Failure Isn't Final. Harold Mawela

 Title: The Laughter That Refuses to Quit: A South African Waiting Psalm By Harold Mawela, from Akasia, Tshwane Greetings, family. Harold Mawela here, writing from my study in Akasia, where the Highveld winter sun cuts through the window like a blade of promise—but the cold outside reminds me that we are still in a season. And if there is one thing we South Africans know, it is waiting. We wait for Eskom to keep the lights on and now that load-shedding has been absent for over a year, we wait for the bills not to cripple us. We wait for jobs that do not come 32.7% unemployment, 45.8% among the youth. We wait for water that does not flow, for justice that does not arrive, for a government that governs. We wait for the promised land that seems perpetually on the horizon but never beneath our feet. And in that waiting, we laugh not because we are amused, but because laughter is what happens when hope collides with impossibility. The Laughter of Impossibility Picture a ninety-year-old ...

 THE DOOR NO HAND CAN HEM By Harold Mawela | Akasia, Pretoria August 1, 2026 My name is Harold Mawela. I am writing to you from my study in Akasia, just north of Pretoria, where the Highveld winter has stripped the Jacarandas bare and the morning mist hangs over our township like a question mark. The year is 2026, and if you are reading this, you already know this nation is standing at a door. Let me tell you about the morning I almost gave up on doors altogether. It was a Tuesday. The news feed was a battlefield. Statistics South Africa had just released its Quarterly Labour Force Survey: 8.1 million South Africans officially unemployed, the economy shedding 345,000 jobs between January and March alone. Six in ten young people between fifteen and twenty-four have no job. The official unemployment rate had climbed to 32.7%. In my own household, the electricity meter beeped its desperate warning while my daughter asked me a question I could not answer: "Dad, are we going to be okay...

The Ecology of Relationships: A Garden Under Siege By Harold Mawela, from my study in Akasia, Pretoria I am writing to you from my study in Akasia, just north of Pretoria, where the Jacarandas are blooming against a Highveld sky that seems perpetually at war with itself half brilliant blue, half bruised purple with thunder. The rains have been unpredictable this year. Some gardens in my neighbourhood are lush with life; others are cracked earth, barren and begging. As I sit here, I think about the body of Christ. The Scripture declares unequivocally: “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts” (1 Corinthians 12:12). Yet I wonder looking at the Church in South Africa today have we become a field of identical maize, or are we a forest? A single type of plant makes a field. Many types make a forest that can weather any storm. Imagine, if you will, two gardens side by side in Soshanguve. One is a monoculture rows upon rows of the same crop, identical, uniform, predictable. Whe...

 The Storm That Sanctifies By Harold Mawela | Akasia, Pretoria Scripture: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you cross the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." Isaiah 43:2 I. The Morning the Storm Came to Akasia I remember the Tuesday like it was yesterday. The winter wind had clawed its way across the Highveld, rattling my corrugated roof like a drunkard hammering on a gate. I stood on my stoep in Akasia, coffee in hand that familiar bitter warmth that Pretoria mornings demand watching the sky turn from bruised purple to sickly yellow. The minibus taxis on the R101 were still hustling, conductors hanging out windows with that famous South African urgency: "Kasi to town! Kasi to town!" But even they knew something was coming. Then it hit. Not just rain, rain is what falls on your garden when you've forgotten to bring the washing in. This was...

 The Law of the Open Hand: Why Hoarding Is Starving and Giving Is Growing By Harold Mawela | Akasia, Pretoria I am writing to you from my home in Akasia, on the northern edge of Pretoria, where the Highveld winter has stripped the jacarandas bare and the morning mist hangs over our township like a question mark. The year is 2026. Just last week, I sat on my stoep watching the evening news. The headlines were a battlefield: unemployment had climbed to 32.7%, with young people aged 15 to 24 facing a staggering 60.9% jobless rate. Inflation had hit 5.0%, eroding whatever meagre salary gains workers had managed to scrape together. The cost of living was rising faster than wages, leaving ordinary South Africans with the weakest purchasing power in two years. And in the streets of Johannesburg, anti-immigration protests had become a weekly ritual—not because migrants are the enemy, but because desperate people need someone to blame. As the news droned on, my daughter walked onto the stoe...

The Conservation of Momentum Scripture: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters." (Colossians 3:23) Let us define our terms clearly. In physics, momentum is the product of mass and velocity a body in motion possesses a force that cannot be destroyed, only transferred. The Scripture declares unequivocally that this is not merely a law of matter but a law of the Spirit. What God sets in motion, no force of hell can annihilate. It can be redirected, it can be resisted, but it cannot be erased. I remember a Tuesday morning in Akasia, not so long ago. The municipality had cut our water again third time that month. I stood in my yard, bucket in hand, watching the dust swirl where my vegetable garden used to be. The tomatoes were wilting. The spinach had given up. And I felt that familiar heat rising in my chest the heat of complaint, the heat of frustration, the heat that wants to curse the councillor, the government, the who...