World Cup Kick Off 2010

On Saturday Grace Community Church joined with Ukuthasa Peer Education to support their World Cup Kick Off 2010. This was an event to raise money for fixing the many broken windows in the schools in Macassar.

As a church we decided to serve coffee & donuts from a tent on the edge of the playing fields and it has to be said that our tent was brilliant! We were by far the best stall there and as a church we were well represented throughout the event and with two teams in the competition we certainly achieved our aim of raising awareness of Grace Community Church.

Eli's Latest Bike Trick

Eli's only been riding for a week without the baby wheels but he's already keen to develop some new skills on the bike.

Awesome Healing Confirmed!

Every now and then God chooses to 'blow our socks off' by revealing something HUGE about Himself that thrills us to the core. This morning was one such time for us. Paula went to visit Maggie and to encourage her with a bit of Bible study. Before they could even sit down Maggie confirmed that she had been back to the Day Hospital for a second HIV re-test to confirm her healing. Wonderfully, she is now in possession of two pieces of paper. The first is dated 1 Feb 2010 and has HIV+ written on it. The second is dated 17 May 2010 and clearly states HIV-!!!! To top it off, she has put on 4.5 kg in a week and yet she still has next to no food in her house. God has done a mighty, mighty work in her life and she and Paula could not help but jump around her room and praise Him for His grace and mercy. Maggie truly is a changed woman - everything about her is transformed from her appearance to her hunger for more and more of God.

Joel Rides His Bike

Following hot on the heels of Eli learning to ride his bike (Eli Rides His Bike) without the baby wheels (as my boys disparagingly call the stabilisers) Joel has mastered riding too and needless to say is very proud of himself. As is his Dad! We're definitely a bike mad household now.

Amazing Sunday & Awesome Healing!

This morning we were welcoming Gerrit into eldership so we were expecting a really good meeting especially as Evan Rogers had been invited to lead the worship. There's never a dull or boring moment when Evan's leading!

Gerrit's ordination (if that's the right word) was great and it's a privilege to have guys like him leading the church. Charl, one of the elders from HCC came and gave a short teaching on eldership and then the various leaders of Grace laid hands on Gerrit and prayed for him and Sharon his excellent wife. All in all a great time and topped off with a great lunch at Daniel and Zelda's.

Weekend

Winter seems to have arrived early and with a vengeance! The rain over the last two and a bit weeks has been horrendous with only the odd day of calmer weather. Thankfully we missed the really bad storm as we were in Franschhoek which doesn't seem to suffer from the Northwester like we do here. It all makes us very glad that the woodburner is in and the wood arrived (see: Firewood below) as it's the only form of heating we have in the house.

Firewood

Our winter wood pile arrived this afternoon so I'm well chuffed as we were running very low from last year's pile. We had enough left for the weekend (see the pile by Michael in the pic) but no more, so it all worked out quite nicely.

Eli Rides His Bike

Funnies In Franschhoek

What a welcome and much needed break that was! Two glorious days in the stunning town of Franschhoek being thoroughly spoilt and enjoying every minute of it. More on all of that later but for now we hopee you might enjoy these two offerings seen in Franschhoek.

Notice Of Absence

We've gone AWOL for 48 hours sans enfants.

Cell phones off, computer off.....bliss!

Miles 4 Smiles

This morning we all went off to 'Miles 4 Smiles' which has become the school's annual fundraiser for Operation Smile, a charity raising money for cleft palate & lip operations.

The boys had a lot of fun riding around their circuit and Daddy joined in the fun with his Trail-a-Bike and ended up giving loads of the kids rides around the course. He definitely earnt a beer this afternoon!

Mother's Day

I was invited by my boys to school this morning for their annual Mother's Day celebrations!! The morning started off with lots of muffins and coffee and general chit chat amongst the mums before we were treated to a little concert by some of the children. Joel was fabulous as part of the Junior Choir and entertained us with three amusing songs. We also had chance to do a bit of karaoke with one of the form teachers to Abba songs!

Polling Day

Some pertinent advice for the big day.

Happy Birthday

We celebrated Hayden's 3rd birthday on Monday with a low-key birthday lunch. He had a great time and loves the little black bike we gave him as now he can charge around with Joel & Eli. As for them, they really enjoyed helping Hayden celebrate his birthday, but especially helping him to blow out the candles on his cake.

