Wow. It is that time of the year already. Does not time seem to go quicker, as you get older?
Anyway, it means that it is time for my favorite Christmas carol. What do you think?
Let me know which is your favorite carol?
Please be careful on the road and have yourselves a peaceful festive season ahead.
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Know that God is doing His work in all 21 homes that are sponsored by Heart for Children made possible by donors like you in South Africa and the Netherlands!
Many thanks to each one of you who share our compassion for orphans and abandoned children.
There are 8 foster homes in the Jeffreys Bay /Humansdorp area that receive regular monthly aid from Heart for Children. They are all run by Victory4All, see https://victory4all.com/what-we-do/foster-homes/
Unfortunately, to comply with the minimum standard, the one foster home in Koraal str. 7, Jeffreys Bay, needs urgent repairs and if we don’t get the money for this, it might have to be closed. We received a quotation for the work that needs to be done and it comes to R279000. I know this sounds like an awful lot, but I know and trust God that we will raise this amount. First and foremost, I am asking you and everyone who reads this request, if you can help us? Any donation, no matter how great or small will be much appreciated. With your donation or extra donation, please mention your name with Koraal7 in the reference line. Many thanks!
We have already approached the Dischem Foundation and we will also approach other businesses in this regard to hear if they can help us with this project. We are also asking all our supporters again if they are aware of any businesses that can help us? Please let us know.
Heart for Children is an approved public benefit organization. All income & distribution to welfare projects [i.e foster homes] is audited every year. SARS also inspects our yearly income and expenditure statements, and this means that your contributions to Heart for Children are tax deductible! Note that we value and appreciate any contribution you can make! The bank details are:
Heart for Children, FNB Cheque acc. no 6221 5969 116 (code 250655).
Many thanks for your support! We wish you God’s richest blessings,
Henry and Annette Pool
Giving orphans, vulnerable and abandoned children a chance for a better life!
Please contact us!
Annette: 0834696875 Henry : 0836297690
(Note: no land line number)
Email: annette.pool@gmail.com Email: henrypool7@gmail.com
The Dutch version of this article, was recently published: https://www.climategate.nl/2019/10/84861/
I notice that requests to pray for rain [in South Africa] have been replaced with the theory that the droughts are caused by manmade climate change, putting blame and guilt on totally innocent people. I am hoping that my post here will enlighten you! [do you still remember what it means to be ‘verlig’?]
To start of with: Did you ever wonder how it was possible for Joseph to accurately explain Pharaoh’s dream and correctly predict drought time? I am willing to bet that there was some science involved in it….and I don’t think that would make the miracle of Joseph’s ascend into greatness from zero to hero anything less! The Egyptians were known for keeping an eye on the level of the river Nile and it seems possible to me that the prison that Joseph ended up at, may have been at or near to the Nile river. If so, then it seems probable that Joseph oversaw making the measurements of the height of the Nile as well as having access to old records. That could have given him all the clues he needed…..
Namely, there is a report about this from 1985 by William Arnold. [This was of course before they started with the nonsense that climate change is caused by a completely innocent trace gas, carbon dioxide].
http://cyclesresearchinstitute.org/pdf/cycles-astronomy/arnold_theory_order.pdf
If you turn to page 9, you will note that William predicted the river Nile to be at a minimum level in 1990. I looked at this from 4 completely different angles and I re-calculated this date. In all cases I came to a date of 1995 or close. This was by looking at
You will understand that over the past few decades many big dams and irrigation systems have been installed in the Nile and of course this will interfere with the measurement of the level of river Nile as it now stands. However, the principle remains the same, namely that there will be periods of more – or less – rain around the equator due to a decrease or increase in the intensity of a certain type of radiation from the sun, coming through the atmosphere, due to a 80-90 year weather cycle as proposed by Arnold and his predecessors, Wolff and Gleissberg. We are now moving toward a period of much more rain around the equator. A logical consequence of this is that there will be less rain and clouds available for the higher latitudes, 40-50 . [It may also have to do with the maximum amount of water vapor that can be available in the atmosphere which is a function of actual average global temperature]. Hence, one reason for me to predict droughts coming to the higher latitudes.
