Challenge the Good News Paper
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TM No. 376 THE GOOD NEWS PAPER Anger is Sparks Fun pages for When a How spiders Summer over and a love children child keep focus garden Page 9 like fire Pages loses hope tips Page 3 Page 3 Page 4 5,6,7 Page 8 Page 11 NO FAME NO SHAME From acting fame to humble taxi cab, Frank Rautenbach shares why life’s disappointments put things into perspective Frank s a lead actor in The Bang Bang Club and Faith his degree and wedding to Leigh When a top Hollywood agency Rautenbach Like Potatoes, Frank Rautenbach appears every in 1996. offered to represent Frank, he recently bit the wealthy artisan of his Hollywood fraternity, Upon scoring a lead role in drove 10,000km to auditions visited Australia Abut a conversation with him will instead reveal a an Afrikaans TV drama Swende and invested in further acting and NZ to man who now feels no shame in being a humble Iaan in 2000 and a record with training, but did not fi nd a sin- encourage child LA taxi driver. Sony BMG, Frank explains, gle gig. sponsorship for “It’s amazing”, the 42-year-old “[The fame] got so silly that I Instead tragedy seemed to sur- World Vision screen veteran says about his new would be paid more than one round him with multiple deaths workplace, which he fondly names “I was a TV episode to appear at birthday in the family, and he and his wife “the counsel cab”. slave to parties.” were childless after 12 years and “Do you know how many He then starred in a Sony- four miscarriages. broken-hearted people live in my career backed biopic Faith Like Pota- By this time Faith like Pota- Los Angeles? I’ve had people toes about South African potato toes was so successful that Sony in my car who are multi- and I farmer and Christian evange- fl oated a follow-up but, when millionaires, and they have so list Angus Buchan, which was this did not eventuate, Frank much shame that they can’t didn’t viewed by over 120 million and was crushed. see straight.” quickly sold 20 million DVDs. Early one morning in Novem- Movie success was more even Following this dramatic ber 2011, he felt a severe dread happy accident than inten- success and a move from that his career was at its natural tional for Frank but this know it” Johannesburg to Los Angeles, end in his 40s. did not stop him from the storms of life would pierce Frank began praying to the feeling worthless when Frank’s ‘be good to do good’ God he had fi rst trusted in at age it ended. formula. 18, saying, “I have loved you and “I was a slave to my career and I didn’t even The makers of Faith Like obeyed you, but after 20 years I know it,” he honestly confesses. Potatoes cast him as South have no evidence you have been “I thought that because I was good – keeping African cricketer Hansie Cronje here.” God’s rules – I was doing well in my career.” in another biopic Hansie with a “I had very conveniently forgot What he had not realised, he says, was “I million dollar budget. A series that I was still breathing, had a wanted heaven a lot, but not God”. of budget and cinema release healthy body and had food and Frank’s accidental fame in South Africa mistakes resulted in a single pay- running water,” Frank adds. began while modelling and fi lming commer- cheque three years later, just a “I then read from the Bible, ‘If cials to pay off his economics degree. A global third of what he expected. God did not spare His own Son Mentos TV commercial in 1994 that ran for four Another promising role came (Jesus) in whom He was well years thrust him into the spotlight and paid for in 2010 when he was cast in a pleased from the wilderness, why big-budget Hollywood fi lm The do you think He will spare you?’” Bang Bang Club as one of four As he kept reading and pray- South African photographers ing, weeks later it became clear during the 1994 South African that God was teaching him that Expect the unexpected Apartheid riots. Again, his pay- he worshipped his career above check was barely enough to pay all. There is something serious we can living expenses. ● Turn to page 2 all learn from a batsman, a croco- dile hunter and a princess… A few days shy of his twenty-sixth birthday, the startling death of Australian batsman Phillip Hughes in November Family shifted the fragility of life to the foreground as our nation mourned the unexpected loss of another national fi gure. races into The fatal brain haemorrhage Hughes suffered after a bouncer struck the back of his neck during a match at the history Sydney Cricket Ground was an accident