Climate And Self-Reliance

We have had some serious rainfall that has impacted on several of us in Cape Town during the past month. 

It is difficult to attribute photos that are shared on social media, but here are some photos from the two weeks of the extreme weather conditions.

This caused me to reflect on memories from a workshop that I attended at the United Nations offices in Trieste, Italy during 2002. I had been involved in research into climate change for some 12 years, and I found that my impressions were seriously blinkered. I was looking at the impacts on plant species, but was now surrounded by people dealing with health, epidemiology, agriculture, tourism, engineers, planners, physicists, hydrologists, climatologists, and many more!

One major take-home story is that there is an increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events. We have experienced this first-hand in Cape Town during June 2023.

Another major take-home story is that adaptation and coping take place at the local level – ultimately with you, with me, and with our own families. I was reminded of the concept that the nation is made up of its basic units – families. It is mainly individuals that are impacted, and it is mainly individuals that cope or do not cope.

I remember the account of Bangladesh, with 1/5 of the country being less than 1m above sea level, and most of the country under 10m altitude. They face rather dire consequences of sea level rise. Their homes are regularly inundated and so they do not accumulate things that will be great losses when the anticipated floods come. If the authorities build barriers around communities, the inhabitants will have a greater security as most of the extreme events will be held at bay. However, when events strike that are beyond the threshold for which the barriers are designed to cope, the inhabitants may experience heavy losses because they would have relaxed their coping strategies. We compared this to Mozambique where the Limpopo River had overflowed its banks and thousands of people were impacted. In Bangladesh flooding is an inconvenience, in Mozambique it was disastrous. The people of Bangladesh have a high level of coping capacity.

Yes, infrastructure is affected, but coping and adaptive behaviour is inherent in us as humans. For example, we can choose to reduce our vulnerability by not building on a flood plain of a river that has not broken its banks for 10 years, or on the slopes of a volcano, thus reducing our risk. Alternatively, we can undertake a cost benefit analysis, and we can decide that the risk is worth taking in order to have the temporary benefits of fertile soil for producing crops for our family. The question is whether we will have personal responsibility for coping with the impacts of flood (or a lava flow that might be rather more damaging) when they come thus experiencing a setback with which we can cope. Alternatively, if we are not prepared to cope, the flood will result in our experiencing a disaster.

Disaster was defined very subjectively, as is illustrated above. If the community can cope with a serious impact it is not a disaster. Some agencies may define it as a disaster because they decide that it is beyond certain extremes, but the local community may cope just fine. Alternatively, some minor impacts, on top of a generally poor circumstance in a community, can be a disaster because the people had not been able to build up their coping capacity or adapt to the impending disaster. When someone deliberately takes a serious risk, should the authorities bail them out when they experience a disaster? A tough question!

The man in charge of the workshop, while handing out certificates to participants during a dinner hosted by TWAS (the Third World Academy of Science), made fun of some participants who were out taking a smoke break, joking about their skills in risk assessment. This was in jest, but it does stress the importance for each of us to take responsibility for our part in mitigation. We need to take action by adapting our lifestyles according to our vulnerability, using wisdom in our risk assessment. We need to involve our stakeholders (primarily ourselves, and our family members), in preparing ourselves for sustainable livelihoods, considering our abilities to cope with the impacts of climate variability which are projected to become more frequent and more severe so that we will not just be statistics when disaster strikes. Now is the time to start preparing so that each of us will be part of the solution and not part of the problem!

I remember being struck by the realisation that for 90 years we had received prophetic counsel encouraging members to prepare themselves for disasters by having food storage – a focus on Home Production and Storage. We have been counseled for more than a century to improve our Coping Capacity by improving our self-reliance. More importantly than physical self-reliance, the Saviour counseled us to ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal; For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ (Matt 6:19-21). May we be serious and intentional in following these basic guidelines of temporal and spiritual self-reliance which will lead to our avoiding loss, or reducing the impact of loss.

Beggars - what do we do?

Yesterday I was faced by yet another beggar who, I think, was displeased because I did not give him something. Gertjie was his name.

As I continued to work through the day, I pondered. Does someone like Gertjie ever go to a clinic for medical or dental help? My taxes contribute to the health system. Does he ever use the services of police, water, sanitation, roads, parks, or any public amenities? Does he ever use night shelter or food kitchen? I give monthly donations in the form of taxes or donations to some of these. What is he doing to ensure that he will be in a position to contribute to these facilities to provide for the next generation?

