21

Twentyone years ago our dear friend Richard pulled out all the stops on the organ and gave it some welly as he struck up Tocatta in C by Zipoli as the love of my life began walking down the aisle.

I have been incredibly blessed by the fact that shortly after 1.30pm Paula said "I do" and I'll be forever grateful to her and to God for the amazing time we've had together ever since.

To marry someone special is great. To marry your soul-mate is fantastic. To spend a lifetime with the love of your life is simply awesome!

Here Comes The Bride..

Last Saturday we celebrated the wedding of Philip and Maria with our friends from Simon's Town.

Once again it was a bit of 'weddings R us' as Paula was chauffeur for the bride and Dean was the official photographer.

We had a lovely day and a lot of fun and were totally spoilt by our dear friends from Simon's Bay Christian Church who laid on an amazing day.

Joys Of Leadership

One of the great things about leading a church is getting to decide what is and isn't important in the life of the church.

One thing I've always believed strongly in but rarely seen modeled is leaders praying together. I've seen leaders all consumed with the business of leading but rarely seen leaders praying for the sake of praying.

I realise business is important but prayer is way more important than the mundane!

School Of Unicycling

This morning I had the privilege of going into school with Eli's unicycle so that he could demonstrate how to ride it to his classmates for show & tell.

I get a real thrill out of seeing Eli riding his uni' but to see him ride it with a crowd really made my heart glow. It was great to hear Eli's classmates heaping praise and compliments on him, I think my favourite was hearing one of the lads telling the teacher "He makes it look so easy!".

Is Platinum Really Worth That Much?

The situation at the Lonmin Marikana platinum mine in South Africa has just hit the international news wires because of the slaughter of at least 30 people by the police.

Sadly it takes such an act for the story to become newsworthy.

In The Spirit Of Benny Hill

Late this afternoon we were playing about in the garage and used Paula's camera to record some unicycling. We put it on 'Miniature Effect' mode and this was the result. all that was needed was some classic music!

So here you have it, in the spirit of Benny Hill, less the sauce!

Conspicuous In Our Absence

If we were writing this post a year ago, our conspicuous absence from the blog would have been because we felt unable to speak of the things that were going on.

Thankfully we've moved on from then and the simple reason for our conspicuous absence has been the sheer amount of stuff going on and not being able to keep up with it all.

Our last proper post was about our outreach back in June and here we are in August about to do another outreach this coming Saturday.

Eisteddfod

Some great news for Joel..

He's just participated in the local Eisteddfod again and improved on last year's showing by getting Cum Laude for his prepared reading.

Joel chose to read two pages from The boy In The Dress by David Walliams and really went to town on his characterisation. Even the judges commented on this and the humour he managed to convey.

We are so proud of him!

Eli Unicycling

Despite our absence from the blog we're well and really enjoying life but we're also really busy which probably explains the absence.

So here's a bit of fun to keep you going until we manage to post something over the weekend.

Enjoy Eli's latest exploits below...

A Tree Has Been Planted

If you managed to catch up with Paula at one of her recent Facing The Mountain Roadshows in Weald or Cheadle you will have seen our latest DVD offering.

If you didn't manage to catch up with Paula, shame on you you can watch the film right here from the comfort of your own computer screen.

We hope you find it helpful as you uphold our ministry here in Macassar in prayer.

So get some popcorn, put your feet up and enjoy the next 16½ minutes.

Outreach Weekend - Pt 2

We had such an amazing time at our celebration meeting two weeks ago!

It was a real family time as Tree Of Life were joined by Love & Grace from Mitchell's Plain and Simon's Bay Christian Church from Simon's Town.

Graham's team from Mitchell's Plain lead the worship, Shaddie brought a great word and Tree Of Life organised the celebration and lead it. It's such a blessing to be involved in churches working together for the extension of the Kingdom!

Outreach Weekend - Pt 1

Firstly, thank you to all of you that were praying for the weather on our outreach a couple of weeks ago, the weather turned out great despite the forecast and we are truly thankful to God for this!

It has indeed been a couple of weeks since the outreach and the reason it has taken so long to blog about it is that many of us are still blown away by the whole thing!

Miles For Smiles Assembly

I've lifted this straight out of the school's weekly newsletter:

"MILES FOR SMILES
THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!
Through the combined efforts of the International School of Helderberg and Macquarie Securities South Africa, we raised a phenomenal R71878.70 [almost £5700] for Operation Smile South Africa!
Over the last 5 years we have raised almost R200 000-00 for Operation Smile.

