Can we be a Chrissie Olivier to those around us?

She is rather small! Petite, soft-spoken and sophisticated. But in my mind she towers above everyone else. Her name is Chrissie Olivier.

We were going through a very tough time as a family during the last three years of my high school (senior school) education and it affected me deeply. I really struggled emotionally and did not have anyone to share my pain with. I found catharsis in creative writing (what was then called Composition). I envisioned a better life and the words kept flowing onto every paper I set my hands to.

I also struggled with political issues around justice and fairness – having committed my life to Jesus at the time, I struggled to reconcile the values of my own Christian community with how they lived and treated others. This sometimes led to heated debates with classmates. I felt increasingly isolated from my peers because of that. Now with regard to the latter I know that it might have been my own thwarted perceptions – but anyway, that is what I felt at the time.

The only place I felt safe and able to express myself without fear of being rejected was in her class.

She touched me on my shoulder and looked me in my eyes and then she said: “You are so gifted. You must not stop writing. Your English is so good!” She was my English teacher in the late 1980’s.

This woman – so small in stature – lifted this heavily depressed soul from the dungeons of self-pity and isolation. She gave me permission to be me … and she believed in me! She gave me permission to express myself and to think critically about things. I will always be grateful to her.

You see – she did not do anything extraordinary! She simply did the ordinary well. In that moment this ordinary teacher was used by God to do an extraordinary thing. She did nothing more than live her life with faithfulness and love, but God used the small seeds of her daily routine to change a life forever. She simply chose to use her work to empower and to encourage. In so doing she propelled me into a better future. She did not only do that for me, but for many others (including my own children) that I have come into contact with over the years (because I have since that day chosen to deliberately do the same with and for others). Again, I will be thankful to her forever.

In that moment, I came to believe that no matter where you live and no matter what circumstance you find yourself in, the Lord can reach into your life and give your life purpose and meaning.

As we celebrate the birth of Jesus – friend of the lowly and the marginalized, the one who identifies with the poor, the one who used the sidelined shepherds to be his mouthpiece, and the one who equips the voiceless to herald Good News for all – it is my prayer that we shall be a Chrissie Olivier to those around us. My prayer is that we shall do the best we can in our ordinary day-to-day lives and work to build others up and propel them into a life of peace, hope, joy and love.  

Could there be space for all of us?

Recently someone of mixed descent posted a question on the social networks about his own search for identity. He asked: Am I a Coloured (a term used in Southern Africa for people of mixed descent) or a Baster (a term used in Namibia for people of mixed descent – with their roots in Rehoboth)?

The answers were interesting, yet disturbing at the same time. It was interesting because it gave voice to people’s struggle with identity. But it was disturbing in the sense that it exposed (again) the deep divisions that permeate the society that I come from. Again, I was struck by and driven to tears by the intolerance for “others”.

Someone even used the land ownership argument: “Coloureds do not have land or a place that they can call their own!” I was disgusted and pained at the same time. You see, my father is a so called Coloured who came to live in Rehoboth as a child – Baster people used to refer to my family as “inkommers” (those coming from the outside). In fact they even had a very derogatory word from the Nama language to refer to us – this was of course always used in reference to land ownership.

What is ironic for me is that this same group of people were pushed off their land in South Africa and forced North where they eventually was met in true African hospitality by the original inhabitants of Rehoboth – and they were given land to live on. Of course this is where the debate becomes a hefty one – Baster people believe that they bought Rehoboth from its original inhabitants. This is something I question: Did the original inhabitants of Rehoboth even have a word for ownership in their language? We now know that the traditional view held by Africans at the time was that land belonged to the community (and was never vested in the name of any one individual). Could it be that the original inhabitants simply offered the vulnerable group form the Cape simple hospitality – to find rest and refuge after their horrible ordeals with their White oppressors? And could it be that that misunderstanding led to that brutal battle between these two groups later on?

Whatever the answer to this – it is clear in my mind that the original inhabitants of Rehoboth could have refused the Baster people any form of hospitality – but they chose to provide them with a place of refuge. In fact, such was the gratitude, that they called the place Rehoboth (there is now space for all of us).

