For now, I’ve settled with traveling there through the wonders of technology, particularly via Google Earth. I’ve soared over the dunes of the Kalahari desert and strolled through the streets of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. I’ve trawled through Wikipedia’s copious articles on the indigenous tribes found in this part of Africa, like the mysterious desert-dwellers known as the San, renowned for their ability to draw water from the ground using only blades of grass and empty ostrich eggs.
I of course realize that many have found the premise of the FLEE series farfetched, and rightly so. The notion that we’d somehow be corralled into a single location for salvation during Armageddon is highly unlikely (some might even say impossible, though I'm wary of calling anything impossible). But if a mass evacuation were to happen, my bet is that we’d be headed here, to Africa, where the land is almost endlessly vast and largely uninhabited.
There is something uniquely alluring about this part of the world. Perhaps it is the fact that our first ancestors were likely given life in a land not so far away, so that much of our early history unfolded in a region similar to this, where many of the same plants and animals existed. Perhaps it is the presence of so many indigenous tribes down to this day that makes the land feel, in some ways, pure and untouched, so unlike our developed, technology-dependent cities.
Maybe it’s the raw beauty of the land: golden desert sands stretching for hundreds of miles before abruptly ending in the crystal blue waters of the Atlantic; natural rivers winding like arteries through otherwise barren scenery; stunning night panoramas that bring to mind Jehovah’s promise to Abraham about his seed becoming as numerous as the stars. In developed countries, that metaphor doesn’t evoke much, but here, where cities, billboards, and highways don’t exist to reflect so much light into the atmosphere, you can see with the naked eye more stars than you could count in a hundred lifetimes.
Of course, there’s another possibility for why I find myself so drawn to this part of the world. Perhaps there is something elegantly poetic about restarting civilization here, right where it all began so many millennia ago.
There is something irresistibly beautiful about such symmetry.
Certainly not far fetched to me, who knows? Anything is possible with Jehovah, it may not be Africa... but I'm beginning to think that we will be together as groups or as congregations when that time comes... looking forward to the last instalment !
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how in the last few depictions of Armageddon, we've always seen groups of friends together. Sometimes they are just families together, many times they appear to be service groups, and other times whole congregations. Of course, it's important not to read too much into these pictures, but it does show that we are imagining similar things about the future. We shall see! Certainly exciting to think about!
DeleteI like this.
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