The Chronicles of Load-Shedding . Harold Mawela

Guarding the Fortress: A South African Heart for a Divided World My name is Harold Mawela. I write to you from my home in Akasia, on the northern edge of Pretoria. From here, I can see the sprawling settlements and hear the rumble of our nation’s soul—a soul engaged in a profound and constant struggle for its very heart. The ancient Proverb warns us that “above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” [Proverbs 4:23]. But how, in our complex and fractured South Africa, do we garrison this inner fortress against the infiltrators of the spirit that besiege it daily? This is no mere metaphor for quiet living; it is the essential, frontline spiritual warfare of our time. The Corrupted Blueprint: When a Nation's Heart is Divided Picture, if you will, a grand architectural blueprint for a mighty, unified fortress. This was the design God intended for our nation—a place of refuge, strength, and communal life. Yet, we know too well what happens when that blueprint ...

The Thorn and the Compass: How Divine Correction Guides Us in a Fractured World By Harold Mawela, from Akasia, Pretoria Let me tell you about my father’s old compass. It sat on his workshop bench in Akasia, its brass casing worn smooth by his hands. It was useless on its own, he’d say. A pretty trinket. Its purpose was only revealed when held against a map. Then, its trembling needle would find north, and you could plot a course from where you were to where you needed to be. Without that fixed, external reference point, you were just wandering. My friends, we live in a world desperately trying to navigate without a map. We feel this in our bones here in South Africa, don’t we? We celebrate 30 years of democracy, yet the journey feels perilously off-course. We witness political rhetoric that scapegoats the foreigner for complex problems. We see gender-based violence—that intimate, soul-destroying war—rise to sickening levels, making our homes feel like frontlines. We read of tragedies l...

My friends, settle in here with me for a moment. Look out this window at the dusty streets of Akasia, where the old acacia trees stand as silent witnesses to generations of human striving. Can you see it? All around us, the desperate, dazzling dance of a world trying to build its own towers, to claim its own rain. This is not just a story about ancient kings; it is the headline of our 2025 newsfeed, the silent script of our own hearts. Let us talk plainly about the termite of pride. The Hollow Towers of 2025 This past year, we have seen the blueprints for new Babels everywhere. We strap sleek, metallic smart rings to our fingers, discreetly tracking our heartbeats, measuring our sleep, turning our very bodies into temples of self-optimization. We chase the latest “must-have” charm—a fuzzy little monster from a blind box—hanging it from our bags as a tiny, quirky testament to our unique taste. We seek the “glass skin” glow from LED face masks, pursuing a perfection that is visible, tang...

The Cheetah’s Chase: When Righteousness is the Prize and Peace the Promise My friends, from my home here in Pretoria, Akasia, I watch the sun rise over the red earth of the Highveld. I see the bustling minibuses, the hawkers preparing their stalls, the schoolchildren in their uniforms. I feel the pulse of this nation—a rhythm of immense beauty and profound pain. As we celebrated 30 years of democracy, we also held a vigil for the soul of our country. We have the constitutional architecture of a just society, yet we walk daily through valleys shadowed by violence, poverty, and a corruption that has become a national noun. In such a world, a world where “femicide” and “rage bait” compete for our attention and our children still face the indignity of pit latrines, what does it mean to “chase righteousness”?. Is it a soft, spiritual sentiment for Sunday mornings? A private moral checklist? No. I tell you, it is the most urgent, practical, and intellectually robust pursuit of our age. It is...

The Pressure of Knowing: When the Finite Mind Meets the Infinite God My friends, from my home in Akasia, north of Pretoria, I see the night sky—a tapestry of stars flung across the void, a silent proclamation of a majesty that defies our comprehension. My mind, this small vessel of thoughts and fears, tries to grasp it. It tries to grasp everything. The rising price of maize meal. The scan of a medical report. The silent dread when a child is late coming home. We live in an age that worships at the altar of knowledge. We carry supercomputers in our pockets that promise every answer, yet our national soul feels more fractured, more anxious, than ever. We are a generation under immense pressure to figure it all out—the economy, the future, the purpose, the pain. We believe if we can just understand the “why,” we can control the outcome. We believe our peace is on the other side of comprehension. But I tell you today: this pressure is a burden God never asked you to carry. The ant underst...

