13 MORE SLEEPS!!!!!!!!!



So its coming to that time of the year..... The great return back to South Africa, back to friends and family to the fresh ocean smell the wild and rugged landscapes the free and open spaces the open road and with the good all of the bad, the crime the dangerous land I come from and the constant need to be very careful. 

I start to wonder will this place where I was born, grew up, schooled, studied and started my working career will still feel the same when I come back. Will it still be a magical place where anything can happen and where my walk with God started and grew into something unique and emotional. Will this place still be HOME.

I have come to realize over the last few months that I have made South Africa to be such a great place in my head and elevated it to the point that I long to go home and I wonder if it will hold to the high expectations placed upon it. Is there something about this land that connects you to it on a deeper level like a new born child to its mother, probably why its also known as mother Africa =)  

As much as I am excited to be going home I am also very nervous that once there I will come to realize that I can move on without it and we can part ways. I am terrified that this should happen.

Everywhere I go I see myself comparing it to what we have in Africa and every country comes out short in some area or another. Germany is super safe and organised and civilized and bursting with history just begging for you to see, but it too has its own issues. People are so disconnected, separate alone and happy that way. This lends to a slightly selfish way of life as all you have to care for is self. I too have been struggling with this and keep having to humble myself. Its also too crammed in the cities and its hard to escape the busyness of city life, there is no ocean, no wild forests, no untamed land, it feels as if I live in a box and its slowly but surely getting smaller. I feel trapped. Organisation also brings with it some complications. People no longer want to help you and try to avoid it if possible. Apparently you should just know the way things work and magically German ways should become apparent to you as you plane descends from the clouds approaching the airport...... Well it doesn't. I see everyday people who just sit on the sidewalks and people just walk past them without even looking at them, a nation so full of vision and yet so blind. I have seen myself fall into the same mold and not even be aware of it. The list goes on.....

I too have been to some very beautiful places and seen many of the great nations of this world and have yet to find a place that I could call home. Maybe I am just being foolish believing that South Africa is better than it actually is but I will say that you don't know what you have till its gone. I left South Africa for the first time 12 months ago and have felt like an orphan for the same length of time. I feel like I don't belong, I don't laugh at the same things, no one ever laughs at the things I say.

I am an African and I love my country and I hope that when I go home that I will feel even stronger about it than the day I left it behind.

A young plant can be replanted many times in its life and it hardly skips a beat and continues to grow into a great tree but a great tree removed from the land and planted in a strange place where things are different and soil is different has a hard time to recover and may even never recover from such a move.

After all of this I guess I can say with certainty that God created me as an African and gave me African blood and it will always make me an African but I guess that God has a plan for my life and He directs me down the path and leads me into a new adventure with surprises around every corner and I know that I should not worry about tomorrow as tomorrow has enough to worry about as it is and I too have enough to worry about this very day.

Father I thank you for this adventure you have taken me on and I know that it started because of You and with You and it will end with You. You know my days as they are written and I trust that you have a good and exciting plan for me. I ask Lord that you will comfort my weary mind and my restless heart. Give me peace again I pray that I may think of greater and more noble things such as the wonder of You and all You created. Keep me in awe of what you do everyday and most of all keep me close even if I tend to want to take the scenic route =D AMEN