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.


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.
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!

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.

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.

Baby Boom

There has been a real baby boom in Chris Nissen in the last few weeks. Sadly, this boom is amongst the teenagers with several having given birth, several about to give birth and several more due in the next nine months. There seems to be a lot of negative peer pressure amongst the teenagers to have sex which inevitably leads to pregnancies. The other massive negative in this is that they are having unprotected sex despite the very real dangers of contracting HIV.

Blogger have recently introduced a Beta version of blogger and it's still in trial form at present but we've decided to give it a go. So our PhotoBlog Finnie's In Focus is now on the Beta Blogger system.

This will mean little if anything to you in real terms other than you may notice a few character issues as certain bugs are ironed out. The address remains unchanged, but the Blog itself should look a bit leaner and crisper.

Quiet Weekend

At last our recent bout of illnesses seems to be over. The last two weeks in particular have been a complete write off as one or other of us has been unwell. We've just had a great weekend, On Saturday Joel was at a birthday party which he really enjoyed and then we lazed around in the afternoon. On Sunday we had a young couple over for dinner which was great, they've recently moved into the area and are still finding their feet. The weather was also much better than predicted so we were able to spend a bit of time in the garden which both the boys love, especially on their swings.

Alone With God!

We had an excellent ladies cell group last Thursday. Thank you so much for all the prayers as God is speaking to us in a wonderful way this term. I have decided to bite the bullet and we are studying Mark's gospel this term. We are literally reading a chapter and a half each week at home and coming to the group with our thoughts, insights and questions. I knew this was risky as several of my ladies can't read, but they are really doing so well. Those who can are reading to those who can't and everyone is coming ready to share. We are having the most interesting and lively discussions. It is also so good and powerful to read God's Word together each week in the group.