A Risk Worth Taking

I can distinctly remember the day when my mother woke me up earlier than before to go to creche. Creche for my brother and I was in a suburb called Lentegeur, Mitchell’s Plain. It was close to our home and just around the corner from my father’s workshop.

But something was different on this particular day. Even though I had no sense of direction, at the age of four, I knew that the distance from our house to Lenteguer was normally not this far. As we drove I asked my mother where we were going, and she responded, “My son, we are going to creche.”

As we entered through the now familiar black gates of Riverside Seventh-day Adventist Primary School, I asked my mother, “Why are we here?” Perhaps knowing that it would break my heart, she refused to answer, but I couldn’t help but notice a teary look in her eyes. As we approached the creche, she parked the car and it finally dawned on me that we had changed schools.

As I began to get anxious, I started expressing my emotions with tears. As I cried, I could not help but notice a tear or two rolling down my mother’s cheeks as she kissed us goodbye and made her way to the vehicle without us.

I can't remember much after that, but that day marked the beginning of my Christian academic education. Even though most of my time spent at Riverside Primary School is vague, I do recall unforgettable moments in my young life. I remember singing songs such as, “I am a promise - I am a possibility,” “I just wanna be a sheep, ba ba ba ba,” and the fruit song “I just go bananas for my Lord.”

I also remember preaching my first sermon in Grade 6 in our weekly chapel meetings, which, by the way, was also the same year that I made a decision to express my faith in God through baptism. I remember as I glanced from the unheated baptismal font at my mother, who sat in the pews, I couldn’t help but notice a familiar teary look on her face.

I remember finding myself in Grade 7 being involved in a conversation with fellow students. We were discussing which high schools we would be attending. Having adopted a keen interest in cricket, I had envisioned seeing myself at a Model C school that expressed my interest in this sport. I had done my research and expressed my desire to my parents. I listed the schools from most to least preferred. I don’t remember if I wrote down any Adventist School, but when January arrived my mother put us in a 1980 Mercedes Benz 230E car and drove us to Good Hope High School.

Amidst my frustration of being there, I saw an underdeveloped school. Red walls from the muddy sprinklers and I could hardly make out the name engraved on the wall. That first year did not pass without sharing my frustrations with my mother as I eagerly hoped that she would adhere to my request to be transferred to another school. As I looked for every opportunity to escape what seemed to be like a prison, my mother, with those same teary eyes, persisted and believed that this was where we were supposed to be.

Five years later I found myself having to make yet another crucial decision in my life: a decision whether or not I would continue in the gift of preaching that I had developed and found a great interest in at Good Hope High School. As I wrestled with these thoughts, I sought advice from my mother and I can clearly remember that familiar teary look in her eyes as she said, “My son, do what the Lord wants you to do.”

During my schooling years, not only did I gain an interest in preaching and sharing the Gospel, but I had come to love the Lord. I knew that God loved me and had called me. So when February came of the next year, 2005, God had in different ways spoken my brothers and I and together we entered into the field of Ministry.

After Graduating from Helderberg College in 2009 with my brothers, and now married, we had the opportunity to sit down with my mother and enquire about her teary eyes throughout our Christian Education. It is then when I discovered how my parents had initially struggled to get all three of us through those years and the financial risk that was involved in enrolling us into these Christian schools. I finally began to understand the reason behind my mother’s teary eyes. The risk was great but my parents risked it all.

It is really marvellous what God can do when faith and academics meet each other. I am here to declare that Christian education costs but it pays. Not only did I learn that I am a promise with a capital P, but as Ellen G White puts it, I had learned that God’s ideal for his children is higher than the highest human thought can reach. I had not just learned academics, but more importantly, I had learned the purpose God had for my life.

I have also learned that Christian education begins at home and continues at school. My parents had to sacrifice not only their finances but also their own time and pleasure at home to ensure us a Christian education.

That’s right, Christian Education is a joint effort. The success of your child’s schooling and your child’s future is dependent not only on the school but on your sacrifices as parents.

I know I am not the only one who can testify that Christian Education comes at great cost but it pays even more.

As I narrate my story to you, I am reminded of a mother in the Bible who gave birth to a son called Samuel. Hannah could not bare children. Her womb was closed. But Hannah made a promise that she would give her child back to God despite Eli’s issues. Hannah teaches us that despite the risk, when we trust God with our children, God will bless us.

My parents and the school played an important role in planting the seed of God's Word in my own life and in preparing me to plant the seed of God's Word in other people's lives.

This month we will be highlighting the “Plant” phase of the GROW Your Church Evangelistic Strategy, which is about planting the seed of God’s Word in our communities through “truth-filled literature, media, testimonies, and invitations to Bible studies” (https://grow.adventist.org/)