Mums Come Out In Force

Today saw the culmination of months of prayer, planning and hard work as Paula hosted a meeting in the tent at Chris Nissen for mums of 0-3 year olds and mums to be. The idea was to reach out to this particular section of the community and find a way of getting alongside them as friends on common ground. To do this Paula and 2 fellow mums from the church held a coffee morning with talks on the benefits of breastfeeding and good nutrition for babies followed by a short gospel message.

Time Capsule

Not long ago I stumbled upon a Blog entitled Telstar Logistics where they were following the story of a time capsule which had been buried in Tulsa in 1957 to be dug up 50 years later in 2007. The time capsule consisted of a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere and a few other items. Unfortunately at the time of burying the Plymouth it's proneness to rust was still unknown.

Love Hate Relationship

Today summed up my love hate relationship with Chris Nissen Park. I'd been in the morning on behalf of the Red Cross and had a great time with my friends there as the purpose of the visit was to find the best way to spend R10,000. One particular church member was very happy and helpful! Then this afternoon I went in with Duncan (Morgen's father) who gave a 30 minute basic first aid training session for the ladies running the creche before helping sort their electrics out in the container where they work.

A Proper Curry At Last

We died and went to heaven on Sunday! Yes you did miss the rapture. Heaven was an assortment of real Indian curries cooked by Caroline (Morgen's mum). The food was sublime and we had a really relaxing afternoon with some other parents from Joel's school and Caroline's dad, Maurice who is visiting from the UK. Maurice is originally from India and having lived in Norwood for many years is also a Palace fan which makes him a top bloke! Dean & Maurice spent much of the afternoon playing pool but only when not eating curry. Joel had a ball with his friends Liam & Morgen, so much so that this morning he could only talk about Liam's house and going to play there again.

Bible Study

We had an excellent bible study on Thursday morning looking at the first chapter of Acts. I tried something a bit different, so prepared a brief overview of the chapter and then gave them several questions which together we looked for the answers in the chapter. Whilst it was the usual suspects that contributed; Michael & Cyril, it was a good meeting and they all seemed to be happy with it. I was really pleased and grateful to God for answering my prayer regarding a bit of refreshment for the group as I've struggled with it for a while.

Big Joel, Little Joel

A while ago we had Joel Bird stay with us for a few days as he enjoyed a long weekend break from his time with Scripture Union in Jo'burg. Joel had to return to the UK a bit earlier than expected so he spent his final night with us before leaving.

The boys were really chuffed to see Joel again and Eli took a real shine to him. I know Joel's parents will read this, so just to let you know that it was a real pleasure to have Joel stay, he's a real credit to you!

Winter

With winter being set in the time spent out in the garden is at a real premium so we have to make the most of the brief spells between deluges. Yesterday we had just under one inch of rain and that's fairly average at present. Amazingly even the locals have stopped saying "We really need the rain" or "I love the rain" which is quite something. Being British I have a built in dislike of the rain and as much as we may really need it I really don't care for it at all!

Update (Of Sorts)

How to update without getting into trouble with someone? Probably not possible so here goes..

Chris Nissen is a real challenge at present. Mainly because some of our church members are behaving appallingly and preventing other non members in the community from either coming to church or trying out one of our groups. 

Should He Stay Or Should He Go?

Firstly I need to make clear that the title of this post is not an issue for ourselves at present. We're committed to the local church and for the moment God has led us to serve Him at HCC. That will only change if God clearly leads us into newer pastures but until such a time we're happy to be obedient to the call He's placed on our lives. That's not to say that we don't find things (many things) frustrating at times.

Ahoy There Me Hearties!

Joel had the most wonderful, magical afternoon yesterday at his friend Ross's 4th birthday party. Of course it was a Pirate party and everyone came dressed and ready for action. As soon as we turned in to the farm entrance there were skull and crossbones announcing the venue and once there, the woods had been transformed with papier mache crocodiles in the stream with a plank to walk over; a croc' for pin the tale on the croc'; treasure hunting; signing their names in pirate blood etc, etc,. Ross's mum certainly has a very active imagination and I think she enjoyed it more than all the guests!!!

Friends To Play

Joel had his friends Liam & Morgen to play after school one day this week and much fun was had by all. As ever, Eli crashed the party and struck up a friendship with Liam who was very kind to him. The house was complete chaos for a few hours between lunch and their mums picking them up, but it was worth it.

