May 30, 2005
East London

E-newsletter # 14

Alan Paton, author of Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), later wrote a book entitled Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful.

Mtutuzeli Nyoka in a more recent novel, I Speak to the Silent (2004), puts these words into the mouth of his main character, an elderly Xhosa man living in the Eastern Cape:

Africa is a continent of sublime natural beauty. It’s a beauty that brooks few comparisons, that makes the heart pound and heave: an endless labyrinth of velvety green hills, the riveting sight of wild animals living cheek by jowl with humans, the scorching sun that rises and sets with the most golden of glows. And people with the sunniest of dispositions. I often thought that this was the land that God created; the one of pain and suffering that I lived in every day was created by humans.

The coexistence of beauty and pain is a perpetual theme in the life and literature of South Africa. Friends and colleagues in the struggle against the suffering in this country have often encouraged us to explore and enjoy its beauty. So we share with you today some of our most awe-filled moments:

•We have hiked on top of Table Mountain as thick fog moved in. We knew that in the city below folks were saying, “Oh, look, the tablecloth is on the Table today.”

•We have been blinded by the reflections of the sun falling into the Atlantic Ocean.

•We have stood on steep rocks above the Indian Ocean at Tsitsikamma (“place of much water”) as the waves came crashing in. One of us stood a bit too close and ended up sopping wet.

•We have watched a lion couple mate just a few feet away from our night ride vehicle in Kruger Park, so completely focused on the task that they did not mind our presence. During the day, we have backed our car when a herd of elephants decided to cross right where we were stopped.

•We have driven up and down the rolling hills of the Transkei and watched the cattle wander between the spread-out homesteads painted in bright pink, turquoise, orange, and blue.

•We have sat under starry skies in the Karoo Desert, proud to be able to identify the Southern Cross and humbled by the vastness of the universe around us.

•We have stared at the moon long enough to figure out that it waxes and wanes here in the opposite direction from the Northern Hemisphere.

•We have waited for the sun to rise behind the silhouette of unusually shaped trees against the early morning horizon.

•We have looked up at the branches of an ancient baobab tree and wondered how many generations before us have marveled at the same sight.

•We have witnessed the most spectacular lightening storms from the front porch of our home.

•We have learned from a ranger to interpret the fresh tracks in the sand in front of us as those of a mother leopard traveling ahead, with her cub running back and forth beside her.

•We have often wished to be able to share these experiences with you. They have created in us an increased awareness of the manifold glory of God’s creation and a sense of how small we are and how little we know about the fullness of life on this planet.

It is tempting at times to rejoice in the natural beauty of this land and to play down the pain of human poverty. We have reported before, and we will write again, on the ongoing struggle against the causes of hunger and oppression and economic injustice in this part of the world.

But this time we invite you to join us in prayers of adoration: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that it is in it, the world and those who live in it.” “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all God’s benefits….”

Ken and Susanne

The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 339