The existence of the Gleissberg cycle was known by a number of scientists long before the start of the new millennium, as shown by the reports below:
However, there are also more recent reports, like these,
All of this is apart from my own investigations, which clearly [and independently] revealed an 87-year cycle [to me]. I believe that in 2014 we have started a new Gleissberg cycle. We note that normally this cycle is around 86-88 years, but apparently it can vary upward or downward by a few years. Looking in the past, particularly at drought times on the great plains of America, we find an astonishing repetitiveness in serious drought times that were encountered every 87 years:
If you did your sums and followed my reasoning, you’d realize that we can expect major droughts and perhaps food shortages in the world in the decade to come on the 40-50 latitudes…The question is whether at the end of the next decade there will still be people left who realize that the disaster caused by the drought times is not man made?
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? 3 Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. 4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.6 Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. 7 Go, he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing. John 9:1-7 (NIV)14″You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.Matt 5:14 (NIV)
Here is a man who has never seen any light. The disciples think that this is a good case for them to learn something: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents?”(vs.2). From their point of view: If there were no sin there wouldn’t be any darkness, no suffering. They also suspect that it is not this man who is guilty because it is clear from this passage that the man was born blind (vs. 1). To them the question really is whether one could suffer darkness because of the sins of your parents. It looks like they are almost sure that this is the problem because they were probably not totally unaware of the contents of the Old Testament (e.g. Exodus. 34:7).
Jesus gives the disciples a surprising answer. He declares that in this particular case no one is to blame. In other words: there are cases where there is no such thing as a logical correlation between guilt and suffering or between sin and darkness. Following this statement He then simply points out to us that in this situation this question is not the right question to ask. Imagine: A man is having a problem. We, the disciples, all stand around him having discussions with him and amongst ourselves about why this thing has happened to him. Is this going to help him? NO! That is precisely the message that Jesus is conveying to his disciples: You don’t help this man by finding out whose fault his condition is. While we live we must rather do the work of God (vs. 4)! In our meetings with our fellow man in need, the question that begins with a ‘why’ or a ‘how’ is often not a relevant question. The question should have been: What must happen, now that it has become dark? And then His answer to that question: “The work of God must be displayed in his life!” (Vs. 3)
Notice the passage from verse 6 onwards. There is a clear parallel with the first three verses of the Bible (Genesis 1:1-3) when we watch what happens next. Jesus now proves that He is the God of Creation, able to create light in the darkness. The bringing together of sand (earth = formless, emptiness = chaos) and His Water (the water that gives life: His Spirit; see also Chapter 8) makes a combination that causes light to shine in the darkness, just like it was at the beginning of the Bible. As in Genesis 1:1-3 it seems there isn’t an answer to the question: Where did this darkness (chaos) come from? Deliberately not answering that question is also an answer. It could be the main lesson that Jesus is trying to tell us here. Looking for a guilty party for a certain conflict or situation usually brings more chaos and darkness. Many times people end up blaming God: Would the suffering have been there if He had not wanted it? Looking at certain calamities He would then really have to be a monster?! At this stage the darkness around us is complete due to the fact that we are denying that God is the light of the world and that in Him there is no darkness (vs. 5). What God wants is clear from the first page of the Bible: “let there be light!” in an often dark and chaotic world. But it appears that He wants us to be his partner in the fight against the darkness (suffering). Note Vs. 4. Jesus speaks about us. (“we”; compare also with vs. 14). Jesus is saying: Wherever and whenever we find darkness we must resist it, fight it, and in so doing become more like Him: Being the light of the world (vs. 5). This is the challenge that He extends to us: You, together with Me, let us change this world and make it a better place. We are not called to solve riddles that cannot be solved or to find explanations for the unexplainable. Our faith becomes real when we enter the darkness with the Spirit of Jesus in us and work together with Him doing the works of His Father: “Let there be light!”
The fight against ignorance, blindness, sickness, disease, poverty, wars, guns, floods, earth-quakes, volcano-eruptions, car accidents, race-discrimination, sexism, pollution, cruelty to animals, the killing of our wild-life, alcohol-and drug abuse, etc. etc. all originate from this point in our lives, where we realize that He is challenging us to become like Him, with His Spirit in us, actively involved in the bringing of light where it is dark. People who build schools and hospitals, or who find cures for cancer and AIDS, or who cure blindness and deafness, or who fight against poverty and child abuse, or who try to make peace, or who oppose the making of weapons, or who fight against alcohol-and drug abuse, or who predict floods, earth-quakes and volcano-eruptions, or who oppose racial-and gender discrimination, or who protect our animals, or who dedicated their lives to any other cause where they had an experience of darkness –these are the people that will not go unnoticed…(vs 14)
The Big Puzzle of Life.
