Tony’s South Africa Daily Journal - 2018

See my daily journal for 2019, for 2020 and for 2021

On 10 November 2017, Laurie-Ann and Tony Copple set off from Canada for a three year mission to the townships of South Africa. This daily journal begins at a guest house in Cape Town prior to their arrival in Worcester, Western Cape....Please start to read at the bottom; latest postings are at the top.   Dec 2017 | Jan 2018 | Feb 2018 | Mar 2018 | Apr 2018 | May2018 | Jun 2018 | Jul 2018 | Aug 2018 | Sep 2018 | Oct 2018 | Nov 2018 | Dec 2018

New Years Eve
Got up 8:15 and felt one degree under; tired. Had a boiled egg and my anti-inflamatories. Worked on posting the Andy Anderson interview from about 2008 to the Ottawa Beatles Site - Interviews of Historical Interest. Also posted the complete audio file of the Roy Young interview on the OBS. John Whelan had programmed the page but had only included some audio excerpts. Still having to drag myself around. Around 12:30 I took a nap and slept soundly. Felt better when I woke. Had a spoonful of honey with cinnamon, and a piece of Fairbairn Pharmacy Fudge. Went to Salon Joan for a haircut - first time in months since Erick had cut my hair 1 Oct. It was good to see and chat with her again. I shopped at OK for items for tonight's braai. Was still feeling good, from my rest(?) I selected some music that we might listen to this evening and put it on my phone. At 7 we drove to Heather's - to the communal braai in her complex. Soro and her baby Angel (from our cell group) were there. The braai was lit. I set up music using my phone and the Blackstar. It sounded surprizingly good, positioned in a corner of concrete walls. Started with Boney M Christmas. After a while as the fire in the braai settled itself, it became apparent that no one else was going to come and join us. Since the temperature and the general vibe was perfect, we didn't let this get us down. A neighbour called Andre gave us some help with the braai-ing, since Heather was almost a novice and I am a novice. With Andre's advice, all worked well, and we started cooking about 8, and eating about 8:30. It was delicious' The evening was mellow and condisive to fellowship. My music selection seemed to go down well - I certainly enjoyed it. At around 11 we soaked to Ruth Fazal, and at 11:30 we prayed for the world for half an hour. At midnight, some fireworks went off in the vicinity and we shared hugs for the new year. I hadn't felt tired all night, and still felt energetic! When we had cleared up, we took Soro and Angel home, which was actually on our way. At home we had some rooibos and Amoretto. I called Cindy on Whatsapp, and got through for the first time, and welcomed her to the new year, since we now had experience that she didn't. First time in months I had spoken with her. It was a good call, and she sounded in good spirits.

Sun Dec 30
I had missed our Avian Park girls! I picked up Jamelia and Chantelle and brought them to church. This time they stayed through the sermon. Heather invited us an others to a New Year's Eve braai at her home. Church finished early so we had time to take them to McDonalds for burgers. I asked if they knew anything about Black Panther. Some of their friends had seen it. I offered that if they would like to get the others together I would bring them all to our house tonight to see the movie. We dropped them home, amd then went to Pick n Pay for a (lemon meringue) pie for our lunch at Iris. Also bought some crisps and pop for the movietime tonight. We dropped these at home and picked up L-A's diet shake mix before heading for the Fourie's house, arriving shortly after noon. The whole group was there and we had some conversation (eg Alex and I and Johan) before sitting down to a good lunch. Poor L-A - she was sticking to her diet and just had a tea, her shake and a piece of canteloup plus a glass of Fourie wine. Conversation was spitited with this bunch of friends. Marie confirmed that we would be able to hang L-A's framed artwork in the coffee shop, and I'll go there on Thursday to do that. We left about 3:30. L-A had an early supper. I went to pick up the girls around 4. Chantelle brought one of the boys from her mailbox club. Jamelia had told Marsha who brought two friends, one called Amy. They all piled into the car and we came to Hooggelegen. Just before the movie started, L-A updated Chantelle's FaceBook with new banner pictures and corrections in the 'About' section, such as Chantelle is female. She had obviously taken over the site from a male who didn't want it any more, and his information was all over it. Here's the new version. I stared the film and they were quiet as they watched. We stopped for a stretch and refreshment break after an hour, and they ate crisps and pop and bananas. At this point Jamelia preferred to use her phone rather than watch the movie. The others started getting restless whenever there wasn't action on the screen. Conversation didn't grab them so much. All in all I was surprized that their attention stayed on the movie as much as it had. At about 9:30 it was finished and I drove them home. We entered Avian Park at the first road to let Marsha and Amy off. As we turned into Mockingbird Street we saw a police van stopped ahead of us. I passed it, but then stopped as several girls were getting out here. At this point the police turned their attention on us and after some questions it became clear that I was the bad guy. I had failed to get parental permission and some of the girls were minors. Amy's parents had called the police, not knowing where she was. If she had told them she was coming out with us there wouldn't have been a problem. This doesn't absolve me - I needed to have parental permission. I didn't know what would happen next, but after a few minutes, the policeman waved us on. I did notice a man, probably Amy's father shouting at her for causing them worry. The police hadn't asked me for ID or my licence and this was a great relief. We cannot afford to be on the wrong side of the police in Avian Park, where flare-ups can turn very nasty, so I was relieved to get out of Avian Park after dropping off Chantelle.

Sat Dec 29
At about 4:30 I crashed out of bed. Here's the story from my dreams journal. In this dream, a long and coherent story of adventure and danger, I was one of the good guys fighting the bad guys. I only recall one part in detail, where I and others were attacking one of the villains. At one point I launched myself rugby-tackle style at him, in his armour. Next I felt myself flying through the air and I landed on the floor beside my bed, with my face hitting the sharp edge of the bedside table. If my dental plate had been in my mouth, it would have been smashed by the force of the impact. I yelled, waking up L-A. Luckily the only damage that I found in the morning was a slightly cut lip. This is the second time i have fallen from this bed during a dream in the last few weeks, so I will have to do something with the table in case I repeat the antic, with more serious results. We went to Brandvlei after a 1-week break and were given a great welcome by prison officer Alrico Cupido, whom we hadn't seen in a while, but who has quite significant responsibility. There were 13 attenders as we sang carols, and watched 'How does God guide us.' At the end, officer Cupido reinforced the session by giving his own talk to the group, encouraging them to put into practice what they are learning, rather than just payong lip-service. In all my years in prison ministry, nothing like this ever happened before. Until we came to South Africa, we never had any kind of involvement from prison officers. In the evening I felt we should do something a little different from plugging away with data input to our various computers. I looked up the top grossing movied of all time and noticed that 'Black Panther' was #3, and only came out in 2018. That is a startling achievement. I rented and downloaded it onto Pink Dell and we watched it. Although superhero/comic book recreations are not my favourite genre (I gave it only 3 stars), this film was certainly put together with an amazing amount of talent, and the characters were well drawn and acted. Almost no bad language (one hell, one shit, one finger). Before we went to bed, L-A received a message from Jamelia asking if we would be taking them to church tomorrow.

Fri Dec 28
As I ate an orange in preparation for taking my pain meds and vitamins, I saw that I only have a few days left of Exinef, with New year's holidays coming up next week. So I phoned Dr Eric's office. He is on vacation, but I got an appointment with Dr van der Merwe for 2:30 today. I drove to Dis-Chem with recent photo's of L-A's rash. She had found a similar rash on the Internet described as Jock itch. Dis-Chem sold me another tube of Clotrimazole, and also Nystacid ointment to be applied with the Clotrimazole. I returned home and took L-A to our Afrikaan's lesson. She had gained a kilogram over Christmas, not surprizingly. After our lesson we took Janey to Spar, and then I took L-A home. I returned downtown, picked up Janey and took her home. Then I went to Vodacom to switch my present pre-paid contract with Powertime to a Smart S+ contract at about R200 a month for my data and airtime, which will not run out in the middle of a call. The assistant, Ronnie, wasn't able to complete the process before I needed to go for my doctor's appointment. Dr van der Merwe was very accommodating and wrote me a prescription with six refills for Exinef. Then I showed him a picture of Laurie-Ann's rash, and what Dis-Chem had given me. He said she needed something stronger, and wrote a prescription for Quadriderm, which contains cortizone. I didn't expect this since he hadn't examined her. He said I should bring her in next week if there was no improvement. When I went to the office to pay for my visit, he hadn't charged anything! I was expecting up to R400. I returned to Vodacom and completed the paperwork for my new phone contract. Back home I got my guitar and visited the hospice. Instead of just praying with the patients I would sing carols to them. This was a little outside my comfort zone, although I had done it a year ago. There are TVs on in the three wards. Maybe the patients don't want to sing. Anyway, I went in and started in the end men's ward where there were only three. I set up my guitar and stand, then prayed with each of them, and started to play. I had four carols available, and sang three of them. It went down well. In the next ward, things were busier, but I sang anyway, and sensed that it brought some calm to the room. Finally, in the womens' ward it was more intimate and one of the ladies was even singing along with me. I left the hospice feeling that I had done what I could for these dear people, and that they and the nurses appreciated it. Listening to SAFM on the way to Mountain Mill Mall, a discussion came up about whether pedestrians were contributing to the present carnage on the roads this festive season. They invited listeners to SMS any comments, so for my fist time in South Africa, I did. Here's what I wrote: "South Africans put their lives at risk on our busy streets all the time, ignoring 'Don't Walk' red lights and assuming cars will always stop if they walk in front of one. Since adults show this crazy behaviour, I don't imagine they are teaching their children any rules of the road. Worst of all are cyclists who regularly cycle on the wrong side of the road without lights. In other countries they would be locked up. - Tony, Worcester" Amazingly, my SMS was read out on air within two minutes, I hope this didn't come across as critical of the country, but I have long believed that pedestrians and cyclists are part of the problem that motorists get all the blame for. In the mall I managed to find all the vegetables that L-A had put on the list, plus a Turducken - boned turkey, duck & chicken combo - and I drove home. At 6:19 I posted on Facebook: "The marathon Chistmas songs broadcast which started 24 Dec on CWCP Radio just ended with approximately 2000 songs and carols played, but unfortunately only one listener, us, as far as the technology tells us. The rest of the world, you missed out on some great music!" After our turkey dinner #3, we watched the Queen's excellent speech which I had posted to my Twitter, and then two Christmas editions of 7 de Laan.

Thu Dec 27
We woke up after 10! This hasn't happened before. I drove down to the Traffic Department to renew the car licence disc. But they were closed until a week from today. The licence expires at the end of the month. Spent the day putting the finishing touches on tonight's Worcester Report, keeping the marathon Christmas music fest running on CWCP despite no other listeners, since we were enjoying it, and it enabled me to correct some miss-filings on the red disk. The Worcester Report ran a little long since I had some material I didn't want to leave out such as the inmates in Brandvlei singing carols, and Phil Adewumi's new disk, 'Justified,' with a lead in of our girls singing along wity it in the car. The final result sounds good. At bedtime as I applied the ointment to L-A's stomach and leg, I could see that we weren't winning, and I resolved to see the pharmacist again tomorrow, and possibly the doctor.

Boxing Day
At 10:15, Moses called - just to wish us a good Christmas - bless him. L-A spent a good part of the day preparing tonight's dinner, and I helped when necessary. The turkey, the ham, the vegetables were all coming on well as per plan, but when she started to whisk cream to make the whipped version, it just wouldn't cooperate. At one point the whisk was so hot I recommended taking a half-hour break to let it cool. Finally I went to OK Foods to get more cream and the instructions on it were for it to be below 4 degrees C for whipping. So it went in the freezer for hald an hour and then it whipped easily, and she was able to complete the syllabub. (Doesn't everyone have syllabub with Christmas dinner?). Our dinner guests arrived about 6:15 from Worcester: Kaysha, Pastor Alexis Hakizimana, her betrothed, and Maggie. This would be Maggie's last non-vegetarian meal; she has taken the pledge. In the event all L-A's hard work was indeed rewarded by well-satisfied stomachs. The turkey was perfectly cooked, the ham with mustard sauce just fine, the vegetables at their steamed peak, and the two desserts very popular: Christmas pudding with hard sauce (you can't buy it; she made it), and the aforementioned syllabub. See some photos. Alex showed some interest in Internet broadcasting. After dinner I judged everyone was pretty compliant, so I proposed interviewing the happy couple for CWCP. It took some persuasion, though it would be very good for Alex to see what is involved in radio interviewing, and I was firm. This was too good an opportunity to miss. I think it will have turned out well, though I haven't yet sampled the recording. As I told them afterwards, my motivation was to present a model courtship in a land where if there are any models, they are generally wrong, and lead to serios marriage-failure statistics. We are looking forward to attending one of their weddings at Robertson on 19 January.

Christmas Day
L-A and I and Heather McComb had been invited to share Christmas with Janey and Andre. We arrived at 11 - Heather was there already - and had some good social time with some Hunter's Edge cider. Janey had designed this lunch weeks ago, and bought corned beef, ham and tongue, traditional fare for South African Christmases. As I did a year ago, I sliced all the meat with Andre's antique meat slicer designed like a circular saw. At about 12:30 we sat down to lunch. There were also potato salad, green salad, home made baked beans, and mustard sauce. We had brought some Fourie rose which went down very well with the food and conversation. For dessert there were home made mince pies, ice cream, custard (not from a bottle), and apple sauce specially for L-A. At the end I poured some Pippa for everyone except Janey. I was interested in Andre's opinion. he had never tasted it before, and quite liked it. After lunch we chatted till about 3:30. It had been a great way to celebrate Christmas with friends. But we needed to get home to prepared tomorrow's turkey. As we worked we listened to the the marathon of Christmas music that was broadcasting on CWCP. Even if no one else was listening, according to Icecast, despite heavy advertising on Twitter, we were enjoying it. I was also keen to progress both the CWCP programs for this week, but it was more important to be in the kitchen helping L-A. L-A dressed the turkey with rock salt and put it in the oven. We found that the beans I had bought were not green beans but runner beans, new to L-A, but not to me. I remembered exactly how to slice off the stringy edges that my mother had taught me. I love runner beans but haven't had them in decades. Around 9:30 I carved the turkey and put the results in the fridge. L-A retired about 11. By midnight I had mixed down tomorrow's Good News in the Morning archive programs, both on the subject of Christmas.

Christmas Eve
I collected a bag of basic groceries we could spare from our shelves and drove down to Jamelia's house and gave her R200 and the groceries. There were 3 adults, and 4 children and clearly they had very little to their names. I went into the house and blessed it and prayed for them all. They are all believers. Jamelia seemed depressed. My heart went out to her. Then I drove to Dis-Chem, and described L-A's rash to a pharmacist. She said it was quite common, and caused by the heat. She sold me a fungicide cream called Clotrimazole and seemed pretty sure it would solve the problem. This was really good news. I continued shopping, working through L-A's list of what we needed for Christmas. I set up all our Christmas digitized CDs on FooBar on Pink dell, and set it broadcasting on CWCP. I posted on the CWCP FB page that we would be playing Christmas music for the next few days. In the afternoon I returned to Pick n Pay to do more Christmas shopping. The store was so crowded there were no carts, so I used the bag we had bought from Heather for collecting what I wanted. Back home, I applied the Clotrimazole to L-A's very red rash, and she lay on her back on the bed for a while to let it soak in.

Sun Dec 23
To church. David told me a story I didn't follow, and asked if we could take him back to Maranatha Church, where I think he said he is now living. As we got there he 'reminded me' that he'd asked me for R100 to pay for repairs to his refrigerator, damaged when the power returned after load shedding. We managed to scrape together about R60. On our way home we bought vegetables from Alisha, who has a stall outside Shoprite. The last time I had shopped there was months ago, but she said she remembered me! Over the last few days L-A has developed a nasty red rash on her left leg and stomach which sweats, iches, and makes life very difficult. Internet research suggested it could be helped by whatever diaper rash is helped by. I washed 6 pairs of her panties that had been soiled by the sweating. Jamelia got into a FB Messenger dialog with L-A, although I answered it. Her mother Sina had lost her job. They has no food in the house, and certainly no clothes or shoes for Jamelia for Christmas. I finally got her to say how much money was needed for food. She said R2000. I said that was way more than we could help with. I said I would bring her R200 tomorrow.

Sat Dec 22
The last day of our holiday within a holiday. I woke up feeling good - the honey cinnamon? We enjoyed another excellent breakfast served by Joseph, who I tipped. We checked out veldskoen shoes in town, but after inserting her orthotics, L-A wasn't able to get into any of them. We drove along the road we had driven two nights ago and took photos of the town with the sun shining on it. Then we checked out the Clanwilliam dam from a distance which is having long-awaited enhancements - raising its height 13 metres. We drove down a little used road for great views of the lake behind the dam. We continue on to Citrusdal, but it's the wrong season for oranges. Soon we were climbing the Nuwekloof Pass, and at the summit found a delightful padstal where I bought orange marmalade and grapefruit marmalade, and L-A had a wine tasting and bought six bottles. Then we were on the final stretch back home. I picked up L-A's repaired computer from Nik after unpacking.

Fri Dec 21
Because we'd paid for breakfast we rose earlier than we otherwise would have, but it was worth it. Eggs, fruit, yoghurt, brie, coffee, some served by Joseph, a peaceful soul. Getting to the car was tricky - there was a water sprinkler on the only path between our unit and the parking lot, so I gallantly soaked myself grabbing hold of it so L-A could pass dryly. We drove to Rooibos Ltd which advertised a presention in the 'Essential Guide to the Cederberg Region,' but gave no address there other than GPS coordinates, which turned out to be the factory back gate. We found the front gate where a guard told us there were no presentations till January. So we went to the Rooibos Tea House. This was actually just what we wanted, and the co-owner Sanet gave a presentaion to people in the Tea House, with the history of rooibos. She mentioned that National Rooibos day was coming up on 16 January. We drank some rooibos and cinnamon tea, and L-A selected various products. I asked Sanet if we might return at closing time and interview her for CWCP Radio, She graciously agreed. We went hack to the Yellow Aloe and I had a short swim in the short pool, and came out feeling great. I worked on editing digitized audio files of our tape music collection - I have a long way to go with this, and not sure I'll be finished before our thee years here are up. At 5 we were back at the Rooibos Tea House with the recording equipment. Sanet Stander gave me a very well informed interview which will interest anyone who has ever drunk rooibos tea. I asked her about National Rooibos Day, and it turned out to be an initiative of her and her sister, the co-owners of the tea house. On 16 January, everyone is invited to drink an extra cup of Rooibos. Towards the end I asked her a question about a barbed wire cross sculpture on her wall, which led (as I had hoped) to a confession of her faith. Although we had now run out of time, we three chatted in friendship for a while longer. She recommended Floris restaurant, and also warned that as 'tourists' we should not walk the streets tonight: pay day with Christmas bonuses. There is much alcoholism in the town. After an excellent dinner (including rooibos creme brulet) we went for a drive towards the Cederbergs and captured them on camera from various angles, with a full moon above them. Back home we watched 7 de Laan and then had our first taste of Fynbos honey cinnamon, which will heal everything. The most tasty of medicines.

Thurs Dec 20
As I started packing, I also completed Brexit - Out of the maze. I posted it to FaceBook and Twitter, and also sent it to Theresa May's twitter. We said goodbye to our host Pat about ten, and started out for Clanwilliam. We were to pass Hopefield so decided to return to Simply Bee, buy some more bee products and have another pleasant chat in the coffee shop with Yolande. Next stop was Piketberg, the world HQ for Pippa passion fruit liqueur, so we of course bought a bottle, before lunching at Spur. We crossed the mountains through Pienaars Kloof trying to enjoy the magnificent views (without in L-A's case, vertigo). The whole trip was through South Africa's breadbasket, with wheatfields on all sides. Around 3:30 we arrived in Clanwilliam, Rooiboss capital of the world. It really does only grow in this small region. The 'Yellow Aloe and the Longhouse' guesthouse is folksy and funky. Joseph took us on a small exploration including where to park. Yellow Aloe has little windy paths and several small swimming pools, one of which I was in ere long, but not before a swig of Pippa, 40% proof and quite exciting. A small black cat offered friendship. Instead of going out to dinner we stayed in, and tomorrow we'll explore.

Wed Dec 19
Our day to explore the West Coast Peninsula. We started out North towards Saldanha. First thing we saw was a huge iron ore mine. Saldanha has the largest natural harbour in South Africa, so we took a few looks and a few photos. Then on to Jacobsbaai, and then to Paternoster, where we lunched at the Noisy Oyster. I had three large delicious oysters. Tried to remember when I last had oysters. L-A had a fish stew, much niced than it sounds. I has creme brulet. Fantastic restaurant. We loved Paternoster, particularly the huge semicircular beach. Then on to St Helena Bay, and Belddrif, where we sampled Bokhom, like Biltong but made with fish - the whole fish including all the bones. We still ahve some of that in the fridge in case we feel really hungry. Back home we BBQ'd beef, wors, chicken and sweet corn, plus fresh seemed vegetables. I tried to get BBC World Service news on DSTV, but couldn't find it. I have no idea what's happened in the world since we left Worcester. Worked quite hard on my Brexit piece. For the first time this trip I set my alarm for 7:30, since we leave Langebaan in the morning.

Tue Dec 18
We got up in leisurely fashion. Hopefield is 30 minutes drive (we had come through it on our way here) and is a centre for bees. Since bees are under threat, we were both keen to visit, and we got there about 10:30 and found 'Simplee Bee' This is a combination of a hive, honey products, tea shop and a gift shop. It's a delightful place and we bought honey and skin care gifts. Then we had tea, served by a very informative lady called Yolande. The bees in the hive travel up to 9 Km in their search for nectar. Without bees and insects fertilizing plants, life on earth would be very restricted. Yet bees are under threat from chemicals and bad practices. I asked id we could pray for Yolande and for Simply Bee, and she was touched. We drove on to Yzerfontein arriving at Kevin Daley's mother's - Regina's - home about 12:30. Keven had invited us to visit a week ago, and yesterday suggested we come to lunch. The house has a spectacular ocean view, and Kevin is an excellent cook. We had lamb curry with yellow rice. Dessert was guava mousse. After leaving we continued along the coast road and L-A saw a guest houses that she felt drawn to. Later she booked on for 29 and 30 August - so we'll be back in Yzerfontein! Back home we slept a couple of hours. I started documenting my solution to the Brexit fiasco, following my dreams last Saturday.

Mon Dec 17
We slept in till 10. My laringitis was gone! I felt wonderfully rested and full of joy. The holiday feeling normally takes a few days, but this time it was there already. After a light breakfast I got up to date with uploading recent photos and videos to our various Flickr pages. L-A was not feeling well, and may have an allergy to mussels. In the afternoon I went grocery shopping, at first being disappointed in a couple of local grocery stores, but then being recommended the Laguna Mall by another shopper, about 15 minutes away. here I found a great Checkers which had everything on L-A's list, including fresh fish which I cooked on a gas BBQ in the courtyard outside our room. Braais have replaced the gas BBQ in this country, which I think is a pity. In the evening we caught up on 3 editions of 7 de Laan, ostensibly to help with our Aftikaans, but actually because we enjoy the program a lot, along with millions of South Africans.

Sun Dec 16
This day we go on holiday, but first, church. And there were four girls who said they wanted to come: Chantelle, Antonica, Jamelia and Macayla. So L-A and I drove to church, where she got off, and I collected the girls from Avian Park. They were all in their Sunday best, and had brought their new Bibles in their new purses. Anthonica took her time, so we arrived after the first prise song started, but there were plenty of seats. Heather was very happy to see them with their purses (that she had made). They sat near the front; we were of course in translation row. In his introductory remarks Johan joked about learning Afrikaans and said that although I (he named me) couldn't speak it yet, I could sing in it! During the main praise section of the service, all four girls took flags and worshipped with them in the front left area. After the praise, Phil Adewumi had a CD release party, singing two songs on his new CD to the congregation. Being holiday time, there was no kinderkerk, so the girls had the choice of listening to Johan's sermon or leave the sanctuary. Three of them did that. Listening to someone talking is not their thing. The sermon was on 'Acres of Diamonds' and would have been perfectly understanding to them. Had I been in their situation, walking out of a service in front of a congregation would have taken far more guts than I have, but it came naturally to them. We bought a copy of Phil's CD, 'Justified,' and had him sign it. In the car I put it on, and the girls started singing long. The songs are African gospel standards, and very pleasant to listen to. After the service we took them to McDonalds for coffee. This is where I should have given then some guidance on the value of listening to a sermon, but it skipped my mind. After a while, Macayla said that Anthonica was very hungry. I had been surprised that none of them up to that point had asked for food, and I was touched by Macayla's concern for her friend, so I got cheeseburgers for all four. Then we took them to their homes.

Back home, we worked on the serious business of packing for about an hour. We left for Langebarn at about 2:30. It was a beautiful drive, starting in the direction of Tulbagh, and crossing the mountains at the Nuwekloof Pass, the way the train goes to Cape Town on its single track. We arrived at Langebaan Sea Cottages at 4. Unpacking took a while; we had brought so much stuff 'just in case.' (actually 3 cases). L-A idenified a beach restaurant called Kokomo, and the first thing I saw there was CBC craft beer on draft being drunk from tall elegant glasses. I ordered mine immediatley; it was even better than the canned verson that is my normal beer choice. By now my laringitis was stopping almost all conversation - not nice in a restaurant. We settled on West Coast mussels, a local delicacy. I had mine in a beautiful cream sauce, and L-A had hers as part of a seafood curry. I walked on to the beach a couple of times. We watched the sun go down over the Atlantic.

Sat Dec 15
I dreamed - over and over - about a solution to the Brexit impasse. I should document it and send it to Theresa May. We had arranged to pick up Soraya at 8:30, but Bella sent an SMS in a tizzy about 7:30 saying she needed help. Something had gone wrong with arrangement to get some kids to Nekkie's camp ground. So we picked up Soraya at 8:15 and were at Bella's by 8:45. Here she admitted that the kids were in Roodeval! So we went there, only to find they had already been taken, but there was a man who also needed to go so the trip wasn't wasted. We got them to Nekkie's by 8:55 and were in Brandvlei by 9:10. We ran a Christmas session, with carols, gifts (journals) for those present, and the Alpha 'Bible' session. I had brought the Marantz to make a recording of the carols - it could work for a Christmas Worcester Report. After Alpha we ran a Bible study on Luke 2 - the birth of Jesus. It was one more great time with the men, whom we won't see for two weeks. In the afternoon, L-A was feeling severe hunger pains. I picked up Soraya at the Mall at 2:30, asking her to give L-A some prayer and comfort. I went to get the girls; just 6 since Bella and Bridney wouldn't be there. They were all dressed in their party best. We started with carols, which I also recorded. But my voice was crap - I had deleloped a sudden laringitis since the morning. Then we gave them their purses made my Heather, and their Afrikaans Bibles, in which I wrote their names and ours. Then we did the same Bible study that we had done in Brandvlei and it went just as well. I left in the middle to get the pizza, and L-A and Soraya carried on. By 4:30 they were eating up: pizza (three slices each), juice boxes, strawberries and cream, and chocolate cake. Much enjoyment all round. Chrizelle developed a stomach pain (too much pizza?) and wanted to get home, so I took her and two others. Got back and took Soraya and the other girls. After dropping off Soraya, the girls wanted to go to the mall. I said OK as long as I stayed in the car. They said OK. 10 mins after the three of them went in, Anthonica came out on her own and asked me for money. I said 'no.' I had a snooze. They were back after about 40 minutes and I took them home. Chantelle was the last one so she asked me for R5. I said 'no.' They had received significant value in food and gifts, but still expected money. I don't blame them. There are no fathers around, and the mothers earn very little. so money is constantly lacking. Back home, we have a small disaster - L-A's laptop has stopped working - won't turn on - and we are leaving for holiday after church tomorrow. We Whatsapped Nik and asked if he knew of a good computer fixer, and he did. I then asked him if we could give him the computer in church tomorrow, and if he would then take in on Monday. He said 'of course.' Jasper emailed: "Hi Tony, I’ve listened to the clip you’ve send me and it confirmed what I expected. You have a great audio voice which will be perfect for what we want to achieve with the audio book. I’m the sole decision maker on the book and have self-published it. The audio book will then be a collaboration between you and me and we can do it in a way that fit both our time tables and will achieve the final outcome – a complete audio book. Why don’t you just do the preface as an audio clip from your home studio with some accompanying intro music as you imagine the product to sound like and send it to me. Once we decide to actually tackle this as a project for 2019, I might have to do the intro in my own voice and send you the clip for quality control and from there you do an audio of the book a chapter at a time. Greetings, Jasper." I replied: "This approach can work. We are just on holiday for a week, but I will have the preface completed by first week in January." - Tony

Fri Dec 14
In the early morning prayer group, in our house, with just Hilton and Godfrey (thats a black, coloured and white), one of the people we prayed for was Mella and her visa situation. An hour or so later she called me to say that she had been told that the visa was ready for pick-up in Cape Town. Immediately I offered to drive her to get it - for some reason it seemed liks a fun thing to do rather than a chore - but we would have to leave immediately after our Afrikaans lesson. L-A felt she wanted to come too. Mella called again as we went in for the lesson to say that she needed to pick it up by 2 pm. So we had a short Afrikaans lesson. I had bought an Afrikaan's companion book to her Smart Kids English Story Collection, so I reported back on my exerience so far; quite good. We left at 11:50 and picked up Mella at noon. We were at 2 Long Street by 1:40, parked in the same illegal spot where I had stayed when I brought her to submit her visa application months ago. There were cars double and triple parked around us, since the parking garage was full and this is a popular destination. 2 pm passed. At about 2:20 she came down to say that they hadn't yet found her visa, but that one of the staff was seriously searching for it, and had told her to wait until he called. It turned out the deadline for pick ups was 3, not 2. Both L-A and I were hungry and thirsty. We couldn't leave the car, so Mella went to 'Brownies & Downies' opposite and brought back an Appletizer for L-A and a sandwich for me. Then she went back into the building. I went into the cafe and ordered a salad for L-A. As I carried it back to the car I saw that I hadn't turned off the headlights after we had come though the tunnel. That is the second time, and with the same result - the car wouldn't start. There was a parking attendant photographing car number plates just across the road. A little later another meter maid walked down our side of the street. But none of them seemed to take any notice of our car, even though it had been illegally parked for more than an hour. How should I get a boost for the car? Flagging down another vehicle turned out to be hard, since it would have to park behind me, where there was innsufficient room for a car between ours and the corner of the street. Also, if Mella might be another hour, I didn't really want a boost yet. I had the AA number on my phone so I called them. Ten minutes later Mella came back with a big smile - and her visa in her hand. This was fantastic news, and compared with it, the other problem seemed small. The AA man arrived on time, with a battery testing and boosting unit, and soon the engine was running. We were on our way with all problems behind us. We set Garmin for home and were soon on the N1. After we had gone through the tunnel we took Mella to see Dukloof Lodge, which she had never seen, and had a restful half our with coffee and tea before continuing home, satisfied with life. I had 90 minutes sleep before some urgent computer work such as paying L-A's visa, updating the GNCM site after being shown by Candace that she was using Weebly in 'development' mode, but I can still use it in 'live' mode.

Thu Dec 13
Neither of us feeling great. Good thing it's school holidays. Mella still hasn't received her visa that would allow her to return if she leaves the country to go home for Christmas, and ahe has already postponed her flight. Spent the afternoon preparing The Worcester report, the one which first aired on Canadian Spaces, with me interviewing L-A about life so far in South Africa. On our program tonight we will also play her interview of me, where I sing a prison song. I emailed my family members to catch the broadcast. When it did go out, however, there was only one listener on line, I. It's a good program. I can't understand why many friends and my family appear to have lost interest in us. In the afternoon I went to the hospice. There were several who seemed to me close to death. But there was also one man, a quadraplegic, whom I have chatted with before. He comes in for a week from time to time to give hs family some respite. His body was wrecked in a car accident several years ago. He has every reason to the severely depressed, but instead he has a ready smile and a wonderful attitude. He sais that there's nothing he can do about his condition, so instead he is grateful that he has his brain and eyes and can enjoy his family, and they can enjoy his presence with them. He was a taxi driver, and doing quite well. The day he went into hospital after the accident, his brother took his car and used it for the next two years, after which it was pretty beaten up. The brother didn't ask his permission. Other family members took of other possessions of his, assuming he was going to die. He had lent monwy to other taxi drivers in need; not one of them visited him in hospital. I e-mailed Jasper as follows: I am warming up to the idea of doing this. However, it may not be my choice in the end. I assume you would work with an audio book company and they would probably have a major say in who does the reading. Or are you planning to produce it entirely yourself? Either way we would start by my recording just the first chapter so stakeholders could decide. One issue might be that normally readers would do the recording in a professional studio. That may not work for me - just too time consuming. You can hear an example of me in our home studio on the most recent podcast of our internet radio station bit.ly/2zXLilT I think this is good enough, but, it's not really my decision.

Wed Dec 12
At 11 we met Pietie Conradie, 94, sister of Nelia from yeaterday. His house also very near ours, but we drove because L-A came. He is 94 but seems in good health for his age. Has housekeeper brought us tea and shortbread. He made sure we were comfortable. After a while Maretha Hofmeyr arrived to bring his village magazine, in which our story is printed. He spent most of his life farming table grapes near De Dorns. His son now runs the farm. Another son is in England as an interior designer. Daughter in Worcester. He said he is happy. Has attended Worcester united Church, but too difficult nowadays – yet he does drive himself to get food and groceries. We prayed over him. Jasper emailed me and said he loved the review, and then asked me if I would voice an audiobook version of the book! I replied immediately that I had his message and would think deeply about it. I haven't been feeling too well recently. Today I was extremely weary by the afternoon, and had a rest. I seem to have lost my appetite for full meals but am OK with snacking. This is actually convenient because L-A is now extablished with a diet based on shakes from 'Annique' and one semi-normal meal a day. So far she has lost 2 Kg. She is very determined because she had gained weight over the last few months, and was worried she might not fit in the aeroplane seats for our home visit next May. When I went to bed - early - I couldn't sleep because every minute I developed the sensation of thousands of insects on my skin - until I moved, I put up with this for 20 minutes, and then had a shower. I fell asleep.

