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5
September 2015
Has our country turned into an
armed robbery scene?
t
he other day I took time to read an article by Dawie Roodt in
which he related his experience of the tragedy of an armed
robbery in his house; I read it carefully and attentively.
The detail of the process of people unlawfully encroach-
ing on your privacy and then with a weapon in hand have
he power to tie you up in your own house and then blithely rifle
through all your cupboards and drawers, unceremoniously evaluat-
ing your property to decide what they are going to take and what
they are going to leave behind.
They are not looking for food. With large, muddy footprints they
trudge through your emotions relating to sentimental or inherited
items and moreover use your loved ones’ physical wellbeing against
you to further get blood from a stone.
The scars on a producer’s forearms whom I once met at a rugby
game and who had survived a farm attack, flashed through my mind.
The emotions of helplessness which overcame me when I read the
article, suddenly felt familiar to me and I wondered why.
Mercifully I was not present the six times my belongings have been
stolen, but then it hit me: It is the same feeling I get when attend-
ing the land negotiations meetings! We sit there representing those
who own land/farms. Then there are those who represent the ones
with the majority vote in the country who unceremoniously take our
sentimental and private property to hand out as if it all belongs to
them, while we have to look on powerless.
Inherited land; birth right land; hard earned land…There is no room
for debate. The one with the power in hand does all the talking and
takes all the decisions about what stays and what goes. Has the
majority vote in this country now become a gun in hand rather
than the privilege to serve like in other democracies in the world?
Has our country turned into an armed robbery scene? Is that all
that remains for us – to look on purely as spectators as we as the
victims in the scene before us, are robbed?
Was that how many black people who were prohibited from own-
ing land felt when it was taken from them unceremoniously – also
their land of inheritance and farms of birth?
Certainly there must be more to life than just these cycles of rob-
bery – dependent on who has the “weapon” in hand to determine
who will own what in the country! It makes me scream on the inside
– surely it cannot be! I do not sleep well nowadays.
Then the picture of producers who went to pray alongside the
N1, reaching out to God and pleading that He breaks this cycle of
robbery and destruction, flashes through my mind. The previous
regime has done almost irreparable damage to our country. Are our
current leaders really going to repeat this with eyes wide open?
It is going to require extraordinary leadership and supernatural
grace to steer our country through this process. Dawie closes by
encouraging all South Africans to stand up, not to fight with force,
but to stand up for what is right and not to flee to Australia.
Let us continue to do the right things right for all the right reasons.
I lift my eyes to the mountains surrounding me; where does my help
come from? My help comes from the Lord!
DS KOOS KIRSTEN
WOORD
Uit die
‘n
Mens se dankbaarheid teenoor die Here word nie
noodwendig getoets wanneer dit sleg gaan nie, maar
ook wanneer dit besonder goed gaan. Dit word ook
nie net getoets wanneer jy tussen jou familie en vrien-
de is nie, maar wanneer jy tussen vreemde mense is.
Koning Hiskia van Juda was ‘n goeie en gelowige man. Ons lees in
2 Kron 32 dat hy die Here met sy hele hart gedien het en dat die
Here hom uitermatig geseën het. Hiskia was voorspoedig in dít
wat hy gedoen het en die Here het sy skatte laat toeneem. Sy voor-
spoed en rykdom word net deur Salomo oortref.
Selfs toe Juda deur die Assiriërs bedreig was, het die Here hulle op
‘n wonderbaarlike wyse verlos. Dan tref ‘n ramp hom. Hy word dode-
lik siek en die Here laat weet hom dat hy gaan sterf. Hy bid hart-
stogtelik tot die Here en dan verleng die Here sy lewe met 15 jaar.
‘n Mens sou verwag dat Hiskia nog meer toegewyd aan die Here
sou wees. Die teendeel gebeur egter. Kort ná sy herstel word hy
deur ‘n gesantskap van die koning van Babel besoek.
Hy is nou so in sy noppies met homself dat hy alles wat hy gedoen
het en wat hy besit, aan hulle vertoon. Hy spog heerlik met alles wat
die Here hom gegee het sonder om een keer na die Here te verwys.
Hy maak asof hy alles uit en deur homself vermag het. Hy hou hom
groot voor die oë van die gesante van Babel.
Hierin sien ‘n mens dat dit maklik is om die Here te erken as jy
tussen mense is wat self ook die Here ken en liefhet. Dit is egter nie
so maklik tussen vreemdes nie, veral as hulle nie in die Here Jesus
glo nie.
As ‘n vreemdeling jou na jou voorspoed vra, wat is jou antwoord?
Kan hy in jou antwoord ook jou geloof sien, of is jy ook maar net
soos Hiskia.
Dit is juis die vreemdelinge en ongelowiges wat van die genade en
goedheid van die Here moet hoor. Ook hulle moet weet dat dit die
Here is wat sy kinders versorg en seën.
Baie geluk aan
K. Mthembu van
Transkei wat vir die
Junie-uitgawe van
SA Graan/Grain
die gratis
Bybel gewen het.