Health & Fitness

After a dreadful bout of measles I seem to be almost 100% which is a relief! I managed to ride in Jonkershoek for 2 hours on Saturday morning with a friend and it was great to be on the bike again after two weeks of inactivity. Thankfully my fitness levels weren't overly impacted by the sickness and I was able to climb the big hills with no problems.

A Wake-Up Moment

I had another of those life-changing wake-up moments yesterday during my visiting in CNP. My ladies had been telling me about a woman called Mary (name changed to protect identity) who has recently been very sick with AIDS. They very much wanted me to visit and pray with her and see what the little home based care team can start to offer her. I was thrilled about this as I have wanted to meet her for some time. I was greeted outside the house by a stick thin woman carrying a big basket of washing and a huge smile on her face. I couldn't believe this was Mary, I was expecting a very sick person lying in bed, probably in a very smelly house. How wrong could I be. Mary is amazing! She has been very sick but is coming through the latest dose of illness. She had been to the clinic that morning and got more ARV's and Vitamin C. We sat and chatted about the importance of a good diet, which she fully understands. The problem is that she needs to eat before taking the pills or they make her very sick, and at the moment, there is no family income as neither she nor her partner work.

Measles

Terrific, I've got measles! Who ever heard of a 40 year old with measles? Pathetic isn't it.

I feel shocking but at least I have a name for it as I'm sure Paula was getting a bit fed up with my slow ambling around the house. The headache is incredibly painful, my eyes are really sore and I'm either freezing or roasting, not being able to get comfortable. For the last couple of days I've been craving sunshine to help me warm up. I ache all over so find playing with the boys almost impossible which is really gutting.

Testing Times

This week has been a bit testing so far and we would really value your prayers. It all started a bit badly on Saturday when Paula woke up to find she couldn't open one of her eyes. It turned out that she had been bitten by a spider. All is well now, after a massive shot of hystamine, but it wasn't pleasant.

Now Dean has been complaining of terrible headaches, achiness and general 'not very well' type symptoms. This morning he came out of the shower sporting a beautiful all over rash. By 10 o'clock he was diagnosed with having measles... he is not a happy chappy to put it mildly. As when Paula had chicken pox for the first time aged 35, Dean says this is the worst he's felt in a long while.

CNP Update

Things have been very frustrating in Chris Nissen for a while now, mainly because the same old issues of gossip & jealousy keep rearing their ugly heads and damaging the work we're doing. Frustratingly it's church members who are the worst and behaving terribly. Things came to a head last week when Paula was told by some ladies that they want to join her cell group but are afraid to because of certain church members. I then had one of the men in my group tell me that he was no longer coming to my bible study as he was scared of one particular church member who verbally abuses him and accused my group of gossiping about them.

MTB Race

I rode the Tru Cape 40km mountain bike race this morning and whilst I enjoyed it I'm now very tired and just a little bit sore, more about that in a minute! I rode with my friend Paul and a friend of his, Paul & I ride early on Wed mornings. This was my first MTB race and like an idiot had to choose what is arguably the toughest on on the calendar. The race venue was the Grabouw Country Club and the surrounding mountains.

Google Earth

We're a little way behind most in terms of playing with Google Earth, mainly because our connection at work is 'broadband' but the computers don't have XP and our home computer has XP but only very recently have we had a 'broadband' connection (see previous post: It's Broadband Jim, But Not As We Know It).

So here are three local scenes we've pulled from Google Earth:

Videos

Perfect Sense is of Joel singing along to his favourite song; Perfect Sense parts 1 & 2 by Roger Waters (ex Pink Floyd). He makes me so proud with his choice of music!

Bible Study

Today was a really good session for the simple reason that most of my old faithfuls turned up! Eight men came today which after the last couple of weeks is brilliant. I deliberately hadn't prepared a specific study as I wanted to talk about the future of the group and the direction of it. I'm really pleased that the guys decided they do want the group to continue, but more importantly they want to get back to doing 'proper' bible studies. This means a lot more work for me but it's a price I'm happy to pay! For the last few months we've been following the same material as the rest of the cell groups but it hasn't really been very good for my study group as most aren't members of our church. So, starting next Thursday we'll begin working our way through the book of Acts, looking at it's background, context and meaning of the text.

Long Weekend

We've just had a very long weekend thanks to two public holidays, Freedom Day on Friday and Workers Day on Tuesday. Everyone seemed to take the Monday off too to make the most of the break. We had lots of fun, especially as we had 'big Joel' staying with us for the weekend. We last met Joel when he was 2 years old, we were part of a CYFA camp leadership team on which Joel's dad was the Vicar.