About Oom Riaan and Advent

Riaan Cruywagen is a household name in South Africa. The Afrikaans newsreader, sporting the same wig for the past almost forty years, is doing his last bulletin tonight. For many families, oom Riaan has become part of the furniture for half an hour every evening. After forty years, oom Riaan’s complexion hasn’t changed one bit;...

Selfless Love in a Selfish System

I recently had a conversation with some teenagers that made me wonder. My question was: “Apart from the general good behaviour that is expected from school kids, what would you say distinguishes your conduct as followers of Christ from people who don’t confess to be Christian?” What seemed to me like a pretty straightforward question,...

The Blessing of Becoming the Loser

I am a big fan of The Script and Will.i.am’s song Hall of Fame. Whenever the song gets played over the radio, I just can’t help singing along to the catchy tune… ‘Standing in the hall of fame; and the world’s gonna know your name…’ and then my favourite part starts with Will.i.am rapping: ‘Be...

Bonhoeffer and the Fear of Contamination

I am inspired by the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Having recently read his biography, it forced me to rethink the motivation behind the things I keep myself busy with. I can relate with Bonhoeffer in many respects; he loved music and enjoyed playing the piano, he was a fan of communal living, he was a...

The Pest that is Prejudice

When I was in school, there was a time when I wished that we could wear whatever we wanted to. In most schools in South Africa, the children wear uniforms. However, as I grew older, I really enjoyed looking as neat as possible. It had seldom been a drag for me to wear a tie...

Maid of Gold

Koos Kombuis’  song Katie came to life for me when I attended a wedding the other day. The lyrics (that you can find here) for this song that most Afrikaans-speaking people know, goes: Kytie, Kytie, Kytie, jy’t nie verniet vir 20 jaar by ons gebly. Kytie, Kytie, Kytie, jy was nie net ‘n meid nie,...

Lost in Translation

When staying in a country that has eleven official languages, it often happens that you will find yourself in company where you can’t understand what is being said. It’s a pretty frustrating experience. It doesn’t take long to convince yourself that the people are gossiping about you (which is probably almost never the case). I...

Being the Body

If you had the opportunity to be able to have dinner with any person who has ever lived, who would that person be? For followers of Christ, the obvious choice would be Jesus, right? Well, maybe not, seeing that  we believe that we will be with Jesus soon (how soon remains to be seen!). If...

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child; It’s an Order!

Children should be seen, but not be heard. It’s one of the sayings that I heard quite often when I grew up. I can still remember the intro to a speech I delivered when I was still in primary school: “Spare the rod and spoil the child!” Can you guess who wrote the speech for...

Let’s Talk About Trust, Baby…

Having an Open-Door-Policy doesn’t necessarily mean people will want to enter. Just because my door is open, doesn’t mean I really care for what is happening outside. I recently read an article that said approximately two thirds of depressed teenagers never tell anyone that they are depressed. My finest (initial) solution to this problem was...