Men's Breakfast

Saturday November 9, Men’s Breakfast 
Twenty men signed up for the rescheduled men’s breakfast at Trinity, but with guys being notoriously skittish and reluctant to commit I could guarantee thirty, and advised Bill to shop for forty. The final tally was 53, and all dined well on scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns chased with fresh fruit salad. It was loaves and fishes revisited. Vic brought along his guitar  with Glenn on percussion  to liven up the proceedings with  gospel music, and there were the obligatory after meal jokes. Clean and corny. Brian and Carman shared briefly from the heart about the impact that joining one of the men’s LIFE groups (Learning, Inspiration, Fellowship, Education) makes in good times and when the going gets tough. Church is not just a Sunday experience. The big draw was to hear Rev Musa Daba, the recently installed South African pastor talk of his experience growing up in the apartheid torn, racially divided and violence racked country. As a twelve year old he saw his activist father (also a pastor), arrested in a violent raid on his home, and incarcerated without trial or explanation for three months. This was a time when people “disappeared”, but fortunately his dad was released, and found safety under the tutelage of Bishop Desmond Tutu. The young Musa was himself tortured by soldiers for cheap thrills “they laughed hilariously as my body jerked and convulsed when they applied the voltage”, and he bore a bitter hatred against white people. God touched him in a remarkable way, enabled him to forgive and set him on the path to priesthood. “You can imagine the irony of me speaking twenty years later to a room full of white men” he quipped. We all have a story, laced with tragedy and and joy, confusion and peace. Men left this morning well fed physically and spiritually, and with new respect for our well travelled pastor.