The Good Life vs The Best Life

2022... An interesting year. Interesting that word interesting. In fact, Dannean and I agreed as recently as last week, that when we feel the other making an unhelpful comment or observation, our response should simply be to say, interesting... This would then act as a caution sign to the other to reconsider their comment, or proceed with increased thought and consideration (it also has the added benefit of being used with much sarcastic humour!)

Coming back to 2022, and on a personal note, this has truly been a 'very interesting' year for us... A year where I have earned very much under budget, and yet a year where we have holidayed in PE, Durban and Cape town! A year where Eduship ran as a trial for our sons with great success, and yet a year where we couldn't get 8 more students to go public in 2023 (we got 3). A year where our little 'startup' church had Easter celebrations for 100 people, but where we had to fight hard to keep just 5 disciples. A year of highs, and a year of hards. 

And while it doesn't all make much sense right now, hang it certainly could be a whole lot worse! And I guess that's half the key to happiness... Remembering you've always got it better than someone else (and in our case, it seems like more than the majority). The key to the other half of happiness for me, is trusting that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, my best life will have just begun (in heaven / glory). However, before that best life, I am required to live a good life... and that friends, is much easier said than done. Let me explain...

You see I believe there is a great difference between the 'good life', and living the often quoted 'best life'? The good life is lived with a battle mindset... A mindset that causes one to live based on one's values, as evidenced by certain tangible virtues (a value lived). Living one's best life on the other hand, is not lived with a mindset of values, but instead with a mindset of self orientation / preservation (albeit with the best intentions). Sometimes of course they overlap, but in the big decisions, they shouldn't.

But it's how we make our life decisions that remains one of the key elements of building a good life. I have found it very helpful to visually clarify our good (vs best) life, by creating a family coat of arms that includes the values and virtues that underpin and sustain it. (click on the badge for more on this if you're interested)

Anyway, to keep this practical and personal, here are my 2022 'good life' brag items, which I unequivocally subscribe to God's grace...

1. The first being arguably the greatest victory any non single person can have in living a good life... That of having a fun, fruitful and faithful marriage. Dannean remains my greatest earthly asset, whose value to me continues to increase!
   
2. Runner up to this must be us having successfully completed our first year of Eduship - being our homeschool / normal school experiment at the Berry Farm (where we live). If you will, I'll let Connor and Tristan's end of year school portfolios speak for themselves in this regard.
3. Thirdly, I finished another year (now 6 and counting) journeying with a bunch of Christian brothers and fellow disciples of Christ. This requires a level of commitment and dedication to the faith, which I consider one of the greatest privileges and blessings in my life (and which I rarely encounter in broader Christian circles).
   
   
   
   
   
4. And finally, having been able to successfully create and publish 2 online courses, on 2 different subjects, both being very close to my heart, and both many years in the making... (click on either picture if you'd like to view the courses)

But these 4 victories of our attempted good life, did not come easily or cheaply. None of them offered immediate reward or easy satisfaction, and all of them were rooted in our life purpose, vision and mission. And so to borrow the strap line from one of our favourite wine farms in Stellenbosch (Delheim), which we visited last week, 2022 was 'worth the journey'. 

Before I add my musings on 2023, let me add another thought on this idea of the good life. Goodness appears as a fruit of the Spirit in the New Testament of the Bible, written in the Greek (50AD), and translated from “agathosune,” meaning “an uprightness of heart and life”. Then go back another 1000 years, to the wisdom of King Solomon, who taught us to 'Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.' - Proverbs 4:23. Essentially, a good life begins in a good heart, which by definition can only come from and be rooted in God.

On to 2023... And I am reminded of a time in my life when I would seek out a specific word for the year - something that would help provide definition for what I sensed the year ahead would hold. I think this practice had its merits, but good luck in trying to find a word for the year these days! Perhaps instead a string of emojis would be more relevant and applicable in these current times... Here's my first attempt at it; 🙈🍷🙏😅🤐😵‍💫🤪🙉🍷🙏🤮😱🤪😪🙊🍷🙏. Let's just say you need to cover a pretty wide range of negative emotions (obviously including much wine and prayer!) to safely navigate any year since COVID 19 (or in South Africa's case Zuma's kleptocracy from 2009-2018). 2023 of course will be considered many possible things for many different people, but for me, it's primarily another test for the values and virtues I claim to hold dear, and therefore my 25th year since leaving school to live a good life (in an increasingly bad world).

