Chris Nissen Park

Death has been a fairly frequent visitor to CNP this winter with another death on Monday. Samuel died in the early hours having had a long fight against TB. We helped him on many occasions with hospital and clinic appointments and tried to sort out his 'unemployment benefit' which he had contributed to, sadly getting blood out of a stone was far easier! Please pray for Susan who cared for samuel, she put up with a lot of grief from him and yet she was uncomplaining through out. Also, Samuel had no funeral policy so there will be a heavy financial burden on the family to pay for the funeral. Hopefully his former employer might help.

Nothing Of Note

We've not Blogged anything of note for a while now, mainly because we've been busy but also because sometimes we experience things that it's simply not appropriate to write about very publicly - and we're not going to elaborate now!

Dean had a great 40th Birthday and party. We had promised to post some photos, unfortunatley we were enjoying ourselves too much to bother taking any! So all we can post here is the invite for you to marvel at.

Dean's birthday celebrations have been ongoing over a week & a bit and concluded on Monday when Paula had arranged for the boys to be looked after whilst we went for lunch in Franschoek. Then, halfway through the meal, Paula informed me that we were staying the night! Wicked!! My only concern here is the depths of my wife's deceipt! I had no idea!!!!

Birthday Celebrations

We went out for lunch with Joel today to celebrate Dean's 40th. Joel was delighted to be eating pizza - again! We had a lot of fun, especially as Paula had earlier delivered a cake to the restaurant. Joel was chuffed to blow the candles out for Daddy who was struggling a bit due to his age! Eli was being looked after by some friends. As you can see below, Joel doesn't do kiddy portions.

40 Today!

40 Today!

Dean made it to 40 unscathed, not too bad an achievement in life.

He'll be having a 'Pink floyd Party' next Saturday which should be a lot of fun - at least the music will be fantastic!

You're all invited if you can make it over here.

"South Africa is losing its way"

The former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has spoken out at the recent Steve Biko Memorial Lecture on contemporary life in this amazing land. Tutu's comments are quite revealing and at times even a little shocking, but having read what he's saying I think he's not a million miles from the truth.

Click here for the BBC article and make up your own mind.

Aunty Kuku

Aunty Kuku died in the early hours of yesterday morning. Sadly this is the third death in Chris Nissen in 4 days. She had really struggled since Patrick's death last year and was deteriorating rapidly. Paula spent some time with Aunty Kuku before we went on holiday and felt at the time that she had said goodbye. The funeral will be next Saturday as there is another big funeral this Sat in the community.

We're really grateful to Aunty Kuku's family for looking after her so diligently since Patrick's death, they really did do a great job!

Blogging Friends

Our dear friend Hazel and her husband Martin have had a website about their ministry for a while now, but recently they have started a Blog too. The Blog can be seen by clicking Martin & Hazel's Blog and their website can be seen here.

Holiday Photos

We had a lot of fun on holiday and were blessed with an amazing house to stay in for free for the 2 weeks. The break came at a great time for us and the boys really thrived on so much quality family time together. Joel's highlight was the 'orange train' at the railway museum, we're not sure which train he's on about but it made a big impact on him.

 Eli's highlight was probably learning to pull himself up and then cruise the furniture, he also really enjoyed the beach.

The Lighter Side

We're Back!

We've just had a wonderful couple of weeks in Sedgefield, chilling out with the boys and re-acquanting ourselves with each other, brilliant! The weather was OK, we managed 4 days on the beach and were only housebound on one day due to really heavy rains.

We had a lot of fun doing all sorts of stuff. Joel discovered pizza and can't get enough of it. He also discovered Tom & Jerry and giggles himself silly watching it.

Holiday!

We're off to Sedgefield on holiday tomorrow morning for 2 weeks and have absolutely no intention whatsoever of Blogging whilst away!

See you all in 2 weeks.

Snow On Hottentots Holland Mountains

We know that many of you don't believe us when we say it is cold here in winter, so we posted a picture of ice in the garden once. Well now we have real proof of just how cold it gets here... below is a photo of the Hottentots Holland mountains and you can clearly see a sprinkling of snow on them.

Getting The Shakes

We're always happy to publicise the Blogs of friends and we've highlighted this one before.

Getting the Shakes is the Blog of Roger & George and their preparations for emigrating to New Zealand. Their lives have been very hectic of late especially as they race around and try to catch up with friends and family before they leave on Sunday! Wow that came round really quickly!

Rog' is an excellent writer and his Blog posts are always good. Recently he Blogged about our brief overnight stay with them when we were in Blighty and you can read this post here.

Keep an eye on the WHSmith bestseller list, one day Roger will be there with his novel!

HelderPos

Recently Bell Valley Initiative held a 'graduation ceremony' for the 10 volunteers they have trained in Chris Nissen Park. One of the local free rags picked up the story and ran it on the front page. As you can imagine the guys in CNP are really pleased to be in the paper.

Matthew's 3rd Birthday Party

Joel went to Matthew's 3rd Birthday party at Kidzoo yesterday. Needless to say all the kids had a blast and the parents enjoyed catching up with each other and having a good yarn as you can see from some of the photos below.

Birthday Boy on the train

A Random Number

No idea what this is about but have a go anyway....

Random Number

Videos From The Weekend

As promised here are some videos we shot over the weekend. On average they're about 30 seconds long although the one of Joel spreading jam is a minute long.
The first one is Eli crawling

Enjoy!

Cape Town Bus Lane (& Aquarium)

We had a great morning on Saturday, taking the boys to the Aquarium, we were surprise by how much Eli enjoyed himself whilst Joel wanders around as if it's his 2nd home, which in fairness it almost is as we have been members for over 2 years now.

Hope you enjoy the pictures, we'll post some video on Monday.

Pluto Demoted By Mad Scientists!

I've long held the view that science is little more than a value or belief system rather than the exact and objective discipline it claims to be. Whilst some branches of science definitely have value (medicine is a class example) not everything done in the name of science is objective or empirically quantifiable.

Eli

Does he really need any introduction!

PS. It's Eli as in Elijah or Elisha not as in elephant!

Prayer Need

We've been thinking for a while about changing Dean's car for a 'bakkie' (small pick-up) which would allow us to do a lot more for Chris Nissen than we currently can, particularly with the feeding programme and assisting folk in their housing needs (lugging materials etc).

Aloe Vera In Bloom

Despite it being winter here in the Western Cape, it's very much a growing season. Primarily because the Southern Cape is the only part of the African continent in which it rains in winter, consequently, keeping on top of the grass is almost a full time job in itself.

There are however some great benefits to this, and one of them is the variety of blooms etc. which can be seen in the garden. Whilst we make no claims to be related to Percy Thrower we are enjoying having a decent garden, Dean recently bought a wheelbarrow and a few implements to do some stuff (sad!) which he's enjoying.