A few months ago, I was tempted to buy a big puzzle featuring a collection of pictures of all the animals of Africa put together by Charlotte Firbank-King. Thinking that once finished, the picture would fit in nicely with our other pictures of wildlife on the walls of the staircase, I decided to buy it. Coming home with it, I considered that if I put the puzzle away, it would probably never get done; I decided to get started on it straight away. On opening the box, my heart sank to my shoes. I was looking at 1500 small pieces that I knew must eventually give me the framed 60×90 cm picture…..I realized that this was going to be a BIG job. Indeed, it took weeks of spending a few hours every day and sometimes feeling very frustrated if a day went by not finding any pieces that fitted. You can imagine that it was quite messy with all the pieces lying around and me therefore always trying to bring order in the chaos by looking at the colours and forms of the pieces. For a very long time I was not being able to find the head of the giraffe…..
Puzzling….!!
At some stage, as the work progressed, I realized that my big puzzle here in Pretoria was of course still very, very small compared to the Puzzle of Life, that is: God’s Creation. Indeed, in reflecting on his own life, the famous physicist Isaac Newton – who was able to understand and write down the laws of gravitation for us – once said: “I just went to the beach and played with a few pebbles”. He just realised how much there still was that he did not understand or had not yet investigated. Some of you might know that as a hobby I looked at the physical aspects of our weather. I was amazed to find the number of intricacies involved in keeping our earth’s temperature in a certain range, so that life, as we know it, would be possible. Looking at the smallest in matter and looking at the wonders and the incalculable greatness of the universe, I am sure you and me can only marvel as to exactly what laws and particular relevant formulae are holding it all together.
Every day when I looked at my puzzle, I became strangely aware, that, just like my puzzle was not yet finished, so God’s Creation is also not yet finished. Jesus came into the picture 2000 years ago to show us what God is like: God is Love and Grace. He gave His own life for us and at that point we all became a part of his Picture, for sure! Each one of us has a role to play, no matter how big or small. Love is the source of our enthusiasm, optimism and creativity. Yes, there are still many more people to be born, and yes, there are still many more things to find out and laws to understand. I remember that whenever I was able to finish one of the 80(!) animals in my puzzle, I became so excited noticing how the pieces all fitted together enabling me to see all its details… Then I thought: that it is how it is in the Big Puzzle of Life: sometimes we do get a glimpse of the part that we all played in God’s Creation and how we fit into the big picture… As the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 13:12: ‘For now we see only [a reflection] as in a mirror [dimly], but then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known’
The last time we visited the safe home for children here in Pretoria, that Heart for Children is supporting, I was almost moved to tears by the love of the children shown to us after we had brought each child a lucky packet. I felt privileged that we are to be able to help Jochi there with a steady income for her home…. God is doing His work through Heart for Children by all the homes that are being sponsored through all of you here and in the Netherlands who are supporting Heart for Children!!
Many years ago, during the years when I did prison ministry (letter writing & visiting), I used to tell the prisoners:
God never makes mistakes. He does not make misfits. He has a plan and a purpose with each one of us, His children. The interesting part of living is to find out what God’s plan and purpose for our life is. Just think of a few biblical figures like Joseph and Paul. If it were not for them having been in prison, where would we be today? Through the imprisonment of one man, Joseph, a whole nation was saved from starvation (see Gen. 45:5-8). The apostle Paul wrote all his letters to the believers from prison. Imagine the New Testament without Paul’s letters! (see Phil.1:12-14).
If you are interested you can read that first letter to a prisoner by clicking on the link below
https://breadonthewater.co.za/2020/12/29/letter-to-a-prisoner-prison-ministry/
Nobody can imagine how beautiful the Big Puzzle of Life is, that God is still busy building. Nobody will be able to see it, of course, until it is finished! [That would be when life on earth ends or when our life ends, whichever comes first. The amount of time that went by before and after our lives doesn’t really matter, does it?]
However, maybe sometimes our own charities, creations and creative work that we are doing here on earth to glorify our Creator, may just give us a tiny indication of how beautiful it will be when His Creation is finished.
“The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord” Psalm 24:1
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