Tue Dec 11
L-A has been setting up all the details of our holiday trip to Langebaan which begins next Sunday, and we are both looking forward to it enormously. They have sent us a bill for what wasn't paid on Bookings.com, and I will pay it as soon as our latest wire transfer arrives from Canada. She has been tireless working on the details of our home visit 30 May to 9 July, setting up speaking engagements and arranging accommodation in the Ottawa area and in Virginia. She is a great trip planner, and this suits me fine because I enjoy planning vacations about as much as I enjoy shopping. At 4pm I finally got round to calling the elderly shut-ins whose names Maretha Hofmeyr had given me. The first one I called turned us down. I made the mistake of mentioning that we would like to pray for her, at which she said that wouldn't be possible because she was Catholic! With the next two, Nelia and Pietie, I kept off the subject of religion, and both agreed. Nelia was ready right then, so I said 5 pm. L-A had been sleeping and really wasn't in the right state so I went to see Neila alone. Her house is at the back of ours so I didn't need to go onto the street. Although she had exhibited signs of Alzheimers when I called her, it was much less apparent in person. She is 92, very personable, and has a carer, Tobie, who was with us throughout. We chatted about her career as a speech therapist in the theatre, and a recorder of audio books for the blind. Her husband died 20 years ago. She came to Hooggelegen when it first opened in 2003. Our girls had found her when they first used to wander around the neighbourhood. She and her husband had owned a farm in Worcester as their final occupations. I prayed and she was touched. She has nice pieces of art on her walls. It was very pleasant to be with her. I finally wrote a review of 'Legacy,' the book by GIG founder Jasper Cloete, and posted it on Amazon. It is the only review up there. Naturally it got ***** from me.

Mon Dec 10
In Afrikaans, I said to Janey that I needed a new approach. She recommended I buy the Afrikaans version of a childrens picture book, Smart-Kids Story Collection, and also watch the daily soap, 7 de Laan, which has English subtitles, and is available on YouTube. When I arrived in Avian Park there were a lot fewer children roaming the streets than normal. Bella was in Wellington so I took Jamelia to Danielia's, but there were no children waiting. Her dog was in her yard and he took a nip at my knee through the bars of the gate. It didn't draw blood, just bruises, but as I write this three days later I see there is a small scar. Very few dogs are aggressive to me, but the children are rightly wary of dogs, many of which are guard dogs. Jamelia opted to wait in case children came. Both Anthonica and Chantelle had a few children, and ran their clubs, but Chrizelle and Macayla had none. All of them know that we are having a pizza party at our place on Saturday, and they can run clubs next Monday, but I won't be visiting. The girls and Danielia attributed the lack of children to the school holidays, when many stay with relatives elsewhere. In the afternoon we had no power for 6 hours due to maintenance work (not load shedding) so I decided to take the opportunity to get rid of the monster geranium in our back yard. I don't know for sure who owns it, but noone else has ever pruned it, and neither have I. This would not be a pruning job, but an eradication job. The only relevant tool I had was the R10 secateurs, but they were sufficient. The branches were soft. I was able to get the roots out completely and they were about 6 inches in diameter. There were actually two main roots, for two plants. I bundled half of the plabt into the Mercedes trunk and drobe it carefully to the skip near the gate. I left the rest for another day because the skip was now full (not just with the geranium). The power returned 90 minutes before schedule. I was very tired and stiff after the exercise of the afternoon and went to bed early.

Sun Dec 9
In order to be ready to assist L-A with her presentation to kinderkirk I had carefully got ready all necessary audio-visual equipment the night before. But I thought of one more thing. I took my computer from the CKCU bag and powered it up, and then moved this journal file to the green stick. When L-A checked her FaceBook she discovered that the piece of prophetic art she had drawn yesterday with the girls had been shared three times and had been liked by quite a few friends. What had caught people's imagination was the word of knowledge on the piece: "I love you. Don't put a limit on my love for you. Time to put the umbrella down. Soak in the rain of my love." She brought the drawing to church. When we arrived at 8, Riana had us booked for the large room, without a computer screen, but with a projector. Trouble was, noone could link to the projector. Riana called in Bernadette who recommended we move back to the smaller room, and she found a long VGA cable and made sure we were seeing L-A's desktop on the large computer screen. From then on it was downhill all the way as I set up the audio with our two Dixon speakers powered by the Pyle amp. At that point I went to get girls and a mother from Avian Park and bring them to church. On the way I bought a packet of Marie biscuitss at OK, mainly to have the right money for the collection. In the event, only Chantelle and Anthonica appeared and though we knocked on Bridney's mother's door, no mother appeared. Soon they were making coffee in Milk and Honey, starting with seven sugars. At 9:10 we were still drinking coffee and eating biscuits in the car, and I left to be in my seat on time. As I got there, Johan, Marie, Alisha and Kaysha were all arriving! The girls came after a few minutes. During the worship a cute 5-year old brought flags for both Chantelle and Anthonica so they could dance and wave flags, which they did. After the worship, L-A, I and the girls went to kinderkerk. It was all one group together, so the girls were there too as L-A presented her excellent review of prophetic art, developed over the last few days. Then we had soaking prayer, and for this I played Julie True and Ruth Fazal by blue tooth from my phone. The sound was excellent. The children took it all very seriously and came up with a slew of interesting drawings. The whole session was a great success. There was a hot dog BBQ organized by Pieter-Luis with enough for everyone, so I was able to get two for the girls, and more coffee, as they widened their circle of acquaintances. The whole morning had been good. When we left the girls really wanted to go to the mall, although we told them many stores would be closed due to an 8 hour power shut down for maintenance work. But because of this, we were in no particular hurry to go home, so L-A came with us to the mall. She waited in the car, and Chantelle, Anthonica and I walked the full length of the mall past mostly closed stores, with them desperately searching for something they thought I would pay for. Finally, in a darkened cosmetic shop, they found nail varnish at R22, two for one. It took them 10 minutes to select their colours. We walked back to the car but their success getting me to pay for the nail varnish caused them to increase their efforts to get something else. But I was steadfast and wouldn't budge. Imagine what it would have been like if all the stores had been open. We took the girls back to Avian Park and then took ourselves to our electricity-free home. L-A decided to spend a few hours, while there was no power, in bed. I made use of her computer battery to type up a few more days on this journal, which I had moved to the green memory stick. Finally I got weary of that, and went outside to do some gardening, planting six small flowers I had bought a couple of days before. Then I tackled something that I had put off for too long - the giant overgrown geranium in our back yard. Hoping all the time that it really did belong to us, and that our landlady wouldn't mind, I set to work with the secateurs I had bought for R10 at Cash Converters. It turns out that even thick geranium branches are no match for secateurs. Further, the roots can be pulled up fairly easily. After an hour I had transferred the huge bush to a paved area, and filled two recycle bags with small geranium refuse. There was blood on my leg and I had pulled out many splinters from my hands, but the great beast was defeated. I hauled about half of it in the car to the skip near the gate, and kept the rest for another day. L-A was still resting when I came in, and I watched TV for a while. Then at about 6:00 the power returned, two hours ahead of schedule. Hopefully this means the job had gone well. Cups of tea all round for us. She got busy redrawing the prophetic piece that people have been commenting on from yesterday. The original was on the wrong kind of paper and had been folded. She had me model, holding first an umbrella, and then a cross (actually our broomstick). Apparently my sandals are also in it. Fame at last!

Sat Dec 8
Yesterday L-A developed a strange health issue, sweating heavily in some parts of her body even though the weather has been relatively cool. This morning she didn't feel comfortable enough to come to Brandvlei. On the way I picked up a hitchhiker called Said who was visiting his daughter Nadine in Rawsonville. He was a Muslim who had converted to Christianity. I prayed for him before he got off at the Brandvlei turning, where runners were making their way towards the prison. As I drove I passed about a hundred, and their destination turned out to be the stadium inside the prison grounds. It was 'Prayer' in Alpha and I had 14 attenders. By now the staff (including Tandeka) are taking as much interest in the videos as the men. After the film I spoke on nuclear families and their rarity in South Africa. I encouraged the men from now on to seek relationships with women that will provide stable homes for children. Back home we were both working up to time I went to get the kids from Avian Park. Cay-Lene came - only her second time. I asked Anthonica if her dad had come yesterday, and she said he hadn't, but might come today. During the time where we ask them if they need prayer, I asked her if we should pray for her dad. Chantelle then said something to Anthonica which resulted in her running to the bathroom in tears. We haven't been able to get to the bottom of this. I gave a short talk on the vital importance of families with mothers and fathers, and the rarity of this among township dwellers. I encouraged the girls, when they got older, to build relationships only with young men who understood this and were looking to the long term. The girls and we have agreed to skip two of our Saturday session on 22 and 29 December, and the clubs to days later, due to Christmas. Back home I retweeted a RIP message about John Lennon, and prepared soaking music on my phone to accompany L-A's session with the kinderkerk tomorrow morning.

Fri Dec 7
For the prayer group breakfast I took about 4 large wors, left from the bunch I'd bought for Jan's braai. About 2/3 of the group showed up so there was plenty of food and my wors turned out to be popular. I took the opportunity to ask Carlo whether we should send financial donations for Godfrey as/if they arrive, or wait till we know the full amount is going to be there before asking people actually to send money. He felt that we should transfer money to him asap, and even if it doesn't all come in he could still use what did. Spent most of the day working through my do list, which is reducing in length without the high time cost of teaching at school. After talking with L-A we had decided that we should give Godfrey the equivalent of $100, so I set about transferring it by EFT to Hilton's bank account that he had made availanle to Godfrey for the purpose. But I hit a snag when trying to add the account to my list of my payees: An error message saying that the account could not release money to the owner. I called Hilton and he drove to Capitek to make sure the account was in good standing. They said it was, but I still couldn't transfer to it. I sent a message to FNB querying what error 217 is, as reported by them when I try to set up Hilton's account as a payee. While I was in banking mode, I then set up the regular wire transfer for the next two months. Anthonica phoned me to ask for R20. Apparently her dad is coming tonight and she says he will repay me (!). They have no food in the house. Not that R20 will make a big difference. I drove down and gave her the money, and also an almost finished jar of peanut butter, which she loves. L-A roasted vegetables for supper, adding beef steaks, very nice. After supper we watched the South Afrian movie Knysna, which I had bought at Pick n Pay's check-out a few days ago. It's a lightweight comedy with occasional segments that made us think, but we felt its main purpose was the backdrop of the attractive seaside town of Knysna which we had visited on our drive along the Garden Route earlier in the year.

Thu Dec 6
I had planned weeks ago to get the car serviced today, the first day of the holidays. So by 7:45 I was there. I asked Brian about the indicator not cancelling. and he said it was a common problem with this car, and would cost around R3,000 to fix - and even then it could break again before I sell the car. I resolved to be more vigilant. The other work to be done was a regular service, and replacement of brake pads. Both of these had been indicated on the car computer. One of the mechanics, Teravino, drove me home in the car and then took it back to the garage. There was load-shedding scheduled for late afternoon until 8:30. This meant we must delay the start of The Worcester Report an hour. We posted notices on line, and I got busy producing the show in good time before we would lose power. The battery in my main computer is completely shot; when power goes off the machine shuts down instantly. Around 3pm Brian phoned to say the car was ready; could he send the driver to get me. Back in the car, which was running fine, I did something I had planned months ago but never got round to. I drove to the post office and bought a TV licence. It cost R265. They weren't able to backdate it a year. Since we hadn't bought a TV set in South Aftrica, but used the Insignia we had brought with us, we were not on the radar of the SABC licensing authority. But I figured we got so much value from Openview, we should help out SABC, which is in serious financial difficulty. From their radio programs alone I had had the value of the licence. In the evening we broadcast The Worcester Report at 9 pm (instead of 8) because of the load shedding. This was the rebroadcast of Mella's interview on Valley FM. As I listened, for the second time, I felt this was a masterly statement of some of South Africa's social issues, particularly teen pregnancy. Yet I was the only one tuned in to listen, as shown on Icecast. Oh well, maybe others will listen to the podcast. (By 1 Jan it had six hits). Late in the evening I checked Whatsapp and saw that tomorrow's early morning prayer good was the annual Christmas breakfast and suggesting members bring components for said meal.

Wed Dec 5
We arrved at the school celebration - final day before the Christmas holiday - at about 9:45 to find all the boys + Khanyo already having fun watching Mella's photos from the last few months on the big screen. Then at about 10:05: load shedding - as we knew it would. Mella had Amber continue to show the photos on her phone. Khanyo fitted right back into the group seamlessly. I asked Mella if we could announce the results of the art exam, and I worked from the bottom. Tension mounted as Mpho's name didn't come up. Finally it was Patrick being clapped and Mpho asking if I had forgotten him. As I added his name at the very top, he was ecstatic, and he and Patrick had a great hug. It was a special moment in the school. I then slipped out to pick up the pizza. But load shedding was a jump ahead of me and Romans was not baking, and had one staff member on duty to give customers the bad news. What to do? I drove to Debonairs formulating my tactics if I had to return to the school empty-handed. Halleluja! - Debonairs was still in business; they had a generator. Energy was being transformed from chemical to electrical. When I asked about drinks, they recommended I not buy from them but from the Hollywood Supermarket a few doors away. At Hollywood I bought a tub of vanilla ice cream and napkins as well as 12 assorted fizzy drinks, then returned to Debonairs to pick up the triple pizza in various flavours including vegetarian for Mella. The boys were playing outside, so after setting up in the classroom, we called everyone upstairs and served the pizza. Mella had also brought crisps and cookies. The drinks were taken up without conflict as to who got what. Chicken pizza was the first choice, then peperoni, but I had vegetarian and it was exceptional, and spicy. Eventually everyone was satisfied. Mella made a short speech mentioning that we didn't know how many of them would return to this school. She also told the kids that if they wanted their official grades, they would first have to settle up their bills. Only Tafadzwa is up to date will paying school fees, and Mandisa is R 5,000 behind with Mpho's bill. I am not sure how effective the children will be at persuading their errant parents to do the right thing. School broke up for Christmas.

It wasn't till I was nearly home that I remembered that I had put the tub of ice cream in the school freezer. At first I thought I would phone Angie at the school and tell her to share it out to the WCC staff. Then a better idea came to me to give it to the Riverview children this afternoon, if I could find a few items needed and juggle my activities to arrive at the optimum moment. At home we had had about 20 plastic cup tops. I sellotaped over the straw hole in them. I drove to the Crazy Store and bought plastic spoons. At about 2:25 I arrived at school and collected the tub, and borrowed a soup spoon. I arrived at Riverview about 2:45, when they were singing and I whispered to Mella that I had ice cream and we should eat it now. She nodded and soon I was ready to serve. She had brought back the remains of last week's cake, so we served ice cream with cake on the side of my plastic cup tops. Everyone was happy with it, and there were enough cup tops that we didn't need to re-use them. Then Kevin talked to them and they listened in rapt attention. I have noticed that he gets down on his haunched when talking with kids - low and clow as Heidi would say. At home in the evening we broadcast the GNiTM archive as usual. day

Tue Dec 4
We arrived at school about 10 and the art exam started at 10:30. L-A supervised Mpho and I supervised Tawana. I should have also checked Tatenda more rigorously because he left out the two questions that he could have scored well on, requiring the learner to draw something. Later in the day I was delighted to hear that Mpho had tied with Patrick for the top mark! Mpho has never been top in anything. Is this a breakthrough into his tortured brain? We are now in a major period of load shedding by Eskom. L-A, Maggie and Janey had planned to see 'Bohemian Rhapsody' at 5:15 today, but there was to be load shedding at 6, and the cinema told me they wouldn't be showing the film. I called Romans and ordered two large pizzas + ice cream and drinks for 9:45 tomorrow. I was driving near Roodeval when a lady with the traffic department pulled me over. She had notived my inticator continuing to signal after I had finished the turn and warned me to get it fixed.

Mon Dec 3
Day of the long-awaited science exam. I felt they'd had enough revision, and I'm not comfortable with coaching them right before the exam. I did have a review session, so I had prepared a lesson on nutrition, which is not part of the official curriculum. But when I arrived we had an immediate problem - nothing to write with, and no pencil sharpeners. And no Tafadswa. Only two had brought the propelling (mechanical) pencils I had given them, and there were no regular pencils. I don't know what they do with them but I suspect they take them home and forget to bring them in. So I asked Amber to mind the shop and drove to Compro. There I bought five pencils with erasors and a sharpener for R26. Back at school there was just time to get them seated and with the exam paper by 10:30. I worked with Mpho and Amber worked with Tawana to ensure that they at least understood the questions. I had set two exams, one for the older children Patrick, Tafadswa and Tawana, and a shorter selection of the same questions for Tatenda and Mpho. After a while I could see Tatenda was struggling badly. At around 11 Tafadzwa arrived, so he got started. By 11:30 all of them had finished the science exam, but Tafadzwa had a maths exam to do that he had been away for. So from 11:30 to noon I delivered the lesson on nutrition that I had prepared. They were amused to hear that chicken manure still has 75% nutrition and is good as pig food. The main message was moderation in all things, particularly with fat and sugar. The chicken manure information had been given to us by Johann in church who had been planning to move to Botswana as a pig farmer and had negotiated some deals with chicken farmers. He later decided not to go to Botswana. In the afternoon I arrived at Jamelia's house but she told me she wouldn't be able to teach today because of family problems. Bella was in, but not keen on leading on her own. However I was able to persuade her to do it and after changing she came out and I drove her to Tinktinkie. There was someone there who looked like Danielia - maybe her sister? - so I didn't greet her in the normal way. I had my guitar with me and went in with her. The children enjoyed singing several songs from my regular repertoire. I photographed the attendance sheet. Bella seemed comfortable so I drove on to Chrizelle's to find a locked door. Then on to Mannikin where both Chantelle and Anthonica had their groups running. I led both of them in singing to the Lord and they all joined in enthusiatically. Chantelle asked me for R30 as a contribution to her school's final day before holidays the next day. I gave her R10. I gave the same to Anthonica. It was now past 4 pm and I returned to Tinktinkie street. I asked the host if she was Danielia's sister, and she looked at me strangely - then I realized she was Danielia, whom I know well by now. She just looked different to me - but it was embarrassing. This is related to my difficulty in recognizing people I have just met. I can only assume the pattern-recognition neurons in my brain are dying off faster than being replaced. In the evening I marked the science exam. Patick and Tafadzwa shared top place. Tawana had only scored 23%. Since the questions were selected from the older boys exam, I was able to re-assess Tawana's mark had he taken the younger boys' exam: 39%. With Mella's permission we let the 39% be his mark.

Sun Dec 2
Dropped L-A off in the Sunday school where she will be speaking to the younger children for the first time about Christian art. Then drove to Avian Park to pick up Jamelia, Chantelle and Anthonica, all dressed in Sunday best. They had quiches in Milk and Honey before the service. They were warmly greeted by Jan and Joy in church. The first item after Johan's welcome talk was Mella's girls from Avian Park singing You are Holy. After the worship, L-A and about 70 young people went to the Sunday school rooms, and L-A welcomed about 55 to her talk on art. I was there to take some photos and a short video (and was introduced by Riana), before I returned to church to hear Johan's excellent sermon on titheing, which he illustrated with Mary's pouring a years earning's of perfume on Jesus. After church we took the girls to our house and gave them the cake Jan had given us, cut in three. When it was time to go home the kids persuaded me to take them to the mall. They love window shopping, and trying to get me to buy them things, which i didn't, except frozen yoghurts. I did notice that Bohemian Rhapsody was now playing in the Nu Metro cinema, so I called L-A, a raving Queen fan, and we decided to go to the 5:15 performance. The girls then tried hard to have me bring them too, but I was firm. We were at Nu Metro in good time, but there were only anout 8 people in the cinema to watch this really excellent film. I was never a particular fan of Queen, and all I knew about Freddy Mercury I had learned on the Alpha course from Nicky Gumbel. But this film has made me an instant fan and I want to check out all their music. The film has first rate audio of the music sequences, and the acting, particularly by Rami Malek as Freddy Mercury is uniformly excellent. Some critics have panned the film as recreation of the music without enough time spent on Freddy's questionable lifestyle, but I found it good in both those areas. However, what we do see of his bisexuality, though well portrayed for an adult audience, makes this totally unsuitable for children (though rated PG) and I am profoundly grateful that we hadn't been lured into taking our girls to see it.

Sat Dec 1
Prison ministry ran smoothly, though we missed Ricardo (but a day or so after this he befriended us both on Facebook). We wanted to buy some meat for tonight's braai at Jan's, but the line-ups at Britos and Pick n Pay were too long, so we got some word at the butcher across the High Street from Pick n Pay which we hadn't used before. We had 5 girls for Saturday Mailbox training, including Marsha, who hadn't come in a while, but has potential to run a club in her mother's house. I spoke on peer pressure and bullying, and L-A did a short soaking session followed by all writing their impressions / images / thoughts. We were suprized at how well this went - they had never done it before. After dropping the girls at their homes I came back and picked up L-A and the wors. The braai was for anyone connected with My Father's House, but only Mario and Rika and we actually came. Mario is a fine braaier and the food (including our wors) and company were all good.

Fri Nov 30
Early morning prayer was at our house, and seven of the group came, including Carlo. I wasn't expecting him because it's normally at his house, and I had decided to act as temporary group leader. So I did that anyway and hope I didn't break etiquette. I ran a science revision class at school. At our Afrikaans lesson I said to Janey that I needed to get my teeth into another method, and she suggested listening to SABC 2 TV, which has some Afrikaans regular programs with English subtitles. She had learned a lot that way. Maybe it would work for me. I was in Pick n Pay at 2:15 buying ice cream when the lights went out. They came on again from emergency genertors after half a minute, but when we drove home all the traffic lights were off, and at home our lights were off also. We were about to experience our first load-shedding by the national power company Eskom. which is deeply in debt, partly because it is owed huge amounts by municipalities. This seemed a good time to go to the hospice, so I called Erick, who was unable to cut hair without electricity, so he happily agreed to com. It was a good visit, with the highlight of seeing Christopher whose leg had been healed, but he couldn't raise his arm at all. So we both prayed. And prayed. 5 minutes later his arm would have grace a church worship service. Praise the Lord again! In the evening I had promised to take Anthonica and Chantelle to WCG for a teenagers program. I picked them up and brought them to the church by 5:45, but the church gate was shut. They asked for pizza, so we went to Debonairs and ordered. We didn't get back to church till 6:15, to be met by one of the organizers saying that the program was off because of the load shedding. On our way back to Avian Park, the girls spotted Marsha's mother and sister hoping for a lift home, so they got one and we had a good conversation. When I had dropped them off, Bridney's mother Veronica came to me and asked me to pray for her and her family, so I went into her house and did so. They were very grateful, and I was happy too, not just because I like to pray for anyone living here, but also because I want to get to know the parents of all of 'our girls.' By 7:00 I had got home, and the lights finally came back on. I wondered how the ice cream was that I had bought, but didn't open the freezer to look for several hours, when it turned out to be fine. It was a flavour new to me: raisin, and I like it.

Thu Nov 29
School exams meant my normal Thursday science lesson was pre-empted, so I was free to accompany L-A to have coffee at the Barn with Carl Greyling who shared his vision for the future of Doxa. Produce the show - Hermien Kruger - including a set of some music I had edited from the raw digitized versions in the last couple of days. When the show was broadcast we had four live listeners in addition to me who stayed with it for almost an hour.

Wed Nov 28
As I drove in to school the idea came to me to test them all together on the questions in this morning's music exam requiring me to play certain music on my computer, rather than test them individually. I had decided to spend my revision session partly on music and then on science. But when I arrived at school, only Tawana, Mpho and Tafadswa were present and correct. Noone knew where Patrck and Tatenda were. The music part of the revision was something I had done successfully with Patrick on Monday: write an 8-note tune on manuscript paper, and then play it, and finally add one-note harmony. So I gave them all short pieces of manuscript paper and they attempted it; even Mpho. Then we got on with science revision, working though some of the questions I had set in the exam. After the break the music exam started. We worked in sync on the four questions where I played sample music on computer. Then they went through the other questions, two of which Amber supervised, playing two guitar chords. Overall it went very well, though this was helped enormously by the fact that there were only three being examined. The last one ended shortly before noon, the official end to the exam. At at that moment, just after I had turned off the computer, Patrick and Tatenda arrived! They had been at Worcester primary School for entrance tests. Their mother Loveness hadn't thought to tell Mella in advance. I decided to repeat the exam for them right away, since my next engagement was 2:30 in Riverview. While the other learners waited, well behaved, in the lobby below in case transport arrived for them, I ran Patrick and Tatenda through the exam process. Patrick got many answers right that the others hadn't. We were done by 1 pm. Instead of investigating why no transport had yet arrived, I took all of them to their doors. On the way I asked Patrick why his mother hadn't called Mella, and he said she had no air time. He also gave me more details of of their time at Worcester Primary. He and Tatenda had been tested in four subjects, and he'd found the tests quite hard. After dropping them all off I drove home for a little lunch. L-A was still in bed suffereing from her allergies, and had discovered that anti-histamines including Fexofenadine caused whole body itching in rare cases. So I went off to the afternoon's kid's ministries alone. I arrived at Riverview to find very few children waiting. I had brought raw carrots and cheese slices. I haven't seen savoury foods served to the kids before - they are all hooked on sugar. Mella got there shortly after with cake and juice. At first Mella was close to quitting because of the lack of kids, but soon, as we started music, more came and we had about 21, 5 or 6 for the first time. She told them about being careful when walking in the forest or hills because of snakes and other dangers. This was preparatory to some of them going on a hike with Kevin this Saturday. Then they were fed and I made sure that they were offered carrots and cheese before the cake. Most were happy to have the carrots and cheese, and when I asked the group whether carrots or cake were better for them, they said carrots, I told them carrots were good for eyesight (visual purple), particularly here in South Africa where diabetes is rife because they eat so much sugar. I got going to Vinkrivier around 4:15, and got there before Kaysha. This was to be the last get together before the new year. That didn't stop the boys from trying every disruptive trick in the book, including swarming all over the cars. The Mercedes is pretty impervious to them, so I don't get worried any more. At about 6:20 we said goodbye and I drove to Jan's house for a GIG meeting. It was just the keen 6 who turned up: Bruno, Danielia, Tilanie, Divanie, Jan, and I. When I arrived they were discussing our various experiences with network marketing, so I gave them the Nu Skin story. We decided to terminate the current fruit and vegetables project, and start another project in January. We had made a small profit which would be distributed to us. I took Jan's remote door bell ringer home. She relies on her dogs to bark when a visitor arrives, but when I came, late, tonight, they refused to bark, so the only way to get in was to phone Jan. At home I found her batteries were low and the terminals corroded. After replacing batteries and cleaning the terminals the unit worked. Whether the bell push will now work remains to be seen. We had set up CWCP Radio so L-A could start the program, but I was home early enough to do so, and listen to Allen's God-given insight once again.

Tue Nov 27
This was the day Donald Trump
fired a broadside at Theresa May designed to encourage British parliamentarians to vote down the Brexit plan by saying it would jeopardize trade between USA and Britain. Meantime in the real world I switched this morning's science revision at school to music revision, since the music exam is tomorrow. They find it very hard to distinguish different genres of music, for example mixing up jazz and classical. I have made that part of the exam multi-choice. For this exam they'll also have to write notes on manuscript paper. Patrick managed it in this review session but I need to give the others more practice. We lunched with them at noon, after which there was no Afrikaans lesson so L-A had twice as long as normal to review art, which went extremely well, ending with them all drawing cars, and making good jobs of it. After school, since it was Tuesday, we went to the blood bank to see if they would accept L-A's blood. She has never given before. Unfortunately they turned her down because she is on Arthrotec, a very strong anti-inflamatory (which is also a blood thinner?) By now it was 2:15 and we had not eaten since breakfast so we went to Starpark for Chinese. It doubled as lunch and dinner.

Mon Nov 26
This is exam week at school, and Mella had given me the day off to fit in the English exam. I needed the day to set the music and science exams. L-A had prepared the art exam a week or more ago. So I got busy with the music exam in the morning. I had to find a way to examine 5 boy's abilities in playing piano, recorder and guitar, plus a number of music theory and appreciation matters. Here is the exam I came up with. At 2:50 I was in Avian Park, taking Jamelia to Tinktinkie St. Bella wasn't around - probably not back from school. All four clubs operated for the second time! Some of them took rather less than the allocated hour. I took some more videos of the songs they had sung. Anthonica asked if I would take her and her mother Tersia to a parents and children event at Anthonica's school that evening at 6. I agreed. I drove to Marsha's house on Pelikan and found her having her birthdy party, and Bridney was with her and about 7 friends - all potential Mailbox Club members. I suggested that if Marsha and Bridney would be more intentional about our Saturday trainings, they could start Mailbox Club #5 in Marsha's house. They liked the idea. This could be good. On my way home I picked up a spaghetti dish from OK for our dinner. I was back in Mannikin Street by 5:30 to take Anthonica and mother to the school, but mother took 20 minutes to get ready in her best outfit, so we were late at the destination. This was Worcester DRC Practising Primary School, where Anthonica has been for 8 years. Here best subjects are maths, English and Afrikaans. Tersia wanted to aske me for something but had great difficulty actually saying it. But on the way home, she did. Her embarrassment was that she hadn't paid me back R40 from weeks ago, not that I had ever expected it. Now she wanted to borrow R50 because she had no food in the house. I decided to make her day and drove to OK and bought them the same spaghetti dish that I had bought for us earlier. As we drove off, she gave a cigarette to a lady roadsweeper who she knew. I than asked her how much she was spending on cigarettes, and it was R50! We then had a financial talk, and I told her I wouldn't be buying her any more food unless she stopped smoking. As we approached her house she asked me for R20 for electricity and bread. By now I was pretty numb about giving to her so I gave Anthonica a R50 note; she bought the items and have me R30 back. In the evening I typed out the science exam from the 'Helps and Hints' book for Science - In the beginning.' By 9 I was mentally and physically very tired and went to bed. L-A has been suffering whole body itching from the allergies that we haven't yet identified that she is taking anti-histamines for. She started a diet today based on Annique Roibos Lifestyle shakes. She has gained inches and pounds in the past year and feels she must take some action to get back to where she was last time she sat in an aeroplane seat. I tried to disable the touchpad on my computer, since random curser jumping has been rampant, but was unable to, although I have been successful in the past. So I stuck cardboard over the curser, and it greatly reduced the problem.

Sun Nov 25
We picked up Anthonica and Chantelle in their Sunday best and had them drinking coffee in Milk and Honey by 9 am. It was fun introducing them to our friends, including Hilton and Peiter-Louis. Hilton told them of a dream he had had of us in the bush with miner's headlamps seeking out people to tell them about Jesus. He also asked if I would be able to host Friday's prayer meeting. The girls loved the praise music. We were in translation row, and they were a few feet away. Johan was sick, so Pieter-Louis preached, having had a call from Johan at 6 am. They joined the teenagers' church. When it was over they asked if we wouuld be able to take them to a special youth event at the church on Friday. Then we took them to McDonalds for lunch. I dropped l-A off at cell group and drove them home. They had had a great time. In the afternoon, L-A skyped steve and he seemed in good spirits, and Carol's operation had been fully successful. Praise the Lord for that! Mella was interviewed live on Valley FM at 5 pm and I set up the ARwizard to record it. She spoke on the history of Teachers of the Nations. When it was set up, we drove to WCG to lead this month's Soaking Prayer in Action. Chris, David and Lovejoy came. Soon after it started, David told us the full story of his difficulties finding somewhere to live big enough for him and Sylvia. His one income is as caretaker at Maranatha church, and without two incomes the paie cannot afford the rent on a larger space. Hopefully Sylvia will find work in a pharmacy here, now that her mother in a care home. I realized that David really needed counsel on this so I abandoned the normal routine for soaking and we let him get it all off his chest, and he listened to our advice.

Sat Nov 24
Soraya called at 7 to ask if we were 'on' for prison ministry. I said that I had not received confirmaton from Glenda, but that we should go anyway. She said she didn't want to go all that way for nothing. A little later I called her and said that on reflection, maybe she should not come in because I could not guarantee success. I was concerned that it might prevent us going in, and today was Ricardo's last day. She said that she would like to come and would take some artist materials in case she had to wait ourside for 2 hours. I said OK, and packed the purple chair. There were no problems taking her in and it turned out Glenda had told security to expect Soraya, but she hadn't told us! Soraya got on really well with the men. She gave a good talk explaining what was in her heart. She was really happy to have been there - her first time within a prison. We had coffee at Bob Bon on the way home to celebrate. We only had 4 girls for Saturday training/ministry, but it was a good time. I taught on not expecting life to be fair, and rejoicing when something nice happened to someone else, instead of being envious. L-A taught on hearing God speaking to us, and we then had some soaking prayer followed by all of us writing what had come into our minds during the soaking. It seems the Holy Spirit was indeed at work in the group, judging by what was drawn on paper. They like being in our house, and getting them to go at the end wasn't easy. On the way to their homes, Anthonica and Chantelle asked if they could come to our church in the morning. This is good! I said we would pick them up at 8:45.

Fri Nov 23
I picked up Soraya at 6:45 and was in Brandvlei to introduce her to Glenda by 7:15. They hit it off right away. Soraya's heart for reaching the lost shone right out of her. I gave Glenda the attendance sheets for our first Alpha, and showed her a certificate as given out to 3 so far. It appears Soraya could come in with us a couple of times to the Medium even before she gets her clearance. Tomorrow morning would be possoble. I asked if she would like me to put her in touch with Carl Wake, and she said 'Yes Please.' After the three of us had chatted for 45 minutes, she took us to meet Denovan Philips, education manager. I think her is Redwaan Adams boss, and he would like the three of us to meet and talk about possible involvement for us in Brandvlei Radio. There was no school today - Mella had so declared it, so after dropping off Soraya at YWAM very happy, I left the washing at the laundry and picked up some breakfast wors at OK, which L-A and I enjoyed in leisurely fashion when I got home. L-A saw a news item that back to work legislation for Canada Post was almost complete, and Lynn Whatsapped that my cheque had arrived in the amount of $1,769.95, almost exactly my claim.

Thu Nov 22
On 12 November, Jasper Cloete. founder of GIG, had called me and suggested a meeting with our club. Today was the day and I was at Jan's in good time. Danielia had the fruit and vegetable hampers available in the back of her van. He arrived on time and addressed the small number of our club members who bothered to show up, and four guests, one of whom, Awesome Bekeh was amoung the 50 people I had invited via Internet invitations. Two of the guests were from Disciple the Streets, and I offered to give them a GIG presentation, since there arrived an hour late to this one. I thought Jasper's talk made a few aspects sound more complex than they needed to be, considering we had people there new to GIG. He did give a picture of GIG in the future, where wealth coaches were able to earn good money, and members could solicit insurance business, similar in some aspects to Primerica (it appears to me). I Skyped Allianz to hear good news: they had approved my back problem claim in full and the money had been sent to Lynn's address several weeks ago. This was very good news for us! There have been rotating strikes in Canada Post for a long time, so the cheque may still take a while to reach Lynn.

