Thursday 10 December, 2009

World
Sport

The BEA Airspeed Ambassador G-ALZU Lord Burghley burning at Munich-Riem Airport.

By Charles Gardner

There is much excited anticipation in South Africa at the moment as preparations are being made to host football’s World Cup, not least by a family friend on whose KwaZulu-Natal farm I often stayed as a kid growing up in that land of sunshine.

Sheila Henderson, now 87, is a Manchester United fan, not too surprisingly since her dear father perished in the 1958 plane crash in Munich that wiped out most of what were then known as the ‘Busby Babes’ – an incredibly talented Man U team managed by the great Sir Matt Busby.

Sheila’s father Don Davies – once a football international himself – was a sports journalist with the Manchester Guardian.

An indefatigable anti-apartheid campaigner in her time, Sheila is clearly somewhat disillusioned these days as violence, corruption and maladministration blight the honeymoon of the New South Africa.

“The sun may still shine but living here remains morally uncomfortable,” she writes in her Christmas newsletter. “Trade unions and the Young Communists are doing their noisy and striking best to bulldoze government into costly changes of policy that are lunacy in the present global slump. Yet the United States, the EU and Britain continue to use their taxpayers’ money to underwrite Africa’s excesses.

“The brain drain continues apace and most of my friends, like our own family, have links with skilled, dedicated and productive young South Africans who have sought pastures new in both hemispheres. It is heartbreak.”

But not all is gloom and doom, she adds. “Many individuals and firms are looking to the 2010 World Cup to transform their fortunes. Government is spurring on its departments to tidy up our towns. Gangs have suddenly appeared to trim the sidewalks and refurbish the flowerbeds. Pavements that have been tripping us up for years have been re-laid and here and there a coat of paint is being applied to dilapidated property. Smart new taxis and sleek double-decker buses crowd the roads flaunting their rainbow colours and government officials flash by in their state-of-the-art limousines. The tourist meccas, routes and scenery will look good, but much of the truth will be hidden behind the facades.”

Another seasonal missive from my home country reveals a different perspective, however. My best friend at school, also a farmer but from the Eastern Cape, forwarded me a Christmas newsletter from farmer-preacher Angus Buchan who, like Sheila, is from KwaZulu-Natal and where, on his farm near Greytown, he hosted an amazing 200,000 men for a Christian conference early this year.

“God has been doing miracles all over our nation,” he reported, adding that in an incredible service in his hometown “blind eyes were opened, deaf ears unstopped, people got out of wheelchairs and walked and a lady regained her speech after an accident.”

He also reported on a meeting he held in Worcester, in the Western Cape, where 20,000 people gathered on a Saturday afternoon when the Springboks were playing rugby against Italy – an unheard of scenario in a rugby-mad country. And half of those who attended – an astonishing 10,000 people – made first time public commitments to follow Christ.

Angus had also led a men’s weekend conference on a farm near Worcester in England earlier in the year – an amazing event which I attended myself.

He was also guest speaker at the annual prize-giving of a Natal agricultural college where there was a unanimous response to his message and he is thrilled that the movie based on his story – Faith Like Potatoes – has been released in America.

Visitors to the World Cup would do well to remember that, though South Africa is perennially awash with sport and sunshine, they would never be witnessing this great football spectacle under Africa’s blue skies (even in winter) without the intervention of vibrant late 20th century Christianity. For all the protests, sanctions, political manoeuvrings and sporting boycotts that contributed to the downfall of apartheid, nothing was as effective as the prayer and action of the country’s Christians (black, white and in between) who worked together to see peace and justice accomplished.

And when the oppressive white-led regime capitulated, there were no recriminations – just a Truth and Reconciliation Commission led by the former Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu.

Forgiveness – unique to Christianity – was central to its aims, explained Tutu, who was urged to keep religion out of the process but thankfully refused to do so.

It proved an international sign that reconciliation is possible anywhere – but in my estimation, only through the cross of Christ which makes it feasible in the first place.

Things aren’t perfect in South Africa today – that will only happen when Jesus comes again!

Photo: Wikipedia – Fair Use