Catherine Nicolette:
And so I have a story to tell. This photo is such an evocative one. Lush greenery of great beauty making a verdant landscape; and I was there at the beginning . . .
When we moved to the mining town of Welkom in the Free State when I was a very little girl, the landscape was very sandy and we experienced frequent dust-storms. The heat could be oppressive at times, and I remember that one heatwave was so blistering that some of the neighbourhood teenagers fried an egg on the bonnet of their car. A bird dropped dead from a tree in front of me from heatstroke.
Water resources literally dried up, and we used to line up at the municipality tankers to receive a weekly ration of water. I used to walk to and fro from school, and on the way back it would be so hot that I hung my blazer over my head to prevent sunburn.
The school was beautiful, newly built. Long cloisters hearking back to missionary cloisters kept us cool, while mole-hills dotted the large erf. The Sisters built rockeries from hewn stones, and only bristle-thorned cacti and vygies could grow in the arid heat. The front erf was a sandy desert, and we longed for shade where there was none.
One day, a Sister came to call me to help her. "I think you would be interested, " she told me. We went out to the rockeries, and Sister showed me how to plant twig like branches. "What are we planting, Sister?" I asked. Sister twirled around with her arms in the air. "Look around you," she told me. "See all the trees and greenery!"
Puzzled, I looked about Sister. There was no greenery to be seen at all. She pealed with laughter at my face. "Yes, many trees and plants are there, but you must see them with the eyes of faith. They are in the future," Sister said. "One day when I'm dead and gone, and no-one will remember me, you will come and see the beautiful trees that we planted today. Then you will remember me and the beauty that we planted. That is faith," she said very seriously as she looked at me, "We plant today that others may reap. We may never sit in the shade of the trees we planted, but many in the future will. God will take these small branches and make them grow. He always blesses our efforts!"
I looked at the small twigs in that vast expanse of sandy desert. There was not a hope, I thought, that they would ever grow. But I wanted Sister to feel happy, so I merely nodded quietly.
Well, I was at that school until I graduated, and we had arid heat and sand with thin little branches that struggled to grow. After my graduation, I moved on with life. A few years ago, I went with my brother for a walk down memory lane. We went back to my old convent school, and I marvelled as I walked down verdant avenues. I had never thought of that conversation again: I had been too young to realize the depth of the truth that Sister had taught me. Indeed, she had never enjoyed the fruits of our planting. Sand and dust-storms had been her lot. Now the greenery grew lush and cool, and I remembered that I had been part of it all.
Dear reader, it is so true. That wonderful missionary Sister who had come from the wooded glades of her youth to minister in a newly developed mining town heavy with sand had explained a deep truth to me. We sow that others may reap. We plant in faith that others may benefit. And we look to the future to see how God brings forth faith and eternal life from the lessons of faith we pass on to younger generations.
As I stood quietly under the trees which you had helped me to push into rocky ground, I watched students walk quietly past, cool under the sheltering leaves.
Sister, I salute you.
