Family Fun

We had a great weekend with Joel's birthday party on Saturday morning and on Sunday afternoon we met up with some friends in the Nature Reserve for a picnic tea. Eli is a real fan of picnics as he gets to graze non-stop with everyone thinking he's really cute (which he is!) and he certainly knows how to play to his adoring fans.

Joel was pleased to be able to play with Natty and together they got themselves plastered in mud as only little boys can (sadly no photos). Eli tried to keep up with them both and put in a valiant effort, managing to get mud just about everywhere.

Blog Relaunch

I've been working on a new template for this Blog for quite a while as I wanted to be able to use some of the cool new features in the 'New Blogger'.

However, the choice of Blogger templates has always been naff and so requiring a lot of hacking to get them into shape.

So here it is.. a long overdue photo of Dean on his bike in the Cape Argus. This photo was taken somewhere in the last 10km's of the race which would explain the lack of a smile on the face having done around 100km's at the time.

As you can see the scenery was truly stunning and the weather was perfect for the race. Some more stats from the race: I finished comfortably in the top half of all the 28748 riders who completed the race and I was 54th in the starting group of 420 riders, not bad!

PlayBall Birthday Party

On Saturday Joel had his birthday party. This year he had a 'PlayBall' party which was fantastic as we only had to provide the food, all the entertainment was done by the PlayBall team, highly recommended! Most of Joel's classmates came as well as his best friend Matthew and our old neighbours Bradley & Timmy. All the kids had fun and went home very tired - Excellent!

The PlayBall team get things underway

Vissy

Vissy died on Monday, after a long battle against ill health. Vissy had suffered from TB for a very long time and we suspect she had a form of cancer but will never know. She was a dear friend in Chris Nissen and was always ready for a laugh, however she never really got over the death of her husband two years ago.

Vissy has been an amazing battler throughout and on a number of occasions it looked like she would die, but each time she pulled through. We are so grateful to God for the witness she was in the community.

The funeral is tomorrow morning and Paula will attend on our behalf.

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Joel's 4th Birthday

4 Today!

Wow, where did those brief years go? Joel's been very excited about his birthday and has been asking for a bike for a while. We had thought to get him a trampoline but when asked he said he wanted a bike and has been asking ever since. So, having sought some professional advice we got said bike and he was delighted. We had a slight panic on Saturday when he told someone that he was getting a blue bike, but the colour issue seems to be irrelevant now, phew!

Politically Correct Madness

Proof that some folk in the UK really don't grasp what it means to be 'multicultural' by applying some very skewed logic to the timeless children's fairy tale; The Three Little Pigs.

Feeding Program

On Friday we managed to do two months worth of food shopping for our feeding program. As ever the food was really gratefully received and has made a big impact upon those families which received it. We're continually grateful to our friends at Hertford Baptist Church for their generosity which funds the program. We're also really proud of our ladies in Chris Nissen who so faithfully package the food and distribute it, particularly Aunty Poppy who allows her house to be taken over for half a day whilst the food is sorted. We marvel at Aunty Poppy, she provides for two of her own daughters and they have both had babies this year with the younger one having twins and they all live in her house! As you can imagine life is a little hectic for the family but they serve so brilliantly and without complaining, a real model to us!

We know it's only March, but already we're having to plan ahead with regard to this feeding program. Our current funding runs out in December, after which we hope that our church will take on some of the responsibility for it. However, we have no idea whether that will happen or not. Either way, please join us in praying for the means to be available for this important work to be able to continue beyond 2007.

Play Date

Joel recently had his first friend from school come home and spend the afternoon playing. Stuart is a really sweet boy and Joel gets on really well with him, needless to say they had a lot of fun especially in the paddling pool.

Meetings About Meetings

Hazel has written a brilliant post on 'Martin and Hazel's Blog' about meetings. All I can say is Hazel is far better at expressing such things than I am so let me encourage you to take a look at their Blog and be entertained.