Wed Nov 21
At Riverview, Mella had invited a guest speaker, Dianne La Roux, and combined her Riverview and Avian Park kids, so we were 60 in number plus leaders. She had asked me to bring enough pizza, so I had odered 3 thick crust Romans double large. We started with music, and it was a pretty good sound. Here's one of our favourites, Our God is a Great Big God, with a short taste of Dianne. Her talk was aimed at pregnancy prevention, which she did by describing the amazing journey which is the first 9 months of life following conception. Township folk have little understanding that actions have consequences, and these young people are at the right age to tackle this side effect of poor or non-existing parenting. After Riverview we went to Vinkrivier where Kaysha had decided to bring the boys back with the girls. It didn't work. The boys were even worse behave than normal and a lot worst that where it was just boys at the sports field. Kaysha finally decided to halt the proceedings and we went through the challenge of getting into the car without boys getting in first. At one point I was backing the car with a boy standing on the rear fender and some devilishness entered my mind and I backed really close to a wall so that he would worry I was going to hit the wall and crush his legs. I stopped in good time but my point was made and a few minutes later he made as if he would throw stones at me or the car. At this point I saw how foolish I had been. Luckily no harm came of it. I called Janey and mella to see if either was interested in buying GIG fruit or veg, and Mella said yes to a small fruit hamper.

Tue Nov 20
There was no signal on FM 98.7 - Brandvlei Radio. As I walked back into the house after trying to listen in the car, it occured to me to contact them with a suggestion, so I called and got the name and number of the main man in the radio section, Redwaan Adams. I spoke briefly with him and he asked me to email him with my request. After school I went to the Blood Transfusion Service (WP Blood Transfusion service) with my signed application to donate. They were friendly, professional, efficient and quick. It was hard to notice the needle going in - certainly no pain. There were just two other donors at the time. Afterwards I drank their coffee and ate their snacks. This was my 52nd donation: 50 in Candada and one in Mozambique. Back home I called Ridwaan Adams. My request to him by email had been:

    "I know your radio station has been off air for more than a week. I also know that one of your broadcasters, Ricardo, was not heard this morning or a week ago, when I was listening in. I also know he is leaving the institution in about a week. I run an internet radio station in Worcester, see http://bit.ly/2HSCeBi - CWCP Radio. I imagine Ricardo worked hard preparing his broadcasts, and It would be disappointing if that creativity were wasted. If you are able to get him into your studio to make recordings of one or more of his talks, it would be my pleasure to broadcast them on CWCP. In fact I would be happy to broadcast anything you wish by other contributors. Material can be sent to me by WeTransfer, in mp3 format. I can edit it - no need for you to do that. I would also be happy for you to rebroadcast any of our podcasts. My wife and I have been in the medium wing at Brandvlei every Saturday since 7 July 2018, and Ricardo has attended every week of our course. So we are part of the Brandvlei community. I am coming in to see Rev Glenda Fredericks this Friday at 8 am, and maybe we could meet briefly then. I have to leave by 8:45."

He replied fairly soon, said they had been off-air while new equipment was installed, and that it would not be possible to record Ricardo in the short time till he leaves, but encouraged me to keep in touch in the future when he expects to be broadcasting on a Muizenberg station. He hopes we will meet on Friday morning. At 6 pm we were at Jan's for the AGM of My Father's House. There were only two others who showed up - Mario and Jacobus, a member of Disciple the Streets, who Jan has been training in councelling. So our meeting was more of a brainstorming, and Mario put forward the suggestion of a partnership between My Father's House and his organization Action International.

Mon Nov 19
At 2:45 I arrived at Jamelia and Bella's houses and took them to Danielia's. The children in that club had arrived an hour before (they have no watches) and Danielia had taken the opportunity to ask them a few lifestyle questions. These are ages 8 - 10. Almost all were being given alcohol by their parents. Some were being given dakka (Marjuana). Danielia was shocked, and she lives in Avian Park. It is cruel the way some parents 'bring up' children here. I then went to Moisvoer Street, and Rachel Williams came out. One of the boys from the original club here was there and I explained to him that we won't be running a club in this location. I prayed with Rachel. Then on to Mockingbird, where Chrizelle and Macayla were waiting for children they had invited. On to Mannikin where both Chantelle and Anthonica had children and were about to start. Anthonica told me it was her birthday yesterday. I said I would buy her a gift and she asked if the three children in the club could come with us. I returned to Chrizelle's house and was introduced to 5 children. I am proud of Chrizelle and Macayla for actually doing what I had suggested, and finding new children in their vicinity. I asked if they had sung a praise song - they had, and I asked if they would sing it again for my phone to record. They did, and produced broadcastable music. I went to Danielia's and the group were wrapping up, and pictures being taken. I drove them to their homes, and then went to Anthonica's and picked her and the 3 children up. These kids are fun and very well behaved. For the next hour we went shopping in various stores till Anthonica had found what she wanted - cut-off jeans and a top. The kids were in wonderland for them. Anthonica wanted to be spoiled, and expected me to do so, but I called a halt to her continual requests for more, including money on top of the gifts. Then I got them all some chicken to go home on.

Sun Nov 18
We left home about 9 for the Father's House school graduation. It was a morning of joy as the 5 students including Russell were appreciated. David made a comprehensive film, but isn't planning to post it to social media. We had an excellent brunch. When I mentioned to Johan that we planned to go to Cum Books in the afternoon, he asked me if I would get A Passion for Position by Afrika Mhlophe for him. David (keyboard) and Russell (guitar) played some worship songs very nicely for us. Sandy, one of the graduates (from Egypt) took me to task one-on-one for referring to Russell as an ex-convict on our CWCP Radio Facebook. I didn't understand her objection, but she hinted that Russell hadn't liked the descriptor either. It can't have been easy for Sandy to bring this up. Later that day I did remove the offending words. At about 2 pm we left for Paarl, and picked up the missing 4 Bibles. On our way home we decided to investigate the small resort just South of the road about 5 Km west of the Hugenote Tunnel. It proved a delightful spot with great coffee and magnificent views. Maybe this lovely half hour was the reason we had made the second trip to Paarl in 2 days.

Sat Nov 17
We are up to 'Who is Jesus?' in our second Alpha course in the Medium wing in Brandvlei. This week I had registered it at Alpha SA, and confirmed our first course was registered. We were held up at the prison gate for 25 minutes behind about 12 cars, and when we got into the chaplaincy room all the men were already waiting. I told the story of Neil Armstrong (because he is topical with the movie First Man) and 'Good Luck, Mr Gorsky' and they were in fits of laughter. We went straight on to Paarl after prison on our mission to buy Afrikaans Bibles for the Mailbox Club leaders. We wanted 10, but Cum Books in Paarl only had 4. They phoned ahead to their shop in Cape Gate Mall who had another 6. We did buy a blender in Paarl which L-A has needed for a long time. In Cape Gate near Cum Books is a Body Shop, so I called her because she needed some products - shower gel and body butter - and picked them up. Cum Books had the Bibles waiting for me. We lunched in a Spur there. It was only when we got home that we discoveded that neither of us had actually bought the first 4 Bibles in Paarl. We each thought the other had done so. We wondered if the Holy Spirit was up to his tricks of finding a way to get us to do something we weren't expecting. Cum in Paarl was open till 5 tomorrow, Sunday. I spent a fair amount of time editing and posting videos I had shot at Vinkrivier - Catching the Train - last Wednesday and The Champion at YWAM on Thursday.

Fri Nov 16 At early morning prayer I harnessed the group again with praise for three mailbox clubs, and prayer for a fourth next Monday. After school I picked up L-A and we went to a My Father's House board meeting. There were only four of us. We updated them on the mailbox clubs progress. At 1:15 I picked up Soraya and took her down to the Police Security office. There was quite a line up. While she (and N2athan) were there, I went to record Hermien Kruger for CWCP. That program even gives sound health advice. I went back to Soraya, and she was almost done. The really good news was that these days the applications are sent to Pretoria and back by the police. We postponed Afrikaans (Janey not up to it) which meant I could go to the blood donor clinic. Unfortunately I had misunderstood their opening hours. I'll try again on Tuesday morning. The Brexit situation is at a critical point; I follow it closely on BBC World News. I tweeted that the whole problem was caused by government by referendum. The people had voted for leaving the EU without understanding the first thing about the complexity of the consequences of their foolish decision. Now some of the MPs think that ousting PM Theresa May would be a solution - but what a crazy thing to even think about at such a time. That's like smoking drugs when your life is in a mess. Hey, when we get back to Canada I imagine the marjuana segment of the population will be permanently happy and incompetant.

Thu Nov 15
At 1:30 interviewed Anthony Hall and Kurt Pretorius at RAEL. This is a really professional organization and Anthony is an expert in his field, having come through a very low place in his life which inspired him to set up this addiction treatment centre, which attracts the rich and famous. He always has four spots for people who cannot pay. At 6 pm was in Zweletemba to pick up our 5 boys for a performance at YWAM. Khanyo came out of the house and I was able to persuade him to accompany us. He immediately slotted back into the group like he had never left. The boys played soccer for 10 minutes before the praise and dancing started. It was vigourous and soon all the boys except Patrick were up front dancing to the music and having a great time. Then came the main event: a dance performance of Carman's 'The Champion.' This was produced by Nicky Rabie, who teaches drama at MasterPeace Academy, and is one of the translation team at WCG. She has wanted the boys to see it. I took photos and video, but unfortunately failed to shoot the final scene when Jesus rises again. On our way home we stopped at McDonalds for ice cream.

Wed Nov 14
In music class we have been practising simple tunes on the keyboard and three basic chords on the guitar. They find this quite hard, particularly the guitar. So I don’t want their music exam to include a lot of playing. Today therefore we covered some music general knowledge and appreciation (which lend themselved to exam questions some with multiple choice answers), as well as playing. Patrick was invited to compose a simple tune which I notated on the white board and later to manuscript paper. The tune used three harmonies represented by the notes C, F and G to be played by the left hand. When he was able to play the tune, he then taught the others while he played the harmony. Meantime Amber watched as the boys not on the keyboard attempted to play C, G7 and F chords on the guitar. I played 6 music pieces on my computer and asked the learners to identify the genres. I then played 6 instruments on computer and asked the learners to identify them. I then asked each student to play certain notes on the keyboard, eg F#, Bb. I asked them what they thought harmony was. Finally I played 6 musical forms (eg Symphony, instrumental song, concerto) and invited students to identify them.

Laurie-Ann is still suffering from allergies that give her earache and Tinnitus, and headaches. She opted out of the kids ministries this afternoon. I helped Mella out in Riverview with music, some photography, and drinks preparation. At Vinkrivier Kaysha had a police friend, Ivan, and his wife, as well as Russell and David (from Singapore) with the boys. I refereed a soccer game. Then Ivan came up with a great idea to teach them some parade ground drill. Russell has army training behind him, so he acted as the sergeant major. Soon we were marching up and down the soccer pitch. The boys loved it and did exactly what they were told. We all moved inside the hut for some goodbyes and prayer. This was the last time the boys would see the missionaries.

Five minutes before we dispersed, I heard a train whistle. Ten minutes later I caught up with a goods train on its way West. I was faster than the train so drove on a couple of kilometers and waited for it. I got video as it passed. Then I drove on to the crossing at Nye and got more film. Finally as the train approached Worcester, I filmed it from the (moving) car.

Tue Nov 13, 1 year anniversary of this journal.
I forgot to tune into Brandvlei radio to listen to Ricardo. Science went reasonably well except more continual talking from Tatenda and Mpho, who are giving bad habits to Seth. At 10:40 I had a date with Marius Rabie. When he had served coffee we talked a little about some mutual interests, and then Marius reminded be of his long term project to take his whole family visiting missionaries in the field. I encouraged him from the standpoint of a missionary. I also recommended getting some training at The Father's House (Iris Western Cape), and as a first visit to consider Josh and Rachael Minter at the East London IRIS Affiliate "Grace and Mercy Ministries." L-A's music class was good, but Tatenda had now convinced Seth that talking all the time was what was expected. This was not a case of boredom with a lesson. The others were fully attentive. Near the end I felt I needed to give them both a lesson of a different sort, and I hauled them off to the next door room. Tatenda really didn't care, but it was traumatic for Seth who burst into tears. I let him back into the class but he stayed crying. Later when we were waiting for Mandisa I asked all of them what was the matter these last two days and so much bad behaviour. They had no explanation. On our way home we drove to Worcester tool rental and were able to rent a heavy duty vacuum cleaner for R 165. By 4:30 the two carpeted rooms were looking spic and span and I returned the vacuum cleaner. That was pretty good value. In the evening I gave thought to tomorrow's music lesson; it had to lead to something I could examine them on. I included a variety of music appreciation subjects as well as some playing and composition.

Mon Nov 12
This was the science experiment where the boys got to break up stones to show where one of the ingredients of soil comes from. After school, went shopping for groceries and another batch of 30 pencils for our Mailbox Clubs in Avian Park. I prayed again that the children would come. At 2:50 I was at Chrizelle's to pick up her and Macayla. I suggested to Macayla we could go shopping for her T-shirt after the clubs today. We went on to Jamelia and Bella's. When we arrived in Moisvoer, Rachel Williams wasn't there for the second week running, and there were about 5 children ready to partake but nowhere for them to be. And there had been shootings and gang violence in the area the night before so I didn't want people to be hanging about waiting. So we drove on to Tinktinkie where Danielia was ready for us, so Jamelia and Bella went in as the children began to arrive. Next stop Mannikin Street where Anthonica and Chantelle were collecting their children from up the street. There was one girl who Chantelle and Anthonica both wanted in their club, so I picked up a small stone and asked Chantelle to tell me which hand it was in. She got it wrong so that's the true story of how one small girl got into Anthonica's club. Chrizelle suggested that we move the Mailbox Club from Rachel's house to the house where she lives. This is what I had wanted at the start, but her sister (?) had said no. But Chrizelle felt she would change her mind if she heard what had happened. I told them they would need to find a group of 8+ year olds and they were confident they could do it. In a week I will need to see the kids in the Muisvoer area, and tell them they wouldn't be having a club after all, and I also need to inform Rachel. As we drove on, Macayla suggested we went now to Mountain Mill, and I felt we could make it and get back before 4. It is Chrizelle's birthday on 15 November so I was obviously in it for two T-Shirts. They quickly dismissed four stores, but in Mr Price they found two identical tops, tried them on and I bought them. I was back in AP by four, and after dropping off Chrizelle and Macayla, went to Mannikin and found both clubs being correctly run. Chrizelle told ne her family had no bread in the house so I got her a loaf from a street store nearby. Anthonica asked me for a rand, so I gave her 10, the price of a loaf. I am amazed that these girls who are doing so well for the Mailbox Club both live in brick hovels where their families don't know where the next meal is coming from, and I am sure it's the mothers and fathers who pressure the girls to ask me for money of food, and I don't resent it. Going home I thanked the Holy Spirit that we had had 3 operational clubs, and the potential for a fourth in a better location was high. He is working through these precious children. A couple of hours later I spoke with Jan and updated her with today's events. I went to the blood donor clinic but found they weren't open for business except on Tuesdays and Fridays, so I picked up an application. Last week I had heard on the radio that there is a desperate shortage of donors - only one in a hundred people. Jasper Cloete called me (!) and said he was speaking in Paarl on 22 November and wondered if we would like him to come on to Worcester and speak to our club. I said 'yes please' and over the next week had further contact with him about details. In the evening I listened to the podcast of yesterday's 'Good News in the Morning,' and then of 'Over my Head' for Remembrance Day - excellent, with an interview with Nick Greco,

Sun Nov 11, the 100th anniversary of the ending of the first world war.
South Africans and the media here largely ignored Remembrance Day. I woke early and decided to get some urgent things done. I skipped Brian Houston TV for the first time in months, but my do lists were just so full. At church we bought a denim grocery bag from Heather to cut down on plastic bags. Both the music and Johan's sermon (why did Jesus write in the sand 2) were anointed. After church we did some shopping then went home for half an hour's computing before connect group. There was a new lady there called Zoro with her child. Mella was having a Topsy Turvey sales of dolls etc, but I forgot to go in the afternoon. Instead I drove out to RAEL Sober City to make sure I would be able to find it on Thursday to interview founder Anthony Hall. Hooggelegen is visible from there. L-A cooked a great supper with meat balls and fresh vegetables bought this morning. Then we watched Hidden Figures in the office on my computer with good sound and were blown away with the movie (even though the Internet stopped about 6 times while we were watching).

Sat Nov 10
1 year anniversary of our arrival in South Africa! At 5:30 am I picked up Amber in Roodeval, and then the others as planned plus a girfriend of Amber's. At the rendezvous, a nice man called Wilfred, who was the organizer of the hike, took them and about 6 others in his bus to Mcgregor. I went home with lots of time but feeling tired, and organized my do list so as to get as many things completed during the weekend. At Brandvlei we were greeted enthusiasticly by a female guard at the gate to the Medium wing like old friends come to visit. I had forgotten the Blackstar amplifier, so I played acoustic. For the first time we tried jokes - lawyer jokes actually, and they all laughed. we started Alpha again, but with the Alpha Film Series, so a few who had been there from the start when we used Youth Alpha still saw material for the first time. I told them we would be with them for a few more weeks and over Christmas, but then may be moving to the young offenders wing. That will depend on getting Soraya security cleared. At home I was nervous about the afternoon with the girls; it had to go well to give us a chance on Monday, so I did some praying. We had 7 girls, a good sign, all except Chrizelle, and that needed two trips in the car. Chantelle had brought a small amplifier/speaker and all the girls danced for a while. When we got started with the lesson, I gave a pep talk on accountability and commitment. We did a teach-in on the gifts and fruits of the Spirit, as part of encouraging them with the importancents of the task they had accepted. A high point of the day was when we had them encourage each other in turn. They really got into it, and Bella translated from their Afrikaans with which they all felt more comfortable for this task. They caught the enthusiasm, some of them encouraging more than one, including us. It was very special. At the end, it was tough trying to persuade just two to get into the car for the first return trip, but Chantelle and Anthonica figured that with just two they might persuade me to buy them some food and drink, and they were right. I was happy to reward them for breaking the deadlock. After dropping them, I heard a shout on Mockingbird Street, and Kevin was there with some of his boys. One of them was the boy whose attitude changed dramatically when his peers said nice things about him. I was able to tell him that his experience had inspired me to have our girls encourage each other that afternoon. Taking the other five girls home, we went via the Mall in an effort to find a T-Shirt for Macayla's birthday yesterday (she had received no birthday presents) but we were too late; the Mall's clothing stores were all closed. I promised Macayla a T-shirt next week. In the evening, L-A and I celebrated our first year completion with dinner at Spur. My sirloin steak with prawns and a cheese sauce was memorable. Next door to the resaturant and visible to us on the Mountain Mill stage was an arm wrestling competition, with musiewewic by a Worcester folk band called the 'Zeros" (?). For dessert we got frozen yoghurt cones. Back home we drank a bottle of Sweet William sparkling rose. I rented the film Hidden Figures from iTunes and then spent 90 minutes trying to play it on pink Dell connected to our big Insignia screen. There were two problems. I now think that rented movies can only be played on the machine used for renting them. Also, the 64-bit iTunes I downloaded wouldn't run on pink Dell because of incompatibility with one file that had been previously downloaded by a more recent version of iTunes. In the end we were both too tired, and went to bed. Today was the first day that my cut thumb and fingers didn't cause me grief.

Fri Nov 9
There were 8 of us at early morning prayer - a record during my time - and one of them had listened to CWCP the night before, so we talked a little about Willem, whose house was just down the street. One person, Marius(2), was back after a long absence. There were flapjacks (like Scotch pancakes) and honey, baked by Riana, who mentioned that Laurie-Ann's future talk to the WCG Sunday school was shaping up to be a popular event. Mella asked me if I would pick up Amber, Patrick and Tafadzwa early tomorrow and deliver them to a rendezvous where they would be bussed to McGregor (South of Robertson) for a hike.

Thu Nov 8
I called Zikhona Ndevu at Worcester Hospital, and was turned down as a hospital visitor on the grounds that they weren't accommodating volunteer visitors any more! After school I drove to Erick's salon, but he wasn't there. His partner remembered me from coming for my haircut. Later Erick called me, and I told him that there would be no visiting Worcester Hospital patients on Friday evening. I suggested instead that we visit the hospice, but this afternoon instead of Friday evening. This was OK with him, so I picked him up at the salon at 2. After we had prayed in the women's ward, I suggested that he pray a little more softly. They couldn't understand his French, and some of them seemed alarmed by his Congolese enthusiasm. In the mens' wards he was more restrained, and it all worked out better. He was in tears for them in some cases. After, we prayed together in the garden. He had found the whole experience quite moving. On the way back I showed him the entrance to the Botanical Garden, the 19th Hole Golf Villa, and Pro-Fitment where he would be able to have his car aircon gassed up.

Wed Nov 7
Watched the 8 am news to discover that Trump would no longer control the House of Representatives. Part of me felt dissappointed that he would now have to work harder for many of his ideas to become reality, but another part was relieved that there would be some restraint against excesses. Called Rachel Williams, and she apologised for not being home on Monday. She will be there next Monday. I made very sure that I had everything needed for the science experiment, and it went well. They like it when hot stoves and food colouring are involved, needed to make a thermometer. Back at 12:30 for music class, we did a continuation of last week, some boys practising the simple tune on the piano, while Amber taught others the basic guitar chords. Patrick did most of the piano teaching. Then we had a 'Worcester's got talent' session and I played the harmonies on guitar to each of their tune playings. Everyone except Mpho played the tune without a mistake and they all got stars! It was a very good session. When I drove Amber back to Roodeval afterwards, she said a strange thing - commenting on the fact that I was always busy; trying to do too much. Now I have had this from L-A and Jan and others, but coming from Amber it stopped me in my tracks. She only sees a small part of my day; how would she know? I drove to Worcester Hospital to see about a possbile visit with Erick on Friday night. After speaking with several reception desks I was given the name of the person who might give us permission: Zikhona Ndevu, 023 348 1125. Both kids clubs in the afternoon went well. We are welcomed warmly these days by many of the children, and they seem less like problems and more like friends. Russell had been trying to fix a door post in the little hut, but the screws weren't catching in the dowels - they were too short. I drove to the Pick n Pay hardware store in Robertson and found some longer ones he will be able to use next week. Mella called to see if I would come on a school Hike in Mcgregor on Saturday. When I reminded her we will be in Brandvlei, she asked if I could have the boys for the night before since they had to be ready by 6 am. Again I turned her down, since we have no spare beds other than a couch bed. Amber would have been proud of me. In the evening after listening to Allen on CWCP (the only listener according to Icecast), I proof-read L-A's new prayer newsletter, and added some stuff, including a suggestion that more of our friends actually tune in occasionally to CWCP, and check out our postings on social media etc. I posted multiple Whatsapps about CWCP with Willem tomorrow.

Tue Nov 6
I tried to listen in to Brandvlei Radion on 98.7. One way way would be with the radio app on my Blackberry Q10. We have no regular FM radio. I could just hear some slight sound of voices, but the signal was far too weak. I should set it up on the car radio. The day of the US mid-term elections, though we in SA won't know the results until tomorrow. We have been keeping abreast of this exciting event on BBC Worls Service News. I was feeling several degrees under, though the thermometer said only 1/10 of a degree. L-A thought I might have a touch of the allergy she was being treated for so she gave me one of her anti-histamine tablets and a couple of sniffs of Avamys. Perhaps because of this I forgot to take some of the items to school that were needed for today's experiment - making a simple thermometer. So when I got there I had them write up the experiment in their science books in advance of actually doing the experiment tomorrow. This method may have been preferable; it gave me more opportunity to teach the key points before thay had seen the answers demonstrated. In art class, Seth, who had been in my music class a week ago, was back. L-A showed her home movie from when she went to Paris with her mother. Then she re-ran her presentaion on Pop Art.ry po Then the children continued on their drawings from last week, including Patrick doing a pizza delivery man. Mandisa had called Mella to say she would be late collecting the children, so I said we would take them all home, since we then planned to go to Nye to pick up some wine. Amber accepted our invitation to accompany us there, and the three of us had a nice coffee party. We were home in time for me to interview Willem Theaart, who has an unusual and effective ministry in his garden at Hugo Naude and Cilliers which we pass by every day. He had been nervous, since he had never done a media interview, but it turned out very powerful. After the materiel needed for the program he started telling me about miracles in his life. I quickly pressed 'record' on the Marantz and captured some remarkable stories over the next half hour that I may be able to use for a second program if the quality is adequate. Near the end of our time together, by when his equally spiritual wife Jolene had brought us rooibos, I asked for him to pray for divine communication among the Avian Park children so that they turn up on Monday's for the Mailbox Clubs. Back home I was feeling myself again, quite a change from this morning. We had an excellent supper of leek in white sauce, corn and meatballs. When slicing the last piece of Daily Bread bread with the big knife, it slipped and I managed to put two small nicks in my left hand index and middle fingers. My right thumb is still in plaster because it bled again yesterday. These finger injuries are giving me more aggravation than my back. Must be more careful! L-A had some really good news. One of our long time friends gong back to Kanata Community Alpha, Alan Herbert (who bought much of our rock music collection) would like to buy one of her recent pieces of art, a drawing of a waterfall. I believe L-A to a be very fine artist with several unique styles, and I am sure the piece will give him much pleasure over many years.

Mon Nov 5
I forgot to try and listen in to Brandvlei Radio before going to school. After school I went to the hospital to see about visiting on Friday, and was told to call in and ask for the matron. In the afternoon I picked up Chrizelle, Macayla and Jamelia and took them to their Mailbox Club locations, After dropping off Jamelia at Danielia's, we went to Muisvoer to find no sign of Rachel Williams in her house. So we had teachers, children, but no place to go. I called Rachel Williams but got no answer, and the girls told me afterwards I was risking losing my phone to one of the small crowd gathered around the car. We drove back to Danielia's, and Bella and some children had shown up. Macayla wanted to stay there but Chrizelle wanted to see how things were going in Mannikin Street. She won the day, but when we arrived both Anthonica and Chantelle were looking for their children in the street without success. Athonika had given out her Mailbox books and pencils to her children, so they were gone and she was asking for more. Chantelle got in and we drove to the library, picking up Marsha on the way. At the library Chantelle found most of her club. She asked them to walk to her house. At that moment I saw a boy on one of the ubiquitous yellow bicyles turn a corner on the pavement and knock down a ~7 year old girl. I went to see if she was hurt. She wasn't bleeding, but she wasn't saying much and couldn't stand up. Marsha arrived there and carried her into the car. She wasn't crying, and she was able to tell the girls where she lived, so we went there. It was Eggbater territory so our girls didn't want to get out, or even stay in that place, but by now the girl was walking unaided to her home. We returned to Danielia's and picked up Jamelia and Bella and several of the children. The car was packed. I asked the leaders to look out for their learners during the week and remind them to be at their clubs at 3 next Monday. I delivered them all to their homes. I drove home wondering how to recover the situation and hoping the whole concept wasn't derailing. It seemed to me that we were dependent on 7 - 10 year olds coming to certain places each week, while none of them had watches or calendars. But that doesn't explain Rachel's absence. I will talk to her. In the eveing my #1 task was to find an interviewee for Thursday. After dinner I called Willem, the garden evangelist from down the street, and he agreed.

Sun Nov 4
A coloured man I hadn't seen before came into church and took a seat near me. Johan made an alter call, and a lady of the congregation approached him and encourgaged him to go to the front. He didn't move. I was thinking "I should have been the one to speak to him." Part of me (Satan?) said to me "he said no, let it be." Another part (Holy Spirit?) was urging me to speak with him. Usually people need more than one invitation to do something. After a little while I touched hime, and said he should go for prayer. He did. I escorted him to one of the prayer team. Erick asked if I would be interested in starting a visiting group for the Worcester Hospital, I explained that we already have one in theory, the Soaking Prayer in Action group. We agreed that the two of us would visit on Friday evening. Following that, if it proves productive, we could invite others from the group to join us. First, I need to get permission from the hospital. Heather McComb came home with us after church for lunch (the remnants of our Waterblommetjiebredie) and for L-A to set up a simple spreadsheet for her business accounting. At 3pm we Skyped CKCU and were interviewed live by both Dave Leibold and Joeal Bernard, with a Marius Rabie song dividing it into two. There was a slight hitch at the start when we could hear Dave but he couldn't hear us, which turned out to ba a switch in the wrong position on the board. It all went quite well. I should have visied the hospice but didn't - instead playing catch-up uploading recent photos to Flickr.

Sat Nov 3
At Brandvlei (always good), Ricardo mentioned that he was broadcasting regularly on Brandvlei Radio, 98.7 FM, from 9 till 11 each week day. I resolved to listen in. The final video for Alpha was not going to be the end of our time with these men. Some who joined after the beginning need the opportunity to see the programs they missed, so we will be back for a few more weeks. In the afternoon, only two of our regular Mailbox learners came out, Chantelle and Jamelia, but they brought occasional attenders Amy Cloete and Bridney. We commissioned Chantelle. Glenda Fredericks called me in the afternoon to apologize for her absence yesterday morning. We had a good chat about the future needs in Brandvlei. She has plenty of volunteers in the Max, but few in the Youth wind, and she asked if we would switch. Actually she asked if we could do both but I declined dure to time constraints. She wants to get Soraya on board, and we will need Soraya in the youth wing were the prevalent language is Afrikaans. I need to work towards getting Soraya her security clearance.

Fri Nov 2
The school plan for today was to finish at noon, with Patrick, Tafadzwa and Tawana coming to our house for an 'Art Party.' and the others being taken home early. The motivation behind the Art Party was to understand the Life and death of Vincent van Gogh, whom the learners had been studying in art class, and to learn about Van Gogh’s brush strokes and sense of colour by experiencing 90 minutes of it in cinema form. All three present had made excellent or very good attempts to draw The Starry Night or Wheatfield with Crows and caught the spirit of Vincent’s painting style. Present were Patrick, Tafadzwa and Tawana. The boys were driven from school by teacher Tony to our home. En route a large pizza was collected at Romans. First we ate at the dining table. There were peperoni and tropical to choose from. Pepperoni proved slightly more popular, except for Tafadzwa who doesn’t like spices. They had real juice, rather than concentrate. Then we all watched Loving Vincent (downloaded from iTunes). Every frame in this unique film was hand painted by a team of artists. Many of those frames could be hung on anyone’s wall and give long-term pleasure.

This film can be enjoyed on at least two levels: Firstly, the visual experience of a feast of art in van Gogh’s style and featuring visual quotes from his works. Secondly, a detective story examining if he committed suicide or was murdered – possibly by a mentally ill but gun-toting teenager.
This is not normal entertainment for 10 year olds. However it held both Tafadzwa’s and Tawana’s interests throughout. Patrick took a nap for some of the film, but he caught the general story-line and Vincent’s art style. See the Loving Vincent trailer and other related items. The boys’ behavior was exemplary from the time they were picked up to the time they were returned to their homes. I suspect the images and atmosphere of this magnificent film will stay with them all for years. They have all been drawing and colouring in the style of van Gogh for several recent art classes.
See pictures. This was an enjoyable recreation for guests and hosts. In the eveniong we watched My Father's War, which I had picked up at PnP for R50, an interesting South African production about reconcilation between fathers and sons.

Thu Nov 1
For the next few days my cut thumb would impact every manual action. It was right on the tip, so hard to plaster up. I had an appointment to talk to Glenda Fredericks at 8 am, but when I arrived at the gate, a guard told me she had just left for Cape Town. On the way home I picked up a 25 year old woman on her way from Rawsonville to Worcester police station to get a new ID. Turned out she had lost her previous one in a wendy house fire, with many other possessions. This was probably the fire we had seen on our way home from Robertson last night. I asked how the fire had started, and she said it was from her cigarette. I asked if she would be continuing to smoke and she said no. Thank God the wendy house didn't set light to other houses and shacks. I prayed for the woman as we drove in an effort to encourage her after such a devastating experience. I spent a couple of hours editing Fanie and Mada's stereo interview for CWCP. Time flew and I was only just ready with the mixdown in time for the show. When it was running I remembered I needed to call Allianz to renew our travel insurance. So I called them and was put on to a sales lady. About 40 minutes later, it was bought and paid for, and slightly cheaper than the first premium a year ago. While on the iPad skyping, the playback of the Worcester reports stopped. Usually this happens because the wifi download speed is exceeded. At any rate I didn't know for sure whether the program had gone out. Next day however, I was happy to hear that our most faithful follower, Nano, had enjoyed the whole program.

Wed 31 Oct
For the music lesson today I continued the theme of teaching them to play a tune on the keyboard, but wrote a simpler tune for them (with 3 chords) than the one we had been using. There was a mother with her 6-year old sitting in for the music lesson, and I think his name was Seth. I asked Amber to help and drew a guitar fretboard on the board showing the chords of C, G and F. Patrick learned the keyboard tune, and taught it to Tafadzwa. Tafadzwa then taught it to Tawana while Patrick learned the chord of C Major on my guitar. This routine continues till all of them (including Seth) had been taught the tune by someone and three of them had had a short guitar lesson. Then I set up the chairs for Worcester's Got Talent. With my accompaniment on guitar, each of them played the tune correctly including Seth. Only Mpho was unable to play it. Mandisa had been expected to pick them up at 1:45, but failed to show till 2:20, making it hard for me to take Amber home, and then go home and get L-A in time for Riverview at 2:30. Kevin was speaking to then when we finally arrived 30 minutes late, and we helped out with the refreshments. One of the boys asked if we could play soccer again. At Vinkrivier I dropped L-A at the girls hall, then drove to the soccer field. Shortly after, Maggie arrived saying Francolin and another had invaded the girl's group. I drove Maggie back, overtaking the other boys on the way who for some reason had taken it into their heads to head back there. We arrived in time to yell for Francolin, and he and his pal jumped into the Mercedes. On the sharp u-turn I felt a soft bump on the car (on our eventual return home I saw I had scrapped some paint off my front right cowling). At the field I filmed two of the boys as they the tossed a rugby ball between them running down the pitch. Inside the little hut I recorded Russell Maclennan as he told his prison story to about 8 of the boys. Then I played some songs in the guitar, a part of which was recorded on my phone video by the Father's House student David from Singapore. On our drive home we saw an onerous column of smoke rising from the Rawsonville area. At home while preparing CWCP radio and helping L-A with supper, I managed to cut my right thumb with the potato peeler.

Tue 30 Oct
Last night was a violent wind storm. But this morning is the calm after the storm, and the temperature is far lower than it has been lately. Surprizingly our little garden has survived intact apart from a few rose blooms. Mella called to tell me Kanyo had not returned to school. Apparently the other boys and Mella had a tearful session. During my class, Tawana's father was in to collect Tawana's exam results, usually the precurser to taking a child out of a school. When I had driven a few yards down the street a driver in another car tried to get my attention. I pulled over and he pointed to my rear off-side tire which was very flat. Luckily I was just a few minutes drive from Caltex. I didn't need to tell them what was wrong. They got me going, and I went to Tiger Wheel and tyre on Mountain Mill, who fixed it, and told me the tyre had not actually been damaged by driving on it when it was so flat. Great relief! Had that kind man not gesticulated, I would have had to change a wheel. We had our normal lunch with the boys, and then L-A's presentation of pop art. I added a short excursion to
3D Pavement art. Patrick drew a pop art pizza piece. In the afternoon I interviewed Fanie and Mada Engelbrecht, at Hooggelegen 58, just a minute's walk from us. He had been a pastor (dumani) in the Dutch Orthodox Church; they had run children's ministies in Tete, Mozambique, and they had been involved in ethnic reconciation after conflict. He is a well-known figure in Worcester, and both were very gracious for the recording.