Wonderwall

We're very proud of Joel as he played with his fellow guitarists at the school's Music Cafe this morning.

They played Wonderwall by Oasis and did really well.

Local Rag

An update for those of you who sponsored our boys in their Miles For Smiles ride a few weeks ago.

Our local rag the District Mail ran this article today with a lovely photo of Eli in it.

Prayer Request

We're planning to do quite a big outreach next Friday and Saturday as we have another celebration meeting in Macassar on Sunday morning with our friends from Mitchell's Plain and Simon's Town.

We have a few events planned, one of which will be to pamper ladies in the community by doing their nails, hair and make-up whilst serving them with coffee and a muffin.

Hair Pulling!

I'm no techno geek when it comes to computers but equally I'm not afraid of stripping one down and having a tinker. After all, if I do mess it up I'll only be saving the computer the time and trouble of messing itself up.

Miles For Smiles

Eli and Joel had such a blast this morning at what has become their school's annual charity event.  They were so proud to ride for Operation Smile in their Miles for Smiles cycle ride.  They were particularly thrilled because the school is hoping to crack their target of raising R50,000 for much needed cleft palate operations for children this year and between them they have raised just under R2,000.  Thank you so much to all you who so generously sponsored the boys, it really made a difference.

Vicky

I was really saddened to hear of the death of Vicky last night.  I knew he had been sick for a while now but it's such a shame to see yet another young man die of HIV related illnesses when he could and should have been on ARV's over two years ago.

A Rant

In 2001 during some of Zimbabwe’s darkest days we drove from Harare to Cape Town, it was mainly for holiday purposes and a bloomin' good one it was too, but we also had to leave Zim' for a while due to the mess there. It’s a long story!

While we were in South Africa we had a great time and met some fab people, some of whom we went on to work with when we moved to SA three years later. I remember at the time having a number of conversations with folk about the Zim' situation and was asked the same question a few times.

Mr Bounce

I could leave this as a wordless post with just the photos and most of you would guess who I would be talking about.

My boy doesn't stay still for long, though the telly is teaching him to pay attention for increasing amounts of time. Not sure if that's a good thing or not?! Anyway, beyond the world of the electronic babysitter, Eli is one incredibly active young man and constantly looking for mischief things to do. One of the things I love about him is how he'll take something he learnt and apply it to an area or something for which it wasn't really intended.

Moonsquirters

Percy Thrower I am not so where Eli gets his desire for a bit of gardening is a mystery but one that shall be capitalised upon.

A while back he asked if he could grow some tomatoes and somehow he managed to sweet-talk mummy into taking him shopping for seeds etc.

That was a couple of months ago and today Eli has eleven very healthy looking tomato plants which he actually grew from seed.

So this afternoon he was über excited to see that one of his plants has two small green tomatoes on it. Bless him, he had no idea what they were because they were so small and green, apparently "they don't look like the ones in the packets".

Mother's Day

Yesterday was a particularly special day as Tree of Life honoured all the mums amongst our family on Mother's Day.  We had a brilliant time together in church during which each mum was given a little, beautifully created posy of flowers with an attached t-light. We then got the men praying for their women, which was very special.

Garden Centre

After a good morning in Macassar I decided to call in on Michael in Chris Nissen on my way home to see how his gate is holding up and just to enjoy being with my mate.

One of the things that never fails to amaze me about our friends there is just how generous they are and this morning I left Michael's feeling like I'd been to a garden centre.

My garden is going to be looking great by next summer!

60 Years!

Sunday was an important day for Tree Of Life as we celebrated the 60th wedding anniversary of Oom Paul and Aunty Molly.

They are an amazing couple and I have had the privilege of sitting with Oom Paul a few times listening to his life stories. Forget about Kindle or any other form of interactive e-book, spending time with someone like Oom Paul is spending time with a truly interactive living, talking history book!

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - Review

The Blogging From A To Z Challenge was a lot of fun!

I've enjoyed the discipline of blogging every day and giving the blog some long overdue attention. I think the best bit though has to have been meeting loads of other bloggers from around the world, sharing posts and comments and reading blogs that I might otherwise not have got to see.

Perigee Full Moon

The moon is currently 28000km's closer to earth than normal leading to this amazing phenomenon know as the Perigee full moon which means it appears up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than when it is furthest from the planet.

It's quite a spectacular phenomenon and I was quite pleased with these photos of the moon this evening.

Read more about it here on the BBC News.

*Facepalm*

We just received this from our 'friendly' neighbourhood watch. sometimes I'm just so embarrassed to live where we do amongst the people we do. It's the last line that makes me hang my head in shame. Get a life folks!