We're really grateful for the way that Joel & Eli have been so accepting of Hayden and very caring towards him too.

Prayer Walk

After much to-ing and fro-ing between various bureaucratic offices and a false start last week, our much anticipate prayer walk went off without hitch this morning.

As a church we've been wanting to walk around Macassar and pray over the community but especially in the crime and drug hotspots, so today was the day.

Prayer Request

I just found out this morning when I was in Firgrove that Aunty Patsy had a stroke on Tuesday. She seems to be doing well and she's up and about but the right side of her face is hanging down which is upsetting her.

Please pray for a full and speedy recovery.

Weekend

This is a weekend with a twist in so far as it's four days long and we're up to a few different things.

On Saturday Dean attended Josie's funeral, it was actually a celebration of her life rather than a turgid funeral and it was truly a joy to behold! The main thing that struck Dean though was just how different a middle class Cape Coloured funeral is to a Cape Coloured township one. It's hard to explain but the differences were palpable (hope that makes sense).

Freedom Day

Tuesday next week is Freedom Day so just about the whole of South Africa takes the Monday off too and clears off for the weekend. In fact we had a constant stream of migrating traffic nose to tail outside our house (thanks to road works and a very unhelpful and poorly planned diversion) for 3 hours this evening which wasn't very pleasant. Enough ranting!

Settling In

So proud of our boys and the way they've handled Hayden coming into our family for a while. Maybe it helps that they've known him for a while but even so they are being very caring and considerate towards him.

As for Hayden, what a treasure! He's been really well trained and even though he's not quite 3 he's perfectly happy to take himself off to the toilet and he's dry through the night as long as he's lifted. He slept brilliantly last night and despite the lift for a wee at 11.30ish he slept right through until 6ish which was perfect.

Place Of Safety

We are now officially a place of safety and have a court order to prove it. It's probably just as well that we have proof as I'm not sure we'd believe it otherwise.

So what precipitated this turn of events?

Josie, R.I.P.

We heard today that Josie passed away late this morning after battling an infection for a few days.

Josie was a great friend and colleague of Dean's, they always got on really well. Sadly we never managed to see her in hospital but Dean did see her a couple of times in Jamestown after she had retired and each occasion of catching up with Josie was a lot of fun.  Paula remembers her best for her incredible gift of encouragement.  She was always there for you and gave her Bible study ladies that extra little something to look forward to each week.

Prayer Request

Michael has just been away on the Mighty Men weekend with Alistair Buchan (Faith like potatoes) but unfortunately came home to some devastating news.

The welfare people have removed Hayden from his care due to Joyce's irresponsible behaviour. Unfortunately whilst Michael was away, Joyce left Hayden unattended whilst she was off drinking and a neighbour contacted the social worker to report the incident.

Local Church - The Truly Radiant Bride!

I love the local church and being a part of it. Partly because it's a very unpredictable thing and as such it has to remain flexible so as to accommodate all who enter. Another part of why I love the local church so much is that no organisation, NGO or other body can respond to local needs with the speed and accuracy of it.

Happy Birthday Zim!

Zimbabwe wakes up to being 30 years old this morning.

Happy Birthday Zim!

Sadly there's little to party about as the Desperate Despot continues to cling to power despite having wrecked the economy, beaten, raped, tortured, murdered, falsely imprisoned etc etc just about anyone who has ever expressed any opinion other than the zanu pf party line.

Read more on the Beeb: Zimbabwe celebrates 30 years of independence

Prayer Request

A couple of months ago Josie, a dear friend from our time at HCC, was diagnosed as having a brain tumour and was operated on very promptly. Initially things looked to have gone well but in the last few days she has had a rough time with an infection. Sadly Josie was readmitted to hospital on Wednesday in an extremely weak condition. Apparently the doctors diagnosed her as having an infected body but they were unable to find the cause of it. We then heard during our leaders retreat that Josie was struggling to recognise people and was generally in a bad way.

Leaders Away

The leadership team of Grace Community Church have just had a great night way staying at The Team House in Noordhoek Beach.

Star Of The Week

Eli was awarded Star Of The Week in his class again, this time for his hard work in writing and for being a thoughtful friend. Sweet!

