The world exists of stories. Every nation, every tribe, every group of friends, every family, every couple, and every individual has their story. So too does the Bible have a story, the story of God’s relationship with His people. His story has always been about relationships. He wants to be in relationship with His people, and He wants His people to be in relationships with each other. A good example of this is how God created man, but didn’t stop there. He created another person.

In the very olden days God’s people talked about the Holy Trinity as the Perichoresis, which translated into “Circle Dance”. It was a dance between Father, Son, and Spirit. With the day of creation God opened the floor to us humans to become a part of this dance. He invites us to become a part of his dance and to become a part of each other’s dance. Continue “Story dance!”

In Lewenslig, there is a man that is nearly fifty years old but still has the mind of a boy.  He calls Marius, the supervisor, daddy.  Every day he would tell his friends how much he loves him.  He would say: ‘I love my daddy; there isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for him; if someone wants to hurt him they would have to come past me first!’  When Marius calls him to do something, whether it is to make coffee or fetching something from the center, he would jump up and say: ‘Yes, daddy! I will do it right away!’
He told me that the other day he went to the shops with his dad and someone greeted him, but he was frightened so he ran to his dad to hide behind him, because he knew his dad would protect him.  Continue “LEWENSLIG: Daddy”

I have been presenting groups for most of my professional life and even before then I had little problems with getting up and talking. However, that does not mean that the worry bug does not get to me. No matter how excited I might be in the very last moments before my presentation is due to start i just can’t help to wonder what can possibly go wrong.

I am sure this is nothing new, I mean don’t we all worry sometime? In some instances warring can be good for us, it pushes us to do the things we don’t always want to do like study. Worry also helps us plan and stops us from taking silly risks. But if worry starts affecting every part of your being it no longer serves its purpose.

With us being human we want to solve life’s problems all by ourselves and it just doesn’t get us anywhere.

…so today i would like to share with you my recipe for dealing with my worry bug..

May you all have a blessed and wonderful weekend.

What is faith?

Many a times I have heard people telling me that they do not have faith or that they have lost their faith. However, without realizing it we practice faith on a daily basis. For example when you are driving down the road you have faith that your fellow drivers will follow the road rules and stop at a red traffic light. When you walk to your tap for a drink of water you have faith that when you open it there will be water. So personally I don’t think that we have lost fait we maybe just don’t know how to express it or live it practically.

I asked some of my colleagues how they live their faith practically and I got some interesting answers, but one really caught my attention. We were discussing Job and one of my colleagues said that the whole book of Job can be summed up in three sentences.

1. I am in control
2. I know what I am doing, and
3. I love you

Continue “You gotta have faith!!”

Every morning, Lewenslig have an hour of devotion.  After scripture reading and prayer they have a time of worship.  They sing songs kids are taught in primary school so that they can understand and remember them better.

Last month they had a fund-raising evening.  Other schools and drama clubs came to sing, dance and perform.  Lewenslig also had an opportunity during the show to sing their songs for the audience and they sang with their whole heart.
They had to sit at the back of the school hall because some of them often have to go the bathroom.  It was also easier to control them from the there.
Some of the schools did worship dancing (dancing/miming to the words of a praise and worship song) with beautiful white dresses and huge flags.
Continue “LEWENSLIG: WORSHIP”

These days if we don’t know how to do anything the quickest and simplest way to find out how, is to google it. However when it comes to our spirituality it is extremely hard to find answers. However, we have the oldest and still most effective google out there…..the bible. The problem is we don’t always know how to read our bibles so here are a few tips to keep in mind.

• Pray first before opening God’s word.  Ask for guidance and to be able to accept what is written and to be able to apply His will to your life.
• Never, never read the Bible trying to proof your belief on any subject.  It is only human nature to take ideas out of context. But trying to force the bible to fit your opinion is not going to be helpful either.   Continue “First Google ever!”

A Chinese girl named Li-li got married and moved in with her new husband, unfortunately for Li-li her mother-in-law also lived there. Since her mother-in-law was very obnoxious and Li-li did not like having her live with her and her new husband, Li-li decided to kill her Mother-in-law.

In hatching her plan  Li-li went to her doctor to get slow-acting poison. The doctor gave her the poison, but said, “Just so that people don’t suspect you, treat your mother-in-law very nice,treat her like you’d want to be treated.” So Li-li obliged and was nice to her mother-in-law as she slipped a little poison into her food each day.

However, to Li-li surprise, a funny thing happened. The two started getting along and became best of friends. Realizing that she may have already done some harm Li-li went back to the doctor and said, “I now love my mother-in-law and don’t want to kill her; please give me something to counteract the poison.” The doctor replied, “I gave you ordinary vitamins; the only poison was in your attitude.”

Continue “Poison attitude”

Many people, including my psychiatrist, Dr Jerry Bezuindenhout, asked me if I would do the 94.7 cycle challenge again this year.  At first I said no because I’m training for a triathlon and there would not be enough time to get on the road to do the required number of hours with my bike, but he encouraged me that my muscle power from the swimming and running would add extra strength for cycling.

After the race last year, I have never ridden further than forty kilometers.  In a triathlon, it would only be necessary to do twenty kilometres, so why train for more than forty?

I only have four months to train.  My first thoughts for a training programme were that I would start by doing a forty and evaluate myself to see how long my body’s endurance lasted, then take it from there.  But cycling forty kilometres felt like such a drag. Two days later I set out to do a sixty but I ended up doing a seventy. Continue “94.7, here I come again! Watch out!”

Let’s face it most of us have that one person in our lives that drain every single bit of our energy. Don’t get me wrong we love them, but they can take their toll. A great way to protect yourself in this regard is helping others understand what your boundaries are.

Establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries is essential to any good relationship here are some aspects that we can use to educate others about our boundaries.

1. The knowledge of me

Before we can express our needs to others we need to know what they are first. We can only advise others about our own boundaries if we are aware of our own limitations, needs and wants. Therefore take so time to get to know you. Ask yourself what do you like? What don’t you like? What do you want from life? What are your goals? Then educate people in your life about these things.

 2. Emotional awareness

Be aware of your own emotions as well as the behaviors that accompany them. This will be very useful in relationships when I am able to communicate my frustrations without using negative techniques like sarcasm, avoidance behavior, and passive aggressiveness or if you are anything like me just making grunt sounds. Continue “Help others to help yourself”

Mental illness has a profound effect on a sufferer’s life. Not just because the illness start effecting them physically, emotionally and cognitively, but it starts having a profound effect on their social interaction and personal relationships.

So very often I find patients in my groups telling me how they wish their partners and family members knew how they felt or understood what they were going through. You see what many people don’t know is that any mental illness effects a persons communication skills, therefore many, suffering from these illnesses, find it so difficult to express the way they feel.

I wished on many occasions that I can tell their partners and family members what they are unable to tell them, but of course I can’t it has to come from them.

Continue “17 Things I want you to know about my mental illness”