"This week was a quieter week in our area although we did discover vagrants bedding down with their household goods on the field opposite Cherrywood Gardens in Bizweni Road.

May The Fourth

Sorry, couldn't resist!

Gateway To..

I don't get to spend as much time as I used to getting involved in practical projects and just generally helping to bodge fix things together again. So I was chuffed when Michael rang for a bit of urgent help yesterday.

A few moons ago Michael and I put a gate on the front of his property but at the time he was short of hinges (some might say he was unhinged asking me to help!) so he bodged fixed the gate to the post using the upright as the hinge.

Meanwhile, back in April...

In the midst of playing about with the A To Z Blogging Challenge we've neglected the regular side of the blog, but it's May now so here we go with normal service being resumed.

With the five day weekend over I have to admit to enjoying the blissful peace and quiet in the office, no kids running around, making a ton of noise and being exuberant. Thankfully it's only short lived as they'll be back after lunch but the brief respite is very very welcome!

Weekend

Today is the last day of a marathon five day weekend which has been a lot of fun.

Friday was Freedom Day, a very important day in South Africa's history and today is Workers' Day so most folk also took Monday off to make the most of it all and we've certainly made the most of it though if truth be told it will be nice to get back to some semblance of normality (whatever that is).

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - Z

Z is for Ω

At least it is in the Greek alphabet.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." Revelation 22:13. The Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end, outside of God there is nothing.

I try to live my life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, though I know I often fail. This may be unappealing and a bit of a turn off if you don't profess a faith but I can't help that. I hear all the arguments for and against God and increasingly hear the vocal anti-Christian lobby of Dawkins et al and find myself even more convinced of my faith.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - Y

Y is for Yowza!

OK, so it's a bit tenuous but I'm still expressing my surprise at having completed the A To Z Blogging Challenge. Yes yes there's still Monday's post but that's already written and scheduled to post.

I've had a lot of fun doing it, I've met some great new cyber friends and visited some really good (and the odd strange) blogs. I'll definitely be doing it again.

One of the highlights for me has been the encouraging comments and hearing that one or two folk have been eagerly looking forward to see what the next letter would be about. I hope you've enjoyed it too.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - X

X has to be for X-rays

Not that I'm passionate about these things but we've had our fair share of them done in our eight years in South Africa.

It all begins with chest x-rays for immigration to prove that one is clear of TB, which is a bit of a joke as the Western Cape has one of the world's highest prevalence rates of TB and some medics reckon that everyone living in the Cape carries TB.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - W

W is for Walking The Dog.

One of my boys favourite activities has to be walking Rosie. We're pretty slack at it and don't walk her anywhere as much as we should but when we do it's a lot of fun.

Rosie adores being out and about, exploring the park, chasing the Ibis and Egrets and occasionally gets to play in the stream if it's been wet enough.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - V

V is for Veteran Bloggers.

If you're visiting our blog for the first time or arrived via the Blogging From A To Z Challenge we'd like to welcome you to our little corner of the web.

We've really enjoyed running this blog over a few years. In fact if you take a look at our Archive you'll see that we've been blogging since the 10th of July 2004 when we were preparing to move to South Africa from Blighty. Back then the blog was called Adventures With God but we rebranded the blog a while back, see our About tab for more on this.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - U

U is for Unicycling

Just because this is one of my passions doesn't mean I'm very good at it and trust me, I'm not! I do enjoy it though.

It all began many moons ago when I asked Paula for a unicycle for my 30th birthday. I was really into juggling and wanted to try something different. I was blessed with a DM Ringmaster and despite several attempts to ride it it got neglected and largely forgotten. Then in 1999 we went to All Nations for a year and one of the students had his giraffe uni there and with a few tips I decided to invest in learning to ride my Ringmaster.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - T

*Update* Tree Of Life is now defunct

T is for Tree Of Life

It is a complete privilege to be leading Tree Of Life and especially to be leading it with such a great bunch of guys!

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - S

S is for Spiloxene Capensis

I've blogged about this flower a couple of times before here and here and still maintain that it's my all time favourite flower.

The Spiloxene Capensis is also known as the Painted Peacock Flower and is actually classed as a weed. I have to say it's a particularly stunning weed!

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - R

R is for Rosie

Our ever faithful guard dog and friend, she's half Rhodesian Ridgeback, half Border Collie, the latter part making her a very busy dog but she is beautiful!

She was named by Joel though he has no idea why he chose the name or where it came from.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - Q

Q is for Quarrelsome

Before I get myself into trouble let me state that my amazing wife is NOT a quarrelsome wife!