Mon 29 Oct
At school I was taken aback when Khanyo announced (to everyone present, which excluded Mella) that he was leaving and going to Worcester primary School. I thought he was joking. Then several others said they were leaving, and Patrick said he woud be the only one left. I think he was joking. Even if a half truth, this must be very worrying for Mella who works so hard for her passion - this Godly school. I sent a text to Rochelle, Chrizelle's sister to say I would pick up the four girls whose Mailbox cubs were the furthest and drive them. At 2:45 I was in Avian Park in a very windy afternoon with dust tornadoes. I was able to take Chrizelle, Macayla, Jamelia and Bella to their two locations and check the hosts were there. This will work much better - and more safely - than trusting them to walk. I then drove to Anthonica's. She was there, but no kids yet, and she told me Chantelle was away. Anthonica though she knew where her student were - just up the street - so we drove there and indeed they were. Some of them may have been Chantelle's because Anthonica now had a pretty good sized group. I popped back later and got a great picture of her teaching them - and realized she has natural teaching and discipline skills. Unfortunately none of last week's learners came to Danielia's house, but her son says he knows where they hang out, and will round them up for next week. In Rachel Williams' house, there were 5 kids plus Chrizelle and Macayla, and all looked good, even though she has a black dog (and children are afraid of black dogs). I drove the four teachers home and asked them if they had enjod being teachers - they had indeed. I felt very joyful about today's turn-out. Maybe this can work! Thank you HS! The girls asked for pop corn on the way home. It was available at a house on the street. I didn't have R 4 in coins, so I gave Macayla a R 20 note. When she returned she gave me R 16 change! Real progress.

Sun 28 Oct
Godfrey was waiting for us at church, with my newly polished wedding ring. I gave him twice the price, which was still a small amount. I think it looks better than when it was new! Erick was very happy - apparently his mother in DRC was fully recovered following the blood transfusion! He was very appreciative. At Cell Group, Erick was enthusiastic in his thanks to me and Mella for paying for his mother's blood transfusion in DRC. He also opened our eyes to some of the abuses practiced in some black African churches by pastors whose main agenda is making money. I told them of Transforming Life Centre in Ottawa. It is strange that congregations in such churches don't just leave. When we left the meeting, I noticed the car rear tyre needed air, so we drove to Caltex and they pumped it up.

Sat 27 Oct
L-A got up and took pills, but was not well enough to come to the prison. I got the annointing oil and travel guitar and got there a little late. There were 15, and three staff, and we started by praying for L-A's health. Then we watched 'Does God Heal Today.' As it drew to an end I got the impression I must annoint everyone, rather than risk leaving someone unannointed. It was heavy with the Spirit. Then I invited the men to ask me for healing prayer. Every single one did. then I asked the staff, and one whom I hadn't seen before responded. I prayed whie all the men stretched their hands towards her. After the inmates had left, the other two staff members, Thandeka and James asked for prayer. As I returned home I prayed that the Lord would heal at least one of them - what a stir that would cause in a community that is quite ready to give praise where it is due. I bought Waterblomme from a lady with her grandchild near the long bridge. I collected 5 of our girls at girls at 3 in Avian Park, but not Chantelle. The story about last Mondays' absences was that they had a school project in the library accounting for many marks in their progress exams and that was more important than the Mailbox Club. At home we had praise singing for the first time, and L-A led a Bible study based around commitment. I tried to eplain to them in a non-threatening way that if they can't meet a commitment, they at least should communicate the situation. This is not easy for them - even if they have a phone they can't afford data so they must depend on free wifi which is rare here. Chrizelle spent almost the whole time on her phone and I let it go; I remember our situation im Mozambique. When I took them home they asked if I would take then swimming on Sunday. We drove to the De la bat pool and I found it didn't open until 12 on Sunday. I ageeed to pick them up at 11:45.

Fri 26 Oct
Early morning prayer across the street today at Louis' since Carlo had gone on the great special train trip to see Angus Buchan in Pretoria for 'It's Time. I took off my wedding ring with the help of soap at Louis' kitchen sink, and asked Godfrey to polish it up, having seen some of his work at Doxa. One more very hot day. Worked on my never-shortening 'do list.'

Thu 25 Oct
After yesterday's activities, today was relatively relaxing! L-A came with me to school but stayed in the comfortable front seat of the Merc rather than coming in to the school. At 10:15 we were on our way to My Fathers House at Pomegranate, arriving in good time for us both to speak to the students. We chatted with Johan, and he told us of a book about Enoch, called Witness of the Stars, telling how God revealed himself to Enoch through the heavens, and even showing Enoch about Jesus. I have wondered why God made such a vast universe - maybe it was indeed another way for him to communicate with us. L-A went first, using a current edition of 'Ways to Grow in God' as her material, and ending with her singing 'Jesus, all for Jesus' a-capella. It went down very well. I had decided to talk to them about children's ministry, drawing from the Mailbox Club, and showing how vital and effective it is, yet to most churches is is treated as a Cinderella project that can be dropped at the first sign of budget stress. I illustrated it with some of the things we had learned including the scourge of FAS. We had a good lunch with them, and lingered to chat. Unfortunately this meant that I was a lot later at Pro-Fitment to fix the car aircon than I had planned. One of , their managers, Andrie was kind enough to drive me home, but 20 minutes later they called to say that a pipe was severed and it would be a 4-hour job to fix. The same manager came and brought me in again. I set next Thursday afternoon to have the work done. Then I filled the car with petrol and went home to contunue working on tonight's Worcester Report, featuring Elizma Berlyn, marketing manager at the Pioneer School for the Visually impaired, for broadcast that evening.

Wed 24 Oct
I picked up the 6 boys at their homes at 9:15, Tafadzwa in the front and the others squeezed into the back. They all wanted to go to the swimming pool, but we headed to the Botanical Gardens (where we had taken our girls from Avial Park on 22 September). It was a scorching day. They were quite excited. We drove in the gate, bought tickets, and stopped by the upper parking lot. When the boys saw the water sprinklers in the large picnic area, they rushed at them, getting wet and yelling with delight. I yelled in response that they must not touch the sprinklers, but by now they were using them as water pistols. Then they thought they should maybe shed some outer clothing, which somehow ended up over a wide expanse of the picnic area. The water battles continued about 45 minutes - they had a great time. There is a trail that ascends from the upper picnic area, and I suggested we went climbing up it - after putting some clothes back on. Soon most of them were way ahead of me and Tafadswa as the path ascended. I had told them not to get split from the group, but it was useless. Soon they were out of sight - and sound. Tafadzwa is large, and I told him to return the way we had come while I searched along the path. I had visions of one of them having a snake bite and the others not knowing what to do. Soon I came to a fork - left to the long trail and right - Shale Trail - down a path back to the upper parking area. Hoping that they had chosen this, I followed suit. It was a steep path in places and care was needed for 77 year old with recent back problems not to fall. Soon I had a
view of the parking area, way below, and in it, like ants, all 6 boys. Relief. We waved at each other. All I had to do now was get down, and nearer the bottom met Khanyo and Tafadzwa coming back up to make sure I was OK. Soon we were all sitting at a picnic table eating food they had brought and some fruit and water I had brought. This lasted 20 minutes and then Tatenda got restless and started playing with the water sprayers again. Soon they were all back in the game and it was getting rougher. My calls not to touch the sprayers were old hat. Then there was some new yelling and I saw a flood developing under one of the sprayers, with the vertical stand pipe which holds the sprayer being manhandled by the boys to try and re-connect it to the underground source pipe. Later Tatenda admitted to having wrenched the pipe left and right repeatedly until it broke. With the water still gushing out I wasn't able to do the reconnection. I decided instead to drive to the main gate and alert the staff that someone needed to switch off the water supply to the picnic area. In less than 10 minutes a lady arrived and she knew where the taps were. Now it was easier to see how the stand pipe fitted into the water supply pipe, but that didn't mean I was able to do it. It needed more strength than my hands. The connection did not look as if it had been bent out of shape. I brought all the boys to the picnic table and talked to them about the temptation that some of them have for always wanting to break things (this is not just African culture). There was some significant peer pressure by the other boys against the perpertrator(s) whom I believed at that stage to have been either Tatenda or Mpho. I told them we no longer had time for two activities I had planned for the morning and I was taking them home. One of those was a walk through part of the gardens. The other, which I never told them, was ice cream at McDonalds. We drove back to the main gate and I spoke to the guard again. He had already got the maintenance team and they were about to go to the picnic area. I didn't blaim the children to him, but I did ask him to call me if there were costs to meet for the repair. At the time of writing this I have not heard from them. Neither had I mentioned the name of the school. He was friendly and told me it was unlikely we would hear from them.

L-A was not feeling too good, but the allergy medications do seem to be working, so she was determined to come to the kids clubs this afternoon. We arrived in Riverview ready to organize a soccer game. First I used the chalk to mark out the pitch. I had brought four pieces of wood for the goal posts. We had a centre circle ready for kick off and I was wearing my new yellow whistle on a yellow string. There were about 15 children by this stage. I had them make a line, and as they walked towards me each went to left or right and these became the teams. This included the very young ones, but they then dropped out and formed a group around L-A in her purple chair, just outside the entrance to the house where we meet. They all enjoyed watching the game and cheering when someone scored. I was opposite to her on the other side of the road and I placed the ball in the circle. I appointed captains for both teams and they appointed goalkeepers. I blew the whistle. For the next 45 minutes they played soccer. No bad behavious, no complaints about the referee's decisions, no injuries, maximum fun. As goals were scored I marked them up with chalk on the road. About 4 new people arrived during the game and were added to the two sides. Both boys and girls knew the rules. The left hand team won 10 - 3, but the losing team was magnaminous in defeat. After the game, we went inside and had the refreshment Mella had provided: cake and juice. Then we sang a couple of praise songs. The kids were well behaved throughout. They were about 23 in total by the end.

Then we were off to Vinkrivier in the continuing heat wave and no aircon in the car. By the time we reached the Fourie cafe, a cold coke seemed like the best thing in the world to me, undiluted with ice. So I had one and lived. I dropped L-A off in the kids centre, now used just for girls, and I went to the sports field and joined the boys and male students at The Father's House school, and Johan! His bakkie was powering an electric drill via an inverter so that Russell was able to drill holes in the concrete around one of the gaping hole windows so that a corrugated iron sheet could be screwed on. The boys were busy with painting the inside walls with Christian graffiti. A little later I got out the Meccano kit for building a Ducati motorbike and explained that this was possible project for a few boys who might like it. I think Kaysha is scepical of whether these kids have patience and persistence enough. I am keen because it might show engineering potential in one or more. Then I led a few praise songs,

Tue 23 Oct
Took the car to MMJ and Brian told me it would take two hours, so he arranged for one of their drivers to take me to the school in the car. This saved me 25 minutes walking and gave me an hour at school to read - I am almost at the end of Jasper Cloete's really excellent book 'Legacy' - a new world order for personal financial planning. Mella left the school at about 9 and I had her countersign my signature for the insurance application. In the Science lesson, which touched on tornadoes, I broadened it to cover climate change, - rising sea water levels and Atlantic temperatures, increasing frequency of hurricanes and huge damage resulting from them in certain parts of the world, but not yet South Africa. Mella said I need to make sure to label this as a theory (does this make her a climate change denier? Not necessarily - maybe just a good teacher). The boys also got a brief sailing lesson. Mella brought the kit for tomorrow's Riverview kids: soccer ball, cake and juice concentrate. I added to it a piece of large yellow chalk. After class I walked to MMJ and picked up the car. I thanked Brian for excellent service. He actually smiled and said I should come back after another 1000 Km for a regular service. The car is indeed running better than ever. However the air conditioning seems to be failing, so in the afternoon I visited Pro Fitment which had refilled my aircon gas 16 Jan and booked the car in for Thursday afternoon. L-A was feeling very hot at home so we turned on both air conditioners, and they both worked! I went shopping for a soccer whistle (among other things) and finally found one in the Crazy Store. Back home I packaged up the travel insurance clain with a second set of scans, and emailed it to Allianz. I also got another month of Jan's accounts done.

Mon 22 Oct
A big day ahead for Mailbox Club. At school Mella told me some details of outings coming up this week, and we talked about Erick's request for money. After school, dentistry by Dr Hofmeyr, who filled the lower tooth that had lost a filling, and an upper tooth with a cavity, all for R 1560! Then I took R500 of our money and R500 of Mella's to Erick at his salon. His money problems started when he lent his car to someone who smashed it up. All his salon earnings go to rent. At 2:45 I drove to Avian Park, stopping first at Chantelle's home. She was waiting for kids to arrive for the new class. She was happy when I gave her the CD of her broadcast on CWCP. We walked to Anthonica's which was locked with no sign of her. Then I went to Danielia's house to find 6 children waiting but no sign of leader Jamelia. Same story at Rachel Williams' home: children, but no teachers: Chrizelle and Macayla. By now I was getting worried, and drove to the missing teacher's homes but they weren't there. I made a call back to Chantelle's and the very welcome sight of her teaching her learners in front of her house. I took a photo. It is weird that the only girl who hadn't been at the final briefing and commissioning on Saturday had showed up to run a class. Bless her. When I got home there was a FB message from Macayla asking if I would take them swimming in Saturday (no, because of prison) and then later an other message saying that she and other leaders had been waiting at the library. They certainly weren't outside the library when I drove past earlier. But at least they were safe. In the evening I completed everything for my medical insurance claim except a counter-signature, which I'll get from Mella tomorrow. Got a text from Mella saying she wouldn't be in school Wednesday, and asking me to take the boys to the Botanical Garden in the morning. Also she would like me to organize a soccer game in the street for the Riverview kids.

Sun 21 Oct
L-A felt better today! The meds must have cut in to some extent, so we went to Hillsong in Somerset West for the first time since May! I couldn't believe it. We were given a great welcome by a Hillsong team member called Gaylene who told us of two programs that we might be able to use for 'after Alpha' and 'after Mailbox Club' for girls and men respectively: Shine, and Strength. After church we shopped for DVDs for use in the prison and bought War Room and The Shack very cheaply, plus the Hillsong's Afrikaans CD 'Naam bo elke naam.' In the evening I started getting together the materials to make my travel insurance claim for my recent back problems. Mella called to say that Erick (who had messed up my hair) had approached her for money needed by his mother in DRC for a blood transfusion. I ended up talking with him and saying Mella and I would give R500 each if he could find someone to make the total up to $US 100, the cost of the blood. I also asked him to get his mother to photograph the hospital bill stating the cost of the blood.

iew of the Sat 20 Oct
L-A preferred not to come to Brandvlei - insufficient for her new meds to take effect. I went alone. The last time we had gone to Brandvlei two weeks ago the car had really struggled to get through the gate. Today, all was well. We started our session praying for L-A. I illustrated 'Telling Others' by telling them of Johann's and Chantelle's testimonies, and that Johann had been in Correstional Services for 20 years. I picked up 7 girls from Avian Park at 3, though two of them were not leaders, and one, Augulishia was a first timer here. Chantelle was away so I didn't play her interview or even mention it. After my opening remarks I turned over proceedings to Laurie-Ann who gave them a talk about honour (behaviour), including not borrowing our phones, and not exploring cupboards or drawers in the homes where they would be leading clubs. This led to us commissioning them individually with prayer from me and a prophestic word from L-A for the great task ahead. We reallocated one girl from Chantelle's club to Anthonica's and I asked Bridney and Augulishia if they would like to joint Anthonica's club (they are her friends) and they were both happy about that. We had fresh pineapple and madiera cake for them. Macayla apologised to L-A for messing up her phone (which was now back to normal). I gave the leaders multiple copies of Storytime 2 books, attendance sheets, and guides for leading their Mailbox Club sessions. This they will be doing this Monday afternoon.

Fri 19 Oct
In our early morning prayer, Carl said he would be going on the special train to see Angus Buchan in Pretoria next Thursday, so our group would meet at Louis' house (our neighbour). Sean asked for prayer for his leading a service Sun 28 Oct at Every Nation church in Zweletemba at 4 pm. L-A was still feeling bad: tinnitus, sore throat, low temperature, sneezing and nausea. I called the doctorba's office and got an appointment for her at 10:30 that morning. While she was in with him I got refills for my meds. Dr Erik diagnosed her situaton as an allergy, something we had never considered, but Worcester is big on allegies. He prescribed penicillin, anti-histamines, ecinachia and some other things. When I returned to the pharmacy to get them, the pharmacist recommended Interflora, a pro-biotic. I agreed and was impressed with two things, firstly the competance of the pharmacist, and secondly the readiness of the medical profession here to be knowledgable about and recommend non-drugs. I bought a loaf of bread from 'Daily Bread' in Q-Square, and we enjoyed it a lot over the next two days. During the morning, Brian at MMJ had left a message saying the Merceded was ready. Late morning I returned the rental car to Bidvest, and walked to MMJ. It hadn't been cheap - around $1,000, but he said it was all working. And so it proved. In five days I had got used to the manual gearbox so I found myself trying to do strange things with the gear lever for a couple of days. About 5 pm Moses called from the hospice. I said I had been thinking of coming up to see them, so I went almost immediately. He told me that his doctor and lawyer had been talking and decided this was the right time for him to go home. I was very happy to be the way to get him there, and this evening was the best time for me. So he got his things together and said his goodbyes, and I did my rounds with the men in his ward, and then we got moving after I had phoned L-A to tell her I would be home by seven. It is a beautiful drive through mountains and valleys to Trowsrivier, and the car ran really well. MMJ had indeed diagnosed and cured the problem. I helped him into his house after his grandchildren had welcomed him, and then got on my way back. I picked up a man on his way back to Cape Town for the weekend, from working on a farm in this area. He commutes that way weekly. South Africa has the longest commutes in the world, partly because many townships are in remote rural areas. Back home I checked out Every Nation Church in Zweletemba, and found it to be a church plant of Every Nation Church, worshipping in Worcester Primary School in Langerug, the district we are in.

Thu 18 Oct
We had neen invited for a post Doxa braai for the leaders and shakers, at Milk and Honey. I was honoured to be included, but L-A didn't feel up to it. It was due to start at 6:30, so in preparing tonight's broadcast I added an hour and 15 minutes of soaking music at the beginning of the show, and set it going at 6:15. L-A didn't feel well enough to come but the 10 or so people including Johan Schoonraad made me very welcome when I arrived at Milk and Honey. I told them not to talk in English just for my benefit. We had some very nice aperitifs while the braai was heating, with wine. At 7:30 L-A called me to say the program proper had started half an hour early. I made my apologies and drove home - I realised I had miscalculated and should have add an additional 30 minutes of filler. By 7:45 we were back on track. I had kept in touch with Bernadette and told her I was returning, but by now she told me people had eaten and were going home. When I got to church the gates were locked, and rather than expect someone to open them for me I went back home, letting her know. It was all my mistake with the maths! I was home in time for Ways to Grow in God and the rest of the program.

Wed 17 Oct
L-A not feeling good. I did the two afternoon kids clubs without her. Both went comparatively well. At Vinkrivier, I stayed with the boys at the soccer field. Three of the men from the new Harvest School were there, and I chatted a lot with Russell Maclennan, who had been in jail 7 months before. His story echoed Paul Cowley's. The small hut had been cleared of rocks, and Kasha brought paint for the boys to put graffiti on the walls. While they did this I played and sang softly on the guitar. The atmosphere was pleasant, with normally aggressive kids being temporary artists and praise songs in the background. When I had stopped playing, I added some graffiti, including the Afrikaans words Dit is tuis (this is home), and Russell entertained us on my guitar. Back home L-A wasn't doing too well so I brought home some dinner for us from OK Foods.

Tue 16 Oct
The Corolla runs well but I am finding the manual gearbox a nuisance, particularly since I must drop to first gear to get over every speed hump in Worcester, and every stop sign. I am not sure why South AFricans prefer manual cars - it seems to me less than 10% are automatic. I posted a question on Quora about this, taking a sideswipe at speed humps along the way.

Mon 15 Oct
The Mercedes had lasted out till now without leaving us stranded. I drove it to MMJ by 8 (after dropping off the science experiment stuff at the school) and Brian immediately took it to their work area, I walked to Bidvest for a reunion with Janette and inspected an almost new Corolla before driving it to school. At 10:30 I had my last appointment for a while with Hermien my exercise therapist, and paid her bill cash. I also invited her to let me interview her for CWCP. She said 'yes,' but not till November. She is clearly a believer and has good parenting skills and strong common sense among other talents. In the afternoon I drove to the library for 3. Jan was there before me, plus about 30 boys and girls who had remembered this rendezvous. I set up areas in the parking lot for the 5 groups whose names we had enlisted a month before. Surprizingly, most of them remembered their group, I did a certain amount of switching to equalize the numbers and give locations near their homes to some extent. The leaders were not yet in evidence, so Jan drove off to the vicinity of Marco's (old) house and rounded up most of them. Allocating the leaders to four groups wasn't too easy - for some reason Chantelle wanted to lead the club in Danielia's house instead of in her own house - non-sensical. Jan took club 1 to Rachel Williams' house, Chantelle and Anthonica took their groups to their houses (they live opposite one another), and I walked the 4th club to Danielia's house. Most of this group are boys, but they were pre-teen and well behaved. I took the names on the attendance sheet, told them all to be back there next Monday at 3 and dismissed them, and then walked back to the library, where the leaders had gathered. I took all the study booklets and attendance sheets, and they went to their homes. It seemed to have all worked out far better than I had expected a few days ago - as if another hand was there with guidance.

Sun 14 Oct
I tuned on E.tv to watch Brian Houston, and something else was playing. I checked Twitter to see if others were equally confused but found nothing, so I sent a tweet. Then L-A got up, and asked me why I was up so early. Turned out the time on my bedside alarm was an hour early. I cancelled the tweet, and had an extra hour to write this journal. There were still three Doxa events to go, all of which took place during the church service. Congratulations were given publicly to the winning stall teams, and even though my role had been merely providing potatoes and mushrooms, Carl motioned for me to come up with him and Hilton. The best was kept till last: Marius and his seven year old son Jason fronting the worship band, and Leonie and two others dancing to the music. Happily I video'd the whole thing on the Priv. At connect group I asked Jan if she could join us tomorrow at the library for the big switch to small groups in peoples houses. In the afternoon I drove into Avian Park and went to the house of Rachel Williams, only a few minutes walk from the library. She is great - even has prison ministry experience. Then I managed to find the key leaders with help from Macayla. Chrizelle's mother wasn't keen after all to have a group in her home. I interviewed Chantelle's and Anthonica's mothers and they are on-side. At that time I didn't have Danielia's address, but I figured that would work out and we would have four venues by tomorrow. I asked Chantelle if I could interview her for CWCP, and she was keen. We drove to a quieter road, and I interviewed her on my phone. She did very well. In the middle of it there was a sound of a car and then someone came up to my window - Marco! He has recognised the car and was checking to make sure all was well. We had a laugh about this and it was all recorded. I had chosen Chantelle because she had produced the best testimony for my report to the Mailbox Club. Around 5 I visied the Hospice. The men had been moved to the what was the women's ward, and the women to the mens ward because there ere now more women than men. I started with the men, including Moses. For some reason they were all ready with friendly smiles and chat, though several had serious heavy limb issues. As I left the ward I said to the nurse that I couldn't remember seeing me before - and she told me she'd seen me often. The women had to be coaxed a bit to talk, and there were fewer with English. By the evening Danielia had sent me her address.

Sat 13 Oct
We left for Doxa about 8:30. When we arrived at WCC, all the food stalls were already up, and most of the other attractions, including businesses from Kleinplasie. I drove in to the 2nd stage in the parking lot opposite Milk and Honey. While L-A went to the Art room 2, I worked with Bernadette to get my computer plugged in to the board, and then got my guitar and a mic ready for our performance at 12:30. She had thought everything out very well, so the equipment and tools I had brought for use in emergency would not be needed. The sound quality was so-so, and the main problem was that the two loudspeakers were out of phase. There was no switch on the board to correct this, and the speaker cables could only connect in one way, so I conclude that this is a manufacturing fault but noone else has ever noticed it, or if they noticed it were unable to fix it, which would take a soldering iron if one of the speakers could be opened up. There was a spot in front of the small stage where the out-of-phase sound from the speakers reduced their volume by more than 3 Db. I decided to turn one of the speakers 180 degrees and leave just one speaker for the audience in front of the stage. It was all mono coming from the amp so nothing was lost. At 9 am I played Andre's opening announcement, and then spoke for a few minutes of welcome to visitors. Then I started playing music on my computer from the Foobar2000 list. The whole day proved to be highly enjoyable. A great variety of creative people showing their talents, and an excellent selection of food stalls and other vendors which I wasn't able to spend time with in detail. Only 50 tickets had been sold in advance, but another hundred were sold on the day. People came intending to enjoy themselves. There were lots of attractions for children, including goat petting. Once things were running smoothly with the DJ music, I went to see how L-A was doing in art room 2, one of the Sunday School rooms. She was fine, and the art in the room was all prophetic and pretty good. Hers is a unique style and I love it. So did many others, but sad to say not enough to buy. In fact no art was actually sold at the festival, though it was appreciated. Very little food was left by the end, and there had been huge amounts. Every so often someone came and asked me to make an announcement. There were 7 performances on the main stage, including the Sunday morning and all were excellent and were appreciated and applauded heartily. The second performance was by Worcester Primary School Choir, and I was intrigued to see Pastor Folla in attendance with them as a coach. At around noon someone disconnected our power supply. My computer battery is shot so the computer crashed. Normally this isn't a problem, but in this instance, all the Foobar files disappeared and when I tried to reload them something very strange went on in the transfer process. When I attempted to play any of the files I got an error message. Something in Foobar had been corrupted, and stayed corrupt even when I reinstalled it. So I reverted to playing the tunes from the original subdirectory. They wouldn't play sequentially, but this wasn't apparent to the listeners. I switched between Windows media Player and the VLC player which allowed for overlapping the transitions. Around noon, two 'judges' visited all the food stalls to come up with winners in three categories: taste, stall decor, and team spirit. The prayer group I am part of led by Carlo Van Wyk carried off the prize for best decor. Several stalls sent food over to me as thanks for the music! At 12:30 it was time for L-A and me to perform 5 prison songs - words by inmates and music by me. We miked the bodhran and L-A sat on the edge of the stage. [Skip the next few sentences if you don't want to hear a grown man complaining.] The first song was 'Lord,' and I played and sang it well enough. It was the first time outside a small prison audience I had sung it. Unfortunately as I sang no-one was taking any notice. The nearest seats were 15 meters away, and the nearest people about 20 metres. There were about 40 people within listening distance to the front of the stage. Few of them were even watching us, and at the end of the song noone clapped. In all the amateur music gatherings I have been, everyone was clapped, if only to encourage them. At that moment, Bernadette, behind us on the sound system, said something complimentary. Bless her! Now I do realize my talent as a performer needs a lot more development. We continued with the rest of the songs. The words of most of these songs tell the Gospel story in different ways, and I was singing the words as clearly as I could. At the end we just got off the stage. Here's the song I had kept for an encore if needed - which it wasn't. There were about 5 more live performances during the day, and all had merit, particularly Johan Groenewald on keyboard, and later his son Olaf on guitar, but none received the appreciation they deserved. At times I went and sat in the closest chair and clapped every song, and this generated some response from the 'audience.' We are learning about the local customs and culture. I didn't let it get me down. On the plus side, several strangers told me they like my choices of music in my DJ capacity. I certainly enjoyed them, even in bastardized mono. I went over to chat to Carlo and bought poitekos - which included the potatoes and mushrooms that I had provided. At around 4:45, Bernadette suggested I pack up. I had played all 55 of my selection. As I walked to the gate with equipment to go in my car, I saw Godfrey waiting in vain for someone with a car to get his jewelry polishing kit home. A friend had his bakkie but hadn't come to collect him. So I took him home with his stuff, and then on to our home with my stuff, only to find that L-A had our house keys in her purse. Back to Doxa we went and had a coffee before going into the church to watch Joe Niemand's fine performance. Heather joined us and translated some of Joe's between-song talks for L-A, who repeated them to me. I enjoy music whether I understand the words or not and I can see why he is a much loved entertainer on the Christian circuit in South Africa. All-in-all it had been a fantastic day. Carl Greyling's vision had been realized. Since he is in a wheelchair, that is a huge achievement for him personally. We went home, had some supper, and I started editing and posting today's photos.

Fri 12 Oct
The last day before Doxa. I took 3 Kg potatos from our GIG vegetable baskets plus 1 Kg of mushrooms to Carlo's house at 5:45 for early morning prayer. This was my contribution to the poitekos that our prayer group would be selling at Doxa. Carl would be adding venison, from a recent hunting trip in Namibia. After one more powerful session there, I came home and worked on the My Father's House accounts till breakfast. Mella had ordered a small GIG hamper so I took it to school for her. Shortly later we went to Afrikaans and I brought Janey's hamper with us. I had Andre record some key announcements in Afrikaans. The afternoon and evening were spent finishing my playlist for Doxa for my stint as a DJ and announcer. I compiled about 55 mainly Christian songs and added them to Foobar so they could play sequentially. I also practised the prison songs we'd be playing live, as I have done every day this week. I felt confident. I am getting somewhat worried as the Mailbox Club transition looms closer - Monday afternoon - so I said some prayers that it would proceed smoothly, though at that time there semmed to be several unsolved challenges. God is the answer in situations like this.

Thu 11 Oct
Organizing the morning when I might not have full use of the car was tricky. I was at MMJ by 8:15 and waited drinking their coffee till 9 when I had walk to school. After school I walked back, and at 10:45 Brian gave me the news that I needed new engine mountings, a new gear lever, and some other stuff. Although these come at a high price, it's cheaper than buying a new car, and without it, our car's resale value would be scrap only. So the car is now booked in for Monday morning and he may need it the whole week. I picked up our GIG vegetable hampers. I then drove on to 48 Adderley Street where the 1860 revival had broken out in Worcester among the coloured community. I opened the door and saw a lawyer's office with a lawyer in it, and a man and woman working with flowers. I told him we know a lady in Australia writing an early history of Worcester, who had asked if we could obtain photos of the inside of the building. At first he hesitated because of all the flower refuse around, but he let me anyway. I also spoke to the lawyer and got a photo of him. Then the first man encouraged me to take more pictures of his area! When I got home I called Janette at Bidvest and ordered a rental car for Monday morning. She remembered me from last November. In the evening we broadcast Laurie-Ann guesting on CWCP with her masterly description of prophetic art. Sadly, the Icecast stats showed only one listener in addition to me. We really need a find a way towards more listeners. But we are up against a lot of challenges. People no longer think radio is cool, and certainly have forgotten how to concentrate on listening to something other than sports for an hour. As we discivered with CKCU, people aren't drawn to listening to their frinds on radio or TV. If I heard a friend of mine was on either medium, I'd cancel everything to listen. No so most of our friends. Not that this will put us off broadcasting. While results in the short-term always disappoint, results over the long term with the podcasts are always a pleasant surprise.

Wed 10 Oct
As I drove with L-A to a brainstorming she was attending on trauma councelling for the townships, the car refused to get into normal gear. We realized that we wouldn't be able to drive to Vinkrivier for kids club, so we sent apologies to Kaysha. After school I went to MMJ and Brian booked the car in for early the next day. We did do the Riverview kids club and were happy that Kevin joined us. During the day I did my exercises and guitar practice.

Tue 9 Oct
As I arrived at school, the car gearbox refused at first to go into park. But I now know how to circumvent the problem - revving up the car slightly while pushing the gear stick towards park, and it works every time. For the moment I am not challenging MMJ. Later this morning I noticed another previous symptom: the automatic gearbox getting stuck in a lower gear than it should be. This fault is cleared if I stop the car, turn off the engine, and start up again. It was good to see the boys, who whooped when they say my new hairstyle. Today's lesson was on dark matter - not part of the official syllabus, but so important and I have it in my memory now. I showed them part of one of the Planetarium films: 'Two pieces of glass,' which is on YouTube. With the sunlight streaming through the windows, I followed Amber's example and did not project onto the screen, but just put my computer on a convenient ledge with the boys sitting on chairs in front of it. I went through our photo album from the trip to Sutherland and they saw the huge mirror. Then we looked at Google images of the solar system and galaxies, and I was ready to introduce them to dark matter. They were all ears and no interruptions. On leaving school I bought crisps and cake for lunch with the boys and then went home. We were back for the regular Tuesday school lunch supplement. Then, with her computer on the ledge as I had done earlier, she gave a very special lesson on Van Gogh, with the trailer from 'Loving Vincent,' and a whole selection of his art. During the day I went through all the exercises Hermien had prescribed a couple of times. Also practised all the prison songs for Doxa. Practising every day makes a big difference.

Mon 8 Oct
I called Brian at MMJ about 8 am and told him about the car gearbox. He said he wasn't equipped for heavy engineering, but booked me in for 2pm today to run the computer diagnostics. At 9:30 I drove to the office of exercise therapist Hermien Kruger for my second appointment. The car misbehaved when I got there, but I was able to coax it into park, all the time trying to see what I did for this result. She was pleased to hear that my exercises were already paying dividends after 3 days. She set me riding an exercise bike for about 10 minutes as she explained the treatment. She took me through a few more exercises for adding to my regime. She has taken on a chiropractor, Max, from Argentina, and I congratulated her on the combination of exercise therapy and chiropractic within one practice. We booked another appontment for 15 October. I then drove to the pharmacy for more Tramacet. At home I practised my tunes for Doxa. Mukuru called to say they would resend their Portuguese message to me and Carlitos, but I reminded them he could only receive Whatsapp. So I emailed their message to my Mozambique phone, and after fiddling fo a while was able to copy and paste it into Carlitos' Whatsapp. At 2 pm I was at MMJ. By 2:05 the car was on the ramp. By 2:30 Brian came to tell me that [wait for it!] he had essentially rebooted the car computer and this had solved the problem. What do you know! Today is hot - 34 degrees. Time to where my vest no more, and run the house fan - but not yet air conditioning. It has gone from cold to hot in a week. L-A has developed a yeast infection and I went to Dis-Chem in the mall for medication since they don't have Canesten here. Johann Leroux arrived about 5 to be interviewed for CWCP. He has greeted us in church with a hug every Sunday since last November. I had only guessed that his story might be special. We chatted over tea for half an hour and then got to the interview. He shines through like an angel and his faith is fundamental to his whole being. Yet, as he told us later, his life has had its trauma, but God has always been there for him, and particularly after he had been tested, and found to be faithful in an event where he sensed God wanted him to give his car away. Frog sent a Facebook mail to say that they had the money. At last! Wow, in the process of a huge learning curve with Mukuru, I now know how it works! I finished editing my interview with L-A about prophetic art, and emailed it to Carl Greyling, who rapidly posted it to the Doxa FaceBook. Today has been special.

