QUARTER MAGAZINE: YOUR LOCAL CHRISTIAN QUARTERLY January 2015: ORIGINS | Page 21

I'm a Seventh-day Adventist, which means I'm just like you. I eat meat and fish and the occasional salad too. I go to church routinely to sit and view' and pray that God saves me from eternal doom.

Does this diluted message sound appealing; is it real enough to get you to start preaching? Does it get you off your feet amd start believing--or do you feel exactly the same? I'm a Seventh-day Adentist and I'm worse than you, because I have the eternal message and won't share it with you. Instead I'll push it to the side and put important things in front like:

what dress would go with these shoes?

I mean, what are we fighing for? The new guy in church or for our saviour Lord? Because the way that we're acting and the things we are practicing shows we're not living by the Sword. We were Seventh-day Adventists, different and blessed. Willing to share the message with those that we met. Now we idolise the things of mankind and can't thank God when we're truly blessed. Get up, let's be an active church. Go out and spread the word of God.

Go show them who Adventists were and what we still are.

Caleb Mapoma

To Bear Arms

For the first time in my life

I felt the

Pitter Patter

of tiny hopes

in the form

of a smooth

brown hand

Soft.

Like a freshly baked scone

also warm to the touch.

I sat with the child

while he read to me

as he did,

his stubby fingers brushed against mine

half-clenched over the jagged edges of

his faded purchase

half-holding onto me

for approval.

With that touch

arrived the

Pitter Patter

as I began to need

like the wanted monsoon

after an early hosepipe ban,

his hand felt welcome on mine:

a stigmata of friendship

a sign of my peace.

The want for me

to love something bigger than myself

came in the form

of a stranger’s boy

watching me serenely in the library

as I listened

to hear him read.

JPB

Pity