Lastly, and on a work note, my billing job as I've known for the past 5 years (backend business report generator) is on the way out, and the hoped for replacement (as paid Eduship Dadmaster) is not on the way in... And so for someone whose currency these past 7 years has primarily been time, there are not many easy replacements to be found. Needless to say, fortunately we have faith on our side, and know (for my eyes have seen) that with the Lord all things are possible!

Of course this is easier said than done, but God's goodness and His promises have never failed us yet, and that is something we have taken to the bank every time the need (not the want) has arisen. Because as we know, wanting and needing are 2 very different things... The former being the primary substance of the best life, while the latter remains an essential ingredient in the good life. Afterall, the most famous Psalm helpfully reminds us that...

But rest assured, should you put your faith in Jesus, there is a day coming where all that we've ever really wanted, we will have. And that day, will be the best day of the rest of our eternal lives!

Love and blessings, Grace and Glory!

Let's Talk About ADOPTION

Of all the blogposts I have written, the one that got the most reads (1999 to be precise) was The feet that bring good news: Adopting Izabella-Joy.  I find this pretty interesting as when I post about adoption on facebook I find those posts hardly garner any interest. Perhaps it was more to do with Izzy herself, her unique situation and the interest in our family that resulted in many reading the post? Whatever the reason, I am thankful for how it was shared and engaged with.

And here I am again. Another blogpost on adoption (my third, actually, as my first one was Adoption: the Tragedy and Privilege, written before we even knew Izzy would be coming home to us).  If you have read any of my adoption blogposts, if you know me or see my posts on Facebook, then you would hopefully know that I am a huge advocate for adoption and for care of vulnerable women and children. But I am no expert. Having one beautiful, adopted daughter has taught me a lot; but I am still learning every single day and even now (more than ever) have to call on the experts when we- as in Sean and I - don't have the answers.  Adoption is something I passionately believe in with all my heart. Although we have no plans to grow our family further, adoption will always be a space I support, hold for others, speak about, volunteer with and share on.

Let me start by saying that when it comes to carrying children, bearing children or being a parent of any kind, I am super sensitive to the many situations we find ourselves in as women and families. In this post I hope to speak to any familes who may just be sitting on the fence somewhere in terms of growing their family, families (or singles?) who have never considered adoption as an option and / or families (singles) with the means and heart to support those who do advocate for the most vulnerable of vulnerable - the 'lost' children. I want to lay my fears of being 'judgemental' aside and to really go there - ask the questions, prod and poke. And maybe, just maybe, someone reading this will really go there with me; someone will find themselves asking "Why not our family?". If that happens, then as I often say to my family, my job here is done. 

As always, before I even sit to write a post, thoughts swirl around my head and heart on any topic that I am planning to post about. This time has been no exception. My last post was written in April 2019 - 3 years ago. I definitely have less to share about our lives now so when I do share, I sure want to make it count! It is no coincidence that my first post in 3 years would be on adoption. My first 2 posts on adoption were personal, detailed, raw and vulnerable. This time, despite all the thoughts that have swirled (and there have been many), I have deleted most of my first draft and decided to just keep it simple, to stick to covering some thoughts on one main question:

Why Adoption? 

It is God's Plan

As a Christian, one does not have to look any further than this as a reason to adopt or support the cause of adoption. The Bible is full of people who were taken in by adoptive parents - Jesus, Esther, Samuel, Moses. James 1:27 says: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress.”  I fully acknowledge that God's perfect design was for children to be in families with their own biological parents; I will fully acknowledge this to our daughter one day when she is old enough to understand it. Wherever possible I will support organisations who support vulnerable mothers. But we live in a fallen world and in this, the Lord's best is that children are adopted into families. 

The Roe vs Wade ruling a short while ago delighted many Christians (me included). But it also got me thinking about how we advocate for the right to life but often on our own terms. We say: Don't abort those babies! and we mean it. But then what happens when these babies are brought into this world? We leave them to other people, organisations, homes to care for (if they are fortunate enough to not end up abandoned and dead). How many of us put our hands up to adopt these children? Where is the church? Where are Christians? Where are we?