Sun 7 Oct
L-A had received some insight and as we were getting up said that she had figured out the likely person to have filched our wine. I watched Brian Houston speaking on handling crises by fighting back though placing more dependence on God, as David did in Psalms 13, 34, 42, 142. See complete broardcast here, and it originally went out on 23 September 2018, the day Hillsong opened in Ottawa and Toronto, and Brian talks about that. We took L-A's art pieces for Doxa to church. Spencer was back. Over-hex church was there with 20 or so of their people. Alisha and others from IRIS were there. Erik was there in a bow tie, and people had different opinions about my haircut from him; some people like it (it's growing on me). About 10 WYAMers came, and Arno spoke to the congregation after a new YWAM film. There were too many non-Afrikaans speakers for Translation Row. Stephan Bester gave a good sermon based on the story of Peter & Co catching no fish, until they were ready to follow Jesus' instructions. I confirmed a time to get an interview - tomorrow - with Johan Leroux, who greeted us on out first day here and every week since. In the afternoon after L-A had almost completed this month's e-letter to our supporters, I interviewed her for CWCP on the subject of prophetic art, and it will go out two days before DOXA. Then I spent several hours bringing this journal up to date. This evening we plan to watch Loving Vincent. tually

Sat 6 Oct
As we approached the Brandvlei main gate I realized something was wrong with the car gearbox. At full throttle the car would only move forward very slowly, and I couldn't get the gear shift into 'park.' I obviously didn't want to turn off the ignition. The guard saw my dilemma and said I didn't need to open the trunk. Very slowly we moved ahead on the incline, with Laurie-Ann in fervent prayer, and gradually picked up speed. When able to park on a down slope, I pulled over. After fiddling with the gear leaver for a couple of minutes, the gearbox suddenly allowed me to move into park. We drove on to the medium security area, and I was able to get into park and turn off the ignition. Had a wonderful Alpha at Brandvlei on the subject of evil. I even suggested that Satan may have been hitting us with his warfare in efforts to prevent this session from happening. I gave Isaac the memory stick with new movies on. The material in the video made a major impression on the men; it includes prison content with Gram Seed, and a testimony from a Rwandan Hutu who had killed many Tutsis, but had been forgiven by God's grace on Alpha, to the point of being reconciled with the families of people he had killed. On our way home we bought our regular 10 samosas from the Porter/Russell Street Saturday stall. The car was running normally. My Satan explanation was looking good, with L-A's prayers having been stronger than the evil one. I gave a hot samosa to Cosmos as we came through the gate. When I stopped the car outside our house, I again was prevented from getting into park. So much for my Satanic theory. I pushed the gear lever in every direction till eventually it went into Park. At 2:45 I went to Avian Park to collect the girls for Mailbox Club training. I brought back six; Chrizelle was away. After their sandwiches I gave them each a small journal in which to write about Christian events in their lives. I taught for 40 minutes on the format for running their future sessions for the younger girls. Unexpectedly, both Chantelle and Anthonica said that their parents would be happy to host clubs in their homes. This is great and an answer to prayer. They were all pretty well behaved this afternoon, or so I thought at the time, except for when Marsha was lying on the floor next to our wine cupboard, giggling. For our drive this evening taking Andre and Janey to Annamarie's (Andre's business associate for many years) home, for dinner, I had better plan ahead. During the afternoon, L-A noticed that two bottles of wine were not in our wine cupboard, or anywhere else. We wanted one of them to take with us to dinner. L-A got her good memory working on the possibility that our guests from Avian Park on Saturdays may have helped themselves. We left in good time and got Andre, Janey and Laduma into the car. To turn round in front of their house I would need to reverse. I was able to do this, and we drove on to Annamarie's. We were walmly greeted by her and Willelm, and the evening began with glasses of wine and good conversation. We moved into her dining room and took our places at a round table. Soon we had Waterblommetjiebredie with succulent lamb in front of us. Waterblomme (water flowers) is not found anywhere except ponds and around dams in Western Cape, SA. Now is the season for it, and we found it very pleasant and flavourful. Mind you, Annamarie is an excellent cook. She followed this with a light, fluffy cheesacake. After dinner we conversed till after 10:30. Time had moved fast. Going home with Andre and Janey I was concerned that the car might get stuck so we dropped them outside their gate.

Fri 5 Oct
Early morning prayer at 5:45. I was very touched by Hilton's prayer for me and L-A since I hadn't asked; he is very prophetic. In the morning I gathered the photos from three phones - laborious - and posted the best of them to Flickr. At 1 pm I went to exercise therapist Hermien Kruger, as recommended by Dr Erik. She asked me lots of questions as she looked at my stance from all angles. In such a basic thing as standing up, I have been irritating my lower back condition, also with my method of getting out of bed. She showed me four exercises, and asked me to come back on Monday. Carlo van Wyk called and invited us both to a bring & buy braai at their home, where I had started off my day. So I bought some ostrich steaks and sweet potato wedges from Woolworths. When we got there we met his other guests, a couple from Carlo's connect group (I think). The six of us had good conversation and marvellously cooked food. Carlo told me what I should buy for Doxa. I won't be able to serve at our our prayer group's stall because of my other Doxa activities, but had offered to buy some of the food. L-A bonded with Riana and may be working with her at kinderkerk at WCG. I checked the suggestions various Facebook friends had made about why I hadn't been able to reformat the memory sticks for films for the Brandvlei inmates. Brian Wilkie had said: "FAT32 has a max file size of 4GB. Use NTFS Assuming its a windows system, since Apples HFS and APFS don't have that limit." So I used NTFS, and it worked. I was able to put two more movied on the stick.

Thu 4 Oct
I slept like a baby and was woken by the church clock stiking 7. I felt great and got up. The world seemed different from yesterday and I don't know why! We packed some of our stuff, went for a light breakfast, and then packed the rest. I paid the bill ofabout R 2,300 - including two dinners - pretty good value. I gave Kathie R 100 to distribute among the servers and herself. We drove the 15 Kilometers along the Fraserburg Road to the SAAO. It was a beautiful clear day. L-A had figured out that she shouldn't join the tour - too much standing - so with my phone at the ready I reported to reception. There were about 15 in our group, all eager to get up close and personal with SALT. First we watched a short film showing a view of a family on a grassy area in Chigago firstly from 1 metre, then 10, then 100 and so on out to an image that only showed a few lonely galaxies and lots of space between them. It then telecoped back, continuing with microsope images until we see molecules in the the skin of one of the family. What a difference a few zeros make! Then we drove in a convoy to the top of the mesa where all the telescopes were, including SALT. Our convoy wound round this 'telescope farm,' each one the responsibility of different countries needing to take advantage of this ideal location with minimum light pollution and low levels of average cloudiness. We went inside one of the telescopes, with a 1 metre mirror. It had been built by Grubb Parsons in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1962. I had spent a couple of months getting industrial experience at Parsons in 1961. Initially it was installed in SAAO in Cape Town, until their telescopes were moved to Sutherland. Then we got back into our cars and drove to SALT. Partners from South Africa (1/3 of the total investment of $36M), Poland, the United States, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and India have made the construction and operation of SALT possible. See SALT Wiki. SALT was built 1n 2005, and commissioned by 2011. My first view of the 10 metre mirror was breathtaking, composed of 91 octagonal 1 metre concave mirrors. Our guide throughout the tour had been informative and even humourous, like when he told us to hold on, as we were looking at the mirror, because he was going to push a button and raise us up 5 metres. Everyone held on; nothing happened except his smile! I returned to L-A in the car ready to tell her lots of good stuff. We set course for home. As we drove back along the same road, it was different. Over the last 2 days, thousands of plants had burst into flower, purple and yellow being the stand-out colours. They covered the distant hills and down to the road. That's the Great Karoo for you. After 100 Km drive we stopped for an hour in Blesfontein. This is a pictureque small town built round a railway station on the main route from Cape Town to Johannesburg. It has kept its Victorian - 1950's style. We had a lovely cream tea snack watched by a yellow hammer who wanted his share and other birds being friendly, one coming right onto our table for a bite of scone. We were home about 5:30. We had announced on last week's Worcester Report that there would be no program this week, but I realised there could be regular listeners who might not have heard the announcement. So I decided to repeat our third show from March with Francois Grobbelaar and Tendai Ngoma. We now have listener stats available from Icecast, so I now know that no-one did tune in.

Wed 3 Oct
It was not a good night at all for me. I did forget to take my new Tramacet before bed last night and that may have made me wake up more often than usual. We have electric blankets and needed them. I was up four times in the night and didn't feel good at all in the morning, so we slept in till about 8:45. L-A hadn't had a bad night like me. Getting dressed, she found out that she had forgotten to pack Tena pads - a problem that could only be solved by getting something similar here. We had scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, and then I drove off to OK Foods since there's no chemist in town. I found some pads for L-A. I also found a planetarium showing the latest astronomy films. We left about 11:30 for the planetarium. In this town you can park anywhere except in some marked spots. So I stopped right outside it. If I am going to be somewhere more than an hour I normally don't lock the car, becasue the alarm will likely go off. This time I decided to lock it, because I could see it from inside the door, and even if it went off, it was fairly obvious where the driver was. However, I did check that when I locked it with the fob, not only did the side-light flash three times as they should, but also the driver's door plunger was down. We watched two excellent educational films, the first on the problem of light pollution for stargazing, but also for wildlife, particularly migrating birds. This film started with all the screen text in Russian, but we had an English sound track. The music had a Russian feel to it. The second film, Two small pieces of glass was an excellent history of the telescope' Afterwards we had coffee and fast wifi, and talked to the lady in charge, Alta Steenkamp, which resulted in our deciding to come back at 2:30 for more astronomy films, including one called Dark Matter. These films are only meant to be avalable at planetariums. In all this time the car alarm hadn't gone off. Sometimes when it has gone off in the past the siren sounds - similar to a police siren. Sometimes the lights come on, without the siren, and stay on. In two cases months before, this had flattened the battery and we had needed a jump start.

We only had an hour more to wait till the next showing, but we went back to White House, a 1 minute journey, and relaxed. We were in good time for Dark Matter, which meant we got the best seats. The screen is a complete hemisphere so the further back you can get the better, even though the chairs incline you to about 25 degrees. To this point I had no idea what dark matter is. Now I and most of the audience of about 12 are far better informed. It accounts for 80% of the mass of the universe but has never been detected. It is a sub-atomic particle that, following the big bang, spread out in a mesh increasing the gravity in the primordial dust as it coalesced. Without dark matter gravity would have been insufficient to cause galaxies to form. The stars in galaxies rotate around the centre of the galaxy at the same speeds in any one galaxy, unlike planets around one star, where the closer to the star the faster they move. It was this discovery that paved the way to infer the existence of dark matter even though it couldn't be detected. At those speeds the stars in galaxies should simply fly off into space, but they didn't, implying much more gravitational force than could be accounted for by what could be seen of the stars in the visible spectrum. Today dark matter is being searched for by hundreds of computers processing the data from many telescopes world wide, using the Internet for sharing the real-time data. At CERN near Geneva in a 27 Km diameter tunnel, protons are being spun round in both directions in an attempt to create dark matter experimentally when they occasionally collide. The search continues .... and the prize will be possibly one of the keys to the method God used to create the universe. I found the film emotionally powerful as well as educational as I pondered the awesome intelligence that could have designed such a universe.

After another excellent White House dinner, we waited for dark and drove out along the Fraserburg road until we judged light pollution would be low. As we pulled in to a small rest area we caught a group of people in our headlights on the same mission. Oops! Sorry. We stopped and turned off all our lights as soon as possible. Sitting in L-A's pink chair and one of our camping chairs from Pemba, armed with binoculars, we waited for our eyes to adjust, and then gazed in wonder at much the same image that we had seen with the Night Sky app. The binoculars were no help, hand-held. As L-A identified constellations, I marvelled at God's handiwork from millions of years ago and continuing in the present. We stayed about 20 minutes, by when we were getting cold, and then got back in the car and retuned home. But when we got out, L-A realized that she didn't have her cane. We drove back the 10 K and got it before any baboons or other companion animals might have discovered it. Before going to bed I remembered to take two Tramacet tablets

Tue 2 Oct
I was amazed to see L-A still at work when I got up. By 10 the accounts were ready and she emailed the soft copy to the auditor. By 11 we were packed and drove to Moriah House with the box of books. After fillng the car with petrol we were on our way to Sutherland. It was a beautiful drive through the Little Karoo, and then the Great Karoo. After ascending to a high point in the dessert we saw the famous radio telescope on a hill in the distance. We found the White House where we would be staying and were delighted we had been upgraded us to a ground floor room and very pleasant too. We were welcomed by the owner, Ian. Half an hour later L-A was resting for the first time in 32 hours. That was a strong mixture of adreneline, dedication, and divine alignment. We had a good dinner in the White House restaurant, where we heard that Sutherland has a million visitors a year. Ian's wife Kathie served us and chatted. We retired fairly early.

Mon 1 Oct
At 10 I was at Stu*Tonics so that Stuart could give me an opinion about the faulty security system on the car. He took a look around for obvious problems. He noticed of course that the driver's door lock didn't always open from the key fob. He also noticed that it didn't always lock from the key fob - the plunger stayed up. This I hadn't noticed before. He mentioned that in most models the the other three door locks were slaved to the driver's door lock. In the end he agreed that MMJ's diagnosis was probably correct - a new driver's door unit was needed. His recommendation was that first I talk to a contact of his who is good at disabling car alarms, but if he wasn't able to do that (without risking problems with the central computer), I should take the car to the Mercedes shop in Paarl and ask for their diagnosic and price. Meantime I am getting a lot better at working around the problems without major security risks. The system runs fine for an hour or so after I get out of the car and set the alarm. Stuart talked a little about himself and family, mentioning church. Before I left I asked if I could pray for him and he willingly agreed. Next stop Erik's salon. He had said it was at 119 Durban but that was a clothing store. The salon was round the corner - not even on Durban street. He got to work. Soon I realised that he was taking my wish to take off more than usual very seriously. He only used a clipper; no scissors. Soon the left side of my head was a crew cut while the right side hadn't been touched yet. What to do? I would have to chalk it up to experience and wait for it to grow back. I certainly didn't want to make him feel bad after cutting hair for 20 years. And he only charged R30 (+R10 tip). When I got home, Erena was there and gasped in shock! Anyway, I won't need my hair brush when we drive on holiday to Sutherland tomorrow. Erena and Mia had come with some additional paper files that L-A needed to complete the work on the ChangeMaker's accounts before we take/send them to the auditor tomorrow. L-A then proceeded to work non-stop on the accounts through the rest of the day, and then though the night as I slept.

Sun 30 Sep
L-A gave a
prophetic word in church. There was a slide on the screens for tonight's Soaking Prayer in Action, but Johan didn't mention it when he spoke of upcoming activities. A lady called Eve came with three smart children next to me. Her first time in the church, though she's been in Worcester 10 years. Zimbabwean. Erick (DRC) and Eve joined us in the connect group. Erick owns a salon so I made an appointment for Monday, since I can't get Joan to cut enough hair off me. In the evening we had our Soaking Prayer at our home, the church offices being closed during this 1-week school holiday, and three turned up: David (whom I collected), Chris and Lovejoy. I had selected Gillaume & Rene Worship for most of the music, and it fitted in well.

Sat 29 Sep
Prison was terrific, with 15 in attendance. We did 'How can I make the best of the rest of my life.' One of the men asked about the unforgivable sin - blaspheming the Holy Spirit. At this point our guard, James, said that when we are born again we become new people in Christ, and the past is washed clean, including this, since we did not previously know its significance. Sounded plausible to me, and importantly, the man with the question accepted it. As we left I asked Thandeka if we could use a larger space, because any more would not fit in here. We talked about the prevelance of parents cursing their children in the townships, and I told them Kevin Daley's experience with the bully who cried when he asked the other kids to say something nice and encouraging about him. We talked about one of our favourite subjects, encouragement. So powerful for inmates.

Fri 28 Sep
School holidays - just for a week. I went to early morning prayer with some praise reports. Then home for a valuable two hours. I picked up Mella at 9:15. She had asked me to take her to Capetown and back. The first stop was the visa office. On the way she read me 5 endorsement letters with persuasive reasons why she should be granted a visa. I didn't know endorsements could be included, but she explained that visa applications were being turned down frequently, including for YWAMers. She couldn't afford to risk this, so was doing everything possible to avoid it. We went on the computer mainenance place where L-A and I had dropped off her MacBook on 7 Sept. Since Roeland Square doesn't show on our GPS, it took as long to find it this time as it did last time. As Mella went inside to pick up the computer, I received a text from L-A asking if I might be able to buy a tabletop easel in the art shop just across the road from there. I did, and she was happy with it. Mella and I drove home, with a stop in Paarl for a meal. We had some good conversation.

Thu 27 Sep
At 8:15 I was at MMJ. By 8:45 Brian had put the car on the hoist, and came to tell me that if I drove the car further, it could fall apart. He gave me 50% chance of sourcing the necessary parts. I walked to school, which was not upleasant. I got the e about 8:45 to find the children doing science revision under Amber's supervision, but she wasn't teaching them. Kanyo and Patrick were teaching Mpho and Tatenda, and Tafadzwa was teaching Tawanda! I got some movie shots to prove this really happened. Kanyo has real talent as a teacher. I broke in for 5 minutes to give them their music marks from yesterday, and again they applauded one another. At 9:30 the science exam started. Again, I worked with Mpho and Amber worked with Tatenda. I had worried that I hadn't set enough multi-choice questions, but I needn't have been concerned. All the students did reasonably Well. Partick came top, but only because Khanyo ignored some questions. His same old problem of not reading the questions properly and not going through his work. At 6:30 we went to a Doxa meeting with all participants. I was introduced as the announcer and DJ on Stage 2. L-A joined the participating artists. We didn't get home till 7:45, 15 minutes after the normal time I turn on the Raspberry Pi for CWCP. My phone ran, and it was Mella saying there was an error when she tried to listen in. She was very keen to hear Kevin on air. I got the music started and the program followed at 8 pm. I enjoyed it a lot, not least the samples of music I will be playing as DJ at Doxa.

Wed 26 Sep
Early, we received a call from 'Mr Plumber' asking how soon they could come to investigate our water overflow. I woke L-A. They arrived before I left for school, where I ran a science revision class. But at the start I presented the results of yesterday's art exam, and the kids applauded each other as the marks were read out. I went home to find the plumbers replacing our geyser with a brand new one. Seizing the opportunity I ask if they would also fix one of the toilets which always has had a slow leak into the toilet bowl. I returned to school to give the music exam. This needed some dexterity since some of the questions involved the playing of instruments. I told them that when they reached those questions they should come to the keyboard and xylophone beside were I was working with Mpho, and take their turns to play whatever was on the question, and I would mark them. It all worked out pretty well. The three younger children had a different exam from the three older children. They all finished early so I thought up another question they would all enjoy. We pretended we were on a TV show like South Africa has talent. I introduced each of them in turn to make up a tune on the piano, playing it to the others. 'The others' caught on fast and got themselves sheets of paper where they could write marks. Based on applause and my assesment of their capabilities for extemporization, I gave each of them a mark out of 10. At the end I divided the marks by two and added them to their marks for the rest of the exam. Two of them actually showed capability, and all of them had fun with the process. When I got home, the plumbers were still hard at work so it was clear that L-A would have to skip the kids ministries in Riverview and Vinkrivier, so I went alone to these. The first only had about 10 children turn up for some reason. When I got to Vinkrivier, Kaysha and Melissa had split the kids into girls and boys, with the boys at a nearby field playing soccer, and the girls in the Vinkrivier hut. I went over and stayed with the boys while Kaysha returned to the hut. I stood behind a goal and returned the ball a few times. Big mistake. The sudden movements gave me low level spasms in my leg. I joined two of the boys who didn't want to play soccer. At the end of the game the older boys came together for some prayer and Kaysha invited me to speak to them. What came to my mind was a story Kevin Daley had told at his CWCP interview of a young bully in one of his groups who wouldn't co-operate. Kevin asked the other boys to say something nice and encouraging to the bully. After a while he burst into tears and went to sit on his own for 15 minutes. Never in his life had he been told anything pleasant about himself by his parents or anyone else; it was overwhelming for him. This is a cursing culture where children are cursed and told they are not wanted. Then they start cursing one another. Kevin gave him a New Testament, and the next day visited his mother. According to her, the boy had stayed up all night reading the gospels. She was so intrigued by the change in him that she had now also been reading the gospels. So I stood behind each boy in turn with my hands on his shoulders and the other boys said nice things. It changed the atmosphere. At home I found hot clear water in the taps, and the toilet working just fine.

Tue 25 Sep
Back to revision in science at school, with the exam coming up on Thursday. Then I went to see Dr Erik and told him about Dr Herbst's recommendation that I not have surgery. When he heard I was having less pain he wrote a prescription of Arcoxia 60 to replace the Arcoxia 90, and Tramacet to replace the Synaleve, which was becoming less effective. Then I went to MMJ to tell Brian about the ball joints, and he booked me in for 8:15 on Thursday. After the Tuesday lunch, L-A conducted the art exam. While she did it one-on-one with Mpho in the other room, and I with Tawana, Amber invigilated the rest, spending most of her time with Tatenda. These three don't have sufficient reading and writing skill, but they have learned stuff. I felt it would be fair to the children to give them their marks asap, and then return their exams with correct answers added in pen, so I worked on that in the evening.

Mon 24 Sep
Heritage Day - Braai day - No school. Collected my tools that would be necessary to repair Andre's sliding draw. The battery powered drill wouldn't run. Then I remembered that its power adapter was designed for 110 volts. I had burned it out. I drove to Andre's and was indeed able to glue the broken right hand drawer support into the underside of the desk-top. A piece of wood designed for lateral support of the RH slider turned out to be the exact length to pressure the RH slider to the underside of the desk while the glue dried. The drawer slider worked just fine. Mid afternoon I was wondering who I could interview for this Thursday's Worcester report. We listed a number of names, and then L-A mentioned Kevin Daley. Perfect if he would be available. At 3:15 I called him, and he said 'any time.' I said '4.' He said fine. We sat in his bedroom (carpet makes for better acoustics) gazing out at a beautiful view of the Brandwachts, and did the interview. Some of it is profound; some instructional. Then he made tea with geranium leaves added. He is always good to talk with, and particularly now that I knew more of his story.

Sun 23 Sep
A man called Spencer came and sat with us on translation row at church. He said he had owned three hotels, but had been hurt when part of a building collapsed on him, and since then had been unable to find work. He had undergone back surgery, but had become addicted to various drugs which he took to reduce the and pain (like Johnny Cash). Without income, he had become homeless. At the end of the service I introduced him to Eugene Walker, who prayed for him. We then took him for lunch at McDonalds. His plan is to collect his disability money and go to Edinburgh to see his daughter, who he hasn't seen for many years. I spent much of the rest of the day posting the photos and a video from the Botanical Gardens (for link, see yesterday's post). I did a little gardening and managed to get some cactus spines in my little finger. We watched one of the Darren Wilson 'Adventures with God,' which focused on the heavy metal group Korn, two of the members of which are committed Christians, despite their dark music. This may be a good film to show in Brandvlei. I put our battery powered electric drill on charge in case I would need it to repair Andre's drawer.

Sat 22 Sep
Saturdays are always big for us but today it was even bigger. In Brandvlei we had reached the peak of the Alpha course, "How can I be filled with the Holy Spirit." Our music was "Spirit Song" and "O Holy Spirit," which by now my cut finger was able to handle (Thank you God!) None of the 13 men present had heard these songs before, but very soon they were singing like a trained choir. We then gave a talk on the Gifts of the Spirit. Much of this seemed to be new to them. Then we watched Nicky and friends in the film series version. After explaining that no one was having their arms twisted, but we were inviting the Holy Spirit to come among us and give us His baptism. We took them through the sinners prayer. there were even two men here for the first time, yet I believe they too accepted salvation. It was very beautiful and rewarding and I laid hands on each of them in the group. In this small space it wasn't practical for each to have indiviual prayer, but I feel strongly that the Holy Spirit touched all their hearts. The afternoon was the end of course celebration for our girls from Avian Park. You can see how well it worked out from the photos and a video, much of them taken by the girls. Bella wasn't able to be with us, and missed a good time. We need to do something for her. Back home I went into the back yard to get a towel of the line, and saw that there was running water coming out of a pipe under the evestroughing outside the kitchen. The water was soaking into the ground tiles, and hadn't been coming very long. I moved the big dustbin onto some tiles to catch the water.

Fri 21 Sep
The early morning prayer group met this morning at Louis Linde's home, one minute's walk from us. Hilton and Godfrey were the other attenders. Louis has a beautiful living room with excellent art on the walls and a grand piano. His wife Thelmay was a member of the Musica Sangers, and he gave me a copy of a CD called Cantabile with recordings from 1989 - 1999. Because there were fewer of us, we each had longer to share prayer requests. Godfrey shared his experience receiving a word from Danie Denysschen, which I corroborated, having been beside him the previpus Saturday at Willow Creek. Yesterday at school I had done the next experiment, rather than more revision, and today I did this again. This allows more questions to be covered in the exam. Last time around I had brought Mpho and Khanyo to our house do do the 'indoor rain' experiment, but today I showed the pictures and video from last time rather than doing the actual experiment again, which needs a stove, and would have needed all six of them to come to Hooggelegen - just too hard to organize. Loren had printed out multiple copies of both the art exam and the music exam. We went to Afrikaans, and Andre mentioned that the sliding draw for his computer keyboard had broken. I took a look and noticed a small wheel was bent. I reckoned that if it could be straightened, I would be able to complete the rest of the repair. I took the damaged sliding door home. I called Dr Erik's office and arranged an appointment for Tuesday to talk about Dr Herbst's recommendation that I not have surgery, and to see if I can have a change of medication so it doesn't lose effectiveness. In the afternoon I went to Builder's Express and showed them the sliding drawer. One of the men took it to a workshop, returning 10 minutes later with the wheel straightened. No charge!

Thu 20 Sep
This morning I woke feeling good, and I started by enjoying sweeping the floors. The feeling good stayed with me the whole day. Such a difference from yesterday. Everything went well and seemed fun. I wish I knew what it is that can make such a difference, because I am sure I am not the only one who experiences this. I am pretty sure I took Overdrive yesterday, the supplement that has energized my brain for 20 years. But maybe I forgot. I was feeling just the way I felt for years before I discovered the power of good nutritional supplements. Instead of feeling a little inadequate for science class, everything ran smoothly and everyone enjoyed the class. This was the one where they discover whether a number of common items sink or float. I turned it into a grand competition. Mpho and Tatenda faired better than I expected. At 11 was at WCG to see Bernadette and Carl for more details on my role at the Doxa Arts festival, for example that I should stick to Christian music in my DJ'ing. I now have the scedule for the day. It was a fun meeting. I picked up 5 colour copies of Mailbox Club certificates for the Explorers course, which we will give the girls on Saturday during their outing to the Botanical Gardens. Spend the afternoon putting finishing touches on the Worcester Reports edition with Carlo van Wyk. I realized that we should include a set from Joe Niemand who will headline Doxa. At transmission time the program went well, ending with the singing L-A had recorded of the children's praise last Monday in Avian Park. In the evening I cut up the butternut squash that has been part of our GIG basket of vegetables, and managed to slice into my left index finger with the big knife. It bled heavily for a while. L-A immediately prayed that it would heel fast. I wrapped it in toilet paper kept on with a rubber band, and the blood stopped flowing. Later I put on a band aid with some Nu Skin enhancer. I was surprised when the phone rang and it was Jasper Cloete, founder of GIG. He wnated to know how our club was doing. Then he ran over a number of pointers to how we should be developing and stressing activities that would strenthen our relationships and skills. I took a page of notes. It was all good stuff. I shared my hope that we might be able to start a clun for the Change Makers.

Wed 19 Sep
From when I got up this morning, I felt one degree under. Throughout the day, everything seemed more difficult than usual and I became more introverted. Sometimes I have days like that. Mella asked if we could make hot chocolate for the Riverview children this afternoon and gave me the ingredients and a large pot, which I took home after science class. It turns out there is skill needed to make good hot chocolate so I am glad L-A was prepared to do the important stuff after I had melted the milk. My concern was that it wouldn't be hot by the time it was served, and also that it would spill in the car during the trip over Worcester's relentless speed humps. So I fixed down the lid with masking tape, put a garbage bag flat in the trunk and wrapped the pan in one of our two towels. It worked! Nothing spilt, and it was piping hot. There were about nine kids there on a rainy afternoon and by 2:50 no sign of Mella, so I started serving. This yielded some great photos. Mella arrived and a few more kids. She spoke to them on the theme of keeping their panties up and their dresses down, showing pictures on her phone of teenagers of her acquaintance who had failed to do this and were now mothers struggling. I'm not sure how the boys interpreted all this, but someone has to tell the children these facts of life in a way that will make an impression, because the parents aren't doing it. We drove on to Vinkrivier via our customary stop at the Fourie's coffee shop where Maggie also dropped in. The kids club this afternoon was memorable because Kaysha announced her engagement to Pastor Alexis Hakizimana, and the fact that in December she will be leaving for Rwanda where he has his ministry. He had been in Worcester for a month, and I for one had no idea they were romanticly connected, though I now know he popped the question in February, and she has visited Rwanda twice, the first time on a mission trip when they met. And a week ago her parents had been here, but I didn't realize it was to meet their future son-in-law. I see Kaysha and Alex as kindred spirits in the Lord and I am sure they will be happy together.

Tue 18 Sep
Received a Whatsapp from Lynn saying a cheque from Allianz Travel Insurance for $140. This was for my face stitches several months ago. So this was good, even if it had taken a long time and no interim indications that it would be paid. With an end of term science exam coming up next Thursday, we started science revision today. I used the questions from 'Helps and Hints for Science-in the beginning.' Each boy in turn was asked a question, and his name listed on the board if he answered correctly. I picked easier questions for the three youngest. By the end of the lesson, Patrick had his name up three times and received a star. Mella suggested at the end that I should set two exams, one for the older boys and one for the younger. The Tuesday lunch went well enough, and then L-A ran a revision version of the art class, with good attention from the boys, except Tatenda and Tawana. In the afternoon I called Allianz, and thanked them for the payout for the face stitches, and asked if they had yet received the letter with all the original receipts for L-A's operation, and my stitches, which Cristina would have posted. No, they hadn't. I then told them the situation with my current claim which might have required back surgery, but didn't. I said I would shortly be making a claim for the costs of the X-Ray, MRI, and pain medication.

Mon 17 Sep
After school I went to the pharmacy and bought another Synaleve prescription. Andrew Cloete came to the house and I gave him a final R200 for bread, and got him to sign receipts for all the bread purchases since April, totalling R 1700. That's 200 loaves and a total saving of about R 550. Wednesday will be his last delivery. Our ministry in the Avian Park library this afternoon would probably be for the last time. We will be announcing the division into small groups in private houses, so that the Mailbox Club materials could be used, led by the teenagers we have been training. Hannah from our connect group had told me that she might be able to join us, and this was the first time she was available. We picked her up, and then stopped at Jan's for the fruit, and I gave her the receipts from Andrew. There were around 60 children and it was windy, so we held the music inside. They were in good voice, and L-A recorded it on her phone. Then I asked Hannah to tell them about herself, which she did in Afrikaans. Then I asked the 5 of our leaders who were present (Bella wasn't). and had each of them say a few words in Afrikaans about themselves, and give a message to the audience. They all had something to say, usually through a few giggles, but they did well (acording to Hannah). Then, with Hannah translating, I told them all that we would not be meeting here again, Next week is a holiday when the library will be closed, and then there is school holiday. I explained we will be splitting them into small groups in people's houses, and that there will be no food. The first time this will happen will be 15 October, when they should come to the otside of the library, and then we will take them to the venues. This of cource assumes we will find venues by then. I then had them come up to the front - if they wanted to join a small group - and we would put their names down, and tell them which of 5 groups they will be in. Surprizingly almost everyone wants to be in a group, even though there will be no food. I now have five sheets of paper with up to 10 names on each for groups 1 - 5. We have a lot of work to do to pull this off, but maybe with the Holy Spirit helping we can do it. The food distribution was quite a zoo, but Hannah told ne afterwards that the same continuous noise goes on in all school classes here - it's the culture, and not just the fact that we generally are communcating in English.

Sun 16 Sep
There was a large group of gaduates from the newcomers training presented at church, including Erick Ambuta and David Delille, and I got a photo that I sent to them both. Alisha came again from Iris Robertson. Marius led the music, and Carl Greyling was on stage with him singing in his wheelchair. Danie Denysschen delivered the sermon. It was connect Group week and I brought a box of cakes, the same type that we had for the Mailbox Club, since L-A was deproved of hers. It was good to tell everyone about there being no need for me to have a back operation. That evening I interviewed L-A for Canadian Spaces.

Sat 15 Sep
For our time of praise at Bradvlei we started with Jericho Road Ministries, playing along with the video from Prison Network Group in Ottawa. Then another prison song, Surrender, which went down well enough to be a contender for the set of prison songs I'll be performing at Doxa. Then we watched the second of the three Holy Spirit Alpha videos. So good. James, a prison officer joined us for the second time, and Thandeka was also present. I dropped off L-A at home and went to a special men's event at Willow Creek. I was to hours late because of prison ministry, but as I walked towards the hall, Johan Schoonraad came out to welcome me! This was part of a three-day event with Danie Denysschen, on 'Trading with God - entrepreneurship.' This video shows him speaking at WCC the previous night (in Afrikaans). (He has almost no web presence). After his talk he gave words of knowledge to about 7 people, the first two I know well (Godfrey and Tendai) and the words were spot on. They were right beside me. and I was hoping he would have a word for me, but no. . I was able to tell him later about the accuracy of his words for Godfrey and Tendai - the parts describing their present situations. His style reminds me a little of Darren Canning. I was home in good time to collect our budding small Mailbox Group leaders, including one for the first time. I had earlier bought bananas and individual plain cakes for them, so they had plenty to eat in addition to the regular ham sandwiches. In the car I gave them a pep talk on not going into our drawers and taking our food. Macayla (the main offender I suspect) commented that I was being very rude to them, and I asked her how she would feel if we visied her home and started searching through her things. I also told them the use of L-A's iPad was out of bounds. I laid out the food - seven of everything, and went to fetch Soraya who was able to be here for just 25 minutes to give lesson 12, the last lesson in the Explorers course. Are they ready to teach? Maybe, with the Holy Spirit's help. Before that happens we have to find 5 more venues. As we were going home I noticed Macayla eating another small cake so I knew she must have searched our cupboards despite my warning, and taken the last cake. Driving home she again helped herself to money in the draw I kept for parking attenders and beggars. I pretended not to notice, not wishig to say goodbye to them with bad vibes in the air. But I am asking myself if this girl should really be leading a Bible study.

