Christmas Ready Or Not???
Ho! Ho! Ho! It's Christmas time. Two months to early you say, I think Not. Every where you look, super stores are starting with all there christmas promotions, But is it to early to start buying christmas gifts, start stocking up on all the nice goodies. Start planning what will be on the menu at the Christmas Eve Dinner? Start sending out post cards to all of your family members who stay to far and hope they don't receive it next year.
Each year our family would come together, on christmas eve, and one of the older men whould dress up as santa, we would wake the kids up at about 11 or 12 o clock and the fun would start.
Kids running around all exited, getting cookies and milk ready, waiting in suspence, for santa to come walking down the isle. ( No chimny santa's in South Africa) To Hot!
But then after taking a few photo's each year of the family tradition, it's over so fast it makes your head spin. Kids toys lying around, paper wrapping covering every part of the living room floor....But then you stop to think what is christmas all about, lousing around opening presents, or selebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Selebrating what Jesus Stood for while On earth, and what He Stands for In our lives. Showing Compasion to others, being noble, Friendly and loving, forgiving.
Although being with family and friends is the best place to be while selebrating all this, we need to think on what other people experience on this day. Hunger, Poverty, Exile... whether buy their own making or the making of others. For me seeing the faces of small children, opening a present, dinking a glass of cold milk and taking a bite out of santa's cookies, is a picture to remember. What a difference it would make to just give a little in this festive season, whether it be your own family or to people you don't even know. Give a friendly smile, Show compassion to that old lady struggling to walk on her own, give a flower to your loving mother, just to say thanks, and then praise the Lord for all the good, great, and forgiving, you have received in this year.
Hope you all have a Blessed Christmas this Year....2006
Labels: Christmas
Crime In South Africa
Today for the umpteenth time i have to read an e-mail or a news paper clipping of some Innocent victim who has been effected by crime. For me living here in SA, it sometimes become unbelievable at how our crime rate has increased, in a matter of years. With the apartheid's government you never used to hear all these things happening, of course all the newspapers were sensors so you never did, now with the new government, you hear every little detail, from 9 month old babies being raped, woman being assaulted for a purse, people being hijacked, by some total stranger in the dead of the night.
Yesterday we thought we could safeguard ourselves from crime by installing alarm into our houses, just to be broken into that same security company you paid to safeguard your house.
the more you put in to make your life safer, the easier it is for them to get access to your belongings. Woman doing shopping, will be followed or pushed off the road, just to have a go in her car, which she paid for by the way. Today Not many people can do something about it, due to the fact that You shall not take the law into your own hands. But for the criminal doing the taking it's fine. People who try to safeguard their house by shooting at the trespassers who entered their house and stole their stuff. Who is the one who gets arrested? The The person doing the shooting. The robber still walking the streets. Government officials are defrauding the tax payers of million of rands, what do they get, a slap over the wrist. one person who defrauds a company, gets a jail sentence? Doesn't something just sound wrong? People shouting "No More" or "
Ons is
Gatvol"! but still nothing is being done, People are being told to stand up for their Human Rights To live in a safe country, but still people are being murdered for such stupidity. our country doesn't have war like America or Iraq, What it does have is a war to stay alive,to be safe and to live in peace. And then we are told that the Fire arm Law that takes effect is to make our lives safer, but still children at the age of 18 can buy a gun on the streets, take it to school, and shoot the guy teasing him. Then we have a tendency to ask what is this world coming to! It's not the world , it's the Human race, evolving into MONSTERS!
All that I can say is GOD HELP US!
Strangers
Strangers, We are always told from an early age not to talk to any strangers we might meet. But when does a stranger stop being one. Out of my experience most recently, having a total stranger sleep over at your house, can sometimes make living a bit more complicated.
My husband brought a working college with him, to stay the night, well actually he is staying with us for a whole 4 nights, so for me he is a stranger, but after talking to this stranger, and actually sharing the food of your table with him, he suddenly no stranger any more. He becomes a friend.
Of course not all strangers end up being friends, they sometimes turn out to be something totally worse. In today's day and age you can't just pick someone off the street and have them stay with you, you never know if you'll make it alive to the next day, but when thinking about what Jesus would do if a stranger would come knocking on the door, he would let them in, give them food and drink and a place to rest their weary body's. We as a human race tend to forget what humanity stands for. Humanity unto our neighbors, Which you should love by the way, just for in case you might have forgotten.
Naturally having a stranger spend the night or a few nights, will prove to be difficult. Nothing you used to say to each other, or the things you would have done, can be done anymore, not until the stranger leaves. And since we humans always put our best foot forward in front of total strangers, we suddenly become people, were not used to being. We become human and compassionate towards each other. And then you wonder, if having a stranger stay a few nights is worth it? Or will the experience it gives you as a couple improve your humanity towards each other. For Example You don't fight in front of strangers, you have a tendency to always say the right stuff to avoid a confrontation. I think having a stranger over for a few nights would tend to teach one, the meaning of being friendly and considerate to other peoples needs.
Legal Advice
Yes it's True, If there is fighting after death, things tend to turn sour. Each situation can be handled differently. Being conned out of your inheritance can be proven to be a disaster, especially for the person doing the conning. But being left out of a will by a loved one is even worse. But does it really matter whether you receive something from that person? It all depends on who the person was that died.
Luckily for us there are laws in each country that can support us with all these Questions and answers. I have taken a passage from a web site, that has a few suggestions and explanations on what you can do, but please also remember, there are ways of handling situations like this without involving lawyers. If it can be proven that someone has conned you out of your Inheritance, you can be sure to get what you deserve and them
as well. But if you have been left out of a will, by someone, just think of it like this....
Maybe that other person needs it more that you do...!
http://www.freeadvice.com/"If someone files an objection to the Will, or produces another Will, what is known as a "Will contest" has begun. While Will contests are not that rare, and while few people actually win one, they can be extraordinarily costly and create incredible delays is not just anyone that can contest a Will. For example, if you feel your recently deceased next door neighbor's out of state children are awful people who didn't give her proper respect and they do not deserve to get anything, that does not cut it. To properly contest a Will a person must have "standing" to object.If, a person has proper standing to contest a Will -- such as a child who was cut out of the Will by an angry parent, or even by a kindly parent who felt that the local charity, not his children, should get his assets, that child would have standing to bring a "Will contest". If a Will gives the one sibling 2/3
Rd's of a parent's estate and the other 1/3rd, the one receiving less has standing to bring a Will contest. Similarly, if a later Will is less favorable to someone than an earlier Will, or no Will at all, that person has standing. A Will contest sometimes is launched to have a different person or bank or trust company serve as Personal Representative for the estate, or as a trustee of Trusts created by the Will. "
Being as it may, it is never easy for anybody to go through something like this. After death there is only life for the living, and we need to mourn. So try and be
Strong and get all animosity sorted out before it turns into another unhappy event. People are supposed to grow closer after death, not fight over worldly
possessions(which won't do you any good) and cause rifts in family life.
