Showing posts with label south africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label south africa. Show all posts

Thursday, 3 October 2013

National Anti-Slavery Week, South Africa // Freedom Challenge {A21 Campaign}



So as a South African by birth (and at heart!) but no longer geographically, I was incredibly happy and proud to see the birth of A21 Campaign South Africa and to see the people of South Africa embrace the challenge with the open arms, rolled up sleeves and creativity that I have only seen there :)

This week is National Anti-Slavery Week in South Africa. So if you are in South Africa, please find out how you can get involved with this wonderful cause and do your part to put an end to the injustice of human trafficking and modern day slavery in the 21st century! 



{photo credit:   


Visit The A21 Campaign's international site here for more information and resources about human trafficking and for more ways to get involved: www.thea21campaign.org

Also, please look at the Freedom Challenge information- a team of 8 freedom fighters who have partnered with The A21 Campaign to raise $210,000 and a huge amount of support and awareness for the work of The A21 Campaign by cycling along the major trafficking routes for 11 days through 10 countries! Freedom Challenge starts on 6th October in the mountain regions of Sofia, Bulgaria until 16th October when it ends in London, UK with riders cycling at least 100km each day! 

Find out more about their mission, the riders, the route, the partners supporting Freedom Challenge,  how you can get involved and to donate either to individual riders or to the cause.

Blessings!

Ronell x






Thursday, 11 April 2013

Love: Truth, Mercy and Justice


I read this post from HTB / Nicky Gumble’s Bible In One Year program and thought I would share:
When Nelson Mandela left prison after twenty-seven years and became South Africa’s first democratically elected president, he called upon his old friend, Desmond Tutu, to chair The Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  This commission was a series of hearings – some of them public – in which both victims and perpetrators gave testimony about their experiences and actions during apartheid.
At one of the hearings, a policeman, called van de Broek, told of how he and his fellow officers shot an eighteen-year-old youth, then burnt the body.  Eight years later they went back, took the father and forced his wife to watch as he was incinerated.  She was in court to hear this confession and was asked by the judge what she wanted.  She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place where they had buried her husband’s body and gather up the dust so that she could give him a decent burial.  Van de Broek agreed. 
She then added a further request.  ‘Mr van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give.  Twice a month I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can be a mother to him.  And I would like Mr van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too.  I would like to embrace him so he can know that my forgiveness is real.’
Spontaneously, some in the courtroom began singing ‘Amazing Grace’ as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand.  But van de Broek did not hear the hymn, he had fainted, overwhelmed.
In this story truth, love and mercy flow together.  Facing up to the truth of what had happened was the foundation for love and mercy.  The same is true with God’s love – he does not ignore our sin, he chooses to forgive us.  In the story the woman was able to forgive Van de Broek because she chose to forgo her right to justice.  God’s love and mercy is even more extraordinary, because at the cross there is justice as well as mercy.  ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:16) and ‘God is merciful’ (Daniel 9:9), but he is also the God of truth and the God of justice.
1.  Love and truth
2.  Love and mercy
3.  Love and justice

To read the rest of this incredibly challenging post, go to http://acs.alpha.org/bioy/commentary/465

Blessings!

Ronell x