Fri 14 Sep
This was the day Mella had organized a Chinese lunch for the children and the staff. She had asked me to do my science lesson at 10:15. This was one of my better performances as a teacher. The subject was how things float. The experiment involved a boat made of aluminium foil with a cargo of pennies. As the boys added more and more cargo, the boat eventually sank, taking the coins to the bottom among some cutlery in process of being cleaned by soaking. At my request the boys recovered and returned all the coins. I was pleased with them, and gave them the coins as a reward. I then asked them if they would have prefered stars (on the star chart for good work) or the coins, and they tried to give me the coins back! That's how effective the star system is for rewarding good work and behaviour. In ths case however, the coins were a more appropriate reward. After the class, Mella and Maria walked the boys to Starpark Chinese restaurant while I went to get L-A. The lunch was a great success. I sat next to Mpho who was good company. They all ate their food. Towards the end I asked Patrick to make a speach thanking Mella. In great style he rattled a spoon on a glass to get everyone's attention and then said all the right things. I was amazed. Where did he learn this? Around now we received an invitation from Shelley Ann to do a live interview on Canadian Spaces in 13 October. That clashes with Doxa, so we suggested that we prepare a program segment with words and music and send it to her fully produced, and she agreed. This allows us to get some Christian content into that very popular CKCU program.

Thu 13 Sep
I always feel good on Thursdays, with less stuff in our calendars for the next two days. And the weather is warming. Time to catch up, not least with this journal. This particular Thursday was my appointment with Dr Herbst, spine specialist. As I entered his offices, there was choral Christian music being played in the reception area, and the two receptionists were charming and welcoming. I was soon with the doctor, and it was a good experience with a man of great experience in his field. After checking the mobility of my legs, all of which was fine, he took me though the key images from the MRI. The slightly out of place disc was indeed responsible for my discomfort. I told him that I seemed to be getting better, and some days recently had not taken the pain medication. It also felt totally natural to tell him that the improvements could also be the result of prayers from many people. His verdict was that I should not have surgery, and that it is possible the disc would return to its correct seating. But surgery would put more stress on the adjacent discs which might need more surgery in the future. Also he was strongly opposed to chiropractic in this case. Naturally I was thrilled to hear all this, particularly since he explaind all aspects of the situation so clearly. Since leaving his office I have had extra spring in my step and was so happy to share the news with L-A and friends, and Lynn a few days later. The Worcester Reports featuring Carl Greyling and Bernadette Otto was augmented with the SAFM interview I had recorded on my phone in the car on Monday. We also included a worship song called Arise by Gillaume and Rene Worship, and Josiah Milnes' latest recording. Accoring to the Bitly stats, quite a lot of people listened.

Wed 12 Sep
The children have asked for a chance to learn about the guitar in music class from time to time, so for today's lesson I took both guitars and the Blackstar. By the end of the lesson only Patrick had shown any facility with playing the chord of C Major. Their fingers are too small. But they did learn about tuning, and a little about the fretboard. I used my Cort acoustic and they used the travel guitar, which has an easier action and is more fun for them. L-A and I arrived at Riverview in good time, but I didn't intend to pay the guitar because of my bandaged left forefinger. Instead we used music on my phone played into the Blackstar, via the new cable. We started with Listener Kids' version of 'This little light of mine.' They marched in a circle with percussion and clapping. It was a hit! Then I played several Willie en die Wenspan songs and I am tempted to use this method rather than the guitar from time to time. Kevin translated Mella's message on the armour of God. The whole session went well. Then we were off to Vinkrivier. We were 20 mins earlier than Kaysha, and we stayed in the car while about 10 of the children swarmed it and peered through the windows. Kaysha arrived with her Mother #1, Heidi, and her father Lyndon. Alisha was there. We used the same music method as we had earlier in Riverview, and it went almost as well. Then Kaysha told a Bible story. At one point Heidi voiced her frustration with the endless noise from some while others were trying to listen. All in all however, maybe because there were only about 16 of them, it was better than usual.

Tue 11 Sep
After school I visited the Library in Avian Park where Pastor Mario Milhomem of My Father's House and YWAM was starting a new program teaching the use of computers to a group of women from the neighbourhood. (In a later session I will be teaching them Excel). I had asked him if he knew of any households that might accept a Mailbox Club of up to 10 children in their home each Monday afternoon, and he had suggested I talk to this class. There were no takers at that time, but maybe the Lord will nudge some of them. I went to Tellyfonics and bought another cable to cennect from my phone to the Blackstar, and 4 more percussion eggs. and Laurie-Ann and I were back at school by 11:45 for her art class where she is now teaching the history of art fron Cave paintings onwards. We collected 50 prints of 'Jesus makes all things new.' and the three framed pieces for the Doxa festival, and we chose a frame for 'Sintra,' which she had drawn in the 80s, but its frame had been damaged by flood in her parent's house a few years ago. We bought a large Roman's pizza on the way home because at 6 in the evening I would give a GIG presentaion at our home and cooking wasn't an option. At 5:30 I picked up three from ChangeMakers and one from Riverview (Clinton Pietersen). Danielia brought a guest, so we had a good number, and I presented the GIG opportunity as a way out of the woes of so many in SA, and painted my vision of a GIG Club in Moriah House. They all got the message. The men were also very interested to preview the three pieces of art that L-A will have on display at Doxa. These men are leaders and role models in ChaneMakers, and if the spark is ignited the potential is goof for speading the financial planning message into the township community. Clinton is a friend and associate of Marco Ruiters. I had managed without bad pain all day on no meds.

Mon 10 Sep
My appointment is coming up on Friday with the spine specialist, and I have been sleeping through each night for some time now, and reducing my use of Synaleve. In order to give Dr Herbst the specialist as much data as possible I decided not to take Arcoxia and Synaleve this morning, and see how things go. I was just driving into the Pick n Pay carpark when I heard an interview on SAFM radio with the Deputy Minister of Social Development, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, talking about FaS, on this day after FAS Day. I got my phone out and started recording. and listened in some fascination for the next 20 minutes. I was most impressed by her passion and knowledge. This is going on CWCP. Erena and Mia visited L-A around noon, and I took the opportunity of asking Mia if she could get together 4 men from the ChangeMakers to atend a GIG presentation I would be giving here tomorrow evening. I then donated a basket of fruit to ChangeMakers to make the idea of running a business real to them. We had more than 70 kids in the Avian Park ministry, meaning they only got half a sandwich. Many were new faces. After the music outside, I went into the library to open the door and get the projector remote controller. The manager called me into her office and gave me a dressing down for having failed to put us in the appointments book for the last six weeks. I was indeed guilty. She was upset because she had sent in a report and it was too late to put us down retrospectively. Why she hadn't just done it for us, or mentioned it before is probably because she really wants us out of there because of the noise the kids make. She did allow me to add us in until the end of September, which means it is urgent to find homes for the future children-led Bible studies using the Mailbox Club materials. Then I let the children in and they carried on a loud and apparently unstoppable din, until eventually I got them to be quite, and explained that if they are always talking we can't teach them anything. For our ministry, I started with a shortened talk on 'Does God heal today?' Then played them the video that Macayla had sent me, which I had since uploaded to YouTube. L-A read the parts that described our feelings, and I read the parts describing God's feelings. It went down well. Then We modelled healing prayer. L-A told them she was going though a tough time with her health, but that the prayers of children are powerful in Heaven. There were too many to have them lay hands on L-A, but as I prayed they stretched out their hands towards her. It was a special time. In the evening we ate some round zuchini squash, part of the GIG Club vegetable hamper. These squash are hard to cut, and I managed to slice into the nail on my index finger with a small knife. It didn't penetrate far below the nail, but I bandages it, making it hard to play guitar.

Sun 9 Sep
The disabled parking slots were all taken at church, so I dropped L-A off and parked up the street. Alisha, who we had met yesterday had come to Worcester to join our service at Johan's suggestion. Nik had invited his acquaintance Kevin to church. David de Lille was there with his brand new wife Sylvia. This is the 19th anniversary of the first FAS Day when at 9 am on 9th of the 9th hour 1999 in Aukland bells were rung to publicize the scourge that is fetal alcohol syndrome. Francois Grobbelar spoke eloquently and movingly in church having brought his team, and ending with the Miracle of Life. Then Johan gave the most powerful and logical sermon I have yet heard on this subject showing how the devil works to counteract God's instruction to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. He does this using as his weapons homsexuality, abortion, and with alcohol during pregnancy ensuring that millions will never experience a full life. It was very brave and totally on target. I noticed Kevin left the service near the end of Johan's sermon. Afterwards there were sandwiches and brown drinks for evenyone. I told Francois that I would put the CWCP program when I interviewed him (8 March) on repeat for the rest of the day, in view of the anniversary, and I did. After the service there were sandwiches, coffee and tea for everyone, since fewer of Franscois' people had come than expected. I chatted with David and Sylvia, and in a subtle way he asked me to join a support group for him. It turned out they had taken leaning on the Lord very seriously, having absolutely no money between them. She must return to Cape Town to deal with some stuff on Friday and they have no money to get there. His source of income is a disability pension. I gave them R200 as a wedding present. When I went to get the car I saw Kevin waiting opposite to the church. I asked him why he has left early, and he said that someone had promised to bring him a parcel of food, but hadn't turned up. I told him he had missed the free food after church, but he said he hadn't; he had gone back in to get some. As I drove back into the church the big gate was closed so I waited for another car to drive out. Unfortunately the place I chose to wait put my front left side wheel in the storm ditch and then out of it, but it wouldn't be possible to continue on in the same direction without risking the rear wheel getting stuck. The driver of a car that was coming out saw my predicament, and suggested right hand down and going forward slowly, and with him watching carefully, this worked; the rear wheel avoided the ditch. This could have been expensive, but the car drove on well enough. I am very grateful to my helper. We bought burgers and fries at McDonalds for lunch and I got R2000 from FNB next door with my new Simplii card that Cristina had brought. Macayla Jacoms, one of our Mailboc Club leaders, sent me a video on Whatsapp which showed how we think, and how God thinks. It is good. Take a watch.

Sat 8 Sep
At 5 The men were late joing us at Brandvlei for some reason, so we only had time for the video - no music. I wanted them to see the Who is the Holy Spirit version from the Alpha Film series, a wonderful piece of creativity. It was very well received by all. We needed to leave for an Iris Western Cape gathering at the Four Cousins winery which had begun at 10, but we arrived at 11. It was a good gathering. I had a great conversation with Johan, who had been a participant in one of the public hearings on land expropriation without compensation, as a pastoral representative and a farmer. He was happy that he had been heard, and didn't seem pessimistic about the whole affair, which is a factor in South Africa's current financial malaise including the very low value of the Rand (which benefits us as we bring in money from Canada). We also talked about getting some of his public speaking at The Father's House school on to CWCP Radio. I suggested he starts by recording talks on his phone and sending them to me for editing and either slotting into the Worcester Reports, or starting a new time-slot. I chatted to Alisha, who will staff the next Father's house school with Kaysha. We were home in time for me to have a rest before collecting 6 Mailbox Club girls from Avian Park. Soraya had forgotten about the session, so I attempted to give them all some experience leading their future Bible study groups in 'Storytime.' L-A had a bit of a hard time with the liberties the girls are beginning to take in our house. One of them has started asking for money

Fri 7 Sep
This was a memorable day for meeting new and old friends. It began at 5:45 at my prayer group. I had considered skipping it, but it has become an important part of my life. As I arrived at school, Mella was just leaving and I asked her if she would like a basket of vegetables for R70, and she said yes, so she got the bag I had in the car for Janey. I picked up L-A and another bag of veg from home. We got started early with Afrikaans at about 10:45, including vetkoeks from Nostalgia. Janey bought and paid for one of our baskets of vegetables. We left for Cape Town about 12:45. The first stop was to drop off Mella's MacBook at an Apple maintenance organization, in the same area of town we had stayed two years ago. That accomplished we killed a little time with a latte, shared, and then drove to Sea Port to meet Vernon Williams. He was related to Marian Humphreys but had never met her, but after her death had struck up a communication with Lynn Williams. Lynn hopes to visit him and us while we are in south Africa. Vernon is a semi-retired advertising man working in the corporate world, but his passion is as a visual artist and he is good. We enjoyed his pieces hung around the house, and I visited his studio. While we drank tea we listened with pleasure to his music system, and he told us it was playing DeeGay.FM Classic, an Italian oldies rock and pop station which I really liked. My attention was grabbed when they played Procol Harum's Salty Dog. He also told us about an iPad app called Night Sky which we have since much enjoyed. Vernon has a great view of the ocean, and Robben Island (where Mandela was imprisoned). We left at 5 for a guest house ten minutes drive away where Cristina and Manuel Gutierez would be staying before returning to Ottawa. They hadn't yet arrived so we had a nice meal at Mano's restaurant. Manuel had competed in the Iron Man event in Port Elizabeth. Unfortunately his bike was held up at the airport so he had to borrow one. He was concerned about retrieving it at the airport before they go home. We had a rainy drive home.

Thu 6 Sep
Preparations for a busy day resulted in my failing to take a small piece of plastic cut from a bottle that would be needed for this morning's science experiment in MaterPeace Academy. In fact, when I got there I forgot it was a day for a new experiment rather than writing up the previous one. Khanyo put me right on that - but I had forgotten the small piece of plastic bottle which I needed to demonstrate a simple magnifier. So while they copied off the whiteboard the speeds of light in air and in water in Mph and Kph, I went searching the garbage bins. The best I could fimd was a piece of cellophane paper. I explained that we now had two experiments: making do with what we had at hand (the cellophane) and making it magnify. I layed the cellophane on a sheet of paper with some small writing on it, and with a teaspoon put a globule of water on the cellophane. Immediately we had a magnifier which increased the size of the print, but only where the water was. From there I drew comparison with the human eye and its lens. It worked out better than with the plastic I had forgotten! After school I went to Danielia's house and picked up the five vegetable hampers I had ordered. She had done a good job in packaging. Then to the church for 11:30 to interview Carl Greyling and Bernadette Otto about the Doxa Arts Festival. It went well, and was part of the information gathering I need for being an M/C on the day. In the afternoon I went to Valley FM. Nik Wullshleger needed a meeting with station manager Francois Marais and program magager Catherine Wiese to discuss a possible program for pre-schoolers that Lanner House (he is on their board) and other schools might be able to produce. He invited me so I could suggest that Valley FM could re-broadcast material from the Worcester Reports. The meeting was good from both aspects. Nik was kind to have introduced me. Francois opened the conversation by apologizing for not responding to an email I had sent him two years ago offering our services to present a program on his station. However, today he told me his listeners were 90% Afrikaans-speaking coloureds, and I doubt they would get excited about North American folk music. In the evening we ran part 2 of the interview with Philip Cook, principal of the School for the Deaf. Johan Fourie called early evening to ask what time the YWAM praise started and I invited them to drop in if they had some spare minutes, but they didn't. I realised that I should package up the original invoices from Laurie-Ann's operation and my face stitches so that I could give them to Cristina, whom we'll see tomorrow, for mailing from Canada. Janey suggested we start our Afrikaans lesson early tomorrow to give us more time to get on our way to Cape Town.

Wed 5 Sep
It rained all day today, which makes South Africans happy, but it meant that both our Riverview and Vinkrivier kids clubs wouldn't happen. In the music class I continued playing the 36 genres that I had identified months ago to open their ears to wider musical experience. I was interested and surprized that when I played Kirk Franklin's 'My life is in your hands,' they all sang along, including Amber. Unusually, Mandisa turned up 15 minutes early to pick them up. I texted Kaysha and she suggested we not go over because of the rain. I sent a similar message to Mella, but added that if there was no ministry in the open for the Riverview kids, she should come to our place and spend a little time - which she did. We had a good talk mainly about the ministries, and then a time of good prayer.

Tue 4 Sep
I popped into church after school to get our arm bands for Doxa. They were free to us as 'exhibitors' but we will need to pay R50 at the door to see Joe Niemand. Bernadette heard my voice and we chatted about the interview for CWCP. She will arranged for Carl Greyling and herself to be available there on Thursday at 11:30, and asked me to send them a format for the interview which I did later in the day. Also was given a copy of the 'New Identity' course guide by Leonie, which begins tonight and L-A is interested in attending. I feel all coursed out! I had a rest in the afternoon, and after an early dinner we both went to the church, Laurie-Ann driving. If she wants to attend, she needs to get comfortable driving in town. However, when we got there it turned out that the course would be in Afrikaans only. So she decided to do the course on her own from the course guide (in English) that I had brought back earlier. She then drove us home. She can't get used to the width of the car, and tends to drive too close to the near side of the road. What she needs is practice!

Mon 3 Sep
I think the efficacy of Synaleve is lessening. It is a narcotic, so as Lynn had warned me, be careful of you need to start taking more to get the same result. Nevertheless I did get more from the pharmacy today because I am a bit of a wreck without it. I think there's a way to go before I am hooked, and I'm seeing the spine specialist in a week. On his recommendations hang a raft of decisions for us. Following last week's Avian Park ministry when the children only stopped talking when I turned off the Alpha video sound, I decided this time to give the talk (How does God guide us?) verbally, using the notes I had originally written in a copy of the green Alpha course manual for our mission to Migori, Kenya in 2010, when I taught the whole of Alpha in a week to pastors there under John Okinda. So after the praise music outside, I taught the session, which was quite long. For the majority of it they listened, and only near the end were they getting restless. This was much better. In answer to a question, they told me they preferred it to the video. I think this needs to be our approach in future sessions with the younger children. Our leaders from Mailbox Club did a good job keeping the kids organized, first when they were let in the door, and at the end when the food was distributed, and I thanked them publicly.

Sun 2 Sep
Got to church in good time. We try and be there shortly after 9 to be more likely to secure one of the three spots for disabled people. George Nhema was there because he had brought our chair back that we had asked his wife Jane to repair. She had done a good job - certainly beyond my capabilities. Afrer the service I got the phone numbers of Carl Greyling and Bernadette Otto whom we will be working with on the Doxa Arts festival, Sat 13 October.

Sat 1 Sep - first day of spring.
Arrived in Brandvlei in good time for Alpha, which went very well. The car even started when we left, unlike last week. We had set up an arrangement with Terri and Ian Scott to meet them at Bon Bon for lunch. Terri is Gerry Hogan's sister and I immediately saw the family resemblance. We had a good time getting to know one another. They have been farmers in Malawi and South Africa for 40 years, but are now returning to Devon for retirement. We had Mailbox Club as usual although two regulars were away. After the class, when I was taking Soraya home, the girls amused themelves posing for selfies on L-A's phone, and some of them were quite stylish. Others were not so impressive - they found our 'wine store' in the garage, and photographed themseves with wine bottles very evident. At least they didn't break any. In the evening I added Springbok Radio to our
Radio Stations page, and we listened for an hour or so. It was good. Heard an episode of 'The Avengers.'

Fri 31 Aug
Set alarm for 5:15 to get to the early prayer meeting at Carlo's. From there went directly to Zweletemba to pick up Khanyo, Patrick and Tawana. Then to Tafadzwa's home for him. The other two boys were below 9 and judged to be too young. Then on to Mella's for Maria. At 7:30 we left for the Sustainability Institute's 'eco-Village' at Lynedoch, just past Stellenbosch. This was a school outing, but Mella didn't come - would have entailed a second car. The boys were well behaved throughout the day, and enjoyed the ~ 2 hour tour led by a guide called Julia. See pics here. Around 2 pm I delivered the boys home, including Tawana to his mother's fruit stall in Zweletamba. Got a pic of the two of them. In the evening we had Andre and Janey over for curry dinner and various alcoholic beverages. It was good food and good conversation. Laduma also came and seems to me to be finding life hard. L-A and Janey discussed cooking and recipes. Andre and I talked briefly about the CWCP interview with Philip Cook, who have known each other for decades. Andre mentioned Springbok Radio, which he had several times in the past, so I resolved to check it out.

Thu 30 Aug
At 8 am I arrived at Moriah House to give an intoductory talk about GIG. There were six in my audience indluding Mia and Aubin. I got their big TV working and showed Jasper Cloete's introductory video. For the rest of the time I just talked. They followed what I was saying. I think they liked the idea of ChangeMakers receiving either free or paid financial literacy. Afterwards I sent Mia the URL of the GIG Institute. I am hoping they'll call me back to either set up a GOG Club, or to give them free financial training. After school I drove Laurie-Ann to Autacs who we contracted to make 50 quality reproductions on stiff paper of her recent piece "Jesus makes all things new." Then we went to Caricana framing, and with good help from the sales lady Joline selected frames for this and two other pieces of L-A's prophetic art. These will be exhibited at the Doxa art festival at WCG. Our dinner was ostrich steak; I had rib-eye, amd L-A had rump. Both were wonderful; better than perfectly cooked beef.

Wed 29 Aug
After school (Mpho was back with no obvious symptoms of recovering from 'flu), I drove to the Worcester Auto Clinic, 53 Stockenstrom, 023-342-8495, and a helpful receptionist, Kinna Pake, did some research and then recommended Stu Tonic, and spoke to Stuart on our behalf. I am to phone him Thursday and have him assess the situation. For the music lesson at Masterpeace Academy I decided to switch from 'playing' instruments to music appreciation. Most children here like pop pusic, and African music because that about all the radio stations play. Last term I had identified 36 genres of music that I felt would give them pleasure in their future lives, and played them examples. Today I used those same recordings, but turned it into a competition where points were awarded if any of them could identify the genres. It also gave me a chance to describe the main characteristics of each genre. In the afternoon in Riverview, Kevin again gave a talk after I had led them in songs. The kids seemed to me to calmer and better behaved than usual. I then drove to Vinkrivier and got there before anyone else. After about 5 minutes several children arrived and got into the car with me. I decided not to eject them but to make them welcome. Part of my motivation however was that even if I got out and locked the car, the faulty alarm system would burst into life. Eventually I did get out but didn't lock the car, so the kids got back in. They found the compartment where I keep small coins to give to street parking attendants, and I also had some Hall's throat losengers. When I wasn't looking both the money and the Hall's disappeared. I didn't make a fuss. Back home, as I was cooking our supper, the lighs went out. I soon realized that it was probably because I hadn't bought electricity recently. How to deal with the problem? With the help od a candle (it was dark outside) I was able to buy the electricity from Powertime with my phone using data. It worked. Saved me driving to the grocery store to buy electricity.

Tue 28 Aug
When I got back from school, Laurie-Ann was crying from great pain. She believes she has pulled a muscle, and that this is not a back problem like mine. I called Mella and said the she wouldn't be in for the Tuesday lunch, but that I would, and after coaching from her I would teach the art class. This will be slightly easier than usual since Mpho is at home with 'flu. It all worked out well, and I awarded a star to Tawanda, the youngest, for what I felt was the best effort in the art I set them to do. Bear in mind that when he joined the school I wondered if he should even be there in view of his lack of English, but he is learning that pretty fast and doing well in several subjects. He's only 7. The boys are highly motivated to earn stars. After school I went to MMJ to ask Brian about the car security system fault. He suggested that the Worcester Auto Clinic might be able to disable the alarm. Maggie was in Worcester and called about 4. I suggested she joined the GIG presentation I was preparing. She brought us some excellent Chinese chow and Lindor chocolates. We had an audience of 6 for my GIG presentaion, including Maggie and Bruno. I though it went quite well, and our audio-visual equipment was fine. It was really nice to see her, just returned from a couple of months in Gloucester, England.

Mon 27 Aug
At 11 am I interviewed Philip Cook, principal of the De la Bat School for the Deaf, possibly the best such school in South Africa. This interview compliments Andre van Deventer's interview broadcast 29 March. Andre had been at this school. It went well, and lasted about 45 mins, so I will split it into two parts.

Sun 26 Aug
Not a cell group day, giving us extra time to catch up on our ever-growing 'do lists.'

Sat 25 Aug
Prison Alpha with 11 men, ans a new guard, Alrico Cupido, who joined in with enthusiasm. When we left he carried some of our stuff. When I got to the car, the faulty alarm system had gone off and flattened the battery. Alrico gave us a jump start, bless him. I have to do something about the car security system. I finally heard from Western Union via FaceBook Messenger, a lousy email system for anything other than trivia, mainly because it has no new line facility. This was the start of a daily communication aiming to solve the problem of not being able to send money to Frog in Pemba.

Fri 24 Aug
Afrikaans lesson, and shared lunch from the Nostagia Cafe. Andre always gives us encouraging feedback from previous night's Worcester Report on CWCP Radio. This one had been with Mario van Zyl, pastor at Worcester United Church. At 5 I picked up Chrizelle, Macayla and Jamelia in Avian Park and took them to YWAM where they would perform a dance as part of the YWAM's got Talent evening. On the way they asked me to buy them some food so we went to OK Grocery and got chips and drinks. L-A wasn't up to coming, but I enjoyed it, and our girls did very well. I made videos and took pictures. Bruno and family were present and the evening started with his playing Halleluja on trumpet. One more talent he has. Then his son Noah played a piano solo.

Thu 23 Aug
Thursdays are our most relaxed days. I tried to find ways to get around the apparent Western Union on-line problems. Shoprite won't transfer money outside SA. FNB have no international transfer service. ABSA is a Western Union agency but you can't use them without an ABSA bank account, and they won't give one to people without a work permit. I reported these things to Frog on his brother's Whatsapp. I went to the hospice late morning to offer baptism to Jacobus Abrahams, but he had been discharged to his home the previous day. They gave me his telephone number. I chatted and prayed briefly with Moses, then left. Spent some time in the evening on the GNiTM problems arising from recheduling current GNiTM programs after Brian Wilkie forgot his recording session. Judy Dancer had decided she didn't want to maintain the Broadcast schedule and I had said I would do it. Even got an email from Dave Kemp listing recent sponsorships, including a big increase from Will's Tansfer. I will add these to an update of the Schedule. John Schmidt had told me that CFRA (Bell Media) would shortly close down their FTP site, so I have suggested to John that he places upcoming produced programs on to our GNiTM Future Programs Dropbox. The Worcester Reports went out according to schedule, and this one included at the end the complete Canadian Spaces from last Saturday with Shelley Ann Morris guest-hosting and 'The Cross' by Dan Burgess and me kicking off the show.

Wed 22 Aug
After last Wednesday I was apprehensive. But in the event things went comparatively well. In music, we worked up a version of Al wat ek soek is bietjie liefde (All I want is a little love). They ended up dancing to other English songs on the 'Beste van Willie & die Wenspan' album. Riverview went well but I couldn't remember the tune of that song even though I'd played it multiple times an hour earlier! At Vink Rivier we did play it, and the Afrikaans kids knew it. Kaysha's second mother (?) Mary was there with her daughters Natalia and Julia. Natalia helped in L-A's art section by reading Bible stories as the kids coloured in one of L-A's recent drawings where she had included some of them in the piece. The ones she had drawn seemed hesitant about whether it was a good thing to appear in a piece of art, since the concept was new to them. They were all far better behaved than the previous week. By 11 pm I had mixed down tomorrow's Worcester Report featuring Mario van Zyl.

Tue 21 Aug
For the second morning in a row I was not awoken by pain in the night, and as I write this shortly after getting dressed, my right leg feels almost normal. An hour later, with my breakfast, I was feeling a need for pain relief, so I took Arcoxia and Synaleve before leaving for school and a busy day. Mella was back, and as one of the boys commented, they were somewhat better behaved as a result. My science lesson was distinguished by the fact that I asked Khanyo to draw on the whiteboard the eyball section that I had taught them yesterday, and he did a remarkably good job from memory that I used for everyone else to make their notes with. Khanyo got a star. I let several others add to the diagram and was impressed by them also. I took Mella's Apple computer to Post-Net and they bubble wrapped it and sent it to Cape Town for repair. Then I picked up Janey from Dr van Dijk's office, and took her home. She has been diagnosed with shingles, which I tried to assure her was good news (better than needing surgery) and she would indeed recover. Our communal 'lunch' and then L-A's art class also went well. While we waited outside the school for their transport, they flew paper aeroplanes that they had made, and all of them flew extremely well, one landing on the roof of the school. At 11 I went with the recording equipment to Worcester United Church and record an interview with their pastor, Mario van Zyl. It was a blessed time for me, and he enjoyed it too. It will be a great program on Thursday. I spent the evening maintaining the GNCM website by uploading Sunday's broadcast. Jen at Messiah Church in Ottawa was unable to find the right audio file and show title. It had disappeared from the CFRA FTP site, but I used AR WIzzard to record the version Richard had posted on the GNiTM blogger. The problem is related to the fact that Brian Wilkie missed his recording session, and we are filling in with additional sermons by Jonathan Griffiths from the Met.

Mon 20 Aug
I slept through to my alarm (7:15) without waking with pain in my leg at about 5 am needing to take two Synaleve. Also, I woke with a coherent dream fresh in my memory. So before it faded I wrote it in my dreams journal. My previous written down dream was on 28 April. This one was about how a group of us from Worcester constructed two railway carriages from wood that were needed as a mission train, or mystery train to quote Elvis - a travelling retreat centre. Mella will be back tomorrow in school. It was extra hard getting the boys' attention in my science lesson, which was not a complex one. Even Tafadzwa had to be asked several times to pay attention. I am concerned that what has gone pretty well in the past isn't going so well now. Is it I, or is it they who have changed? I seemed to have lost some people skill. At My Father's House ministry in the afternoon, Jan attended, and told everyone that childen under 8 cannot come to the ministry because it has become impossible to lead with as many as 80 in the room (eg last Monday) all talking, and many young ones with no English just there to be fed. This is not a soup kitchen. Jan told the group that after music ministry, those under 8 would have to go home. This was achieved with less aggravation than I expected. It left us with about 35 who were much quieter than usual. L-A showed them her two latest drawings one of which featured images of some girls who were in the room. They listened attentively to a talk I gave on 'you are in control of your future, with God's help. They also listened to the Alpha session on evil.

Sun 19 Aug
In church this morning a cell goup member, Eugene Walker, compared a cell group with a battery cell. Every chemical in the battery cell is essential to generating the full potential. In the same way, every member in a cell group has a vital role to play in keeping the spiritual current flowing at full strength. After the service I spoke with him and said I had been teaching batteries in science class last week and that I loved his analogy. I then asked him to pray for wisdom for me so that I make the right choices in connection with my possible back operation. I cannot afford to get it wrong and end up having to pay personally for the op. It turned out he had a major Christian healing years ago in his back, and he confidently predicted that I would not need an operation. It is true that I am in less pain, and also taking less medication, as time passes. Maybe the Lord is indeed healing me. It would be ironic indeed if I had an operation and there was nothing wrong. I should have more X-Rays before committing to the operation or coming back to Canada for it as Allianz Travel Insurance may demand. In the evening I finally spoke with Lynn when she called on L-A's Whatsapp. She was very concerned that I may not be planning for the situation if I have an operation, but it is unsuccessful and I conceivably end up in a wheel chair. We discussed things for a long time and I really must not make any decisions that are not 100% correct. The strange thing is that I feel very calm about the whole situation.

Sat 18 Aug
We had told the inmates and staff at Brandvlei that we wouldn't be there this morning because it was the GIG AGM via satellite from Johannesburg. I picked up Janey and Andre at 9:30. The AGM was at WYAM and Bruno had all the technology working well. There were 14 of us including my guests who were non-voting observers, plus Laduma their (guide) dog (also non voting). The meeting was well handled and a key motion was passed to changed the constitution in a number of ways all of which seemed logical and positive. Frog called to say an American friend was sending 3000 Mets. I said I would do the same. However, Western Union is giving me error messages - 'technical problem, please try again later.' In the afternoon I picked up 5 of our girls from Avian Park, and Soraya, for the 9th Mailbox Club training. The girls behaved well, not asking to go our into the neighbourhood and causing a problem as they had last Saturday. Soraya stayed afterwards to write and send her newsletter on one of our computers. After taking her home I collected pizza from Romans (pereroni, green pepper, onion) which will keep us going till Monday. It went well with a glass of Nuy Koffiepit pinotage (beautiful) which should also last us several days.

Fri 17 Aug
5:45 start to the day at the Friday prayer group - just four of us so able to get into more depth. This gave me extra time when I got home to prepare for our Afrikaans lesson. I concentrated on conjugation of a couple of verbs, to learn tenses, like Jy eet jou kos. (You eat your food). In the afternoon I went to the Hospice after researching and preparing a baptism forJacobus Abrahams, who had asked me about baptism when I visied with Daniel Mendes (see 10 Aug). When I was talking to Moses he told me Jacobus had gone home for the weekend. I had a great chat with Moses who recounted the day I took him from hospital back to Towesrivier, and apparently the neighbours were mightily impressed that he came home in a Mercedes. Moses explained that we were friends. Today he told me great news that his daughter had a bursery that would pay for her college education till the end of 2019, and that she had achieved ~80% in her qualifying exams. I talked and prayed with all the other patients. It is great to feel welcomed! My printer refilled cartridge ran out so I immediately drove to the cartridge refill place on Stockenstrom. Before entering I was approached by a middle aged coloured man who asked me for R50 which he said he needed to pay his rent and prevent his eviction. I felt that he might be genuine (ie not spending his days telling the same nonsence story to anyone he met who owned a nice car) and gave him the money. Then I asked if I could pray for him and he accepted my prayer gratefully. Frog called from Pemba to say that boys rinded up on suspicion of murdering a policeman two weeks ago were being let go on payment of 10,000 Mets to various policemen. Frog had told them he had no money and they reduced the bribe to 6,000 Mets, about $150 Cdn. He asked me if I would help. I said I would send him 2,000 Mets if he could find someone else to fork out the rest. Meantime his 14 year old brother Samuel remains locked up. In the evening we watched The Little Kings, a South African movie from the video store about a disgraced test cricketer who found a job coaching a team of young boys with no experience to win an important inter-school match.

Thu 16 Aug
This was the science lesson where a remote control for a device is used to demonstrate infra-red light. After school I went to buy Afrikaans books for Lauren and for us. I bought petrol. Driving home via the video store, I returned yesterday's movies and took another three including Trainspotting 2. They are only R 10 for a day. Outside the mall a woman who seemed to know me asked why we hadn't bought muffins and coffee recently. She turned out to be the owner of Bon Bon restaurant! Back home I Was able to digitize two movies, but not Trainspotting. In the afternoon I watched some of it and was shocked by the criminal exploits of the characters - the grown up versions of the teens in the original Trainspotting film 20 years ago. Aretha Franklin died today and I included one of her songs in my music set for The Worcester Reports. Partly because I had spent half an hour watching the movie I ended up without enough time to produce the 25th edition of The Worcester Reports by 7:30 when the prelude music should start. It was 10 minutes late, and I didn't have time to add the postlude music to the mixdown. So I put the postlude on a stick and at about 8:45 inserted the stick. It crashed the broadcast, and I had to restart it at approximately were we were up to. Won't do that again. In fact I must try much harder to get the production done by Wednesday night. In preparation for our Afrikaans lesson I worked on memorizing the short sentences at the beginning of our Afrikaans Werkboek 2. Janey did say it was time we stopped using any English during our lessons, but I can't see that will work out at all. Hopefully I'll be proved wrong.

