To Do or Not to Do

By Cobus van der Merwe

In this volume of 39 chapters; one has 39 short stories in biographic form. Each story contains valuable information for every day life's success, picturing experience applicable to almost everyone.

The author has had experiences in growing up on a South African farm where he enjoyed hard work but also the pleasure of what nature offered, from mountaineering which included the eating of a variety of wild fruit and taking honey from beehives up in the mountain cliffs. Sometimes encountering wild animals such as baboons.

He shares his experience as a viticulturist raising table grapes and a professional and as a businessman transplanting to the USA and all the pain that went in it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 16, 2005
• ISBN: 9781465321787

Cobus van der Merwe

About the author Cobus van der Merwe is married to Reta Rood. They have three sons, one daughter and seven grandchildren. He is a native of South Africa , a descendant of 1652 Dutch Settlers to the Cape Of Good Hope, and is now a U.S. Citizen. He is an electrical engineer , a viticulturalist ,does jail ministering and is an inventor recognized by Who's Who of American Inventors and Who's Who World Wide.

Book preview

TO DO OR NOT TO DO

COBUS VAN DER MERWE

Copyright © 2005 by Cobus van der Merwe.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

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34

36

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38

39

UPDATE 2005 AD

Epilogue

In this volume of 39 chapters; one has 39 short stories in biographic form. Each story contains valuable information for every day life’s success, picturing experience applicable to almost everyone.

The author has had experiences in growing up on a South African farm where he enjoyed hard work but also the pleasure of what nature offered, from mountaineering which included the eating of a variety of wild fruit and taking honey from beehives up in the mountain cliffs. Sometimes encountering wild animals such as baboons.

He shares his experience as a viticulturist raising table grapes and a professional and as a businessman transplanting to the USA and all the pain that went with it.

The author also shares his experiences as a Christian, winning souls over world.

It is written in plain understandable English and makes easy reading for old and young alike.

This book is a must read for everybody wanting success in his or her life. It will help you on your way through this world.

TO DO OR NOT TO DO

COBUS VAN DER MERWE

May 1995

ISBN 0-9649944-0-2

Revised addition

Second print

2005 AD

Other books by Cobus van der Merwe:

The 82 Sins of The Church      ISBN 0-9649944-1-0

The Lost Tribes of Israel and The Jews      INSB 0-533-14339-X

Everything And What Not      ISBN:      Hardcover      1-4134-7052-1

          Soft cover      1-4134-7051-3

1

THE GENESIS

On a cold winter’s evening in 1964, staring into the crackling fire in the presence of utmost tranquility, my wife, Reta, broke the silence with a soft but serious statement Papa, our lifestyle is too ostentatious for that of a Christian. I was flabbergasted but deep inside me a little voice concurred with her. At that moment, I knew I had a lot to think about.

My upbringing was strictly in the Dutch Reformed Church and I was well disciplined in hard work and good manners. As a farm boy, part of the daily chores was to make your bed and tidy your room before sitting down to breakfast and early morning devotions. While on school holidays, I had to help with the farm work which entailed assisting with the caring for a large herd of cattle, grooming the horses, in spanning several teams of oxen for plowing, planting and harvesting maize, wheat and peanuts.

The lifestyle of my parents was simple, comfortable, warm, and friendly and they were always ready to help someone in need. They were faithful to the Lord and His Church. As an elder, my father conducted services on the farm to accommodate those who could not attend services in town because of distances. There were not many people who owned automobiles during the depression years of the 1930s; thus transport by horse was too slow to attend Church on a Sunday morning.

Staring into the fire, many episodes played in my mind of things in the past. I was thinking of the business trip I had just made to the United States of America where I had signed a contract for the manufacturing of automobile air conditioning units to be manufactured in our own factory in South Africa under the license of an American Company. I had so many ideas about various things that I could achieve to promote industries on the border areas of the black homeland of Natal and provide work for the Zulu people. I was thinking of my childhood days, and the days when I was a student with all the ups and downs. I was thinking of our church where I was an elder and so many things that one could do in this life to help other people who were less fortunate. And so it went, on and on. I tried to compare myself with my father and I was thinking how he was always ready to help other people without considering self interest, where if I had to be truthful and honest with myself, I had to admit I was always putting myself first. And maybe this is what my sweet wife was getting at. When saying that our lifestyle was too ostentatious. However, little Elizabeth broke the silence with her sweet voice and she did not have to express much discomfort for me to pick her up and kiss her. I suppose that is how we were all treated as babies. I can remember all the love I received from my parents. I think a person can neither describe nor do justice to the extent of the love of a parent for their children, standing by their bedside at night, cherishing them.