He's definitely our Star Of The Week!

This week's letter of the week is 'B' so for show and tell he took a brick and apparently was brilliant in describing how builders use them. Then the kids took turns to feel the brick and see how much it weighed. Eli was very proud of himself.

It's Church Jim, But Not As We Know It

For the last two Thursday evenings our church has joined with Victory Worship Centre in Macassar for two incredible meetings. Last week we hosted Jeff Kidwell from The Bay in Muizenberg and this week we had John Hosier from Brighton (although he's actually been with Jubilee for a year). Jeff taught clearly and succinctly about the Holy Spirit and then moved into an amazing time of application which was very exciting. This week was a bit calmer as John spoke on the Grace of God and unpacked Romans 8:28-30. John has a phenomenal gift of teaching!

Potjie Fun

We had one of our best afternoons in a long long time as we joined Melvyn & Yolande and several other church members for a seafood potjie at their home in Macassar.

All we can really say about it is that it was a fantastic afternoon filled with lots of laughter, amazing food and great friendship. It's always good to build on existing friendships but it was also good to get to know some other folk in church that otherwise we might not get a chance to know as a family.

Visiting Friends

One of the real highlights of living far from friends and family is when they come to visit!  We have recently enjoyed a bit of whirlwind visit from good friends John and Tricia who hail from one of our partner churches in the UK.  Joel was particularly excited to be seeing them as he well remembered their house in Cheadle as being the one where the airplanes fly over every 30 seconds!

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Despite the silence on the blog we're still alive and very much kicking. We hate it when we don't keep the blog up to date but sometimes things happen in life which are just not appropriate to be shared in a public way so it's best just to say nothing. All we will say is that the last few weeks have been very tough as we grapple with issues which have been bubbling for some time and whilst we're prepared to put the past behind us and move on others aren't which is tough to deal with.

So here's an overview of just what we've been up to....

Joel's 7th Birthday Tea

Joel has had a brilliant Birthday and was delighted to get so much Star Wars stuff. He got two bits of Star Wars Lego including Darth Vader's Tie Fighter which was a much coveted pressie! He also got a Darth Vader costume, some Star Wars action figures and a Star Wars lunch box thanks to some great family & friends!

To top it all off he also got some long desired Bakugan Brawlers which he sneaked into school to show his mates. Needless to say neither his teacher nor parents were too amused!

♫♪♫Happy Birthday To You...♪♫♪

Happy Birthday to our amazing 7 year old Joel!

A bit of a Star Wars theme going on with Lego, action figures and a Darth Vader costume.

At Joel's party yesterday his mates were well impressed with his Star Wars cake.

This evening we're out for a family tea at Joel's favourite restaurant so we'll post more about the whole day later.

Book Week

It's Book Week at school this week so everyone gets to dress up today as a favourite book character. Joel chose Flat Stanley whilst Eli is Harry from Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs so he's gone to school replete with a bucketful of dinosaurs feeling very proud of himself.

Joel was a bit gutted when he arrived as so many of the kids were dressed as Ben 10 and other TV characters but Mummy pointed out that they'll all be immediately disqualified from the judging when prizes are awarded for the best and most imaginative BOOK characters. He cheered up no end at that news!

Weekend

After two particularly stressful weeks we've had a great weekend and topped it off with lunch out after church at a pizzeria in Stellenbosch.

The boys loved playing with the dough and making lots of mess whilst Mum & Dad just enjoyed the food

Wedding

We don't seem to go to many weddings these days so when the occasional invite comes along it's really good fun to go. Today we were guests of the groom's parents who we've got to know quite well through church. Dean also spends some time each week with Ernest which he really enjoys. Ernest recently had quite a major stroke but looking at him in the pictures one would never know. God has performed an amazing miracle of healing in Ernest's life!

Fantastic Day

Today was a really satisfying and rewarding day in which I can't help but feel tremendously blessed by God.

Through Facebook I recently 'reconnected' (don't you just love social networking speak) with Vanessa a friend from my days at Town Church Sevenoaks. I've known Vanessa since 1984 but last saw her sometime in the late 80's. Paula knew Vanessa from Girl Guides and being baby-sat by her. So after many many years we met up again in Cape Town of all places.