Wed 15 Aug
This was a hard, long day day for both of us. Science went well, although as the new boys have become used to the school they are picking up some bad habits from the ever-active Mpho. I wonder if I am getting less good at teaching and capturing their attention, or if is just the natural effect of having 6 boys rather then 2. Heaven help teachers in state schools with 40+ learners in a class. On the way home I went to the local video store for films requested by the men in Brandlvei, but I was unable to digitize 'War Room' and '90 minutes in Heaven.' They must have special anti-copy coding, because 'In His steps' was no problem. In my music class, each boy was asked to come to the piano and play the scale of C as he looked at the cardboard depiction of the keys and showing where the notes were on the stave. Then, as 3 volunteers played 2-note tunes over and over, the others added percussion from a variety of instruments, and I added guitar chord accompaniment. Then each boy was asked to make up a tune using the notes he had just played. As they played I gave them harmony from the guitar. Some of them came up with worth-while tunes. During her absence in France, Mella had asked Kevin Daley to tell the Bible story at the Riverview kids' club. We led the worship, and also brought cake and juice. Kevin brought oranges. It went well. Then we were off to Vinkrivier and although we arrived half an hour late there were few signs of life. We decided we would go for a meal at Spur in Robertson, but as we reached the R 60 Kaysha texted to say she and the missionaries were on their way, so we returned.8 As the boys and girls arrived it was clear some boys were in unpleasantly high spirits. One of them in a brown jersey was trying to wrench off the Mercedes star from the front of the car. Slightly angry,I drove it out of the compound, leaving L-A on her purple chair. Apparently some of the kids thought I was gone and wasn't coming back (for her)! Leano who had been in a very antisocial state last week was not acting up today; he was normal! L-A had asked many in her circle to pray for him. To try and use up their hyper energy, Kaysha had them (and the missionaries) playing a game that involved running and chasing - something I am afraid I am no longer capable of! It didn't work - the kids never slowed down. She asked me if I would play outside and lead them in songs, and we used the percussion jars and bottles, and some of them did sing along. But soon all the jars were empty of stones and at least one glass jar broken. Francolin's younger brother was in shorts and no shirt and it wasn't warm so one of the missionaries lent him a coat. Francolin watched over him to some extent; it was quite touching. All in all it was not a fun afternoon. I ask myself why some of these children come at all, since they seem bent on destruction. Maybe it is better than whatever alternatives they have. We drove home in some relief, having not really said goodbye to the missionaries, whom we probably won't see again.

Tue 14 Aug
Tatenda was back in school with no ill effects. For my science talk on batteries as a soure of energy, after we had looked at some AAs and measured their voltages, we went to our car and did similar measurements on the car battery, including via the jumper cables. Several boys decided they wanted to jump into the trunk, which they did briefly with me closing the trunk on them. It all helped to make the experiment memorable. After school I went to see Dr Erik, who gave me the news that my spine had problems, one of which was fair wear and tear, but another was a disc out of position. I asked him again about chiropractic, but he felt it could make the situation worse. His recommendation, which I followed of course was to give me a referral to a spine specialist in Worcester, so I now have an appointment on 13 September to see Dr Herbst. The MRI scan already taken + the X-Rays should suffice for his needs. Depending on his recommendation, probably surgery, I will have another little chat with Allianz travel insurance. I clearly cannot commit to surgery here unless they will pay for it. The only other course would be to return to Canada for a similar operation which could have a long waiting list. These thoughts bubble into my brain from time to time and I try not to dwell on them and put my trust in the Lord. By noon we were back in school for L-A's art class. For some reason they quieten down when she's teaching. She had the boys drawing subjects they found interesting from photos, particularly trees and flowers. Bernadette Otto emailed me asking for .mp3 samples of some of my prison songs that I have offered to sing at the Doxa arts festival at church, so I sent her 'Father can you mend me' and 'The Cross.' Shelley-Ann Morris said that she was co-hosting Canadian Spaces this Saturday, and would like to play 'The Cross' which she heard on last week's Worcester Report. Turn out she thinks she has heard Dan Burgess sing live in the past. So I sent her two versions of Dan's song and also his version of Elvis' 'Cant't help falling in love with you.

Mon 13 Aug
Tatenda was away from school, sick (coughing blood). After school I drove to MMJ Motors to ask Brian to diagnose a problem with the locking system. If I lock the car with the key fob, within half an hour the alarm will go off. I have discovered that if I lock the passenger doors with the dashboard locking button, and then lock the driver's door with the mechanical key, all is well. MMJ had the car for 3 hours after having a driver take me home, and the diagnosis was that the driver's door lock has a fault. This would cost up to R 4,000 to fix. I decided to remain with my workaround. in the afternoon I (without L-A, still not well enough) went to YWAM and picked up Daniel and his parents, who are missionaries in Mozambique: Adilson and Anna Mendes from Brazil. He speakes no English, she a little. We immediately got on well together. There were more than 80 children! We had music outside though it was breezy. I iey ntroduced our visitors to the children, and then asked those who were there last week to raise hands. I then asked those who had come forward for (the sinners') prayer to raise hands, and about 10 did, which was gratifying. After that I set Anna chopping the sandwiches in half - luckily I had brought a knife for this possibility. While I set up the computer, Adilson (interpreted by Daniel) spoke to the children, choosing as his subject the feeding of the 5000. I got the feeling he was expecting a miracle. Keeping so many children quiet enough was not too easy, but they respond well to people new to them. First I played the video from filmed in Cape Town on The Alpha South Africa page telling the story of a young man who had come to Christ on Alpha. Then we ran "How do I make the most of the rest of my life," but with so many in the room the audio from Blackstar was hard to hear (though there are English subtitles). Following the video Anna told them the story of the paralysed man being lowered through the roof of a house where Jesus was preaching, and the children were remarkably attentive. She told me afterwards it was her first talk in English to a group. When feeding time came I brought them up one row at a time. In a way, Adilson's 'prayer' was answered: there was enough bread, if only half a sandwich, and there was just enough juice, and enough cups for all. We had extra oranges at the end and I perhaps foolishly took a plastic bag full outside and was beseiged by desperate-looking kids clamourirng. This also resulted in about 20 orange peels lying on the library parking lot, which Daniel kindly picked up. Adilson and Daniel worked hard when the children were gone helping clean up the room. Back at WYAM I said goodbye to this lovely Christian family. Later in the evenig I phoned Jan about this explosion in numbers. She will attend the start of next week's ministry and will announce that from now on only children 8 or over can come, to a maximum of 40. As she pointed out, this was never meant to be a food kitchen.

Sun 12 Aug
Ceres album.

Sat 11 Aug
Prison Alpha went well, though there were no staff present. The subject was prayer, and we had some deep discussion. At the end I played them the recording of "The Cross" that James had produced. Bon Bon was closed for a private event, but I was able to collect another package of Synaleve from the pharmacy. I emailed Soraya about 2 pm to say it was business as usual for Mailbox Club at 3, and she replied that she wouldn't be able to make it. Immediately a plan came into my mind that I would use it as as opportunity for the girls to take turns acting as teachers of their own Mailbox Club. When I went to collect them, there were eight, the record for passengers in the car. One however was little Mia, and aother was Bella's young sister Naya. After making sandwiches, L-A entertained the little ones, and I got the class going. The girls liked the idea of being teacher and several took turns. The class is in Afrikaans, which I don't yet speak, so I was dependent on them taking this exercise seriously. After the lesson the girls went outside and walked around the village, which they love to do, but on this occasion took advantage of local unwitting hospitality and pulled a bunch of oranges off a neighbour's tree, resulting in the neighbour, Gla****, storming into our living room and complaining with gusto. I was suitably cowed, though her comment that this village is not for children I found a little hard to swallow. On the drive home I explained to the girls that this was not acceptable and to their credit, two of them owned up to taking the oranges. These were very unripe oranges, more like lemons, but the girls ate them with salt!

Fri 10 Aug
We were at Andre and Janey's by 10 am at their request so I could take them to their bank. L-A stayed in their house with Laduma. I asked then id they would like to attend next Saturday's GIG AGM as observers, and they said yes please. I also got the names from Andre of three people I would like to interview for CWCP: the directors of the Pioneer School for the Blind, Paul Greyling, the director of the School for the Deaf, Plilip Cook and the Executive Mayor of Breede Valley Municipality, Antoinette Steyn. For lunch we ordered from Nostalgia Cafe. In the afternoon I went to the hospice with Daniel Mendes, and he was helpful, praying for everyone in Portuguese after I had played in English. I introduced him to Moses, who was in bed for a change instead of his wheel chair, and being treated with medication. Then we reached Jacobus Abrahams, who has been there some weeks. He said he wants to be baptised but was confused by what a visiting pastor had told him. I explained about the sinner's prayer, water baptism and baptism in the Holy Spirit. I asked him if he had prayed that he wanted to dedicate his life to Jesus, and he hadn't so I took him through the sinner's prayer, which he repeated very sincerely. Then I told him that the best way for him to get baptised would be for his pastor to do it in his church, but if he wished I would baptise him if her was still here next week. I got a feeling that some of this dialog was also from the Holy Spirit teaching Daniel. At any rate it was the deepest Christian conversation I have had in the Hospice. So I will prepare a simple baptism ceremony for next week. I didn't hear from either Radiologie or Dr Eric's office about my MRI. Maybe that's a good sign.

Thu 9 Aug
The National Women's Day holiday meant that we had a day off from school - and another tomorrow. Spent much of the day catching up on our extensive 'do lists.' We had some really good news - my back UK pension payments were deposited into our bank account. I worked quite hard on The Worcester Report from Kleinplasie, adding at the end the audio of Amazing Grace from Riverview with violin and trumpet, and The Cross recording James had produced. I emailed stakeholders about the show, including Suzanne Burgess and Shelley-Ann Morris.

Wed 8 Aug
I picked up Maria Chavez at 8:30 from Mella's house. She is Colombian and was at YWAM recently, but her course ended two weeks before her flight home, so Mella invited her to stay, and she spends some of her time at the school. Mella was still there and gave me the food and drink for the Riverview kids club. Craig and Krista McLauchlan were already at school when we arrived and have offered to take over my music lesson slot - great! I took Mpho to the kitchen and gave him a Keenmind pill as an experiment (L-A has been on them for weeks helping with 'brain-fog'). His mother has taken him off his ADHD drugs, and he had been hard to handle since the beginning of the term. The science lesson needed a dark room, and Angie from the church building that we occupy confirmed that they don't want us to use the main room with no windows that we have used before, because our kids had moved things around there. However, I was able to find a small kitchen which was dark when the light was off. The experiment, which I had successfully practised at home, involved lighting a fluorescent lamp with energy derived from static electricity on a balloon after rubbing it on hair. When the time came I read the kids the riot act that they must be completely quiet and not touch anything in the little kitchen. I marched then downstairs and they were quiet. We crowded into the little room and did the experiment and they all saw the light flicker in the fluorescent light bulb, after charging the balloon up on several of their heads. While they were reasonably quiet, there was a certain amount of josling in the dark and when I switched on the light three of them were lying on the floor! By the end of the science lesson I saw no short-term benefit in Mpho from Keenmind. I took Maria home because she wasn't feeling well and it was cold for her, and I got her Whatsapp number. When I got home I read a message from Mella to say that Craig and Krista needed to get to YWAM for 1 pm for lunch. They hadn't mentioned this to me earlier in the day. So at 12:30 I returned to school and suggested to them that I take them back (instead of their walking, as they have been), and leave the school in Amber's care till I get back. This they were happy to do. When I got back I gave them 10 mins more music lesson, and then closed the shop and took them downstairs. It was sunny and they all went outside to wait for their transport home. Tatienda (7) amused himself by doing handsprings! This, wearing a warm jacket and regular black walking shoes! Then her started walking on his hands for up to half a minute. The others caught on and soon we had five boys showing their athletic skills on the sidewalk. I have video to prove I didn't dream this. I haven't seen such athletic talent in children so young before. At 2 pm I picked up Daniel from YWAM, plus his violin. Then picked up L-A and we went down to Riverview. Mella had given me the food. At 2:45, Craig, Krista and her mother Yvonne arrived, driven by Ruloff. I led music using some of the tunes some of the children had sung in music camp. We did Amazing Grace with Daniel on violin. Craig had brought his trumpet and he is good. Their son Benjamin (10?) took some video on my phone, which has come out very well. Krista's mum Yvonne told the story of Christianity from the Wordless Book. Then the children had the cakes and juice and there were just enough for everyone. At about 3:40 we and Daniel took off for Vinkrivier. We were first to arrive. Soon Kasha came driving Victor with our 11 missionary new friends, followed by the children. It was sunny and they played happily outside. Some were inside with art and dominoes, while the missionaries made friends. When it was time for music, we again did Amazing Grace with violin and all the percussion home made jars with stones from two weeks before. When I started clapping the rhythm, the percussionists latched onto the beat and I then played. The little battery powered Blackstar guitar amp was amazing. Never though it would be powerful enough. We played quite a few songs and it was good. Kaysha then told a bible story, inviting the children to draw their impressions on art paper, which some of them did. One little fellow, Leano, 6, was having none of this. He ripped up his paper, broke colour pencils in two, and refused all attempts at physical contact. I went and sat next to him and he pushed me a way. He is traumatized. Francolin seems almost civilized compared wth Leano, and tried also to be friends with Leano without success. After the ministry we drove home with Daniel and he joined us for a good dinner which he enjoyed. He is the son of missionaries who are currently in Mozambique, and there is a chance we will meet them when they come to visit him. After I'd taken them home, I had a glitch with CWCP radio, playing tomorrow's Worcester Report instead of the GNiTM archive. It took me 10 minutes to get the right file running on air. Repeat to myself 10 times: "I will check I have the right audio file running as soon as I have set it going."

Tue 7 Aug
This was Mella's last day before a visit to France and she briefed me on some aspects for her absence, including paying Amber. I was pleased to hear that Amber is now on a regular salary. We shared lunch with the class at noon, including crisps and a banana loaf. Laurie-Ann's art class was an introduction to framing a view with a mask to decide which is the most pleasant. It made for a good photo op as they held up the masks (that I had made) and selected an area from a photogtaph on her computer screen I had taken 20 years ago of the back of our house in the snow with the fence and gate. Patrick and Tafadzwa drew excellent representations of the fence, and all the boys enjoyed the process. L-A has a fine approach to teaching art. At 2:20 I arrived at Worcester Radiology for the MRI scan Dr Eric van Dyk had prescribed. The nurse who guided me though the process was efficient and personable and I asked her to take a photo of me in the scanner, which she did with her camera and emailed the result. That one is not for social media, just for my personal memories. The process was relaxing and I fell asleep several times, woken by the musical tones MRIs make. When I left at about 3:35 I had with me a CD of all the results. The whole process had been quietly efficient and smooth running. I am able to view all the images amd movies on my computer! Can't extract them (or understand them), so took a photo on my phone. The analysis will take a day or so and will be reported to Dr Eric. So I should know soon if I will need surgery. L-A was picked up by Erena and taken to the ChangeMakers AGM in the evening. All went well. They greatly appreciate the quality of her work.

Mon 6 Aug
I drove the car to work, and have had no repetition of the flat battery situation up to this time of writing. But during the school class my car alarm went off for several minutes. I stopped it by starting and stopping the car, and then locking the doors manually. On leaving school I drove to MMJ, who have the diagnostic software for Mercedes, and had a word with Brian. We booked it in for a week's time. He says there may be a fault on one of the several sensors that will set off the alarm. Erena and Mia came to see Laurie-Ann for an update on the work she has been doing on their accounting books - which is a lot of work! They seemed to feel satisfied that all is being done well, and they agreed on an approach for the board meeting tomorrow evening. At about 1:30 I picked up Daniel (Mendes) + violin from YWAM. 11 Iris missionaries on outreach in Iris Western Cape (as we had been two years ago) arrived at our home about 2 pm, driven by Kaysha in Victor (Iris minibus). I welcomed them and shared the plan for the afternoon, giving each of them a photocopy of the sinner's prayer from 'Why Jesus.' Two of them had done Alpha. I explained that through God's perfect timing we were up to "How to be filled with the Holy Spirit" in Alpha, and they were going to be the prayer warriors. Laurie-Ann was unable to join us due to her deadlines for the Changemakers accounts, and she was very sad to miss it, so I promised her lots of photos and videos. At the library before I unlocked the door the missionaries were getting to know the kids who were there waiting. It was too windy for outside music. Once they were all seated (about 45 of them) I had each missionary introduce themselves and say one reason why they loved being a Christian. Before we started music I played a clip from the Music Camp video at YWAM the previous Saturday with the kids choir singing "You are Holy - Prince of Peace." I gave out copies of the words to the missionaries, and one of them was ready with the bodhran. When we started to play, it was magic - a great sound, which Kaysha caught on video. Then we played Amazing Grace, with Daniel on violin, and again we have that on video. Then the missionaries led in a third song which all the children seemed to know. We ran the Alpha film - and I was secretly delighted because the missionaries got exposure to Alpha. It ends with an opportunity to ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to fill the room, which I did, gently explaining to the children that if they felt ready to bring Jesus into their hearts forever they should come up to a missionary to be prayed for. At first no-one did and then a young girl near where I was standing got up. I took her hand and led her to the right hand end of the prayer warriors, and then I noticed that the one standing there was Jan! This was the first time she had joined her ministry while we had been involved! Over the next half hour 13 of the children came up for prayer. My concern had been that either noone would, or all of them would, either of which would have been less than ideal. What actually happened was again perfect - thank you Holy Spirit! Then came the giving out of food, and it was orderly and restrained. The kids love to have visitors and it reduces their tendancy to run amok. While they ate I played the music camp concert video, and when Mella started her flag dance routine, some of the older girls (mainly our Mailbox Club students) started dancing in groups. This I also caught on video. Finally I got the guitar out again and started playing songs that they all know. Everyone was happy, and by God's grace we didn't get complaints from the library staff. By now it was raining, so when Kaysha took the missionaries back to our house, I took about 6 girls home and we dropped off the plastic boxes at Amedja's. I then took Daniel to YWAM, and then home, where L-A had served tea to our guests. She and I told a little of our stories. One of the missionaries said that he had taken the chance to minister to kids who had congregated outside the library at the time we started giving out food. We don't let them in, but tell them they can join us if they come at 3. But he was able to bless them. Good initiative.

Sun 5 Aug
Brian Houston's (Hillsong) program this morning came from beside the Sea of Gallilee. It was special. I posted it to Facebook. , and she was L-A , decided not to attend church due to the workload on the Chagemakers books. It is very rare for her not to go to churvh at least once on a Sunday. The car was completely dead when I went outside to top up its coolant. What to do? I hadn't left the lights on; I wondered if we would need a new battery. Then Heni from across the street appeared like Holy majic and asked if he could help. This was about 8:30 am on Sunday - he is in our congregation! So he brought his car over and gave me a boost. I took my time going a long way round to church to get some charge into the battery, and parked on Durban. Marius's music and Johan's sermon were excellent. Johan drew inspiration from Michael Collins, Columbia's pilot nearly 50 years ago for the moonlanding - but he never set foot on the moon. Yet he was crucial to mission success. The topic was servant leadership. After church I walked to the car and it was again dead electrically. I walked on to our cell group and asked Nik if he would give me a boost after our time together. Not only that, he answered, he would lend me a battery charger. When I got home I turned off the engine. I started it again - and it did (start). So all was not lost with the battery. I backed the car into the garage (not too easy since it is a steep incline, so it would be close enough to a power point for the battery charger. I got my voltmeter and it showed 12.45 volts. This was good. I set up the charger and ran it till next morning when the voltage was 13.45.

Sat 4 Aug
L-A did not join me for Alpga in Brandvlei this morning for two reasons; (1) her health is at a low ebb and she may be contagious, and (2) she must keep going on the financial analysis of the Changemakers books if she is to be ready for the committee meeting this Monday evening. Her devotion to this work is incredible - but so necessary for Erena and Mia. This was the first time going to Brandvlei that I hadn't taken my computer, since last Saturday we had run the program perfectly well from memory stick. There were 11 attenders including 3 for the first time. The first thing I did was have them pray for L-A's recovery. For the music I played them You are Holy - Prince of Peace, which is a part song, and by the third of 4 times we did it they were all singing their part excellently. Then I taught them The Cross (by Ottawa inmate Danny Burgess, now serving a 9-year sentence) and told them how I had come to write the music. The 'faith' video is really excellent and they lapped it up, with great answers to the periodic questions. In the afternoon I picked up the Riverview and Roodeval kids and took them to YWAM for about 3:15 for their dress rehearsal. At 6:15 I picked up our Mailbox Club girls and brought them to YWAM in good time for the show. The show was a lot better than I had expected. The children had learned the words to all the songs, as well as the tunes, and sang with confidence and enthusiasm. In addition to the children there were other performances. Chistine plays violin very well and she and Krista on piano entertained us to a duet. Phil Adewumi sang a song (he has an excellent voice), and then recited from memory a chapter of the book of Luke. I flip-videod much of the performance. The sound quality in the hall was not nearly so good as the clips I had posted from the music camp last wednesday, but the visuals are OK. Afterwards there were refreshments. All the children - performers and audience had a great evening. I took the Riverview and Roodeval kids home to accompaniment by Willie en die Wenspan, and Christine took our Mailbox Club girls back to Avian Park.

Fri 3 Aug
Was woken by my alarm rather than by leg pain, and at first forgot I had set it for 5:15 for the early prayer group. A few minutes later I remembered (thank goodness) and got to Carlo's house in time. I was the first there so pumped him for info about his post operation situation. They took all sorts of precautions to prevent blood clots. He had walked a kilometer the previous day and had a bit of pain from that, but his overall situation was far better. We prayed for Frog and family, L-A in her accounting work, Ron, and gave thanks for Brandvlei and music camp. After school I collected L-A for our Afrikaans lesson. Then I took her home and went to Kleinplasie to interview the coordinator of the Arts and Crafts Centre, Lelanie (Kya) Swart, and then interviewed stall renters Tendai and Heather, and Marianne and Brenda. I want to get them some publicity because they have very little traffic. All were sincere Christians. After that I again ferried children from Riverview and Roodeval to Mella's house for music camp. While taking them home I saw a child in crutches having a very hard time crossing High Street. 15 minutes later I saw him again making very slow progress, so I parked the car and went back to see if I could give him a lift. When I got close I saw that 'he' was actually a young woman, and she was waiting to be picked up. So I prayed with her for a fast recovery. My MRI is scheduled for Tuesday and I hadn't heard from Radiology with a quote yet, so I called them. It will be R 8714.10, and I can pay on the day. In view of the significant reduction in meds I am taking, I am trusting that the MRI will show that a back operation is not needed at this time. I edited the video from music camp and posted to FaceBook. When on YouTube, its artificial intelligence led me to two videos filmed in Avian Park since 2015, one from YWAM and one from Teachers of the Nations. I posted both to Facebook. In the evening I prepared for prison Alpha tomorrow by learning one of the songs the children had sung in music camp: 'You are Holy - Prince of Peace' by Michael J Smith. Rens called me to say the Mailbox Club girls would like me to take them to the music camp concert tomorrow. I called the UK Pension office who were able to confirm that they had received my Life Certificate a few days ago, and I would be receiving the missing payments since January, and then continuing on. I received an email from Western Union to say that Carlitos Jeremias, Frog's brother, had picked up the money transfer. All in all, a good day indeed!

Thu 2 Aug
. p. I had an Arcoxia after lunch. And I remembered I haven't heard from Radiology with a firm quote for my MRI next Tuesday. I will call them tomorrow. After school went to buy about 8 herbs that L-A needs. Spoke with Mella on the phone about transportation needs for the music camp concert on Saturday and realized there was a clash with our Mailbox Club. So I called Rens and asked her to get the message out via Chrizelle, who I also left a message for. I also told Rens I would be willing to take the girls to the music camp concert at 7 pm on Saturday, but someone needs to get nack to me on that. Moses called me and told me he was coming back into the hospice, and I said I was planning to go there this afternoon. I attempted to reach Daniel at YWAM to take him with me, but he didn't answer so I went alone, and Moses was indeed there. Apparently he had called them and asked if he could return, and they agreed. Life at home has not been too good for him, and he was happy to get back. He needs help getting into and out of bed. He seemed a little preoccupied, but asked me to bring him bananas next time I come. I visted and prayed for all the other patients. Back home I put the finishing touches on The Worcester Reports - which ran faultlessly in the evening, and instead of the 'Bethel Without Words' postlude I was somehow prompted to play 'Blessings and Journeys' complete, which fitted in well with Ways to Grow in God which had included L-A's visits to Holy Island. Around 9:30 I checked the early morning prayer group Whatsapp and was very happy to see a message from Carlo saying that he was well enough after his back operation for the group to meet next morning. Laurie-Ann stayed working on the Changemakers accounts till much later. She has been at it morning noon and night recently. So many discrepancies and slack bookkeeping. With her experience she is very good at this work but it is so time consuming and tiring.

Wed 1 Aug
Received an email from the Village of Joy Pemba confirming that there had indeed been a policeman murdered and that Samuel, 14, Frog's brother was in custody. I don't believe he could possibly be guilty, but guilty or not I felt it was right to support Frog financially so he could get food for his brother (there is very minimal food given to prison inmates in Pemba). So I sent $60 CAD (another $12 fee) to Frogs elder brother Carlitos (who has the necessary ID to receive money transfers) by Western Union, and managed to latch up with Carlitos on Whatsapp to send the MTCN number. It was available for pick up within the day. In the afternoon brought the two batches of teenagers to Mella's house for music camp, and then stayed there as she had asked. While we were waiting for Christine the choir leader the boys were hitting the djembes, so I got them synchronised and added piano for a few minutes. Once the choir practising got under way I realised this was a great photo and audio opportunity since the children were singing so sweetly. So I got busy with my Blackberry, and even got a short interview with Christine. I will include these on tomorrow's Worcester Report. I took the girls and boys home, buying the Riverview kids crisps, and the Roodeval girls ice cream from McDonalds. At home I started and then started editing. By midnight it was sufficiently complete to email all stakeholders about the show and how to tune in. It will be complimentary to the Vinkrivier kids sounds and Kaysha's interview.

Tue 31 Jul
For the first time in weeks I wasn't woken about 5 am with leg pain. And when I got up I still wasn't in pain. So I decided not to take my usual cocktail of Arcoxia and Synaleve. Amazingly I needed no painkillers for the next two days! Frog called from Pemba. His 14 year old brother has been arrested for allegedly murdering a policeman, but Frog said there is no truth in this. He is in jail where food is not supplied to inmates, so Frog who is a student without income has a big problem. The classroom was crowded for my science class which was somewhat offputting. The storage boxes I had bought were fine, and I had the pleasure of bringing in the repaired globe. When I brought L-A to school at nearly noon, there were still lots of people, but they were leaving, thank goodness. I had forgotten the juice and our sandwiches, and went back home for them while the children ate the oranges cut up by Jan that we hadn't given out yesterday (because they were causing a riot). When I returned and L-A and I ate our sandwiches, Mpho left his seat in the Afrikaans class and begged me for some of my sandwich. I refused, not wanting to cause a riot today. Last term they always brought enough food with them for the morning break and for their lunch, but this term all the children seem to be finishing off all their food at morning break. L-A had prepared a very polished art class which she presented on screen via Mella's projector. After the powerpoint about Georgia O'Keefe, she showed part of our home movie showing New Mexico, where Georgia O'Keefe did her most well-known work, and the Grand Canyon. We dropped off Amber, and went home in time for me to come out again to ferry students on the music camp from Riverview and Roodeval to Mella's house. I played them our Willie en die Wenspan CD and they sang along with each tune. At 5:15 I took both groups home. After dropping them off I heard a depressing report on SAFM on rising unemployment in SA. It's officially more than 30%, but that excludes millions who have just given up looking for work. Then a voice message was played from a man who had qualified with distinction in accounting in 2007, but had not been able to get a job in his field. In the afternoon I emailed Pemba to ask their advice on Frog's situation. In the evening I prepared the two upcoming CWCP programs using Pink Dell, because the Adobe Audition have on this computer has deteriorated to a state of unuseability. L-A is still spending hours plugging away at the Changemakers accounts, and Jan has now sent me the figures to get started on the My Father's House accounts for 2017.

Mon 30 Jul
Craig and Crista, missionaries from Canada here to run Mella's music camp were in the school when I got there. They helped out as I did the science class which today was writing up Friday's experiment on the colours in light. After class I went shopping in the mall for groceries, and then went to , not wanting to Tiger Wheel and Tire to see about my nearside rear tire which was losing pressure, as pointed out by Francolin last Wednesday. The mechanic soon reported that the tire in question was in bad shape and could not be repaired again. I asked if I could buy just one replacement tire, but then he showed me weaknesses in the other rear tire. At first he thought they would have to order in a pair of replacement tires. But shortly after he offered me a very good deal on a pair of Achilles tires that were slightly narrower than the Michelin's on my front wheels. I took the deal. Mella had asked me to buy some school supplies, primarily plastic storage boxes so the boys would have somewhere to store their notebooks. I was able to bargain down Game to have R 110 boxes for R 80 without lids, which we didn't need. She also asked for another globe to replace the one Mpho had punctured. I didn't buy one at that time because I thought I could still repair the pWhen unctured globe with epoxy resin. I bought chicken and rice for our lunches and drove home. At about 2:30 Kaysha arrived to join us for children's ministry. We picked up Daniel and his violin from YWAM, and oranges from Jan and drove to Avian Park. We did music outside and started with Amazing Grace with Daniel on Violin. Kaysha got some of it on video. Then I ran through all their favoutite songs. Inside again, I told the kids that today we would focus on the power of the Holy Spirit. Daniel, Kaysha and L-A all spoke about aspects of the HS. I spoke from my phone notes from Brian Houston's TV program. Then we ran the "Who is the Holy Spirit?" Alpha video The children were somewhat more attentive than usual. They were also pretty good when we gave out the food, until the oranges. We had more than we needed so there was a big clamour from people wanting more. We went home. Kaysha went into our house for the first time and I took Daniel back to YWAM, having taken advantage of his presence to carry Jan's speaker/amplifier into the car. When I returned we had a good dinner with Kaysha with so much good conversation. She told us how she, having trained as an architect, had always felt a pull to Africa, so when she discovered there were courses to learn how to become a missionary, she attended Harvest School, and has been here in Robertson more than two years. After she was on her way home I got down to repairing the school globe. After confirming it was leaking from one spot only, I applied epoxy resin to the area. Some time later I blew up the globe, and it stayed up!

Sun 29 Jul
Most of the Overhex church plant congregation were with us in church, and the worship was powerful - though when I briefly spoke to the newly appointed Overhex pastor he assured me theirs was just as enthusiastic! Kudos to Phil Adewumi. After the service we talked with Bernadette about the Doxa festival and my possible involvement as announcer, and I said I would be happy to do it. I also offered to sing some prison songs. We will have to cancel Prison Alpha and Mailbox Club on that day. We went to the Caltex filling station to have them pump up the bad tire. Then we bought burgers at McDonalds. Laurie-Ann cooked a wonderful roast beef dinner, which we ate about 5 pm. Then we were off to the monthly soaking prayer in action meeting at church. Although only two turned up, Heather and Lovejoy, it was a special time. We prayed for the victims of the terrible wildfires around the world and particularly in Redding, California where we were a year ago. Afterwards I caught myself wondering if we should wind this prayed group down, but what came to my mind was the two people who walked up the hill where we live everday for three years to pray, and then the Cape revival broke out, with early activity right here in Worcester.

Sat 28 Jul
At Brandvlei we (Isaac and I) were able to figure out how to play the Alpha videos from memory stick rather than computer, so I won't need to bring in a computer. Unfortunately in the process of testing, using our HDMI cable, I managed to leave it in the chaplaincy office where we operate from. Hopefully I can retrieve it next Saturday. After spirited praise and worship we watched 'Cross.' First time I have seen it and they do a great job. Towards the end of the session I played a recording of the final section of Marco's interview from CWCP, where I asked him to address Avian Park as a whole. We returned home via Bon Bon. For the Mail Box club training I picked up five of our girls by driving around, including someone who I hadn't seen before, Amy. When I went to collest Soraya I was concerned I might not find her in view of the loss of her phone, but it turned out she had bought a new basic phone (talk and text, R 200) so when I called, she answered. Although Amy had come in at a late stage, she seemed a responsible girl and keen, so after she had done the lesson (seven) I suggested she take the book home and work through the previous six lessons on her own. When all the girls had left, L-A noticed a message written on our shopping list: "I love God. God is my God. He loves me. Peace, hope, care. from Marsha." How special is that, from a girl who attempted suicide a few weeks ago! I received a Facebook message from Bernadette Otto saying she had heard the CWCP broadcast featuring Johan Schoonraad, and wondered if I would be an announcer/continuity person/DJ for the upcoming Doxa arts festival at the church in October. She is the arts director at church as well as a worship leader.

Fri 27 Jul
Dressed up in a shirt with tie for the first time in South Africa because I was to represent Jeremy Jobling in a Correctional Services volunteer ministries quality assurance meeting at Brandvlei. As I came into the school classroom, the kids joined in a chorus of 'Teacher Tony' over and over. It was quite the welcome. Maybe it was the tie - though only Mpho mentioned it. I left at 10 so as not to be late at Brandvlei. I needn't have bothered; when I got there it was more than an hour before I was 'on.' I spoke with Anne Wolfson and her friend who are part of
Peace Education Program, and spend their time training prison officers to deliver their courses! Glenda Fredericks was in the foyer and we had a good chat. I asked her about getting permission for Marco to come in and talk to inmates, and she said he would need a security clearance. There were 17 officials in the room making sure that all volunteer ministries were up to standard. I think my talk was OK, though you never know. On the way home I got my second refill of Synaleve, and then bought L-A four large proteas from a roadside stall, and some steak pies for lunch. In the afternoon I spent some time with Jan learning about digitizing the 'My Father's House' 2017 accounts. I felt relaxed at home, particularly because of the Correctional Services talk, and the delivering of our tax returns, as I caught up on stuff. We watched and photographed the longest lunar eclips of the century which is at its peak as I type this.

Thu 26 Jul
In science we wrote up yesterday's experiment. I used the white board to good effect. I also insisted on Khanyo, Tafadzwa and Patrick composing a descriptive paragraph as part of their reports. Mella's computer wouldn't turn on, so I took it back to the repair shop that she uses, but they said it has to go back to the Apple store in Capetown. Went to church to retrieve the Brandvlei forms, but Johan's phone had been stolen which had put all routine matters on hold. Early evening I Netfiled our 2017 tax return, discovering in the process that I had after all set us both up on the CRA website (My Account) for direct deposit to our bank of our tax rebates. I had been working on the tax return since early July, so bringing it to a conclusion and finding tha both of us had fairly substantial rebates is a big deal. Late evening I checked the Whatsapp group for our early morning prayer sessions, to see that Carlo, our host, was in hospital to have the back operation, so no prayer group tomorrow.