Another thing I was reflecting on were the days when I had been so fortunate to live on a farm where there were beautiful high mountains and peaks that invited us to climb them and were always a challenge to us. Very often we fell and got hurt climbing trees and rocks. We enjoyed digging out honey from beehives up in the mountains where the only opposition was the honey bird. It is an amazing bird that leads you to a beehive or sometimes to a leopard or a snake. The only compensation was to leave it some honey on the outside. We would take out honey from these hives but never without swollen fingers and faces!

In those days we had the privilege of learning about the various trees, plants and shrubs, of which there were several hundred species. Quite a number of them bore delicious fruits, like wild peaches or stem fruit, which are like wild prunes—but sour. We had to know the fruit well as to know what we could eat and what not to eat because some fruit could be poisonous which would cause serious illnesses. Much of the acquired knowledge was obtained by following the tracks of baboons, as we could eat what they ate. The baboons are a very different kind of nation! They are very fond of the black people. In fact, they will never run away when a black man comes into their domain. If a white man intrudes in their domain, they are very aggressive. We were very cautious and did not interfere with them. The leopards and monkeys were shy and kind. There were various other animals we got to know. What a joy and privilege for a boy to grow up on a farm. I thank God my children were able to grow up on a farm too. You have a much wider outlook on life, more experience, and usually a farm boy is more stable than a city slicker.

My younger brother, Steve, who is two years younger than me and some of our cousins, formed a gang. We were very similar to the American Sugar Creek Gang. We had our fights, friendly fights of course, and enjoyed different activities. We went fishing, and swimming in the creek or in the dam and we also had our black friends, a gang more or less our age, from the neighboring farms and we were great friends with them. What we enjoyed more than anything else was to start a war with two armies, the black army and the white army. For that purpose we used what was called clay sticks. We would take clay and squeeze it into one-inch diameter balls and place them on the end of the stick. This served as our weapons. There was white clay for the white army and black clay for the black army. The black clay would leave a black mark when they would hit any of the white army and the white army would use white clay to leave a white mark when any of the black army was hit.

Then of course, we also went mountain climbing since we had very high mountains on the farm that had very high peaks. On the mountains you could find baboons, leopards, antelope, and other wild life.

During the depression years it was not uncommon to find people with a higher education without work. My father partitioned the two barns for two city families to live in. I remember in one family there was a schoolteacher and in the other family, a lawyer. They worked on the farm. The only compensation they received was food and shelter. I am sure my family provided some clothing from time to time.

I attended a country school 16 miles away. The first three miles my brother and I covered by bicycle and the rest of the way we went by school bus, which was quite an experience. Many children from the farms rode on the school bus. We used to sing songs going to and from school. This was just a good childhood. At school the most famous sport in all of South Africa was rugby. The girls played net ball. Usually when school was out in the afternoon, we would have another hour to practice rugby.

Still staring into the fire, reminiscing of my childhood, I suddenly realized that the issue was the present and that I needed to do some soul searching instead. I knew that I had quite a lot to think about. When do you begin, where do you start? I was 38 years old, enjoying seemingly great success, and I had to hear from the one I loved most, that our lifestyle would have to change and would probably be reduced to goodness knows what.

I had my oldest son, Lucas, ten years of age and Andre the second son, eight years of age, on my mind as being my successors to the throne! Of course I visualized great wealth for my children and here my wife was telling me our lifestyle was too high. All these things kept rushing through my mind. Again, where do you start? Where do you end?

