GoLD Peer Education

On Friday evening we had the privilege of attending the Ukuthasa Peer education Mentor Gala Evening held at our church premises. Charmaine who heads up the project really pulled all the stops out and put on a fantastic evening for us all!

Home Based Care

Paula joined the home based care team as usual yesterday for a morning of visiting our 10 'patients'. This is always a special time and yet can be full of frustration. One man has recently had a second stroke and has been discharged from hospital after just 5 days. He is now bedridden and incontinent and his sister-in-law has had to give up work (the only family income) to care for him. There will be no visits from a health-care professional - he has simply been left to get on with it. The care team visit him 3 or 4 times a week to ease the burden, but it is clear that this is not enough. This is going to be a typical situation for the team. On the other side, 3 other men we visit are doing very well, taking their medication and getting stronger. We had excellent times of prayer and reading the Bible with them. However, as the men gain strength, they realise how bored they are without work. This is another big social problem we are up against. It is hard to encourage people when their self-esteem is at an all time low. 

Church Leaders

Having been at Helderberg Christian Church for just over three years we felt it was time to introduce our beloved leaders to you, so here they are in all their glory...

left to Right: Paul, Theo, Wesley, Sean, Francois & Charl




Sincere apologies to the Village People!

That's My Boy!

Quite often at the moment I seem to end up taking Eli to his nursery which means we have about 40 minutes together in the house, just the two of us. These times are becoming savoured moments in which we have a lot of fun with no disturbance from Joel or Mummy. This morning I had to leave Eli to eat his breakfast while I grabbed a quick shower and when I came back he'd finished his cereal and was swigging the last of the milk form the bowl. When he put the bowl down his face was splattered with milk and he looked so gorgeous!

My boys make me very proud!!
Below are three local signs that have been amusing me for some time so I thought I would share them with you.



Nothing quite like making tourists feel welcome by allowing them to park conveniently

To all the south African rugby fans out there.. you won! Not only did you win the World Cup but you deserved to win it. You played a great tournament and were generally entertaining to watch.

You won, live with it!

Friends & Weekend

On Thursday we picked Richard, Sal, Josh' & Isaac from the airport for their eagerly anticipated three week holiday here in sunny SA. Their staying in a cottage in Gordon's Bay just a couple of minutes walk from the beach, ice cream parlour and chippy so they're well set for a good time. It's really great to see them again and Joel is especially delighted to see Sal whom he adores!

Some idiot/s started a fire on the Helderberg late in the afternoon and firefighters have been battling all night to put it out. From our house it looks like their just about getting the upperhand, but their not being helped by a very strong Southeast wind. I'm not into corporal punishment, but when these arsonists are caught each resident of Somerset West should be able to beat the c**p out of them for 5 minutes, that would deter them.

It's not often these days that Christian's get good publicity, admittedly we tend to solicit bad press (such as the whole fiasco surrounding the ordination of homosexual clergy) by failing to handle situations well. Anyway this post isn't a rant & rave about that but rather to draw your attention to some very positive press regarding Tearfund and the work they're doing in Zimbabwe.

ENGLAND!

3-nil in the Euro 2008 qualifier and we stuffed the French 14-9 in Paris, oh what a sweet weekend!

My favourite quote of the whole weekend comes from Matt Dawson 72 minutes into the RWC semi-final:

"If the game carries on this way, England will steal it, I'm telling you, they will steal it. Stay patient England, stay patient."


Following last weeks fire in Nomzamo, our local rag the District Mail ran the above article on the ladies who have been working tirelessly for the community, co-ordinating donations and sorting them out ready for distribution. Sindi (back row 2nd from right) is a former church member of ours and we still work very closely with her, she's worth her weight in gold!

Last Snow Of Winter?

After a good week of warm and mostly sunny weather on Sunday a cold front rolled in with a vengeance and sprinkled the Hottentots Holland mountains with a generous coating of snow. We usually have one last cold snap in Spring before the weather really turns for the better, so hopefully this was it. However, it is unusual to see this much snow on the Hotties.

On Saturday I rode the Lourensford Classic MTB race, a tough 60k's around the stunning Lourensford wine estate at the foot of the Hottentots Holland mountains. The weather was almost perfect apart from a brief spell of rain, with the sun remaining firmly behind the clouds.

A large fire swept through an area in Nomzamo completely destroying nearly 500 shacks, home to approximately 2,000 people.

The fire started at around 4 a.m. and was difficult to control due to the strong winds. Firemen from Strand worked for many hours to dampen down the smoke and flames.

The shacks were packed tightly together causing the fire to spread rapidly. Many homes use parrafin stoves which added fuel to the fire.

Fire In Nomzamo

After church on Sunday morning we received news that there had been a big fire in Nomzamo which had swept through the informal settlement part of the community destroying almost 600 shacks leaving upto 3000 people homeless. We immediately spoke to our church leaders and the cell group leaders with a view to obtaining as many donations as possible of blankets, clothing food and money. In the short term these things will really help.

Family Life

After seeing the penguins Joel asked if we could have pizza for tea so we decided to bring Dean's Birthday tea forward from Tuesday to Saturday evening. We had a lovely time together and Joel was really excited when he saw one of his friends at the restaurant. Another reason Joel enjoys this particular restaurant is one of the waiters plays with him and Joel calls him the "Silly Man". On Saturday we asked Silly Man his real name which turned out to be Silla, Joel thought that was very funny.

Penguins At Betty's Bay

As spring settles in and the weather improves we're able to get out and about a bit more which is great. 

10000 Visitors

On 24th October 2005 we added a 'hit counter' to the blog to see how many people actually visit. We never really had high hopes but have been amazed to see that in slightly under two years we've had ten thousand hits on the blog which is quite amazing. Of those visits to our blog, 62% are 'unique hits' which means that the visitor has not been to the site before, whilst the other 38% are returning or regular visitors.

Ahmadinejad vs Borat

Who said that..?

"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country"


Would the real Borat please stand-up?
On Friday I went with a crowd of friends to Groot Brak where we stayed over night before heading to Uniondale at 4.30am to get there in time to register for the Karoo To Coast 100K MTB Challenge. We had a lot of fun before and after the race but had agreed that during the race it was each man for himself. So at 7.30 the race kicked off and we had a fantastic ride through to Knysna, over the Prince Alfred Pass and through some truly stunning scenery.

The race itself was tough and at the 50K point I wanted to puke, but held on. I caught Pete at that point which helped motivate me through a rough patch before hitting the 65K mark at which point I got my second wind and really stepped it up.

Together We Can Do More

Paula had the extreme privilege of flying to Joburg to attend the NFI southern Africa forum on the churches' response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in our nations. She was one of 30 people in attendance. Many run reasonably well established, thriving projects, either as part of their church response to the pandemic or as projects attached to a body of local churches, and others were there (like Paula) representing small new beginnings of HIV/AIDS work.