PS. If you enjoy meetings you might be offended

CNP Update

After taking things easy on Monday post Argus, I was back in Chris Nissen with a 'bang' on Tuesday. Or rather, life in CNP hit me with a bang. I started by visiting two men who haven't been to my bible study for a while. I'd been told they were upset with me, but as it turns out they weren't at all. It was great to spend some time just chatting with each of them and to hear from them about how they're doing, this always helps to stem the gossip. After seeing these two, I then spent time with Aletta and her new grandson, Justin. He really is a very beautiful baby and his mother is very proud of him!

Psychological Barrier

Since getting serious about my mountain biking and generally getting fit and losing several kilos I've been doing quite well and have been pleased with my progress despite the fact that I'm not on a full blown diet, I still enjoy my food but watch what I snack on. I also seem to have lost my taste for alcohol which really helps!

I was really disappointed last week when I hadn't lost any weight (didn't gain either) as I really wanted to get below the dreaded 90kg barrier. Anyway, I weigh myself every Monday morning to see how I'm doing and this morning I was 89.5kgs. I'm now below the 90kg barrier which seemed impossible not so many weeks ago and it's the first time in many many years that I've weighted so little. So now it's on to the target of 85kgs.

Cape Argus

Wow! I rode the Argus, lived to tell the tale and cracked a decent time of 4hours 6minutes according to my bike computer. The official results will be out on Thursday and I expect it to be a bit longer, maybe 4:20ish as I stopped for a few drinks along the way. My computer stops when I do but the official timing chips don't register stops.

Church Planting In Durban

Last Friday I had the amazing privilege of leaving all my boys and flying up to be part of a team that was gathering from all over South Africa to boost the current congregation of Hope Church, Durban and to encourage them by participating in all sorts of evangelism before the official church launch on Sunday afternoon.

What can you say about the following pictures...not a lot so enjoy them.



We finally have a 'broadband' connection. It's great to ditch the unreliability of dial up networking. However, our broadband is actually a 384kb bandwidth adsl line with a 1GB monthly cap for both uploading & downloading. Hardly the whizz bang one would expect in the 21st century, but a step in the right direction. And the cost for all this; a mere R500 (£40) per month, what a bargain - not!

The View From Here - Pt 3

This one is a shorter post than the others as there are only two photos but both are of great views. Today we're showing you views from our church building, so we're at work rather than play.


Almost There

I love our family routine as you know that by 7pm peace & quiet reign supreme as the boys are in bed and adult time takes over - bliss! We've had some fun today, church was rocking this morning, Nick, one of our worship leaders has played with the hymn 'How Great Thou Art', basically he's written new verses and really beefed up the chorus, brilliant. Once again about half the church came forward to be prayed for to released in their gifts, this is really exciting. Steve Van Ryhn from Jubilee Community Church preached on 'the local church' and as ever he was superb. Steve is a really gifted expositional preacher and probably my favourite local preacher, you know you're going to get solid biblical teaching from him and today was no exception.

The Jesus Tomb

I couldn't resist posting this cartoon, judge for yourself but I thought it was quite good.

Further to my previous post about the Tomb of Jesus, Ben Witherington has written two further posts on the subject, both of which are excellent!
So here we are, the first of three nights without Paula and the house is calm. Eli was in bed at the usual time (6.30pm), fed, watered, bathed and with clean teeth - all 6 of them. Joel was an hour late to bed but that was planned as we had pizza for tea whilst watching Disney's Peter Pan. Joel really enjoyed both and after demolishing his pizza asked for more! He went to bed at 8pm very tired but very happy. I even managed a two hour ride up Sir Lowry's Pass (could that be misconstrued as a 'double entendre'?) this afternoon. I know it's only the first night, but it's great to know that our family routine continues despite any changes.

Paula Heading To Durban

Paula's off to Durban tomorrow for the weekend as she joins the team planting Hope Church. 

The View From Here - Pt 2

In this installment we're taking in some of the views from Chris Nissen and more specifically from Michael's stoep (porch) at the front of his house. The reason I've included this is because we meet there each Thursday morning for our men's bible study.

Free NHS Treatment

There are many drawbacks to leaving the UK to serve in mission overseas but the benefits DEFINITELY outweigh the negatives. However we tend not to focus on those negatives but every once in a while it's worth drawing attention to them. Some of the biggest drawbacks are unsurprisingly financial.