Our beautiful Tudor style home, in the city of Durban, was built based on the plans of the White Cottage of Ann Hathewaite, wife of William Shakespeare. The house was perfectly situated on three acres with superb landscaping, a tennis court, fountains and fishpond, marble swimming pool, and Bougainvillea hedges 10 feet high. There was great variety of shrubs from all over the world, beautiful stone walls, laid out foot-paths through the garden which included lit up stairways and garden benches. My pride and joy was a rose garden with 130 famous roses. The butler-cottage, a two-bedroom Tudor style building to match the house, was in itself, a masterpiece. Yes, we even had a full time gardener. Our furniture and drapes matched the house period with beautiful paintings and antique pieces handed down from generation to generation on both sides of the family. In the garage I had a Jaguar, a Mercedes and a Lancia Flavia. They were beautiful cars and very precious. We had no debt. Those had been paid for in cash. We did a lot of entertaining, even on behalf of the government—we were asked to entertain VIP’s from overseas. Amongst whom we had the pleasure of entertaining were the Governor of Brabant in Belgium and executives of International Press Agencies, such as Aegean’s France Press and Deutsche Presse Argentur, which meant that different wines and liquors had to be served. This entailed a cellar with prize wines and other liquors. I remember all the visitors, but the Governor of Brabant is still outstanding in my mind as one of the classiest visitors that I have ever had the pleasure of entertaining. In the thank you letter, which we received from his Excellency a short time after his visit, he made special reference to the sparkling eyes of our beloved baby daughter, Elizabeth.

Quite frankly, as far as the life style problem was concerned, I had never encountered such a difficult problem before in my entire career, especially in engineering.

2

THE CONVERT

Being an engineer, it was my nature to analyze a problem and then find a solution to the problem. I always believed that once you analyzed a problem, the problem is no more a problem but a job to do. After I had given serious consideration to where I came from and the simple life style that I came from and where we were now, where we lived, and how we lived, the past seemed very far away. I just did not know how to approach the problem, from what angle or from what time.

Bearing in mind that I was a man of the world and at the same time an elder in our church, a director and serving on nearly two dozen companies, and serving in various other institutions, it was hard for me to stay out of the limelight. In fact, my picture was in the newspapers quite frequently. I must say that many times I felt overworked and under high pressure. My doctor warned me on several occasions that I had to slow down. I tried to but that was very difficult. I will never forget what my doctor said to me on one occasion, What will it benefit you if you are the richest man in the cemetery? As these thoughts ran through my mind, I realized that my wife was right—that there was something we needed to do.

During those years of my life I did not run to the Lord Jesus with everything in my life. In fact, I was a relatively new Christian at that time having given my heart to Jesus Christ in 1958. I must say, I was a very slow growing spiritual babe since I did not get food, spiritual food. My father was always my main counselor and I could always go to him with my problems. He always had such great wisdom. He could analyze a problem that to me was like Mount Ararat and turn it into a molehill. In the year of 1964, my daddy was already deceased for one year and I really did not know who or where to turn except to my dear wife. If only I had known better in those days, I could have turned to the Lord and He would have given me the answer within a very short period of time. I learned slowly over the years; but this is one thing I can recommend to you: Acknowledge the Lord, in all your ways, and He will level your paths.

