knew what we were in for ….. but God.


Sunday was one of the bestest of days we have had since our arrival 2 years ago. We have never seen the farm so beautiful, carefree enjoying the quiet peace, the soft skies, our happy dogs, offering a most thankful prayer to our steady Cornerstone on the Crocodile’s second tail. The farm is my new-reality and my farm shoes enable me to be prepared for whatever is going to happen today. Not many non-eventful days I must say, in fact we are starting to enjoy the challenges, and the unthinkable things are somehow overcomeable as God makes a stand for us. For what can a man give as an exchange (a compensation, a ransom, in return) for his [blessed] life [in the eternal kingdom of God]? Mark 8:37

last rains

Nature is also forgiving. An ongoing drought and a most thankful sprouting response after the last rains, nearly a month ago. I have learned to live in a drought, unimaginable and hard to accept at first, but then I realised as long as Living Water flows out of our ravine fountain, we stay and farm according to what we receive daily

We are so fragile and our survival is dependent on so many different factors. A lot of balls to keep in the air, way more than what we bargained for or would have chosen for ourselves. But then we are here and there is no plan B

 I have learnt not to look at the clouds and listen to what people say nature portrays about the coming rains. It rains when it does. I have washed our car, put the carpets out, packed books outside, all those things that you should not do in case it rains so that it can rain. I have prayed, cried, fasted, drank a lot, cried and prayed all over again, on my knees in the dust. Frantic, desperate, smothered in dryness. I don't know how to live in a drought. It is a force that takes me to shameful fist fights withe Creator God.... 

And then every now and again the unthinkable happens, it actually rains.....
The first time I laughed and cried deurmekaar, we ran after the sound of rushing water, overjoyed and bewildered. The last time I just sat down and savored the smell, the cool relief, tears mingling with big fat drops of Mercy and Grace. I have been reduced to a simpleton when it comes to rain. Everything stops and no price is too high for rain. Living Mercy and Grace.... my souls sings. I wish it would rain every day