The View From Here - Pt 1

Inspired by a feature in another Blog: Following An Unknown Path listed on Missionary-Blogs.com I've decided to do a short series entitled; 'The View From Here' in which we'll post photos of the various views we enjoy throughout the day in the passage of our lives at work and play.

Does The Pope Drive?

After getting all of Pope Benedict's luggage loaded into the limo, (and he doesn't travel light), the driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the kerb. "Excuse me, Your Holiness," says the driver, "Would you please take your seat so we can leave?"

"Well, to tell you the truth," says the Pope, "they never let me drive at the Vatican, and I'd really like to drive today." "I'm sorry but I cannot let you do that. I'd lose my job! And what if something should happen?" protests the driver, wishing he'd never gone to work that morning.

Church Ansaphone Messages



Sean, one of our elders at church recorded a series of spoof ansaphone messages which I managed to get hold of and convert into a movie file and upload onto YouTube. Such are the joys of the digital age, if you don't want to be found out, hit the delete button. Hope you enjoy the messages..

Excuse the highly dodgy accents!

Jesus's Tomb

one can't help but feel that the silly season is upon us again, or is it a 'slow news day' so the wires have to be filled with something.

The BBC news website is carrying the story: Jesus tomb found, says film-maker. the last part of that headline really does set the context for the rest of the article. Read on through it and you see that the archaeologists do not claim it to be the tomb of Christ rather; [they] said that the burial cave was probably that of a Jewish family with similar names to that of Jesus."

The big news is that I'm now down to 92Kgs, that's a loss of 5Kgs so far. The target remains 85Kgs so we're headed in the right direction.

The regular riding is definitely helping as is the change in diet. amazingly I'm actually enjoying the changes and don't miss snacking on an entire packet of biscuits opting instead for a banana. The riding continues to get easier and consequently more enjoyable. One of my secret joys is the comments from other riders, especially the fit ones. Last week I was riding with a friend and as we were half way up a 20 minute hill I was chatting away (a new development for me, I used to be dying at that point) when I heard my friend puffing & panting. On asking if he was OK? he asked me to slow down so he could keep up. Not words I would ever have expected to hear especially from a guy almost 10 years younger on a fully carbon bike!

Weekend

Saturday didn't start too well as Joel was running from the kitchen to the lounge and slipped on the tiles smacking his mouth against the step - Ouch! There was much blood and screaming so Dean took him to casualty (a private and expensive affair) where he was brilliant for the doctor! It looks like he will lose both front teeth but thankfully all will heal quite quickly and no stitches were needed.

Oscars And Bits

Well no we haven't won an Oscar (although some of Eli's tantrums could well be nominated!), actually our Blog is now listed at Oscar which is a UK based online mission resource, so well worth taking a look at.

Got to rush as I'm off early for a ride before the manic day ahead; leadership training session followed by birthday party and stuff.

Star Of The Week

Joel continually makes us proud, but this week is a bit special as he was awarded the 'star Of The Week' award for the nursery class. What makes this all the more special is that he got it for listening! We had to check that this was right but it is.

Joel got to wear the 'Star of the Week' badge and was given a little certificate too. Needless to say he's very proud of them both.

What a star!





Butterfly World

Paula accompanied Joel and his class on their first school trip today to Butterfly World in Paarl. He had an absolute ball - firstly riding in the car with one of his new friends, Pabatso, who is a Sotho speaker solely and yet manages to get by in an English speaking nursery - aren't kids amazing!! He was then treated to up close and personal experiences (a) with the butterflies themselves in a wonderfully humid and hot enclosed area, and then with a couple of snakes and (thankfully!) some enclosed tarantulas and other such "lovelies".

Valentines Day

Joel's school emailed this photo to us. For Valentines Day the kids were allowed to ditch the uniform and wear red & white (so some went in blue & white!). Joel doesn't look too chuffed by the whole thing. The kids are from both his nursery class and the reception class.

Sadly the reception class teacher wore a Man Ure shirt but luckily she's not in the photo, phew!



Picture Resizer

Here's a really useful utility from Microsoft. In fact, this is so useful that you can almost forgive Microsoft all their previous sins.

If you regularly post photos on a Blog or website this utility is for you!