The need for adoption in SA is overwhelming

I have shared these stats before on a Facebook post, but here they are again: "Over the past decade, approximately 5.2 million children in the country were orphaned [in South Africa]... About 3,500 children survive abandonment each year according to a study that the Medical Research Council conducted in 2018. The study found that for every child that was alive, at least two were dead. The same research concluded that 65 percent of abandoned children were newborns and 90 percent were under the age of 1". (1)

The numbers quoted above are staggering, overwhelming. But if every family who could adopt did and every family who could support those in the trenches of the foster and adoption world did, the impact would be immeasurable - mostly for the children whose lives seem to count for so little.

I am a big animal lover (our Ridgeback is the dog love of my life) but I am amazed that many more people seem to support (both financially and as advocates) the lost and vulnerable animals of this world as compared to the lost, vulnerable and orphaned children. I don't long to see less animal advocates; just many more vulnerable children advocates. 

It is a beautiful way to grow a family

Sometimes I think to myself that it was easy for us to adopt because it was so strongly on my heart and something I had wanted from before I could remember. But Sean reminded me that this wasn't the same for him. Adoption was not something that he had thought of until that day, in pre-maritial counselling, where I told him that I had always wanted to adopt. So yes, it had always been in me but it was still a choice we had to make. I still cried buckets when the time came to decide on a 3rd biological child or to adopt. Adoption is an unknown, but so is having biological children and from my experience the grace that we have received since adopting far outweighs any uncertainty that we had.

Most fears about adoption are just that, fears

I was reminded the other day, by a friend, that the opposite of faith is NOT fear; the opposite of faith is doubt. We can be fearful and still do many things. Lord knows I have done most big things in my life terrified. It is good to ask the hard questions; before we adopted we had tea with many adoptive parents. I had a whole document typed out with detailed questions including what the hardest thing about adoption had been for each family. It is when we allow those scary questions to linger and fester and stop us moving ahead that we can miss out on the biggest blessings.   

A post written on the 3rd June 2022 on The Maletsatsi Foundation Facebook page captures so perfectly what I feel about this. I can't quote the whole post (go find it and read it in full) but to summarise some of what Tiffini wrote: "How did the fear that a child feels in belonging nowhere, become less scary than the discomfort of adding a child into a space that already exists? Why did it get this way? Where is the village?...

How much tragedy will we need to bear witness to before we feel compelled into action?
What degradation and cruelty will befall our nation before we refuse to allow the rot to continue?
What made us so fearful of losing that we chose not to love?
Will we become so scared of dying that we chose not to live?"

I know that there are many causes and plights out there that are worthy of resources and attention. No doubt some reading this will wonder about the plight of the environment, trafficking victims, cruelty to animals and so on. I am not saying these are not worthy causes. Of course they are! I am simply asking us all to take a step back and truly see what the plight of orphans is in this country. 

What if your family is full with no more capacity for more children through adoption? 
Then how about supporting the many (!!) amazing organisations that care for the most vulnerable of vulnerable? I have provided links below, in a footnote, to the organisations I have personally worked with or know or follow on Social Media.

Four simple points to answer the question: Why Adoption? Four simple thoughts coming from a simple middle aged woman with a desire to make a difference where there is an overwhelming need that is NOT so simple.  And since in the words of Paulo Coelho "[t[he world is changed by [my] example not by [my] opinion", I've tried to make sure that I include myself in everything I have said above.

If you are reading this and would like to know anything at all around adoption, supporting organisations etc please do get in touch. I am always willing to share what I know.

Blessings. 

x 

Footnote:

1. Article - Abandoned Babies in South Africa

2. The Grace Factory - a registered NPO with an unshakeable passion to practically assist moms and babies in need during the first few weeks of motherhood and infancy, with the ultimate aim of placing value and dignity on mothers during one of the most vulnerable times of her life.

3. Oasis Haven -  a registered Child and Youth Care Centre with a mission to break the cycle of vulnerable children by loving them and working to provide family through adoption or in our Family Homes.

4. Maletsatsi Foundation -  a place of safety which serves as an interim resting place for children and a place to call home whilst their cases are finalized.

5. Onthatile Children's Ministries - a non-profit organization that rescues at-risk and abandoned children, providing a safe haven for these children until they can be placed in forever families.  

6. Door of Hope - an organisation that exists to give abandoned children a hope and a future.

7. TLC Ministries -  is a children's home that provides quality attachment based, trauma informed care to best address the pre-existing and/or inutero trauma every child invariably comes with. 

