It’s Friday afternoon (and only very early Friday in USA’s midwestern States), but I want to jot down a few notes about two events where we experienced Africa’s wildness. Here goes …
Thursday Nic and Magriet took us to a cheetah farm between Rustenburg and Pretoria. A wonderful environmentalist devoted her life to cheetahs so she has a sanctuary for raising cheetahs and educating S Africa and the world about cheetahs. Marvelous animals — you’ll have to look up stuff, but we were mesmerized by their sleekness and power and speed. The sanctuary also has some other animals, like wild dogs — fascinating — and hyeena and some birds in danger of extinction.

This morning we got up very early and went to (the huge, huge) Pilanesburg National Park with Bergsig’s leaders to scout for the “Big Five” — and we saw, in the wild, elephants, hippos, giraffe, zebras and rhinos. And plenty of monkeys and impala and warthogs and birds galore. No, we didn’t see either buffalo or lions, but we did the next best thing. These folks are very good to us: they took us to a lion ranch where we could pet and hold baby lions and then see lions treated with the greatest of respect as they grow up and have babies — we saw two lionnesses carrying cubs in their jaws. Their size amazes us. Attie is linking to some pictures from our day: Attie’s blog .
My mind constantly wandered into thinking what this place must have been like 2-3 centuries ago.
Yes, I’m doing some speaking and preaching too. Wed and Thurs evening we had services for Pentecost and I finished up my series. Here is the link where you can find the talks.
Saturday morning we fly to Cape Town and I’ll be speaking Sunday at Mosaic. We are looking forward to meeting Theo Geyser and to be a part of Mosaic.
I cannot express in words what we feel about the hospitality we have experienced here in Rustenburg with Attie and Renate Nel and Nic and Magriet — our hosts. I told the congregation last night that we have experienced the sermon in an embodied form with these fine folks.