Years ago we regularly gave food or money to beggars who came to our door. We came to realise that they were apparently spreading the word that beggars would get something at our home and so we had a steady stream of beggars. We were not helping them in the Lord's way, but were simply maintaining them in the beggar state. We decided that, in a personal time of need with illness in the home and shortage of money, that we had to turn them away and suddenly the stream of beggars stopped coming to our door. We still have the occasional beggar, but we rarely give them something unless they are prepared to work for it, but do sometimes give something small when prompted to do so, with the instruction to not come back to us, but to go to the soup kitchen where they can be assisted to get themselves out of the gutter rather than simply remaining in the gutter.

My thinking yesterday reminds me that we should be encouraging people more purposefully that, as is stated in two clauses right next to each other in the Founding Provisions of the constitution of South Africa:

Citizenship
3. (1) There is a common South African citizenship.
    (2) All citizens are—
          (a) equally entitled to the rights, privileges and benefits of citizenship; and
          (b) equally subject to the duties and responsibilities of citizenship.
    (3) National legislation must provide for the acquisition, loss and restoration of citizenship.

We need to encourage people to meet their responsibilities - meeting the rights, respect, needs of others - instead of simply asking for others to meet their rights or needs. This is tough, but love is tough.

We need every person in the nation to be contributing to the extent that he or she is able, using their own unique strengths, talents, abilities to build a better South Africa for all. We need builders and not wreckers; producers rather than consumers; givers rather than takers.

I firmly believe in the principles given in the talk by Spencer W. Kimball - Welfare Principles: the Gospel in Action. May I contribute what I can, and work towards helping others to contribute to the extent that each is able.

Some home improvements after 21 years!

We finally took the leap in 2016 and started to do some renovating that really had been needed for two decades, and some that were not quite so urgent, but worth doing anyway. Here is a record of some things that we did between 2001 and 2018.

2014: Gutters, fascias, painting

The cage around our afdak (lean-to) at the side of the house.

Since 2014, trees have been removed in 2016 and a boundary wall built in the front of the house in 2017.

We had installed a carport in 2001. We also remodeled the kitchen and en-suite bathroom.

The carport was built in 2001 and for a long time had a basketball board and hoop attached. The beams were clad in 2014.

In 2007 we had a break-in. Prior to this we had a dog, a Jack Russell cross, that was presumably a deterrent to anyone breaking in, and then he died. From that time we had at least three break-ins. On the first occasion in 2007. Richard, at age 14, came home from school and found that someone had been rummaging in drawers. He came in through the front door and found the house in a mess. He then found that the side gate was open and there were things lying on the front lawn, presumably from the person running away, so he would have frightened the person who, fortunately, did not attack Richard, but simply ran away. Cell phones, jewellery and other things were stolen. He kept his cool and called his Dad who advised him to call the police. It is apparent that the thief was in the house and fled when Richard got home, and Richard was protected during the ordeal. He handled this all very well.

In 2009 we installed security gates and caged ourselves in. We installed a new stronger gate for the front door, and the afdak at the side of the house was extended and caged in. A trellis gate

was installed for the bedroom sliding door. The gate at the other side of the house was moved from the back to the front of the garage.

The security gate for the bedroom sliding door.

In 2012 we had another break-in where one burglar bar was bashed in to gain entry. Two laptops were stolen together with other smaller things. We then engaged the services of ADT, the security company, with a burglar alarm.

During 2013 and 14 we did further work - the house was painted inside, the lounge ceiling had been knotty pine strips and we installed a ceiling beneath this, painted white. The main bathroom was remodeled. New gutters were installed.

Some of the work that was done inside the house during 2013-2014

The house after painting and before the gutters and cladding were done.

Work in the main bathroom

Laminated flooring and painting in the passages and lounge.

During 2016 we had a number of large trees removed, most particularly those that would impact the house such as the tall palm tree that could cause serious damage if it should blow over, and tree roots that would affect the walls or foundations.

The palm tree that was cut down. The house can also be seen as it was before the renovations in 2013-2014.