As said earlier, it is ironic, that this place, Rehoboth (where there should be place for all of us), have become a place of exclusion and intolerance of “others”. It has always been one of my deepest pains that the original inhabitants of Rehoboth have become second hand citizens on the land of their forebears and that the victims of oppression (in this case the Baster people) have become the abusers of another.

Should we (of mixed descent) who know the pain of exclusion, not have greater empathy for others? Should we not be reconcilers, instead of dividers? In fact, I wondered if any Baster leader have ever apologized to the Nama speaking residents of Rehoboth for the many years of pain inflicted on them?

As a Christian, I strongly hold to the belief that I should always be living for and exemplifying the values of Jesus: hope, peace, joy, love, justice, equality, tolerance, etc. These are values that I first learnt in Rehoboth (that have always staked claim to its Christian character). This Christmas I have one wish – that Rehoboth shall become a place “where there is now space for all of us”, that these unhealthy divisive discussions about who’s in and who’s out, will be turned into discussions about how we can live together as people reflecting the values that Jesus represents.

(Postscript: I have lived both in Rehoboth and outside Rehoboth, in Namibia and outside Namibia, in Africa and outside of the African continent – and I know many Baster people who have done the same and who have contributed to the socio-economic and political lives of those communities where they have lived/live. Can we do the same for others who come to live in Rehoboth?)

Keise Eio/ Thank you/ Baie Dankie

Collecting For Food Bank at ASDA.

I was collecting for Food Bank on behalf of Towcester Road Methodist Church recently- while the choir sang Christmas Carols (at ASDA). What a humbling experience (standing at the door, greeting shoppers and asking them to put something in the trolley).

Coming from a country where feeding the poor and standing up for the marginalized is something that you take for granted as a minister of the gospel – it was quite sobering to hear people say things like – “it is such a shame that things like this should happen in a country like Britain”, “unbelievable that you should be collecting food in a country like ours”.

I don’t know if I should say that poverty is relative – I am used to poverty that you can literally smell and that you can see blatantly in front of you. Some years ago I wrote this when visiting an elderly man in a township back home:

The silent, evil voice of poverty ,

shouts loudly in my ears ...

the bitter taste sticks to my skin,

and on my clothes and tastes on my lips ...

the acrid smell of it burns my nostrils ...

Oh, the poverty .

The tired voice of "cannot anymore"

"Had enough”, says to me:

"Umfundisi, now I just wait for the Big Train to come,

And for the great conductor to call

old Shorty 's name ...

Umfundisi, then I'll go... I'll go ... "

... So helpless, so helpless...

nothing I have or can give ...

nothing can bring lasting change ...

... what I have ... well ... just for now ...

is love and respect ...

At least it will give some dignity now...

just for now

Here it is a different story – you can’t see it like you see it our townships and informal settlements – but it is here, and it is growing.

I have always been certain that I am called to proclaim the values of the Reign of Jesus (hope, peace, joy, love, justice, equality ….) a calling that I can’t seem to get away from (even here, in one of the most prosperous countries in the world).

At the end of our Liturgical Year we usually celebrate Christ the King Sunday. This is perfectly appropriate for it reminds us of the purpose of our year-in and year-out living — putting Jesus first in all things. As the author of Colossians puts it: “Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15-16 and 18). “The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love.” (1 John 4: 7-8).

As our Liturgical Year ends and a New Liturgical year begun this month - May our default stance be for Jesus. What does it mean to be for Jesus? It means to be for what he was for. To be for: LOVE, truth, gentleness, forgiveness, generosity, compassion for the vulnerable, to live lives of prayer, peace, joy and justice etc. This stance for Jesus is the most faithful way we can prepare for his birth among us.

There is such intolerance everywhere around us today – and it is so easy to focus on that and to be drawn into it ourselves. More than ever before, we need to focus on Jesus and to live the values of the Reign of God – to be an alternative to that which we see around us.

I am thankful for the folk of Towcester Road Methodist Church, Northampton, for taking a stance for the values that Jesus represents. I am thankful for the opportunity I had to stand at the door of a shopping complex – making a statement that all is not well in our society – and for pointing people to the role of the church in a society that is not well – being the mouthpiece of the poor and the vulnerable.

Emmanuel – God is with us.