The Easter Sunday service was wonderful, with two baptisms, communion, and a long sermon by the American pastor, which had to be translated. Actually they had a copy and are having it translated to Venda to be shared with the other congregations in the parish. I’m told that the men’s league will have a meeting before I leave the area. They want to talk about stewardship and the Bible.
I find that Elewani Farisani is not all that different from hundreds of others who grew up in the rural areas and have gone to the city to earn a living, but have made a concerted effort to reinvest in their home areas. Many are building second homes in their ‘homeland’ with subsistence and sustainable farming a central prerequisite. Every one of these old family villages has lots of homes under construction, with the bread winners coming home when they can to work on the homesteads, while the wife and children live in Limpopo.
Saturday is a family holiday for the Moila family. Dorothy’s father, Dr. MP Moila, was a professor at the University of Venda and later retired as Emeritus Professor at Pietermaritzburg in the School of Religion. Upon his retirement he was elected Bishop of the Northern Diocese, where he served for three years. The celebration that all of his children had gone beyond high school education was a fact to be celebrated. So friends and his family gathered around him Saturday afternoon to celebrate his life and give him some of the roses due to a person, while they are alive to enjoy them.
It seems strange that if I was teaching here, I would have been retired for three years. As a pastor, I would be expected to retire in two more years. I guess that I really have reached the stage of being an elder. Why don’t I feel like an elder? And some might say, ‘why don’t you act like an elder?’ I’ve got more thinking and living to do, I just have to find the right venue.
Brother-in-law has finally been closed up, and is beginning to recover from his second liver transplant. The worrying isn’t over, but the progress may be a bit more visible. Today we go for pig feed for the Farisani farm, tomorrow we see the tailor. Everybody has a friend with skills.
I find that Elewani Farisani is not all that different from hundreds of others who grew up in the rural areas and have gone to the city to earn a living, but have made a concerted effort to reinvest in their home areas. Many are building second homes in their ‘homeland’ with subsistence and sustainable farming a central prerequisite. Every one of these old family villages has lots of homes under construction, with the bread winners coming home when they can to work on the homesteads, while the wife and children live in Limpopo.
Saturday is a family holiday for the Moila family. Dorothy’s father, Dr. MP Moila, was a professor at the University of Venda and later retired as Emeritus Professor at Pietermaritzburg in the School of Religion. Upon his retirement he was elected Bishop of the Northern Diocese, where he served for three years. The celebration that all of his children had gone beyond high school education was a fact to be celebrated. So friends and his family gathered around him Saturday afternoon to celebrate his life and give him some of the roses due to a person, while they are alive to enjoy them.
It seems strange that if I was teaching here, I would have been retired for three years. As a pastor, I would be expected to retire in two more years. I guess that I really have reached the stage of being an elder. Why don’t I feel like an elder? And some might say, ‘why don’t you act like an elder?’ I’ve got more thinking and living to do, I just have to find the right venue.
Brother-in-law has finally been closed up, and is beginning to recover from his second liver transplant. The worrying isn’t over, but the progress may be a bit more visible. Today we go for pig feed for the Farisani farm, tomorrow we see the tailor. Everybody has a friend with skills.
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