During 2017 Sally was threatened by someone who broke into the house. Fortunately Richard was home studying for exams and attacked the attacker who fled after snatching Sally's cell phone. We were in the process of building a boundary wall in the front of the house. The wall was completed soon after the break-in.

The motor for the rolling driveway gate was stolen in 2018. Great skill was used - if only the person who stole it would use that skill to build society rather than only thinking of self.

During 2018 we installed four rainwater tanks to harvest as much as 10 000 litres of rainwater. These have all overflowed several times since then. We have used the rainwater for the washing machine and two toilets for most of the time. We also use rainwater in the garden and for washing the cars. We collect from 186.4 square metres of our 334.5 square metres (55.7%) and 229.1 square metres of the van Dorps' 403.1 square metres (56.8%). It should be easy to add our carport to the collection to increase our harvesting to include the carport, thus harvesting 69.5% of our roof area.

Although it appears as though our house has been targeted - it seems to be the only house in our close neighbourhood that has been broken into, or at least had as many break-ins - we have been blessed. In about 1984 we made a decision that, since we had to choose between using part of our monthly budget for paying Fast Offering or paying short-term insurance for the contents of the house, I was impressed that we had a wonderful promise from the Lord. In Malachi 3:10-12 we are promised that if we bring our tithes and offerings into His storehouse that there might be meat in His house, that He would pour out a blessing that we would not have room enough to receive it, and He would rebuke the devourer for our sakes, and bless the harvest of our fields. The challenge in Isaiah 31 that I studied in Institute to place our trust in God rather than in the arm of flesh helped us to decide to place our trust in the protecting hand of Heavenly Father. We committed to Him that if we did not lose more than we would through the excess that we would have to pay to an insurance company in case of a claim, we would not be losing out, and we would pay more than the amount that we would have needed to pay in monthly premiums to an insurance company into Fast Offering. We always continued to pay our full tithes as well as other offerings. I believe that the Lord has not failed to bless us in accordance with our personal promise and faith. We have had losses, but would have had losses even if we had the best insurance. So, we paid our monthly contribution to Zion rather than to Babylon and trusted God to prevent losses, whereas an insurance company would at best reduce the inconvenience in the event of a loss. We did what we could to improve security and then trusted that the Lord would assist us with reducing the incidence of losses or problems that we might otherwise have.

Would I be privileged to be welcomed into the most special marriage feast of all history?

I was thinking as I prayed tonight. I pondered the parable in Matthew 25

Why would Jesus Christ use a marriage feast as an object lesson? What is special about a marriage feast, and an invitation to one?

Would I receive an invitation?

How would I know that I had received an invitation? So many Jews, even the leaders of the Jews, the Sanhedrin, rejected the very Messiah when He came in their midst – would I recognise an invitation to the most significant marriage feast in all of history?

Who would deliver such an invitation? Who would be on the list if invited guests? Would I be among those who would be invited?

If there were to be an invitation given, how would one come, other than through a living prophet? After all, Amos said ‘Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.’ Amos 3:7 Does this apply here? Would the Lord arrive unannounced, or would he have a prophet deliver invitations to the feast?

If I were to be one of the fortunate ten virgins who would receive an invitation to this feast, would I have sufficient oil in my lamp when the cry comes ‘The bridegroom cometh’ and I tried to trim my lamp at the crucial moment when it is most needed?

I bear my testimony that the Lord does indeed have a living prophet. The invitation will not go randomly to all the world, just as an invitation to the wedding feast would not go to all in the town, but to special friends of the bridegroom, and not all of those special friends will have sufficient oil in their lamps to enable them to be prepared and welcomed in to the figurative ‘hall’ where the feast will be held. I hope and pray that I may at least receive an invitation, and hopefully have sufficient oil in my lamp. I know that the Lord lives now – still as He said to His disciples ‘Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.’ Luke 24:39

I know that He still lives, that he still has that body of flesh and bones that his disciples saw and felt. He will come again. All we need to do is to be ready to be welcomed into the marriage feast. I reckon that a Temple Recommend will be a basic requirement, and then living worthy of that, enduring in faith to the end. And then, being alert and attentive to the still small voice as it whispers in the right place at the right time to become aware of the cry that 'the bridegroom cometh'.

I hope that I will be welcomed in and hear those glorious words 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.' Matt 25:21,23. I hope that all of my loved ones will be among those wise virgins who are welcomed in to the marriage feast.