June 10th

God, Wildebeest and Red Sunsets

A Menno Minute - Margo Ratzlaff

I recently had the opportunity to travel to South Africa, which is the furthest I’ve ever travelled. I went as part of the primatology field school at the University of Calgary, which means that I was on a nature reserve in South Africa studying baboons. Being on the reserve meant that I didn’t get to experience much of the local culture or languages, but what I did get was the opportunity to wander the nature reserve with animals that I had only heard of in stories or seen in the zoo. The baboons were obviously my favourite part (even when they ran away from us all day), however, it was also surreal to walk through a landscape that looked so much like Alberta (because it really did in some ways) and then look around to see a herd of zebra, or an ostrich, or a giraffe. I really loved being somewhere new, and I loved being able to see and fall in love with a part of creation that I had never experienced before. I adored the heat of the sun at midday and the red stain of the sky at sunset. I loved the morning drives when a herd of wildebeest would run beside us for a length of the road  

before splitting off to move to further fields.    I will forever treasure sitting at the edge of a cliff with my friends, binoculars in hand, watching baboons that were sunbathing further along the cliff after a particularly chilly morning.

I have often heard people talk about thin moments in relation to encountering God and although I’ve already experienced a few of these moments, this trip gave me the opportunity to have so many more. For me, thin moments are best described as instants when all of time and space co-occur and it feels like sitting with Creator. So, I sat with Creator as I watched baboons from the side of a cliff, and as I watched the wildebeest run, and as I watched the sunset throwing the world around me into shades of red and indigo. I have long said that God is out there. God not only exists in the bell towers and pews of churches, but also in the places you go, the moments you find, the people you meet. Thin moments can happen wherever you are, regardless of if it’s mundane, extraordinary or somewhere in between. While I hope that I will go back to South Africa, what I really want is to keep travelling to whichever there I am called to  next. I long to seek my Creator at every turn, wherever and whenever that might be.                                              

     
  Margo attends Calgary First Mennonite. (Photos submitted by Margo Ratzlaff)