I've been making a serious effort to shake off a few kilos and get fit in the process, but I also want to have fun whilst doing this. That means the gym is a non starter! So I've been mountain biking on and off for a couple of years now and really enjoyed it, but late last year the group I was riding with let me down. I chased them for a while but had to concede defeat as they were all too busy with their own businesses to commit to regular riding.

Chris Nissen Update

We've not posted on the Blog for a few days as we never seem to find the time or when we do we're just too tired to say anything worth writing.

Family life continues to be great, both boys are blossoming at their respective nurseries. Joel astounds us by the day with what he's learning. He comes out with some real pearls of wisdom and often has us cracked up. Eli loves going to his nursery/crèche run by Leanne, a friend from church. He's supposed to be moving at Easter to the same nursery Joel went to but given how happy he is we're reconsidering the move.

Home Affairs - Residency

We started the process of applying for permanent residence this morning and so embarked upon a long and slow journey with Home affairs which could take up to 3 years to complete! Hopefully things will go a bit quicker than that as we're applying on kinship grounds and as such the paperwork we have to provide is very minimal.

Lazy Weekend

It's the weekend so that must mean it's time for the paddling pool - again! As is very evident, the boys adore the pool and have so much fun in there. Eli soon had enough and decided that he wanted to climb so had a go on the climbing frame. He struggled with the rope side but shinned straight up the ladder side much to our horror! Eli was immensely pleased with himself so there'll be no end of him climbing now.

Three of the best piccys can be seen at Finnie's in Focus

Cape Town Aquarium

After a long but fun week at school Joel asked if we could go to the aquarium on Saturday, so we did. Joel adores the place and Eli is developing a passion for it too which is brilliant. As ever we had a great morning, taking in all the tanks especially the sharks, crabs & lobsters followed by the touch tank and the children's activity centre where they both enjoyed the puppet show and Joel made an octopus! We've been members of the aquarium for almost 3 years and it really is well worth it!

Bible Study

We had an excellent bible study on Thursday. We were looking at Daniel 6 (we're slowly working our way through the whole book) and had an excellent discussion at the end about our faith and whether our neighbours, colleagues etc are aware that we serve the living God 'continually' as Daniel did. Darius recognised Daniel's faith so why shouldn't others recognise our faith? We all felt positively challenged which is great and hopefully we'll see some fruit in our lives as we witness to those around us.

Emyezweni Pre-School

One of the joys of my work is that I get to spend time with a wide variety of people in a wide variety of contexts. One of the best contexts is Emyezweni Pre-School which is run by Debs & Rach as part of HCC's outreach into Lwandle. This morning I took my laptop and projector and played Cars for the kids. Needless to say the film was a huge hit.

The boy in the foreground in the check shirt was riveted

Paddling Pool

We had a fairly lazy weekend and spent quite a bit of time around the paddling pool particularly on Sunday. The weather was great with the temperature in the high 20's rather than low 30's so it was quite comfortable. On Saturday we went to the Nature Reserve (sadly the camera battery died) and had a lovely morning feeding the ducks and trying to coax Spikey the porcupine out of his house, with no success.

Cluster Maps

We've just added the 'Cluster Map' feature lower down on the blog (just above the hit counter) for a bit of fun. We were impressed with the results within the first 24 hours of the map being on the Blog. As you can see from the dots we attracted a fairly broad array of worldwide hits. We figure the dot in Argentina is our dear friends Hazel & Martin but beyond that we can only wonder at the global reach of a simple tool like this Blog.

Hadeda Ibis

The Hadeda Ibis (Bostrychia hagedash) is a regular over our house and can usually be heard long before they're seen as they make a right racket. However, they are spectacular birds and it's a real privilege to have one stop on your house like this.

To see more visit our PhotoBlog

 

Home Based Care

We are constantly amazed by God's goodness and faithfulness regarding Chris Nissen Park. Just when things are getting difficult again in many respects, God sends along a little angel and we can start to dream and plan again for the future! As you know Paula has been dreaming of officially launching a small home based care team this year. Around 20 women from the community have received some training and Paula has done quite a bit of work drawing up requirements, budgets, characteristics of carers etc. However, apart from so far lacking any sort of finance to be able to start the scheme, she also felt quite out of her depth in terms of the more medical side of home based care.

