Hurray For God And South Africa!!

It’s our second day at sea after departing from South Africa. High time I finish blogging about my adventures before moving onto the next ones.

I’m not going to go day by day through everything I did. Sorry. I’m going to be a little more. . . abstract, I guess is the word. I don’t know where exactly I’ll end up with it, so please bear with me. (I always felt like there should be a different bear besides bear and bare for that type of bear. . . but oh well. English is weird).

My overall South African experience ended up being completely different from what I had originally planned. Way back when I was starting to plan South Africa, I bought a ticket to a one-day safari. Then I ended up selling that ticket so I could afford shark diving. Then I rearranged the date of shark diving so that I could go bungee jumping. All of that still afforded me time to climb Table Mountain. South Africa was supposed to be adventurous and full of adrenaline, full of the ingredients for big smiles, loud screams, and awesome stories!

God had other plans.

Shark diving got canceled due to stormy weather, my bungee buddy backed out and it’s too dangerous to travel solo, and Table Mountain got fogged to the point that people weren’t being allowed up the mountain.

Everything that was supposed to make my blood rush got canceled. Everything that was supposed to make my adrenaline surge through my body got taken off the schedule. Practically everything that I had been looking forward got nixed.

Luckily for me I love and trust God. Over the entirety of this trip (and from some experiences before) I’ve embraced the belief that God is the best travel agent. Despite all my planning and research, he’s able to make a much better plan. He can personalize my itinerary to my needs and the needs of other people that I can meet. He doesn’t have to plan around the weather; He controls the weather. Also, He knows everything that isn’t happening. I’ll never know what He prevented. He could have saved me from something as small as loosing my camera or something as big as a bungee snapping. I’ll never know. Or maybe He wasn’t saving me from anything. He was just providing me with different – better – experiences. I’ll never know.

I take comfort in Romans 8:28.
And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him.
That’s me. God’s working for my good, and all I need to do is trust Him.
I can do that.

So let me take a couple minutes to tell you about the AMAZING South Africa trip God had planned for me. Sorry if I repeat a bit from before, but I’ll try not to.

Robben Island was incredible. I know I already touched on this, but I’m going to back track a bit and point out just two things that really stuck out to me. Two words, actually.

As I said before, we got a tour of the prison from somebody that was actually imprisoned there. That in and of itself was an amazing experience. When he was explaining the daily schedule he said that most people were locked up at 4:00, but since he worked in the kitchen, he and his fellow workers “got the privilege of being locked up at 6:00.”

THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING LOCKED UP. . .

Wow.

As soon as he said that, my mouth dropped. Privilege. What do I think of when I think of the word “privilege”? What are my privileges? Use of a car when I’m at home, education, the opportunity to travel the world . . . On a smaller scale, I have the privilege of having clothes that fit and keep me warm, food whenever I’m hungry, access to a clean and functioning bathroom. Even my “smaller” privileges are so much greater than being locked up two hours later.

Later the same man was talking about Nelson Mandela. For those who don’t know, Nelson Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist who later became president of South Africa. He was imprisoned in 1964 for being part of the movement and was released in 1990. When talking about Mandela, the man mentioned that Mandela spent “only 18 years on Robben Island.”

ONLY 18 YEARS.

That’s pretty close to my whole life. Can you imagine doing anything for “only 18 years”? When I’m asked the “where will you be in ten years?” question, I wonder how anyone could possibly think that far ahead – it seems like a lifetime away, even though it’s only 10 years. When I’m hungry and it’s a half hour until the cafeteria opens up, I think I’m going to starve to death, even though it’s only half and hour. When I have to wait 30 seconds for a page on the internet to load it seems like an eternity, even though it’s only 30 seconds.

ONLY 18 YEARS.

The word choice of this man amazed me, in the true since of the word. I was dumbfounded. I still don’t think I can wrap my mind around it. My privileges are so much greater and my only’s are so much smaller, and yet I can forget to be grateful.

Those two words – privilege, only – are going to stick with me for a very, very long time. 


I went to the Amy Biehl Foundation, too. Another mind blowing experience.

In case you don’t know the Amy Biehl story, I’ll give a quick overview. Amy Biel was a white Stanford graduate with a degree in South African studies. She was in South Africa on scholarship and working with the anti-apartheid movement when she was, ironically, murdered during a anti-apartheid rally. She was only 26.

The amazing part is her parents. Instead of turning to anger and hate they forgave the murders. And then reconciled with them.

What?!

I know, I think the same thing every time I think of the story too. But it’s true. They granted 3 of the four murders amnesty through the Truth and Reconciliation Committee after they showed deep remorse. Then they founded the Amy Biehl Foundation, which is a non-profit functioning in Cape Town running after school programs to underprivileged youth to help provide them with an alternative to drugs and gangs.

Two of the murders work in the foundation.

Side by side with the parents.

They have developed a deep relationship and call Linda Biehl (the mother) the Xhosa word for “Mom.”

With every level of this story, I find myself going: What? What?! WHAT?!

If someone I loved was killed, I’d want a gold medal just for not seeking revenge. Forgiveness would be a whole other level. Reconciliation would be . . . almost unthinkable. Working with them would be out of the question. And developing a relationship with them and coming to love them is such an outlandish idea that it’s laughable. Never going to happen.

But it did happen. That’s EXACTLY what happened with the Biehl family. And I don’t understand it.