that no one could predict. books It takes me back to our collective disbelief when a sting- ray’s barb ended the life of 44-year-old crocodile hunter and BACK PAGE Phillip wildlife campaigner Steve Irwin in September 2006. Hughes ● Turn to page 2 www.challengenews.org 2 • Edition 376 Expect the CURSED WORLD EXPLAINS EBOLA DISEASE unexpected BY DR JONATHAN SARFATI For the last year or so, a deadly epi- ● From page 1 demic has ravaged West Africa. The The car accident that killed culprit is the Ebola virus, named after 36-year-old landmine and AIDS the Ebola River in the Democratic campaigner Princess Diana in Republic of the Congo. This causes August 1997 was another tragic a high-grade fever accompanied by death that rocked our nation to its abnormal bleeding, both internal and core in the past few decades. external—hence the term ‘viral haem- All were greatly-admired people orrhagic fever’—plus other nasty doing exceptional things, leaving us things like diarrhoea and vomiting. Half of the deaths in the latest outbreak are in Liberia, to question why each died so young Ebola disease is especially danger- like this one in the capital Monrovia and without the opportunity to even ous because it turns the body’s own say goodbye to loved ones. immune system against it. animals, keeping soil fertile, keeping for sick Africans, including Ebola Life seems so unfair but the reality What is Ebola virus? water clean and regulating gases in victims: is that – even in our age of medical Ebola virus is classifi ed as a fi lovi- the atmosphere. “Like it or not, though, we are The late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin breakthroughs, fi tness fanaticism, rus (family Filoviridae), or thread- Viruses also have a role in killing deeply reliant on missionary doctors Botox injections and health supplements – death is inevitable. shaped virus. Unlike bacteria, viruses cancer cells. In particular, Ebola virus and nurses. The 2008 ARHAP report Death is no respecter of one’s personal status. The reality is, among high- are non-living entities, because they seems to have a symbiotic relation- found that in some sub-Saharan Afri- profi le celebrities, ordinary people die unexpectedly every day doing ordinary can’t reproduce on their own, but ship with fruit bats. They seem to can countries 30 percent of health things. I hate to say it but you could be one of them. I could be one of them. need the copying machinery of more stimulate genes that code for DNA care facilities are run by religious As one writer put it: there are two certainties in life – death and taxes! complex cells. Viruses are so tiny repair machinery, including cor- entities.” This quote from Biblical writer James puts things into perspective for me; that they can be seen only by electron recting damaged genes that would He previously had to admit that “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the microscopes. cause tumours. So bats almost never they are hardly doing this for per- morning fog – it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” Why would God make viruses? develop malignant cancer. Unfor- sonal gain: Maybe you have not thought about death much but that makes it no less Many viruses have amazing hall- tunately, the virus has escaped its “There’s one other big difference important. marks of design, such as a powerful natural habitat. Similarly, the often- between missionaries and Western Pascal’s Wager, a logical reasoning devised by 17th century mathematician, electric motor to wind up their DNA, underestimated infl uenza seems to merchants: The missionaries don’t physicist and philosopher Blaise Pascal, argues that each person bets their for the ‘normal’ viruses that use DNA. have been a benign virus in ducks. profi t personally from their work. lives on whether God exists beyond our universe. This points to a Master Designer. Treating Ebola: why and who? They are compensated very poorly, According to Pascal’s argument, if we die unexpectedly and there turns out However, since God’s fi nished crea- One important biblical principle is: if at all. Many risk their lives. How to be nothing waiting on the other side, little is lost. Yet on the fl ip side, if tion was ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31), it’s a blessing to alleviate aspects of many people would risk death to eternity spent in heaven or hell awaits us, our response to God will result in why would He create disease germs? the Curse. That’s why Jesus healed spread the gospel of Western con- an immeasurable gain or loss.