Chris Nissen Update

We're currently melting in the heat, today the temp is supposed to drop to 27°C so that will be a welcome break from the high 30's we've been enjoying. On Wednesday Dean was in Jonkershoek where the temp' was 41° at 9 in the morning! Hopefully this evening it will be a bit cooler as Dean goes mountain biking with a friend. Dean's riding three times a week at present which is great.

Comet McNaught

C/2006 P1 (McNaught) has been hanging around over South Africa for several days and will probably be around for a little while longer. Sadly the weather was cloudy for the best part of the comet's time with us so we've only just been able to see it and get any decent photos, hence the not brilliant photo here! What a pleasure to see something in the cosmos so clearly.

Family Fun

We've had some fun this weekend just chilling with friends and at home. On Sat' we went to some friends around the corner for a lamb 'poitjie' which was delicious. The afternoon was very chilled and the kids played brilliantly. Today we've been hanging out having a braai (bbq) and messing about. The kids have had fun whilst we've melted in the heat, it's well over 30°C today and is supposed to remain hot for the rest of the week. Summer seems to have taken an age to arrive properly but it's arrived with a vengeance.

First Day At School

Our little boy is growing up! This morning he had to put his uniform on for the first time as he got ready to go to the Nursery at the International School. Needless to say we got lumps in our throats as we saw our little boy suddenly looking all grown up. Joel was really excited about going and he was really good when we left him. We can't wait to go and get him at lunchtime!


Family Fun Day

We decided to have a fun family day out on Wednesday before Joel starts nursery on Thursday, so we went to Pringle Bay just around the coast from where we are. The beach is beautiful and deserted and affords great views over the Cape Peninsula and Table Mountain. We had so much fun, Eli loves to eat the sand whilst Joel wants to explore the rock pools. This time he discovered a lobster which was being eaten by the crabs. Joel was delighted to find that the lobster had been decapitated so put it in his net an took it to show Mummy (Eli tried to eat it!).

Here's a few last photos of Grandad's visit over Christmas, somehow they were missed in the downloading from the camera to computer.







Daddy & Joel exploring the rock pools


Saddam's Death

I had no intention whatsoever of posting about Saddam's death, mainly because the man really isn't worth commenting on. However, after enduring a week of endless 'sick' pictures of Saddam with the noose around his neck I feel obliged to say something.

Sean Got Married

Sean got married to Susan on Saturday in a really cool ceremony at the Somerset College chapel. The service was really good with many personal touches in it and everybody really enjoyed the occasion. Sean was clearly very nervous beforehand, but soon chilled and took the day in his stride.










Enjoy the photos...

Sean and his best men, Cameron & Jan


Fun With Grandad

Our last few days with Grandad & Lesley were spent chilling out and spending time with the boys, this was especially important for Joel who knows and understands who Grandad is. Joel really loves Grandad and knowing that they might not see each other for another 18 months makes it very important to spend quality time together when opportunity allows.

Tyrone Update

You may remember our previous posts about Tyrone as he waited for his much needed eye operation to correct his wonky eye. Finally at the end of last year he had the operation and he now has two eyes both looking forwards. Tyrone looks so much better for the op' and his family are delighted with the outcome.

As you can see from the photos of before and after, the op' has made a big difference to Tyrone and before you ask, no the surgeon didn't knock his teeth out!

La Petite Ferme

On Tuesday the boys were looked after for the day whilst we went to Franschhoek with Grandad & Lesley. We had a great morning mooching around the shops followed by a superb lunch at La Petite Ferme (one of the top 10 restaurants in South Africa) where the views are as god as the food! The rest of the day was spent taking the scenic route home via Villiersdorp and Grabouw, a fantastic drive through the mountains and lakes.

New Year's Eve

We had a lot of fun on New Year's Eve which was mainly about the kids and having fun with them. We did the same as last year and allowed Joel to stay up a bit later and watch a film with us. This year we watched Hook which had Joel spellbound! He started watching it in his Simba costume but had to change into his Pirate costume quite early on!