Vasti Manser

Baboons cooling off in the guesthouse pool at Betty's Bay, South Africa

One of the greatest lecture in the world

Starlink is not allowed to have an Internet provider license in South Africa for the sole reason that I am not Black. This is not ok.

This is going to stick with me forever

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9

Christianity is the most beautiful religion in the world. It also happens to be true.

One of the greatest lecture in the world.

Let me tell you something. When somebody says, “I prayed for you,” that ain’t just words. That’s action. That means when you weren’t in the room, when you couldn’t defend yourself, when you didn’t even know what to ask for… somebody went to God on your behalf. See, anybody can say “I got you.” Anybody can say “I’m thinking about you.” But prayer? That’s love that shows up quietly. That’s love that covers you when life is heavy. That’s love that asks God to step in where they can’t. And sometimes you don’t even feel it in the moment. You just notice later… something didn’t break you the way it should’ve. Something worked out when it didn’t make sense. Something protected you when you didn’t see it coming. That’s prayer. So if someone ever tells you, “I prayed for you,” understand this — they loved you enough to take your name into a sacred space. And that… that’s a real love language.

The face of a 192 year old tortoise, the oldest known living land animal.

They could not believe the audacity

Proverbs 16:9

Left side is a human lung. Right side is a tree. The tree breathes in what the lung breathes out. The lung breathes in what the tree breathes out. God's design is incredible.

I spent the weekend in Delhi, India. 1 million street dogs are under severe threat. I’ve never seen a story like this. I didn’t think it was possible in the modern world. The world needs to see this… (1/10) 🧵

Amen 🙏❤️

Julius Malema and the EFF’s obsession with “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer” on Human Rights Day is a disgrace. Nothing screams hypocrisy louder than celebrating “human rights” while inciting violence against a group of people. Let’s be clear: This chant isn’t just an old struggle song, it’s a deliberate political tool used to stoke division and perpetuate racial hostility. While South Africa grapples with real issues, crime, corruption, economic collapse. Malema chooses to rally his followers around hatred, not solutions. If human rights mean anything, they should apply to all South Africans, not just when it fits a political agenda.

Very few people know that there is a major political party in South Africa that is actively promoting white genocide. The video below was just yesterday. A whole arena chanting about killing white people. A month ago, the South African government passed a law legalizing taking property from white people at will with no payment. Where is the outrage? Why is there no coverage by the legacy media? Starlink can’t get a license to operate in South Africa simply because I’m not black. How is that right?

Everything is super important. Until you are sick. Then you realize there was only ever one thing that was important. Your health.

When we don’t use the gifts, the time or the resources God has blessed us with, it’s equivalent to telling Him, “Thanks but no thanks.” Don’t hide what God has given you- multiply it!

A year ago, my wife and I sent our son off to receive a new heart. Born on December 4th, a rollercoaster of ups and downs over a month and a half led us to this point. Testing showed that PAIVS and poor coronary anatomy took his HRHS beyond the pale of reconstructive surgery. Despite his precarious situation, he was stable, though chronically peaked. We were amazed at God's gracious hand in providing a heart for our son only 11 days after being listed - we had expected months of waiting, wary of the looming possibility of sudden cardiac death. Of course, this meant that someone else lost a precious one of their own. In the early morning of January 15th, we were awoken by a call from the hospital to report that an ideal candidate had been found. When the call ended, my wife and I broke into tears and prayer - not for ourselves, but because someone else had just made a remarkably generous decision in the wake of their own worst nightmare. Someone lost their little one in the early hours of January 15th. Yet their choice to donate gave us - though much less than hoped - 7 months we might not have had with our Gus. Of course, as many of you know, January 16th quickly became a nightmare in its own right. Many of you began to follow our story that night: one year ago today. (Thank you to all of you who have been with us since then.) After a long and largely successful procedure, delayed updates and growing angst culminated in one of those somber and gut-wrenching moments where you feel like a spectator in your own story. A group of doctors came to our room - but our son was not with them and their countenance was low. We'd spent the day praying, passing positive reports to friends and family, and decorating his new room. If anything, we were excited and the mood was hopeful. A staff member wrote on one of the glass whiteboards: "Happy heart day Gus." Streamers were hanging from the ceiling. You can imagine that we were shattered beyond belief when teary-eyed doctors gingerly offered the worst news: his new heart didn't start. Everything had gone according to plan - the scale and precision of a heart transfer are remarkable - but it just didn't beat. Our son was in suspense, tottering on the edge of death with no heartbeat, kept alive by an artificial heart-lung machine. They offered us a few days on ECMO to see if something would happen, though the chances of the heart recovering from the shock and spontaneously starting to beat were very low. That night we watched his screens closely. There was an electric signal, but nothing more. No pulse. No beat. That day was, without qualification, one of the hardest and darkest days of my life. It felt like our son had just been ripped away from us. Like whiplash, what felt like a huge positive step was completely derailed. We might have gone home with Gus in mere weeks had the surgery gone well. Instead, we'd never bring him home because of the complications borne out of that day. When Christ speaks of his teachings as a solid rock, safe and secure, and steady enough to build your life on, it's the real deal: he beckons us to plant our feet on reality - that is, on himself. I'm not referring to some flimsy, sentimental, experiential thing either; some spiritualistic trade-off where 'relationship' replaces religion. No, I mean the whole thing: religion and relationship; the claims he makes as the Son of Man and the Son of God. The theological and dogmatic claims. The claims that call for devotion. The claims of sovereignty and goodness. In those moments, the sovereignty of God was to us a solid and immovable floor to collapse on. Everything else came crashing down in those moments, but it came crashing down onto solid bedrock. It was no freefall. In those moments, we could echo Job's profound rhetorical observation: "shall we receive good and not adversity also?" We knew then God was good and that he does good. Yet we also embraced the gift of lament - of prayerful, pleading sorrow often beyond words (but not beyond the Spirit's intercession). The Christian religion offers this profound capacity for the paradox of our lived experience: of soul-refreshing goodness and beauty, as well as heart-wrenching sorrow and suffering. Both are very real. Yet, to borrow Tolkien's concept of eucatastrophe, the good, empowered by Goodness himself, is always working towards ultimate victory. God is working all things together for good. Nihilism, materialism, and pantheism all skirt the issue by either diminishing or denying the reality of good and evil; joy and suffering. Christianity says both are true (not illusory) and that the good is going to win. Not goodness as some abstract, impersonal, or arbitrary force, but goodness as God-ness. God is good and does good. We did not get our son back in the condition we had hoped for on the evening of January 16th. How grateful we are that so many joined us in prayer - and that 24 hours later, something incredible happened: his heart began to beat again. When he passed from our arms on July 20th (how has it been so long already?), that little heart he'd been given was the last to go. It went strong to the end, overcome by the rest of his failing frame. From the outside looking in, it may seem like a prolonged tragedy - and in many ways it was. But there were so many good, beautiful, and sweet moments. Suffering is not a meaningless thing that negates the value of one's life. His life was worth fighting for. Because of that little heart, I got to see my son smile. I got to hear him mumble and grunt with excitement. He got to know our love and we got to know what it is to love in a way we never could have otherwise. For that and much more, I am forever grateful. Happy heart day Gus.