The Architect and the Echo: How Our Words Forge the Future of a Nation From my home here in Akasia, on the northern edges of Pretoria, I watch the sun set over our complex country. The air is thick with the scent of hope and hesitation. We are a nation under construction, perpetually pouring the concrete of our collective future. Yet, I have come to believe with every fibre of my being that the most powerful tools on this building site are not held in the hands of politicians or economists. They are carried between our teeth and shaped by our tongues. Solomon, the wisest king, unveiled this cosmic principle millennia ago: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). This is not poetic sentiment; it is spiritual physics, a divine law as real as gravity, and right now, South Africa is a case study in its terrifying and glorious application. Let me tell you a story. Just last week, I sat in a cramped community hall in Soshanguve. The air was heavy with the frustration...

 The King Who Came as Clay: Divine Weakness as Our Greatest Strength A Christmas Meditation from Akasia From my small desk in Akasia, Pretoria, the sounds of our neighbourhood tell a story. The persistent hum of generators during loadshedding, the distant cry of a hadeda ibis, the chatter of children playing in a street where the tar has long surrendered to potholes. This is the soil from which I write. It is into such a world—a world of resilience, contradiction, and deep longing—that the Christmas story speaks with startling force. We often picture God’s arrival with celestial fanfare, yet He chose a scandalous alternative: the fragile, crying form of a newborn. This was no strategic error, but a divine masterstroke. Before a hostile humanity could receive a Savior, it first had to feel the ancient, protective pull towards a child. In the infant Jesus, God disarmed our fortified intellects and spoke directly to our guarded hearts. The Scandal of Particularity: Bethlehem in Akasia...

From Bekkersdal to Abba: The Scandalous Grace of Divine Adoption in a Fractured Land My name is Harold Mawela. I write to you from my study in Akasia, the purple blossoms of Pretoria’s jacarandas a fleeting canopy outside my window. Yet, the fragrant beauty of this so-called “Jacaranda City” is haunted this morning by a more pungent, metallic scent drifting from the south-west: the smell of blood and cordite from Bekkersdal. Nine more lives, extinguished. Ten more wounded. Another tavern, another township, another headline confirming our national agony: a person is killed here roughly every twenty minutes. In the echoing silence after such news, the grand theological pronouncements can feel like beautiful, useless noise. What does “reconciliation with God” mean when the chasm between neighbour and neighbour yawns so wide, so violently? We speak of being brought from alienation into fellowship, but our land is a tapestry of alienation – from God, from each other, from our own shamed his...

 The Solid Rock in a Shifting Land: An Akasia Reflection on Grace and Truth By Harold Mawela From my home here in Akasia, Pretoria, the evening sun paints the sky in hues of gold and crimson, casting long shadows over a city both vibrant and weary. The hum of generators, a constant companion in our era of load-shedding, mixes with the distant sounds of traffic and township gospel music. Here, at the southern edge of our capital, I look upon a nation in a state of profound and restless becoming. Our beloved South Africa is a tapestry being rewoven in real-time. Recent studies tell us we are one of the few nations on earth where religious fervour is actually increasing . A stunning 85.3% of us identify as Christian . Yet, this statistic is a chorus of dissonant voices. Drive down any street and you’ll see it: the grand cathedrals of colonial legacy now share spiritual space with vibrant, store-front “miracle centres” and indigenous African churches worshipping under the open sky . Th...

Cruciform Hope in a Shattered Land: The Historical Gospel for South Africa’s Wounds Here in Akasia, Pretoria, I watch the sun bleed red over the Magaliesberg, painting our beautiful, broken nation in the colours of both a wound and a sunrise. This past Sunday, as many of us prepared for worship, a different sound shattered the pre-dawn quiet in Bekkersdal, west of Johannesburg—not a hymn, but the relentless crackle of gunfire. Nine souls made in the image of God were cut down; ten more wounded. They were gathered in a tavern, a place of community and escape for many in our townships, now a crime scene. The news reports speak of “unprovoked” attacks, of patrons enjoying themselves one moment and lying on the floor the next, carried to clinics in wheelbarrows. This is not an anomaly. With one of the world’s highest murder rates—a life taken roughly every 20 minutes—South Africa is a nation groaning. And into this groaning, the world offers many philosophical suggestions. Sociologists ana...