Their story gives me even more appreciation for God’s love. Would the Biehl parents have sent Amy to South Africa if they knew those she was trying to help would murder her? Probably not. But God did. He sent Jesus knowing full well what would happen to him. Would Amy have gone to South Africa if she had known it would be the end for her? Maybe. Jesus fully knew what was going to happen, and came anyways. Do I have any idea, any notion at all, of how the Biehl parents could possibly forgive and reconcile with the murders? How they can invite them into their lives? How they can love them? No. How much greater, then, how much more mind-blowing, more unbelievable, more incredible, inconceivable, and unimaginable is God’s love for us?

He sent His ONLY son to earth, knowing exactly what would happen. He watched as Jesus was betrayed. He watched as He was tortured. He watched as His one and only son was crucified on the cross.

And Jesus! He also knew what He was getting himself into. He knew that Judas would betray him even before Judas did, and yet He allowed it. He knew that he would have to die, and He knew who was going to do it, and yet He did nothing to stop it.

Did you know that the word “excruciating” means “of the cross.” There was no word that adequately described how horrendous the pain of crucifixion was, so the word “excruciating” was invented. Could you watch someone you loved experience excruciating pain? The Father did. Could you experience excruciating pain in order to save those that were inflicting it on you? Jesus did.

Can you believe that? Isn’t it incredible?! Not only did the Father watch Jesus get tortured and killed, but He watched Jesus get tortured and killed by the very people Jesus went to save.

And the story goes on.

Jesus reconciled us to God. We can be with Him now, wholly and completely. God FORGIVES us. We killed His son, and He LOVES us. True, I may not have been the one that nailed the stakes through His wrists, and I would like to think that if I had lived in “Bible times” I would have been crying at the foot of the cross instead of jeering from the crowd, but am I really so different from Pilates? From the crowd who spit in His face? From those who hoisted up His cross?

I like to think so, but I know differently.

The wages of sin is death. Death. You can’t be a little bit dead, just like you can’t be a little bit pregnant. There are some things without in-betweens, and death is one of them (unless, of course, you’re Wesley in The Princess Bride). I’ve sinned, and I continue to sin. I, therefore, deserve to die. Those who crucified Jesus sinned, so they, too, deserve to die. We’re both dead. I’m not “less dead” and they’re not “more dead” based on the severity of our sin. Dead is dead; death is death.

But here’s the magic: Jesus died. He took all my sin on his shoulders. Every sin I’ve ever committed and ever will commit. He was perfect: never lied, never gossiped, never lusted, never stole, never coveted . . . Pure as snow, and yet He died gruesomely and excruciatingly. And the Father watched. Can you imagine that pain? Can you imagine the physical pain of Jesus as the thorns pressed into his head, the whips tore into his skin, the weight of the world’s sin pressed on his shoulders? Can you imagine the emotional pain of the Father as He watched His precious son, His one and only son, a being with whom He was deeply connected, be crucified?

Can you imagine a love greater than that pain? Greater than that physical ripping of skin and emotional sinking of heart. A love that makes it worth it for Jesus to be pulled down into the depths of hell by the weight of our sin. A love that conquers death, allowing Him to return victorious three days later. A love that prevails for the sake of anyone willing to accept it – even if those people are the very same who murdered Jesus. The very same whom the Father watched murder His son. Can you imagine that kind of love?

That’s the kind of love God has. God: The Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. The Father who watched, the Son who experienced, and the Spirit who is currently reopening my eyes to the wonder that is this miracle.

And here’s what blows my mind (if it’s not already totally blown). Yes, God did this for the whole world. Yes, He did it for everyone that has been, is, and is to come. Yes, He did it for every man, woman, and child. Yes, His love and salvation is available for anyone who chooses to accept it.

But it didn’t have to be that way.

It didn’t have to be for everyone.

He would have done it just for me.

He would have done it just for me: Lila June Carpenter.

The girl who has at times lived by the “if life gives you lemons, throw them at someone” mentality. The girl who has made mountains out of molehills. Someone who has lied, gossiped, and coveted. Someone who has hurt people. Someone who has stressed over the little. Someone who has, at times, felt so broken that she could put Humpty Dumpty to shame.

No matter what I’ve done in my past or what I’ll do in my future, God would have done it for me.
No matter how broken, incompetent, inadequate, unvaluable, unworthy, or unbeautiful I might  sometimes feel, God would have done it for me.

And He would have done it for just you too.
He would have gone through that pain if it was only to save you.

The excruciating physical and emotional pain God experienced - the gory, gruesome, ghastly pain that saved the world – would have been endured just for you.

You.

God’s pain was saturated with love. Dripping with it. With every drop of Jesus’ blood that hit the sand, every bead of sweat that fell off his brow, every tear that rolled down his cheek God’s love manifested itself as the exudation of pain.

And you are worth it.
He would have done it just for you.

Can you imagine that kind of love?

It blows me away. I still think I’m only grasping at the beginning of the wonders of God – playing in the fallen leaves of the tree that is His power and glory. I’m amazed with how I can fall increasingly more in love with Him.

My God is truly an awesome God.

I praise him for the wonderful experiences He gave me in South Africa: the people I met, the stories I heard, the bad things that didn’t happen, and the good things that did.

What a wonderful week.

Now I’m off to sleep, off to the rest in the comfort of my Creator who loves me.

Goodnight all. I love you.

And Chris, I hope you have a wonderful birthday party.