{"id":3697,"date":"2008-06-18T00:15:23","date_gmt":"2008-06-18T00:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/south-african-cross.html"},"modified":"2008-06-18T00:15:23","modified_gmt":"2008-06-18T00:15:23","slug":"south-african-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/south-african-cross.html","title":{"rendered":"South African Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just before the worship service one evening in Rustenburg South Africa, at NG Bergsig, Attie Nel said a man had a gift for me. Indeed, he did! A cross. God had spoken to this young man in the services, one of which focused on the cross, and this was his gift to me &#8230; and my response was &#8220;I am honored&#8221; (and, probably in the look on my face, &#8220;How in the world am I going to get this wonderful, 13 pound cross in my suitcase?&#8221;). Magriet, our host, had a solution.<!--more|inline--><br \/>\nWrap it up in bubble wrap,  mark it fragile, and it will get there safe and sound. Kris&#8217; comment was also important: &#8220;No one will steal or break a cross, Scot.&#8221;<br \/>\nSure enough, right next to my suitcase on the luggage belt at good ol&#8217; O&#8217;Hare was the cross. Instead of checking it in with the &#8220;handle carefully&#8221; or &#8220;fragile&#8221; bags, they checked it with the luggage and Kris and Magriet were right. It arrived and it arrived in sound condition.<br \/>\nNow we have it proudly hung next to our newly refurbished kitchen and I want to tell Attie and the young man &#8220;Thanks from us.&#8221;  What a wonderful memory this will be of our ministry and trip to South Africa.  We&#8217;ll never walk out our door without thinking of the young man and South Africa. It may well become our &#8220;mezuzah,&#8221; the little canister on the doors of Jews that is filled with reminders of the importance of living the Torah. Our Torah shall be the Cross.<br \/>\n<a class=\"imagelink\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jesuscreed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/img_0283.JPG\" title=\"img_0283.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jesuscreed.org\/2008\/06\/img_0283.thumbnail.JPG\" alt=\"img_0283.JPG\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just before the worship service one evening in Rustenburg South Africa, at NG Bergsig, Attie Nel said a man had a gift for me. Indeed, he did! A cross. God had spoken to this young man in the services, one of which focused on the cross, and this was his gift to me &#8230; and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>South African Cross - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/south-african-cross.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"South African Cross - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just before the worship service one evening in Rustenburg South Africa, at NG Bergsig, Attie Nel said a man had a gift for me. Indeed, he did! A cross. God had spoken to this young man in the services, one of which focused on the cross, and this was his gift to me &#8230; and&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/south-african-cross.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-06-18T00:15:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.jesuscreed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/img_0283.thumbnail.JPG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"South African Cross - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2008\/06\/south-african-cross.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"South African Cross - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Just before the worship service one evening in Rustenburg South Africa, at NG Bergsig, Attie Nel said a man had a gift for me. Indeed, he did! A cross. 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