I had just returned from a trip to the United States of America, which was quite an expensive journey. First, I flew into New York City where I attended the International World Fair. Several things that happened there had an influence on me. For instance, there was a man by the name of Bill Delaney. I was having my breakfast at the fair grounds and he asked if he could join my table. I said, Please sit down. He introduced himself and when breakfast was served, I asked him if he would like to say grace and I could see the uneasiness I had put on him and he responded by saying that I should go ahead, which I did. After breakfast, we parted. Later that day, I went to a Japanese restaurant and whom should I run into but him. Just imagine that at a World Trade Fair with so many people, we had to run into each other again. So, we had lunch together. I again prayed over our table and we discussed the fair and various other things and then again we parted. That evening I was sitting in my seat on the plane on a flight to Grand Rapids when, whom should I see, but Bill Delaney? He came and sat right next to me. Isn’t this a coincidence, I thought. But it did bother me that I had run into the same man three times in one day. As a Christian, I thought at that moment that the Lord was expecting me to share my faith with him. Then when the stewardess served us our food, again, I asked him if he would say grace and again, he told me to do so. Well, I thought I would rub it in during my prayer and thank the Lord for this new found friend and that I hoped he would have the joy of sharing the same faith that I had. After the meal the dishes were cleared and I scraped enough courage together and I said to him, You know Bill, this is the third time we have bumped into one another today and it is almost a matter of improbability that we met on the same flight again. This may be Almighty God’s way of talking to us—talking to you and to me—telling me that I should share my faith with you and telling you that you should enjoy the same faith as I do. The stewardess overheard our conversation since we were sitting right in the back of the plane and she asked if she could join us and there was a vacant seat next to me and I said, Please, go ahead. She told us she wanted to be part of this. So I explained to her the reason for my belief, why and how I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. Now I had never led anyone to the Lord before—this was my first experience and I was very nervous. I led the two of them in a sinner’s prayer to the Lord. I wondered for many years why it took me the whole day and why the Lord had to get the two of us to meet three times before I had the courage to talk to this man about his soul. Very recently, I told another Christian about this experience and he said an amazing thing, The reason I believe the Lord wanted you to wait until that night is because He wanted that stewardess to give her heart to the Lord as well. Praise His Name.

In Grand Rapids, I attended the International Gideon Convention of 1964 and met many beautiful people among which were Pat and Bernie Zondervan, the owners of the Zondervan Publishing Company and it was very interesting to learn how they got started 34 years prior to that time. They started their publishing company in their bedroom, expanded into their sister’s bedroom, later expanding it into their dining room, and finally, into the lounge. When they wanted to expand their business into the kitchen, their mother said, No, you are not going any further. Pat showed me the white building on the corner where they started after they moved from their house. On the first floor they had rented four or five rooms. From the beginning, they made a vow that if the Lord would bless them in their undertaking as publishers, they would continue to tithe from this Company. They had been faithful even until this day when I had met Pat and Bernie. Pat showed me the new buildings, which they had erected, that cover approximately one square mile of land and buildings. I believe that, in 1964, they were the biggest Christian publishing company in the world.

From Grand Rapids, I took a flight to Los Angeles and there I entered into a relationship with a company, which manufactured air conditioning units for automobiles. With that signed contract, I came back to South Africa, and now, here I was still staring into the fire, with all those things flashing through my mind: the great success I had and, now with this new contract of supplying the automobile manufacturing companies with air conditioning units in South Africa, said it all for me. Now, this big bomb was dropped on me from Reta that our lifestyle was too high. I had to take this seriously. In my own way, I offered a prayer and asked for the Lord’s guidance.

The greatest news was that Reta was expecting our youngest son Jaco. Of course I was hoping it would be a boy to be named after me since the oldest boy, Lucas, was named after my father and the second boy, Andre, was named after his grandfather on his mother’s side of the family. This was, and still is, a customary practice in South Africa, Europe, and used to be in the greater part of the Western World, although I don’t think this tradition is being followed much any longer. What a pity! I always believed that by naming the family by western tradition is a part of what the Bible says in God’s Law, Honor thy father and thy mother so your future will be blessed in the land that I give you.

3

THE RETREAT

The morning after the fireplace episode, I decided to pay a visit to my doctor for a general checkup. One thing that my doctor told me that added fuel to the fire which Reta had kindled the previous night at the fireplace, was that I had better slow down otherwise you will be the richest man in the cemetery. He went on to say that I was as fit as a fiddle, strong, healthy, but that I was burning the candle at both ends. He suggested that I take a week or so to retreat someplace where it was quiet and do some reading and relaxing. And when I returned to work, I was to try and cut my work schedule back to human size. I thanked him for the good advise, went to the office, called my brother Lucas who was 500 miles away on the family farm, and he said for me to come and spend a week with him. He said we would go to the bushveld ranch to do some hunting and we would enjoy the week together. I called Reta and told her the plans and she was delighted. Because of her elation, I was disappointed in a way that she was able to give me up for a week. Because she was expecting and because she had our baby daughter Elizabeth to care for, she did not want to travel. I made plans to take off and visit my brother on the exciting old family farm, which he was now running, where me I could get some perspective again. I also believed my brother, the second oldest, would not tell me that