I've chosen Q for quarrelsome today to highlight some of my favourite verses in the bible, or perhaps I should be clearer and say that I'm highlighting some of the verses that I think are funny.

Proverbs 21 verse 19 is a great place to start: "Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife." I love the humour of this one and so too did the psalmist as he put it in there twice, see 25:24!

Proverbs 27 verse 15 is also in there twice and is also quite amusing. "A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm;"

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - P

P is for Photoblog

You might not know, but we also have a photoblog. It's called Finnie's In Focus and can be found here.

I'm not as faithful at posting on it as I once was, due largely to the fact that my DSLR is very old and tired now and I rarely take it anywhere with me. I long to upgrade it but that remains a distant dream for now.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - O

O is for Obrigado

Obrigado means Thanks in Portuguese

I first heard this word in Zimbabwe when we were working with a street kid centre in Harare. A few of the kids were from Mozambique so we regularly heard Portuguese being spoken by them.

One of the things that amazed me was despite how tough life had been for them either at home or on the streets these kids were very well mannered, always thanking people whenever something was done for them. They could certainly have taught many others a lesson or two in good manners.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - N

N is for News

Like many, I'm more than a little addicted to the news and read as much as possible. I say read because I rarely watch the news these days because invariably when I do sit to watch it I've read more in depth about the top stories than I'm going to get from a newsreader's soundbite. When I do get to watch the news I'm guilty of watching that triumph of style over substance known as Sky News. Oh the shame!

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - M

M is for Macassar

Macassar is the town in which we serve the local church with Tree Of Life Church. We've been involved in Macassar for just over three years and love it. Most of our white friends here in Somerset West are horrified at the thought of us going into Macassar and very few white South Africans would dare to tread in such a place. The reality however is quite refreshing.

A bit of history...

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - L

L is for Local Church

This is one of my biggest passions, probably my biggest after my family.

I truly believe that the local church is the hope of the nations as without the local church the awesome news of Jesus will not be taken to the far corners of the globe.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - K

K is for Kids, more specifically, my kids!

I love my kids, they truly are my pride and joy!

I'm blessed to have two great boys and even more blessed to have two boys who are so very very different. I believe the fact that they are so different is what makes them such good brothers and friends. They rarely compete with each other, they know what they're each good at and really support each other. They truly are a pleasure to be around.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - J

J is for Juggling

One of my favourite things!
Juggling is great because it's really easy to learn and looks very cool, especially once you learn a few simple tricks.

I love to juggle with fire because people are easily impressed by this and I also love the diablo as again the basics are very easy and even the simplest tricks can wow an audience.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - I

I is for Indecision

I simply can't decide what to post for I so I'll go away and think about it some more and hope that J might come along to rescue me.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
This post is part of a series in the Blogging From A To Z Challenge, April 2012

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - H

H is for Hokkie

Here we are in 21st Century and still millions of South Africans live in hokkies or shacks. The root of Hokkie comes from the Afrikaans word hokkie which means kennel. So what we're saying here is that millions of South Africans live in what is often just a kennel and to be honest when I look at my dog's kennel I'm reminded that millions of South Africans live in a far worse off manner than she does.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - G

Whilst blogging about my passions I seem to have had a few rants so here is a post dedicated to something I despise with a passion. I promise to be more positive for H!

Guinea fowl are the spawn of satan!

If you're one of those weird nut jobs that likes them I pity you.

My loathing of these hideous creatures stems from our time in Zimbabwe. Harry our landlord kept guinea fowl along with chickens and turkeys, each of which had the ability to be annoying. However, the guinea fowl took the prize for winding me up.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - F

Family is one of my biggest passions!

There is nothing I wouldn't do for my family, I'd walk a million miles to help them out and protect them.

One of my frustrations with family is the perception that you cannot be a family until you have children. The church is particularly bad for this. We struggled with childlessness for 11½ years and so often in that time we were made to feel like we weren't a family simply because we didn't have children.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - E

One of my passions is eating out which thankfully is shared by my amazing wife. We especially enjoy eating at a decent restaurant and our favourite local is Taste run by good friends Anton and ED, if you're in the area you must go!

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - D

As you may have noticed I'm using the Blogging From A To Z Challenge to blog about the things that I am passionate about.

One of my biggest passions is discipleship in the local church. In a secular sense we're talking about mentoring which basically means getting alongside folk and helping them to make positive choices in their lives and walking the walk with them through those choices. In the local church context it means doing just this but also helping them to know Jesus better by helping them grow in their faith and getting to know and understand the bible.