Joel's Bent Arm

Poor Joel, we would really value your continuing prayers for him please.  Paula took him back to the orthopaedic doctor today ever hopeful that the cast would be removed and that would be the end of that story!  He straightaway asked for an X-ray and Paula and Joel went on to wait 2 hours for the same (bit like being back in the UK?!!).  Upon arriving back in the doctor's office with a very tired, bored and hungry boy, we could see straight away that the bone in Joel's arm has in fact bent causing the bowing in the photo.  This was so disappointing when just 2 weeks ago, the X-ray showed a considerable straightening in the bone.  The doctor immediately started to talk about surgery and then got cold feet and decided to seek a second opinion from another surgeon friend.  After 10 minutes on the phone in Afrikaans, they decided to try and persuade Paula to hold off on the surgery as this would be big trauma and it is 90% likely that the arm of a 7 year old will right itself with bone growth within a year.

Star Of The Week

Yes, it's happened!!  Just 1 month into the new school year and our little boy is "Star of the Week"!!!   Perhaps the most amazing thing (for us!) is the reason for the award.... for making a real effort to listen.  Well, all we can say is that he put all his effort into doing so at school!!  What can we say, what a fantastic little boy!!  We are proud of him..... and pray that he starts to put into practice his new skill at home!!

Sweet, he was so proud of himself!!!

Back To School

Thanks for all your prayer over the last week or more for us and particularly for Joel. Thankfully he seems to be well and has returned to school today much to Mum & Dad's relief!

We return to the consultant on Monday to hopefully have his plaster removed which will also delight Mummy & Daddy as we're a bit ground down from being woken at goodness knows what time in the small hours to take him to the toilet as he can't get down from his bunk bed. We had suggested he and Eli swap whilst he was crook but that was not a welcome suggestion.

Please continue to pray for full healing for his arm and hip.

Weekend

We had one of our quietest weekends in a long time mainly due to the fact that Joel isn't allowed to walk so our options were very limited. Still, a boring weekend at home is no bad thing (it certainly makes for a cheaper weekend) as it meant the boys would have to find new ways to entertain themselves. As you might imagine, for Eli that meant getting into all kinds of scrapes and in this pic' he's found a new way to get to the toys on the upper shelves of the toy rack. Joel meanwhile was happy with a bit of colouring and watching TV.

Cracking Friday

One of the things I've always enjoyed about my role in Chris Nissen and now in Macassar and Firgrove is that I get to spend a lot of time sat with folk enjoying a good chat and a cup of tea (although I only drink Rooibos these days).

So on Friday morning it was a real pleasure to watch two worlds collide (not literally) as Ernest came to our house for the morning and Michael joined us too. They got on really well and were swapping plenty of stories about their days as skelms (rogues).

Wounded Soldier Update

Thanks to all for your prayers. Joel is coping much better today. This may be in part as he's relishing the time off school and getting to watch a bit more telly than he would otherwise.

This morning I took him for a blood test, just to rule out the viral possibility. I was dreading it as the last time we took him for injections he was a nightmare. Thankfully however, whilst I was riding in the Cape Epic last year I discovered a local anesthetic cream called Anethaine which was great for my bum (long story which you really don't want to know about!). Anyway, I smeared a generous dash onto Joel's arm a few minutes before the needle so that when the nurse attacked him he couldn't even feel the needle going in. Fantastic!

Irritable Hip

Please pray for Joel. On top of his broken arm which is almost healed, he's gone and got something called Irritable Hip (never heard of it before now) which is causing him a lot of distress.

The Dr said he needs complete bed rest for a week and must not put any pressure on it. Tomorrow he's going for a blood test to rule out any possibility of an infection and at some point he needs to go for an MRI to check that there is no serious underlying thing going on.

Top Gear Live

What a great evening we've just had with our good friends Jo & Mark at the Top Gear Live show in Cape Town.

Fantastic show with Jezza on top form form rudeness and crass comments. Priceless!

We were some of about 6 English folk but we certainly made our presence felt when England scored during the 'football' part of the show.

All in all a great show and a must see if you get the chance.

Palace R.I.P.

Palace went into administration last night less than 24 hours before their date with the tax man at the High Court to settle a winding up order over a 1.2M unpaid tax bill. We already had a transfer embargo slapped on us over unpaid fees to other clubs. Not that that really had much impact as we couldn't afford to bring any new players in anyway.

