October 1, 2014 Steps to Life Newsletter

Dear STL Supporter

Cry, The Beloved Country: How Must God Cry Over His Beloved World.

As a year 9 student in the early 1960's, our English reading list included Alan Paton's book, Cry the Beloved Country. It's an emotively powerful book describing the appalling injustice and cruelty of the history of apartheid in South Africa. On Sunday, November 29, 1998 - some forty years on, Anne Paton, the 71 year old widow of Alan, published a letter in the London Sunday Times, lamenting the downward spiral of South African society, describing some of the events which had forced her to decide to leave her Beloved Country for good.

She wrote - I am leaving South Africa. I have lived here for 35 years, and I shall leave with anguish. My home and my friends are here, but I am terrified... I love this country with a passion, but I cannot live here any more... I am tired of driving with my car windows closed and the doors locked, tired of being afraid of stopping at red lights. I am tired of being constantly on the alert, having that sudden frisson of fear at the sight of a shadow by the gate, of a group of youths approaching - although nine times out of 10 they are innocent of harmful intent. Such is the suspicion that dogs us all... Among my friends and the friends of my friends, I know of nine people who have been murdered in the past four years. An old friend, an elderly lady, was raped and murdered by someone who broke into her home for no reason at all; another was shot at a garage... All this may sound like paranoia, but it is not without reason. I have been hijacked, mugged and terrorised... A few years ago my car was taken from me at gunpoint. I was forced into the passenger seat. I sat there frozen. But just as one man jumped into the back and the other fumbled with the starter I opened the door and ran away... this year I was mugged in my home at three in the afternoon. I was seized by the throat and almost throttled;... I could feel myself losing consciousness. My mouth was bound with Sellotape and I was threatened with my own knife (Girl Guide issue from long ago) and told: "If you make a sound, you die." They took all the electronic equipment they could find, except the computer. They also, of course, took the car... A few weeks later my new car was locked up in my fenced carport when I was woken by its alarm in the

early hours of the morning. The thieves had removed the radio, having cut through the padlocks in order to bypass the electric control on the gates... The last straw came a few weeks ago, shortly before my 71st birthday. I returned home in the middle of the afternoon and walked into my sitting room. Outside the window two men were breaking in. I retreated to the hall and pressed the panic alarm. This time I had shut the front door on entering. Yet one of the men ran around the house, jumped over the fence and tried to batter down the front door. Meanwhile, his accomplice was breaking my sitting-room window with a hammer. This took place while the sirens were shrieking, which was the frightening part. They kept coming, in broad daylight, while the alarm was going... In fact, the front-door assailant was caught and taken off to the cells. Recently I telephoned to ask the magistrate when I would be called as a witness. She told me she had let him off for lack of evidence. She said that banging on my door was not an offence, and how could I prove that his intent was hostile?

I have been careless in the past - razor wire and electric gates give one a feeling of security. Or at least, they did. But I am careless no longer. No fence - be it electric or not - no wall, no razor wire is really a deterrent to the determined intruder. Now my alarm is on all the time and my panic button hung round my neck. While some people say I have been unlucky, others say: "You are lucky not to have been raped or murdered." What kind of a society is this where one is considered "lucky" not to have been raped or murdered - yet?

The world is in turmoil. South Africa has been a forerunner of what is happening right around the world. In 2014 there is the overlay of terrorism on top of the under current of increasing crime and violence. Brutal bombing is demolishing city after city and home after home. Millions are homeless. Even right here in the previously safe haven of Australia the ugly specture of crime and violence is ever increasing.

Jesus, in Luke 21: 25, 26 describes the social and political turmoil all around the world just before he comes -

...and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. Matthew records Jesus as saying - But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. What was it like in Noah's time, just before the great deluge came and swept them all away? It was like today - people appalled and frightened by the crime, violence, war, injustice, extreme poverty and obscene wealth but distracted and desensitized from what is about to happen by an insatiable desire for entertainment and other pursuits of pleasure.

Are we distracted and desensitized? Are we ready for what Jesus said will happen next? Luke 21: 27, 28 - And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. Good news for some - bad news for others. What sort of news is it for us?

Sunday Health Seminar - Growing Health Food for Healthy People - DVDS Now Available

Growing Healthy Food for Healthy People, with Rod and Desley Bailey, was very well received with the audience asking for a part two, perhaps in 2015. It's about how to grow our own food and then to include it in our meals. It is full of great advice for the beginning gardener through to those who have experience. Desley demonstrates a range of recipes which are adaptable to suit the produce coming out of our gardens. Its now available for purchase on the STL website www.steps.org.au