8. Omphile House is a a foster home focusing on children from hard places who are either unadoptable or considered a high-risk adoption.

Pre-destined for a Post-everything World!

Like most of my posts these days, it's overdue and hardly packed with eye watering developments... But then again, the vision the Lord gave us was a tree, and that's hardly action packed viewing either!  Instead, life carries on, albeit in a very different world to the one we started our Walkerville adventure in 7 years ago! 

By a different world, I'm not only referring to a post-COVID, post-truth, post-paper, post-petrol, post-peace and post-private world... I'm also referring to myself, and how much I've become a more post-political, post-public, post-performance and post-predictable person... In a nutshell, the world I once admired, and the person l longed to be, are in many ways gone. Without going too far down the philosophical bunny hole, I think everyone's better off for both. Let me explain...

At a societal level, I believe the sooner we realise we're made for more than this post-everything existence, and that our deepest need for divine love and acceptance, can only ever be found in and met by God, the better. If you don't believe me, spend a little time reading Solomon's Proverbs, and you'll quickly concede that there really is nothing new under the sun, and in the end, we're but a flower in the field, and all is vanity and striving after the wind... Make that a double barman!

From a personal perspective, and coming back to our vision for a transformed community (the big tree), 7 years later the real transformation has in fact been much closer to home... By God's grace, my underwhelming results in multiple business and life ventures, has aided me greatly in taking myself less seriously, and finding my identity above, and not in my popularity or performance below. Of course, it's one thing to wax on about failing forward and the university of life, but it's quite another to not take failure personally, and prevent the seeds of disappointment growing into fields of weeds.

A further challenge, and associated revelation in this regard, is that while our bank account (cash currency) has certainly run low on numerous occasions, it's never dried up, and we remain debt free, well clothed, housed and fed. The revelation herein for me, is just how wealthy I actually am, when measured by relational currency instead. That is, starting with my 15 year marriage to an amazing woman, add 3 precious kids, an abundance of incredible friends and acquaintances, and lastly a personal relationship with the God of the universe... Seriously, how blessed am I!? Here's a recent reminder for me, and example of what Rands can't buy... Tristan's baptism.

Practically, we're still living on the Berry farm in the south of Joburg, happier than we've ever been, and chasing the prayer of bringing some (small piece of) heaven to our community. In this regard, some wonderful pieces of our faith puzzle have recently come together, including being a part of starting and growing a vibrant faith community (we do church in a man made cave!), and continuously being able to testify to God's amazing grace and truth. On this note, I recently 'preached' on the mysterious subject of God's Word and Spirit, and how they actually work together. Here's the vid if you're interested...

< Click here to open the video in a new tab >

Eduship, the community school we (unsuccessfully) went public with last year, but (successfully) continued privately with our sons this year, has been a great personal milestone for us. That is, both Tristan (11) and Connor (9) currently benefit from a mix of the best that homeschool and private school has to offer. The balance hereof hasn't been easy to find, but D continues to do an awesome job as tutor, and I thoroughly enjoy managing sports (as player coach), and overseeing the mentorship, apprenticeship and ambassadorship streams. 

What exactly will come from this (Eduship) for us or our surrounding community, only time will tell, which I regularly remind myself, is in much bigger hands than mine. Here are a couple pics of our most recent bush camp and soccer game... ps. For any 'I'm bored' kids at home, here's an Eduship holiday pack

On another note, a few more recent personal highlights include; Dannean and I passing the 15 year marriage mark, me passing the 25 year post-matric mark, we passing the 1 month stock-pilling (food) mark (#Eishkom), and me relaunching Strive2Thrive (a young adults training and mentorship programme) which I founded a couple years back... Only this time for a post-COVID (virtual) world. If you know any 18 - 35 year old's running low on hope, motivation and job options, this is for them...

< Click here to open the website in a new tab >

Lastly, on the work front, my desire to generate an income from something I actually believe in / am passionate about, burns stronger than ever. And so while I remain incredibly grateful for the past 5 years of corporate assessments and reporting, the Lord knows I've paid my independent contractor dues! My heart's desire remains to be doing (full time & paid for) community development in a shape and form that facilitates real transformation. One year into Season 4 of the vision (below), I do wonder where we're going to end up, but for now, the Lord holds those cards, so we'll just carrying on watering the tree (vision), and let him take care of the growth.

Thanks for reading, strength & grace always!