From the heart

When was the last time you did something from the heart? Not stopping to think about whether or not it was technically perfect or if it made you look good, you simply did it because it was the right thing to do. I must confess that so often I don't do what I should because I get all caught up in how it will look; how it will make me look, and how people will receive it. So, an opportunity to do good is wasted and someone who could have been blessed, goes unblessed.

This evening, I logged into my computer and read the latest update on http://pjandashleigh.blogspot.co.uk/. It was the kind of update that makes you laugh and cry at the same time. I could picture Jorja, Ethan and Zac leading all the adults in their lives on a merry dance and it brought back memories of the wonderful special times that Robyn and Ash (their mums) shared with my boys, especially Christopher.

When, when I logged into Google+ to add a comment, I was informed that a person had shared a video that I had uploaded to YouTube in 2008.

When I Cry ...

When I Cry, was the first thing I ever uploaded anywhere. It was simply a response to what a friend and I were going through at the time. It's a simple video for a very beautiful song, but here's the key: it was a message from the heart that I wanted to share with a friend. And somehow, I believe because of that, people who have watched and listened have looked beyond its weaknesses and failings and received the message from the beautiful song on which it is based.

So, as we head into the final days of preparation for Christmas, my challenge to myself is to  make sure that whether I'm giving of my money, my time or myself, I'm always giving from the heart. For surely, that is what Christmas is really about: a Father giving from His heart, without a guarantee that grateful hearts would accept His gift.

learn, love, live

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To hope is to risk disappointment.

But risks must be taken because the greatest risk in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, sees nothing, has nothing and is nothing.

He cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love and live. (Author Unknown)

Remembrance Day

Robert Louis Stevenson said: The world has no room for cowards. We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when you go out into your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout about your coming when you return from you daily victory or defeat.

So today let us honour all who fight on battlefields of every description, against enemies without and within: Siyonqoba (We will conquer).                  

The Women I Come From

Francine Rivers wrote a book called 'A Lineage of Grace' that I read more than ten years ago. It tells the stories of five unlikely women who changed eternity: Tamar, betrayed by the men who controlled her future, she fought for her right to believe in a loving God. Rahab, a woman with a past, who was given a future by God. Ruth who gave up everything. Bathsheba whose beauty brought great pain and Mary who accepted challenge and great scandal in simple obedience to God. But recently, I've been thinking about the women I come from: 'they're faces in photographs, heads all held high, not afraid to look life in the eye: women with backbone, keepers of the flame,with a spirit even hard times couldn't tame'.

Sarah Geduld, my amazing grandmother who was still globetrotting well into her seventies. She reared her sons and one daughter to stand proud, even through the worst years of apartheid. But she also taught them about gentleness because her son, my father was one of the strongest and gentlest men I have every known. A man who knew an 'allemagtige Vader' and who sang 'Jesus loves me this I know' until we could sing it too. She taught him well, how to cook and clean but also how to be a son, brother, husband and father. My grandmother encouraged us to be strong and speak our minds; she certainly did ... always, whether you wanted to hear it or not.

Then there was Sally Stephens, wife to Charles and mother to Joan, Alice, Janet, Jean, Charlotte, Hazel and Daphne - and Ruby whom we never had the privilege to meet. When my grandfather was away during WWII, she held that family together and made sure that her daughters knew just what their father expected of them. She was always a lady, with a handkerchief in her handbag and the smell of Oil of Olay lingering around her.

Finally, there's my mum who has set her daughters an incredible example as a daughter, wife and mother. Her faith has sustained her and led her to take on challenges that might have crushed a lesser woman. She still opens her door to strangers who knock and offers sustenance, both physical and spiritual. She taught hundreds of children in Sunday School and introduced three generations of her family to Bill Gaither's music and the God that she loves. She made us walk to school but we always knew that if it rained, she'd be there to pick us up (licence or no licence).

Now I have my own children beside me and as they grow into manhood and think about the lives they will live, I want them to know the women they come from.

These are the women you come from;
The faith that sustained them is bred in your bones
You know what you're made of, where you belong
Cause these are the women you come from...

The Women I Come From

Oaklands Rugby (2nd team) U18 Schools Tournament 2013 - Match 3

Daniel at play ...

SWALEC Championship | Welsh Rugby Union | Official Website : Championship braced for top of the table clash

SWALEC Championship | Welsh Rugby Union | Official Website : Championship braced for top of the table clash

A great way to keep up with what Timothy is up to in Wales. He missed the last game through injury but hopes to be back soon.

Tattoos and Marmite

It's Friday evening and we're three weeks into the start of a new school year.So, it's probably a good time to just pause for a while and have a go at re-entering the blogosphere.

I love teaching. Probably because I am a teacher. No, I'm not stating the obvious: many people teach; some people get paid huge sums of money to teach. But not all people who teach are teachers...

So much has changed since I first started teaching, that sometimes I feel like this is nothing like the job I trained to do.My first job was at Wynberg Secondary School in Cape Town. My first class included some young men who were older than I was and I taught a class of Standard Nines (Grade 11s) that contained 47 students.I still am in contact with some of the first students I ever taught and some of the colleagues I worked with. Now I work in North London. My teaching room has all the latest technology, including 25 computers with the latest Windows and Microsoft software. Yet, the focus of my work remains exactly the same: teaching young people. And, if truth be told, if I had it to do all over again ... I would be a teacher again, regardless of where in the world I found myself. Why? Because I'd still be me.

So, although I have struggled with the fact that the start of school has coincided with the very sudden disappearance of summer in the northern hemisphere and it is both cold and wet, and although I miss Edward terribly during the week, the truth is that I love being back at school. Even the little Year Sevens with their almost constant: 'Miss, is this right? Do I rule the line here? Do I write this in my book?' and my Year 11 form who think they know it all, but are terrified at the thought of leaving the safety of secondary school in nine months time. Suddenly nearly all the boys are taller than I am and their voices boom around the room. A group of girls in my form have decided that I need help organising my teaching room. So, they stay back on a Thursday afternoon and pack books away, organise drawers and put up posters. And, while they are doing this, we chat about cats called Tommy, coursework that needs completing and whether or not having a tattoo as soon as you turn 16 is a good idea.

So what do tattoos have to do with Marmite? Nothing actually. But working with young people means that I have to be able to talk about both at the drop of a hat, often in the same sentence with the same confused fifteen year old. And I wouldn't trade it for the world.