If God Shows Me A Miracle I'll Believe!

I guess most Christians have at one time or another heard the line: "If God shows me a miracle I'll believe". It's actually complete tosh but for some reasons many non-believers feel comfortable hiding behind it.

As Christians we know this line to be complete rubbish as we have a wealth of historic examples down the centuries of God pulling some amazing miracles and yet still people fail to believe in him.

ID Doc's

This morning was quite a monumental moment as we were in Paarl to collect our "Green ID books" which are the key to so much of South African life.

It's felt like a long journey getting to the point of having these documents and we're really grateful to have them! At last we can open bank accounts, get local a driving licence etc etc. Amazingly, your first ID book is completely free. Now there's something the so called 'developed world' could learn from!

Someone in the UK asked whether having permanent residency means we're now South African citizens and the answer is no. We could apply for citizenship in a year's time but that's a bridge we'll cross then.

New School Year

Another milestone was reached today as our boys seemed to literally grow up overnight. Joel started in P7 (English Year 2) and Eli graduated to Reception, straight from pre-Nursery last year because of his birthday falling in late December. We can't believe it, but they certainly looked really proud this morning in their uniforms.

Eli has a teacher we knew from Joel's Reception days and Joel as a new one, so it's all very exciting. They both came home full of it and with stories to tell (which is quite something for Joel) so we pray that it will continue in this vein. Joel told us tonight that there is one new rule (he seemed quite proud of this) - only one break time instead of two. We don't think he has put two and two together yet that this may not be such a good thing!

Why Does God Allow Natural Disasters?

Not my choice of a title for a blog post or a headline for a news article, but the Beeb are running the headline: Why does God allow natural disasters? in the magazine part of their news website.

I find the arguments quite interesting and am always keen to know what the world makes of our Lord.

Fish & Chips By The Sea

At the start of the school summer holidays we asked the boys what would their one special wish each be. Joel immediately asked if we could go and play on Gordon's Bay beach at sunset and eat fish and chips! Well, it has taken us almost 7 weeks, but tonight his wish was our command.... and we had a ton of fun. It was a beautiful, warm, not windy late afternoon/evening and, as you can see, the beach was almost deserted - yay!!

Ouch!

We were just off for a walk with Rose when Joel put his arm through the gate moments before it opened. Ouch!

Having managed to get the mangled arm out of the gate Daddy bundled him into the bakkie and shot around to the medi-clinic where we were seen immediately. Thankfully the medi-clinic is a stone throw from our house.

We were whisked off for an Xray (see left) which showed a fracture in his right upper arm. Thankfully the fracture is only on one side of the bone so it should heal well and quite quickly.

Joel was a superstar at the hospital and with his usual charm was much admired by the staff.

Weekend

We had a lot of fun at the Nature Reserve on Saturday. Once again the boys led the charge to the 'climbing tree' and are getting bolder by the week! Joel has discovered that the bit of water he once considered a river is, in fact, a tiny stream and very good for paddling in!!

The exciting news for the weekend for Joel was the loss of both his front teeth! One fell out on Saturday and the other on Sunday, so now he looks very different. He has been waiting for this for so long and the tooth fairy did not disappoint him - although we had to do quite a lot of explaining that that amount would not buy the next Star Wars lego!!!!

We also enjoyed a very nice curry cooked by our good friend Charmaine. It was great to go to her house 'en famille' and to enjoy time with her and our friends Gary and Nicky too. I don't think Joel stopped bending anyone's ear about Star Wars though - sorry guys!

New Favourite Activity

One of the joys of our life is that during the school holidays we have to share the childcare and this morning is one such occasion. Paula is in Chris Nissen Park with the HOPE Home Based Care Team which means I'm stuck with the boys, my equivalent of a 'snowday'. It's a hard life.

So this morning we combined our new favourite activity of dog walking with our old favourite activity of throwing stones into the river at Radloff Park.

Big Freeze? Global Warming RIP?

As we swelter in the summer sun of another glorious African Summer in the southern end of the continent I'm struck by a couple of things.

Firstly, the media world is totally euro or western centric in its outlook as are most people living within the northwest hemisphere.

Secondly, the 'scientists' seem to have gone very quiet.

What am I on about?