I attended a business breakfast a few weeks ago and I left with two lessons that I have been applying. “50 goals” and “just keep showing up”. 50 goals a year equates to roughly, one goal a week. So the idea is that you achieve a goal every week. They don’t even have to be huge goals. Some of mine have been as small as cleaning my room right through to acquiring a musical instrument. It is so exciting when you see small things adding up to huge things.

When it comes to showing up when I’ve committed to doing something, I sometimes can make excuses for not showing up. I find I have to force myself to go where I need to go even when I don’t want to or when I’m scared and I’ve found it’s changed a lot.  I have been practicing my screening after not doing well at my first job and over a month have seen a real improvement in how many slides I can screen in an hour as well as the quality. I’m not perfect but going even when I don’t feel like it has been a real help. One week I had to go in the rain, and travel on a train and walk for fifteen minutes after a three-day conference that required early starts, long days and late nights and with a bad attitude that needed fighting.

The other thing that keeps coming to mind is how King David, was meant to be fighting a war and stayed back and like my elder brother told me once, not doing what we are meant to at the time we are meant to is sin and sin leads to more sin which leads to death. There’s the old saying, “an idle mind, is the devil’s workshop.” The point being that, if David had gone to war, where he was meant to be, he wouldn’t have been on the roof of a palace watching a naked Bathsheba taking a bath and he wouldn’t have found himself an adulterer and a murderer and his family wouldn’t have ended up fighting itself.

Lately, I haven’t been very good at showing up unless absolutely expected to but forcing myself is helping change my attitude to things and though I am far from perfect, I am way better than I was when I lost my job in April. My shattered confidence is slowly returning and I have set a huge goal this week…It’s going to be hard but it can be done! Apply for five jobs. It sounds pretty easy but for me, after losing my job after six weeks, it has been really hard to put myself out there again. So people, get achieving. You can never experience the fullness of what God has for you unless you are willing to get up and try. Resilience isn’t about when you get up but that you do get up. This week, I’m going to have to show up (when I’m alone and no one is watching) and apply for those jobs. Lets just hope there are five jobs out there to apply for…

 
I haven’t been posting very consistently but today I wanted to bring your attention to the A21 Campaign which is an organisation that is working to end modern-day slavery. According to the website, there is a person trafficked every thirty seconds and the average age of the victims is 12, usually for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Worse still most perpetrators don’t get convicted and very few victims are ever rescued.

All human life is priceless and it breaks my heart that we as the human race can be so calloused that we can take humans like ourselves and subject them to degradation and bondage, worse still a child. But there is always hope, we can all play a part and help change lives. Every small action counts and every life saved is a victory so if you are at all interested, head to the A21 campaign website and start from there. If you are in Western Australia, head to the Australian Christian Churches website and check the events section where you will be able to find out about the Walk for freedom which will take place on the 23rd of November 2013. It is being organised by the Australian Christian Women but you don’t have to be Christian or a woman  to take part.

 

I just got back from home this Thursday the 8th…It was the best thing ever! There truly is no place like home. I was at peace, burdened somewhat by some things but at peace. Don’t know if that makes sense. It was weird in that it felt like we never left but my kid sisters and brothers are no longer kids. They are young women and men. I still can push them around and I’m even more protective over them than I was six years ago.

I no longer see my family through romantic eyes. I am no longer the naïve young woman who left (Considering I never ever thought of myself as a young woman when I left – I was female) I am a woman now. I see things differently and to be honest, my family like all families has issues but we also have love and gifts and talents and a unity that is not present in many families. This trip for me was enjoyable in so many ways and difficult in others.

To start off we almost missed our flight out of Perth but thank God we had checked in online. When we got to the airport, I had to run inside with my hand luggage and stand in line and then had to wait for the other three who casually walked to where I was. Then ran back out when they had come in to help my dad with the remaining bags. Of course this whole time, my daughter was telling me I needed to have more faith and my young sister kept saying to me “woman, calm yourself.”

I was standing at the counter still not believing I was finally going home and even after the boarding passes were given, I was panicking. my mum had to get money changed and I was freaking out. Even after we were on the plane, I still didn’t believe I was leaving the Island and it was only once we were in the air that I relaxed.

My daughter turned to me and said, “You really need to have more faith…I told you we wouldn’t miss it.” In Dubai we almost missed our flight again and this time people were already boarding when we got there. I had gone to the toilet and found my family had walked ahead. I found them but then my mum and sister went shopping. 

My daughter still kept saying we wouldn’t miss the flight and at some point I did tell her to never change and always view things with eyes of faith and not fear (paraphrased). I really pray that she doesn’t because life does knock you around every so often and the older you get, the harder it is to believe that good is coming.

I was struck by joy at being home and grieved when my plane approached Kenneth Kaunda International from Harare on our way to Perth. We couldn’t leave the plane and it was as if my heart was telling me, you don’t belong here. There’s a fear that it will be a long time before I see my family (the one left in Zambia) and that like last time, they might not be there when I go back.

I have not come to terms with loosing my grandmother Bwalya (have to specify which one) and Uncle four years ago and seeing my grandmother’s grave for me was the most difficult part of the whole holiday, She was part of what it meant to be home. I spent a week in her old room and it was confronting because she’s gone. My Uncle, just feels like we just couldn’t meet because he was away or something. didn’t see his grave and so his death is a little less real than hers.

At the memorial, I gave a poem, was going to do two but decided not to. My brother gave a speech and what he said was as true as ever. Life is short and family and God is all we have. Lets not let material things come in between us as people, as family and friends. instead of asking what it is that “this family” can give you, ask what you can give your family. It’s only then that we will be able to help those in need without grumbling, and it’s only then when we can work together to strengthen our families.

its hard to get past thinking about the loss and move towards thinking about the long years we had. I pray that one day, I will be able to look a photos of mama and write poems about both her and Uncle Isaac that are happy. Life is short, Don’t waste a moment of it. Love those around you and be a light and pillar for someone else.

So my sister told me about a woman in Zambia who was sentenced to 17 years for murder…did a quick search in google and found a Lusaka Times article about it. From the news report, it seems the woman acted in self-defence. The story can be accessed here, if you want to see the context of the case. It is said that the woman was beaten by the man and she grabbed an alternator cover and hit him with it. He died and now she has been sentenced to 17 years behind bars because of the “seriousness” of the crime and apparently after taking into consideration, the events that led to the death.

I’m no lawyer but from my understanding, for someone to be convicted of murder, intent to kill has to be established. This particular case sounds more like a case of self-defence and not murder. Apparently Zambia is a Christian nation, governed my Christian values, yet despite the fact that even in the old Testament, God made provisions for those who killed someone unintentionally. There were cities of refuge, to which they could go and be provided with safety incase the family of the deceased wanted to take the law into their own hands. They were by no means thrown into prison and the higher penalty for murder was not applied.

In the Christian nation, however, the judge states that “You killed your own husband whom your children called father, and now your children will no longer have someone to call father,” making me wonder, who is fighting for the cause of the woman, where is justice for the children?

These children now have lost both their mother and father. With the current state of prisons, it is more likely that this woman will not exit that prison in seventeen years and even if she does, she has little chance of making a decent life for herself afterwards. I hate to think what will happen to her children.

Isn’t it funny that when a young girl was charged and was facing possible jail time for pornography charges, which according to the law, she was guilty of, people were rallying behind her, calling for her to be freed? Yet here’s a woman, who in self-defence kills her husband and no one is standing behind her. How many women are going to have to die before we stand up and stop men abusing their wives???