Wed 25 Jul
Since we are restarting the Science syllabus from the beginning of Dr Wylie's book, this was the "Let there be light!" experiment, when, in the dark room, we enact the beginning of the universe,and then show some basic features of light. Considering there are now six students (called learners in SA), one of whom, Tawana, I discovered speaks no English or Afrikaans, but only Tswana, it went well enough. I have decided to take two days for each lesson: the experiment on the first, and the write-up on the second. This is because the exam last term showed that they are very poor at composition. One of the students, Tafadzwa, appears to be as bright as Khanyo, but the six year old, Tatenda, is going to be a challenge because the idea of sitting and listening to teacher is new to him. And Mpho is up to all his old tricks. The music lesson consisted of showing them the scale of D, and then how to play it on xylophone, piano and recorder. With six each taking turns, the lesson took nearly an hour. At the end I asked them how they were enjoying school so far, and words like awesome were used in their replies. Mandisa failed to show up so I took the boys and Amber home. Then I went straight to Riverview since L-A was spending the day at home on her accounting books for Changemakers. There were no kids there when I arrived, but by 2:45 we had about 11 for praise singing. Mella wanted them to have some food but hadn't had time to bring any, so we drove them round to the nearby convenience store and she bought sweet treats. I got on my way towards Vinkrivier, but was in great need of coffee so stopped at the Leroux and Fourie coffee shop. Lucky I did, because Kaysha was there and we agreed I would drive her since it was just the two of us. While I was waiting for her, Johan saw me and we has a good chat. I told him that the radio stats suggested his broadcast was the most listened to so far. He expressed some interest in having me explain the Internet radio technology to him. When finally Kaysha was ready and we went to the club, it was about 4:45 and there were no kids waiting - they had probably assumed we weren't coming. So while we waited for them I took the opportunity to get a radio interview from her, which was interruped after 15 minutes when about 20 of them showed up. They started playing ball games and they were all so well engaged and having fun she let them continue with that, and we never actually went into the club room. One of them Francolin noticed one of my tyres was somewhat flat - the same one that had been leaking a month before. Now Francolin is a bit of a tearaway, though artistic, and I thanked him most sincerely. I made friends with a few more of the children, learning some more names and taking pictures. When she and I got back to the base I completed the radio interview. The car has made quite a good studio. I drove home at a modest pace and stopped at the Kleinplassie filling station for petrol and air for the flat tire. Thank you again Francolin. At home L-A had prepared a tuna casserole, and made headway with the accounts. I checked out Marco's interview for tomorrow, and it didn't need a single edit in its 32 minutes.

Tue 24 Jul
I had a not very good night with stabbing pain through my right leg even though I had taken Synaleve. I resolved to get back to see Dr Eric again, and when I called the office, I was fortunate to get an appointment for 3:45 that day. When I arrived at school there were not five, but six kids! Tafadzwa had come, and Loveness's boys had brought their cousin. Instead of formal science I had them stick name tabs on, and photographed them, and then just chatted about some scientific things they would be learning, as we go back to the start of 'Science: In the beginning.' I brought L-A to the school - not with a full sandwich lunch, but I had brought mango juice and crisps. Lucky I did, because most of the children had eaten all the food they had brought at break. Anyway we did have a communal time, starting with grace. After their Afrikaans class with Lauren, L-A gave them an intro to the art classes, ending up with them colouring some of her drawings, which is always popular. In the afternoon I was with Dr Eric for half an hour, resulting in a requizition for an MRI scan. I walked round to Radiology and got a scan booked for 7 August. Then I went home and called Allianz (Travel Insurance) and told them what was going on with my back, and that I had already spent R 4,763, and would be getting an MRI which would be another R~6,000, and then could need a back operation. I had to leave before they finally confirmed things, but my impression was that they probably would cover the scan. What I had to leave for was tonight's monthly GIG meeting. There were only five of us. Bruno gave a good teach-in on Godly generosity and then Danielia gave an update on the potential business project to sell hampers of fruit and vegetables to shut ins and anyone else who would like them. Looks like we are going ahead with this. I need to find 5 or more customers before 7 August.

Mon 23 Jul
I was in school between 10 - 12 with Mella, Amber and Chantelle Terblanche, abacus teacher, (but without any kids), planning the upcoming term. I mentioned that Janey had recommended the school to the father of one of her students, Tafadzwa Nyamapomdo. I said I'd get the father's name and number to Mella. Since we are expecting 5 students I also suggested to Mella that Laurie-ann not make sandwiches for everybody. She understood this was a lot of work, but suggested we still have a communal lunch on Tuesdays. It was good not having to buy the food for the kids and deliver to Avian Park, since Jan was now going to be doing it. In the afternoon we took Daniel Mendes from YWAM with us to the Monday class in Avian Park. It was he whom Mario Mario Milhomem had asked if we could share some ministry with. Daniel fitted in well. I had him count the kids (52) and the sandwiches (71). I gave a talk on why we have singing in Church and here in this group. L-A has transcribed and posted it to our web site blog, under 'Sharing worship and creativity.' Instead of Alpha, I tried out one of Jan's Max Lucado videos, which tied in a little with my talk. Jan had chosen oranges as the fruit for the kids and there were plenty, all sliced into quarters. They liked the oranges!

Sun 22 Jul
At today's cell group, I asked about the yellow flowers we had tried to replant in our garden, and Nik told us they are 'suring.' Their stalks are edible which a fruity flavour that is quite nice. Jan Buchanan said that she would be able to buy and deliver the food for the Avian Park kids on Mondays and Wednesdays, relieving me of this task that I had done for several months while Jan was on the YWAM counselling course. In the evening we attended a Soaking Prayer and Healing evening at church, the initiative of Marius Rabie. Clips from The Passion of The Christ were used to remind everyone of the cost to Jesus in becoming the saviour, with Marius and the band playing and praying between the clips. Laurie-Ann was asked to tell about a picture of knowledge she had had in church that morning when Marius was leading worship, whch she did very well. Both of us were prayed for, for healing, in my case my back/leg. The prayer leader had had a word that someone with back pain would come up to him for healing.

Sat 21 Jul
Our third prison Alpha in Brandvlei. Had a little delay at the start, but with Isaac's help with batteries for a remote we got the A/V working just fine. For music, I had been practising Chris Tomlin's Everlasting God, which starts 'Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord,' a great subject for believing inmates, and a concept I spoke about briefly before we sang. The Alpha video we watched was "Life: is this it?" which we should have run last week but for some reason I didn't have it in the subdirbetter stateectory then. The sound was crystal clear and this facilitated the chat sessions when the audience is invited to answer questions like 'If Jesus were here now and you could ask him one question, what would it be?' One of the men suggested "Why did you create Lucifer," which another inmate felt was a bad question suggesting a lack of faith, a train of thought I couldn't follow. There were plenty of other questions and answers. After leaving, we again went for coffee and muffin at Bob Bon. In the afternoon I collected 5 girls and Mia, daughter of Marco and Rens from Avian Park. At YWAM I was having no luck contacting Soraya. Then she appeared out of the blue, and told me she had dropped her smartphone down the toilet and it was completely shot. Soraya taught lesson 6. When I had taken her back to YWAM, the girls really didn't want to go home. They like being here, including the neighbourhood. When I finally got them in the car they spent the trip shouting to imaginary people and a few real people along the way. They had enjoyed themselves a lot for the last two hours. In the evening I made a couple of Skype calls that proved most uplifting, The first was to Cindy who I hadn't spoken with for weeks. She has now left Investors Group, and her larger accounts are being passed to Carlos, and she will qualify for AVP. We had a really good talk and I was pleased to hear she had set up a Whatsapp account. I sent her a brief message, and got a reply. The second call was to (my brother) Phil in Qualicum Beach, British Columbia, who was 75 yesterday. As soon as I heard his voice I knew he was in a better state than the last time we had spoken, which was when he had recently started on experimental chemotherapy for his two cancers. This kills just the bad cells, and has worked really well for him. We had a really good chat too.

Fri 20 Jul
I was quite happy-even eager-to join the 5:45 am prayer group at Carlo van Wyk's house after their break of several weeks. Sean Waite was there for the first time since I joined, whom we had met 8 June at the YWAM Couple's Night, and whose information had been material in getting us into Brandvlei, for which I thanked him publicly. I was purturbed to hear that Carlo was shortly to have an operation to fuse two discs in his lower back. He had been suffering for some time from the same issue that I have, though his was more advanced. Later in the morning I went to the pharmacy to get a refill of Synaleve and I quizzed the pharmacist about the possibility that I might be forced to take the same solution as Carlo. I think I am healing slowly, but some days I am not so sure. I am dependent on the medications. When I started using them I needed 2 Synaleve every 6 hours plus one Arcoxia at breakfast, but in recent weeks I have been able to take the Synaleve less often. But yesterday and today I needed more Synaleve. Much of the day saw Laurie-Ann working so hard with the Change Makers accounting books, and me working on our tax returns. We both kept at it, and by 10 pm I was at the point that I was able to do a trial run of our returns, showing that we should get healthy tax rebates. I've been feeling better ever since!

Thu 19 Jul
I attended a My Father's House board meeting at 10. The last meeting was October 2017, and things have changed a lot. Jan Buchanan is a tireless leader of this ministry, and we have become good friends. I have volunteered to become the treasurer. Mario Milhomem is a pastor from Brazil who has introduced computer familiarization courses to both teenagers and adults in Avian Park. He became a little disappointed when teenagers were inconsistent in attendance, but when he switched to adults they were extremely keen and never missed. Mario asked me if we would take out a newly arrived YWAM student, Daniel Mendes, on some of our ministry activity. Spent a fair amount of time in the afternoon tidying up tonight's Worcester Reports, when the interview is with Johan and Marie Fourie. I finally got it done at exactly 7:30 when the prelude music starts. One of the things I mentioned was that in addition to our broadcasts on Wednesdays and Thursdays, we were broadcasting more and more Christian music and teachings outside of the main broadcasts. I sent a Jacquie Lawson birthday card to Phil for his 75th birthday.

Wed 18 Jul
I slept quite well after reducing the number of Synaleve capsules from two to one for the last couple of days. Did some tax return work including filling in a T5008 form which was new to me. it's nice still to be on school holidays till next Tuesday. The little yellow flowers came out in the sun. I felt that the proteas would benefit from some sunlight so I put them out on the stoep, and by the nend of the day they had opened up nicely. I found a link to the Obama speech at the Mandela centenary, and tweeted it, then watched the full four hours, half of which was Obama. The whole thing was compelling watching.

Tue 17 Jul
Laurie-Ann is 57 today, 17 days older than Barack Obama, who spoke today at the Nelson Mandela centenary (see what he and other South African leaders had to say - either from my Tweet, or direct link here.) We slept in a little, then went shopping at the mall where I was able to buy her a bunch of proteas and other indigenous flowers. This was what she really wanted for her birthday. We went to lunch at Nuy on the Hill, which was delicious and romantic (see Facebook pictures). The landscape was covered with yellow flowers called suring, similar to buttercups, and as we left the restaurant I dug up a couple of them with the house keys and planted them in our garden. At home, for L-A's birthday evening, we watched "I can only Imagine," which she had been able to buy from i-Tunes now that she had her new TD Visa. It's a fine film, and I posted relevant stuff about it on the Copplewesterncape Facebook.

Mon 16 Jul
I was at YWAM by 8:40 and the praise and worship was good, especially when Phil Adewumi recited a chapter of the Bible from memory. He has been doing the 'Word by Heart' course at YWAM. Then an Afrikaans lady recited another chapter in Afrikaans. The room was borderline standing-room-only. I went to Pick n Pay to buy the groceries for the afternoon's kids' ministry in Avian Park library. It's been a month since I last did this. I saw Amedja briefly when I delivered them at her house. Then back home to work on various things till 2:30 when we drove to the library. There were only 11 kids there, since the news hadn't been remembered that we would be back today. After music, L-A taught from Patricia King's 'The Heavenly City.' While she was doing this I was trying to get one of Jan Buchanan's Max Lucado DVD's to run on my computer, without success. It had worked at home! Later investigation suggests that the disk on my (main) computer has deteriorated (it has been held together by duct tape since we arrived). I was able to digitize several of Jan's videos using our external disk drive. Anyway, back to today's session. I decided instead to show them Alpha - Who is the Holy Spirit? - and it held the interest of these 8 - 12 year olds, and they answered questions along the way quite well. Then came food time, so the 11 shared the food which would normally have been enough for 40. No complaints. I felt it had gone very well, and a lot easier for us non-Afrikaans leaders than if there were lots more of them. They all ended up taking home about 10 or more pears.

Sun 15 Jul
Brian Houston preached on the power of tears, and that tears are never wasted in the Kingdom of God. We had a good breakfast and were at church by 9, which meant we got one of the three disabled parking spots, as we do about five weeks in six. Johan preached part 2 of his talks on the words we use and how powerful (or destructive) they are, which turned into quite a revival sermon, which we heard perfectly in 'translation row' in our headphones. Coffee at Milk and Honey afterwards. I picked up Janey at 2:30 and brought her over to watch Compelled by Love, and then I added our first two Mozambique videos for good measure. L-A cooked flapjacks - the British variety, not the pancakes that South Africans call flapjacks, and we enjoyed them accompanied by coffee and Amaretto - the debut of the bottle we had found during our travels. I did more work on our income tax including adding the expenses of our move here as deductibles against our Iris income. I thought about the 8:30 am praise and worship session tomorrow and decided I wanted to be there.

Sat 14 Jul
We set alarms for 7, had porridge and were on our way to Brandvlei by 8:05. Tandeka Smouse had replied saying we would be went met at the gate at 8:30. I got busy trying to play the video from each of the two computers I had brought on one of their large flat screen TVs. We made it using an HDMI cable which means I'll be using my main computer each week; their TVs were too new to have regular VGA sockets. I had brought our Blackstar for the sound, and it proved crystal clear. There was no sign of Thandeka or her female colleague who had sat in on the course last week, but Isaac was there, who understands some of the technology, but he didn't sit in. There were 9 from the group last week when 15 attended. We had praise and worship, and then the video. With the Youth Alpha, both the old version and the new which Jeremy Jobling had given us, the action stops every 10 minutes or so to pose a question to the audience and this is great to get the men involved. This group's answers were somewhat more perceptive than we expected; there are several mature Christians among them. One question which I deferred to L-A was: "If God and Jesus are one and the same, how come Jesus is seated at God's right hand in heaven?" Everything went well and we felt they had all benefited and enjoyed it, as we build relationships with them. We had given them sticky labels for their first names at the start, and I brought all the labels home to set up an attendance chart. On our way home we dropped in, as we had last Saturday, at the Bon Bon Coffee Shop and had coffee and delicious muffins with fresh cream. They greeted us like old friends. We think this will be our regular routine. In the afternoon I drove to the library in Avian Park, and there were no girls waiting. So I drove to Marco and Rens' house on Nightingale and picked up a few, plus Sano who had come last week, and Mia, a 3-year old from Marco's dynasty who was along for the ride. I asked if I could interview him for radio that afternoon about 5, and he agreed. We picked up Jamelia at her house, and we saw Macayla on the street, but she said she couldn't come for a reason I didn't catch. I delivered them all home and L-A got busy making sandwiches as I went to collect Soraya. She was less than pleased to hear that the group was not stable with the same faces (but I was more focused on the potential interview with Marco). when we got home and started the teach-in, I insisted Sano join the class. When I took the roll call, he said his real name is Waylin Frank. So that is confusing. I thanked those present for being there, but told them to get the message to those who hadn't showed up that they need to treat the course with commitment. Soraya said the same to them during the teaching, which went well. The 3-year old Mia nd proved to be a fun kid, playing with our draught-excluding snake and behaving quite well, Not all the sandwiches L-A had made were eaten, and L-A wondered later if the too-cold butter was a problem. Maybe we should get better spreading margerine for them. When the lesson was over, I first took Soraya back to YWAM, and then took the girls & Sano home. Marco wasn't home but one of the girls fetched him from a nearby house. Soon we were in the same room when we had visited with Jan months ago. There was some ambient noise so instead of using the small mic stand I had brought, I sat next to him on the couch and held the microphone for him for the whole interview. I had prepared four questions (while Soraya was teaching the class) and we got started. He was very articulate and frank, particularly when mentioning the murders he had committed as a gangster. He explained how and why young boys get onto drugs and then into gangsterism. In the second half of the interview he told how his whole life had turned around after an evangelist meeting in Avian park. It was somewhat better an interview than I had dared to hope for in the months that I have wanted to interview him. Back home we had wors for supper. It had been a very special day and I certainly felt the joy that this ministry brings.

Fri 13 Jul
With Afrikaans lesson at 11, I spent some time before that working through 'Begin met Afrikaans Werkboek 1' which I'd bought at P & A a few days ago. Somehow I have to learn how to put sentences together and remember them. Maybe this will help. In the evening sent Whatsapp to Tandeka Smouse saying we would be there by 8:30 to give time to set up the computer into their screen.

Thu 12 Jul
Had a lie-in this morning, sleeping till about 10, and felt fine and relaxed when I did rise. Should do this more often - and it's good for healing my back/leg. Having noticed that I was paying A HREF="https://www.driversupport.com/">Driver Support each month, I decided to make sure all four computers were optimized with the latest drivers, and then I will unsubscribe. It is an excellent app, particularly if you are re-streaming a laptop. It will go get all the drivers in their latest versions, and I had bought it when I retired from Investors Group and had to remove much software from my computer. This took quite a while. My second Dell computer has never been treated with Driver Support, and it has become very slow, despite regular disk cleanups and defrags. When it was done and optimized I tried playing a video on it. It ran normally! This machine hasn't been fast enough to play videos for years! This means we can take it into Brandvlei for Alpha, insead of taking the #1 machine. I posted tonight's Worcester Reports on Harvest School Alumni page, and then on a number of Whatsapp groups. This program deserves a good audience. I went grocery shopping - Laurie-Ann has threatened to make flapjacks and I certainly want her to have all the ingredients. South Africans call pancakes flapjacts, and I'm not talking about them. But in Britain Flapjacts are oats and syrup biscuits, and the nearest South African equivalent is crunchies. After all the advertizing I did for Worcester Reports tonight I trust we had quite a few listeners. The program ran faultlessly. By the next evening there were 55 hits on the Bitly link,

Wed 11 Jul
I started the day answering Janey's assignment and it took me right back to my dad leaching me Ohm's law at about the age of 11, and I hadn't forgotten any of it. Three of the questions made no sense - possible words left out - and referred to something not defined anywhere. It is weird to me that people are setting exams for teachers who either cannot put a sentence together or don't know about proofreading, or both. No wonder the country's education system is in crisis. We went to the Vinkrivier kid's club armed with a bag of bottles, and I actually managed to get some of the kids making percussion 'instruments' with them. Next task was to have them shake their cans and bottles on the beat. Then I played a set of praise songs on guitar accompanied by this percussion department, and they got the hang of marking the beat rather than making random noice. After the music I read the sory of Lazarus from The Message while L-A illustrated it with drawings of Jesus, Lazarus, Mary, etc. It was hard going. Few of them are interested in listening to anything, and the version in The Message I would not recommend for use with children. On our way home we had pizza at Beluchi's which we haven't done for seven months! In the evening L-A was having problems with her PayPal. It required authentication with a text message to a Canadian number that no longer exists. I was glued to Croatia eventually beating England in the semi-finals of the World Cup, so I was of zero help to her at that time. She was having a great struggle, with angry exclamations. After the game I ran up my Paypal, noticing (a) that I also had an out of date email and address, which I was able to update, and (b) I have been paying the app 'Driver Support' $9.99 per month for several months through Paypal. I ran up her Paypal on my machine, with the same result as she had had. I found a help number and she was able to speak to a live person at Paypal, who confirmed that her Paypal cannot be resurrected in South Africa - the account information was so out of date. There's a lesson here for all Paypal users, particularly if you change your phone number or email. What we will probably do is replace her Paypal with mine on her web pages. For a little relaxation I listened to a great Archive Fire song in a Spotify Archive Fire discography that I hadn't heard before called "We don't deserve love" from Everything Now. I decided to incorporate it into tomorrow's Worcester Reports, which I finished mixing down. This is the program with Josh and Rachael Minter from the East London IRIS Affiliate "Grace and Mercy Ministries." I posted it to Copples Western Cape Radio Facebook, and also to Harvest School 24. I also made a radio cart that I can play periodically when we are broadcasting music from Christian artists, and Christian teachings, which do periodically, and listeners need to hear an occasional station ID, even if we don't do any announcing. It was pretty late (12:30) before either of us got to bed.

Tue 10 Jul
Johan Schoonraad signed as witness on the UK pension life certificate. Then we somehow (I really can't remember how) got onto the subjects of same sex marriage and abortion. The command was 'Go forth and multiply.' We are exactly in sync on these two troublesome issues for churches today. He told me of a gay friend of his in his youth who had realised the demonic origin of his sexuality, had taken up a straight lifestyle, become a pastor and was happily married with children. Later in the afternoon I mailed the completed life certificate from the Worcester post office to the pension office in Wolverhampton. I used regular mail because expedited would cost R 450. In mid afternoon there was a knock on our door and it was a courier bringing L-A's TD Visa! At last! We spent the evening with Andre, Janey and Brian. Andre had recovered from nausea and vomiting a few days before. Janey had played the podcast of her CWCP broadcast the previous week over her phone to her mother in Margate. Janey had been struggling with an assignment in her correspondence course relating to Ohm's Law, and asked me for help.

Mon 9 Jul
The first thing I saw in the morning on my computer was a note to remind me to try again to print the UK pension form - Life Certificate. I turned on the computer and printer, and started a short prayer. I said 'Lord ...' and that was as far as I got because the printer started printing the Life Certificate. Talk about a fast answer to prayer! Then God in his sense of humour printed four copies though I only needed one; all the result of my failed attempts last night. I Whatsapped Leonie at church asking for a brief meeting with Johan Schoonraad to witness my application. She replied almost immediately offering 9:45 the following morning which I gladly accepted. I posted a photo from Brandvlei on FB and reported on our joy at getting in yesterday. Then I sent the report to members of the Prison Network Group in Ottawa. I went shopping in the Mall and bought up much of their stock of the Begin met Afrikaans series of 'Werkboeke,' Janey had lent one to L-A who had been working through it for a while. It is used for children. I also bought some birthday gifts for Marie Fourie at the Crazy Store. When I went into the next door store for more ideas, the lady there said I needed to include chocolate and flower(s), which she didn't sell! She recommended Woolworths for flower(s), perhaps orchids. I already had a small Ferraro Rocher box of chocolate, so I went to Woolworths and got a miniature orchid. Johan and Marie (Fourie) arrived at our home about 6:30, their first visit. L-A had cooked goolash and egg noodles. They had brought wine and dessert (like banoffie pie). She enjoyed the 8 or 9 small gifts and particularly the orchid. We had some great conversation. After dinner I told them we would really like to do an interview for CWCP and they agreed. We set up the Marantz in internal stereo mic mode and they both answered my questions so well. It will go out on 19 July.

Sun 8 Jul
Watched Brian Houston's message on E.TV at 7:30, the gist of which was that stress is good and it is the fuel we need to get things done; only distress is bad. When in distress over too many responsibilities, rather than shedding some of them, ask God to enlarge you (Exodus 18). L-A was aching too much in her knees to go to church this morning so I went alone. The team from Overhex Christian Church was there including Phil Adewumi, who were all presented to the congregation, including the new leader couple. Phil sold me a copy of his new book 'The Power of Hope,' which he had mentioned when I interviewed him. I went home to pick up L-A for cell group which as usual had good discussion and prayer. I had brought a Pick n Pay shortbread platter which went down well. In the afternoon I continued on the tax return, needing information from Solutions Banking and Ottawa Hydro. The former replied during the day with the interest I had paid on our home equity loan which is tax deductible. I have had a bunch of photos taken in church and in cell group which merited wider exposure so I loaded them up to a new Flickr page. As I did yesterday, I played music and Christian teachings on CWCP for much of the day. My leg/back pain was less than usual. Yesterday I started a new pill routine. I took two Synaleve before going to bed, another two if I wake up around 5, or when I get up, and an Arcoxia at breakfast time. This has got me through the rest of the day. I sense that the problem is like a pulled muscle (though it is not a pulled muscle). If I am careful and don't cause any pain spasms, the healing progresses. The most painful time has been in bed, so the new routine reduces movement in my sleep that can wake me up in pain. I have one more week of relative relaxation before starting the deliveries of food to My Father's House, so I need to be better by then to be able to carry the large boxes of fruit. The British pension office in Newcastle had sent me a form to get my persion re-started and the last thing I tried to do tonight was print it, but I got an error message saying I was out of ink. I though this unlikely. More likely it was because I had refilled the cartridge (for much less tha a new one), but this disturbs the routine that reports when ink is low. The man in the cartridge refil store had warned me that there is a stop button that overrides the low ink warning, and I had a simular message on the screen. I didn't know which was the stop button on the printer so I pressed a certain red button hoping for the best. This didn't solve the problem so I rebooted everything, but got the same result. It was late so I left it for the morning.

Sat 7 Jul
(As posted to FaceBook) Ardent followers will know that since we arrived in Worcester we have dreamed of being accepted as volunteers in Brandlvei Correctional Services prison. This morning we ran our first session, scheduled for 9 am. There was no problem entering the gate and although they examined the trunk they seemed to have little interest in what was on the back seat, namely guitar and related equipment. We had planned an introduction to Alpha. We didn't actually get to Alpha, because the TV /DVD there wouldn't play off a memory stick, but we got to know 15 medium security inmates who want to do the course, which will begin next Saturday. We shared with them what to expect. Three of them gave testimonies, one an ex-Muslim who gave a short good sermon, and then L-A and I gave ours. We led them in praise and worship - and they were like a gospel choir. For the first time in my 15 years experience of prison ministry, two of the prison guards, both ladies, sat in on the session and joined in with enthusiasm. The presence of the Holy Spirit was guiding us as leaders, and filling the room with His holy aura. I think it was providential that on this first encounter we spent the time letting them get to know us and getting to know some of them. We had three songs starting with Amazing Grace, and then later played some of the stuff we have used for the children, and they went down really well. We ended with some soaking with the song from Blessings and Journeys: My prayer for you. We were both on a major high not just as we left but for the rest of the day. So many things might have gone wrong, and didn't. Thank you Jesus! Back home I set up some Christian music and teachings on Foobar and started broadcasting on CWCP. It is easy to add new items without interrupting the broadcast, so we ran for much of the day. I watched most of the England vs Sweden World Cup game, which Englad won 2 - 0. In the afternoon I drove down to Avian Park to collect the girls for Mailbox Club, but noone was waiting at the library. I now have Chrizelle's number so I called her and she said most of them had gone to a wedding, but she would like to come. I drove to her house (Marco and Rens' on Nightingale) and waited. Soon they returned in a truck from Shoprite. I spoke with both Rens and Marco. Chrizelle asked if a boy called Sano could come, her cousin, whom we had not previously met. I was OK with that because we wouldn't be doing any course just for one. So they came to our house, ate sandwiches and a great pear cake that L-A had just baked, and watched our photos from our holiday week. Actually, Sano watched while Chrizelle spent half the time on her phone taking advantage of our wifi. I showed her that she could pick up CWCP on her phone. I took them home, and as I was returning heard on the radio that the Russia vs Croatia game was on. So I watched the rest of it, ending in penalty shootouts that Croatia won. The three or four games I have watched have all been really good entertainment and Russia has done an excellent job of organizing. In the evening I decided it was high time I posted the photos I have collected of Worchester Christian Church on Flickr.

Fri 6 Jul
I took Synaleve before going to bed, but still needed more at about 5 am. Worried that my progress was being reversed. At 10:30 was at the doctor's offive to see one of Dr Eric's partners (he being on leave), who signed another prescription (renewable) for R 638 worth of anti-inflamatories and painkillers to see me through the next few weeks. While I am only taking Synaleve when I need to, if I am on my feet for more than 15 minutes I have significant pain in the leg, and I am limping wherever I go. Maybe I should be taking more rest to allow healing to take place. Went grocery shopping after collecting the prescription, and bought some ostrich steaks. After lunch I got everything ready I could think of for the prison tomorrow morning, and practised the three praise songs I had picked for our Alpha introduction morning. I phoned the UK pensions department in Newcastle and told them I hadn't received my pension for six months. They will send me a form to correct the situation. After an amazing dinner that L-A cooked of roast ostrich, we called TD Visa to ask them yet again where L-A's replacement Visa had gone, and yet again they had sent it to their branch in Nepean. We again spoke to a manager, this time named Harris, who said he will courier it to us here. We'll see. In the evening I watched the quarter final between Brazil and Belgium, who at the time of typing are ahead by two goals! .... Just watched Brazil knock South America out of the World Cup!

Thu 5 Jul
I bought some audio wire at Buco and installed the Leak Mini Sandwich speaker in the living room, after enjoying its performance at the kid's club. It sounds pretty good and we listened to tonight's Worcester Report (Janey van Deventer interview) with it as we had supper. L-A's Ways to Grow in God - Waiting - was also impressive. Earlier I had worked on our tax returns and realized I hadn't received T4-CPP and T4-OAS. I called the CPP department and got straight through to a very helpful lady who told me the figures and box numbers, and then said she would send me my access code for Service Canada so I could view the forms on line. I was most impressed. I was less impressed when I added up my British pension receipts and noticed they had stopped paying me as from January 2018. Tomorrow I will chase this up. Carlos emailed that there was no possibility of continuing my life insurance after 9 July. We are treating this as being like an additional $125 monthly donation.

Wed 4 Jul
This morning we are down to 7 units of electricity on our meter, and Powertime is unable to let me buy more for some techical reason. So I drove to OK Foods and bought R 400 worth and offset the problem. We both spent some hours on computers. This afternoon we will be at the Vinkrivier kids club for the first time in a month. I devised a way to play music and my guitar with good quality, and with nothing heavy to carry. The guitar plugs into the Blackstar guitar amp, and the output from that goes to the Pyle amp. The Leak mini sandwich speaker is connected into the Pyle. When we arrived at the club and had said our hellos to the kids, I did the set-up, and L-A (bohdran) and I played a couple of test tunes, with some kids on eggs and shaker, and it sounded really good. When the time came for music, I played some Willie en die Wenspan tunes on my Blackberry via Bluetooth, and there was dancing in the room. When we then switched to praise music on guitar, we began battling the continual noise from the older kids. After three songs I'd had enough amd we stopped. Kaysha showed her photographs of her recent visit to Scotland. It seems the kids haven't changed their behaviour a bit in the month since we were last here - many of them battling to be the loudest voice in the room. This makes it very hard to teach them anything or even have a conversation, and certainly hard to sing to them. There was a Dutch missionary alled Amelia there who had brought pancakes, much appreciated by the children. We returned home to red beans and rice, and port. Later tonight we will have our first broadcast in two weeks. Hope we haven't lost our audience.

Tue 3 Jul
L-A got up early because Erena was bringing her a document. In the event just as she arrived L-A'a phone rang and Erena gave me the doc. After breakfast I drove to MMJ and asked Brian for a diagnosis on the continued "Battery protection ...' engine error message which meant that the Garmin and the interior lights went off every half hour during the last few days. Brian at MMJ said that the main battery (in the trunk) was suspect, and suggested I go to the Battery Centre on Russel street. The mechanic (franchise owner?) said I should back into the small bay. This turned out to be trickier than I expected. Nearly hit a pole holding up his roof, and then once in I backed a little too far and actually moved his counter an inch or so. He connected the battery to his testing machine that showed 12 volts with no load, but as soon as load was applied it dropped to 9 volts. He looked more closely at the battery and noticed the cable was loose on one of the terminals. He tightened it up, and suggested I see if maybe that was what had caused the problems. He wouldn't take any money for what may have been a very valuable service. I said that if it didn't fix the problem I would definitely come to him for a new battery. He said fine, but next time try to park in the bay and not in his office! I then went to the Chinese store on Porter Street and was able to find a vase for L-A's proteas. Near the vase section a lady was standing over a merchandise display with her head in her hands. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she had a fever and felt she may have influenza. She said she couldn't afford not to work even for one day. I asked if I could pray for her and what was her name. It is Portia. So I prayed, and several time after leaving her that the Lord would heal her. By the time I got home, via the Mall, the error message had not come up on the car screen. Back home I reminded myself we are still on holiday and that I didn't need to be busy all day. I watched the TV reports of the finding of the 13 school children 4 Km inside a flooded cave in Thailand. I finished the posting of our holiday photos to Flickr. Then I started work (at last) in our tax return. I noticed that there were no T4s for my AVC pay from IG, and emailed Janet at IG to try and find if this is normal now I'm retired. At about 7:45 I tuned into SABC 3 where they were running the live broadcast of England vs Colombia at the World Cup. It was a tough game, with extra time, and then a shoot out, which England won due to a brilliant save by goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. During the game I had Whatsapped Carlos in Ottawa (Colombian) and was interested that he and Susan were also watching live - they sent me a selfie. The game had been marred by 11 yeallow cards mainly all to Colombian players, and the referee had great difficulty keeping control. It is a new age when players will argue with the ref.

Mon 2 Jul
Final leg of the holiday trip. We had enjoyed our room at the Victorian Hotel 1906. It had rained all night but we were cosy. Janey let us know that the weather was pretty wild in Worcester. After breakfast - wide variety of good food even though we were the only guests - we drove to the Montagu Factory Shop to stock up on dried fruit, and a Protea for L-A (she really likes this national flower of South Africa). Then to a Platform 62 in Ashton, a massive liquor and wine warehouse. L-A tasted and bought wine and I bought one of those wire-made childrens toys - a 'bicycle man' with a drum. These are from very poor communities where toys are a luxury so the children make their own, and now are able to sell them to tourists. Finally we stopped at Ashton Winery for some sparkling grape juice, before heading home. The weather had been very kind to us. As we approached Worcester (with a lady hitch hiker picked up at Robertson) the clouds cleared, the rain stopped and the sun came out. For the first time we saw Worcester's surrounding mountains with snow on their upper slopes. It had been an amazing week! The car had run smoothly throughout - had it not life would have become very difficult. Thank you L-A for your vision and execution. Thank you God for the guardian angels. All I had to do was drive and enjoy the sights. I had driven a total 2,331 Km.

Sun 1 Jul
Canada Day, and Neesa's birthday. After 8 hours the computer had failed to publish the photos. I am assuming this is an Internet upload speed issue, and we may have to wait till we are home to post the Swartberg Pass photos. We enjoyed a cosy breakfast by a log fire, then paid our rather large bill in the shop, where L-A bought a stuffed ostrich for Kennedy. We then drove about 50 Km to Calitzdorp through the virtual desert that is the Little Karoo. We didn't have a street address for the Die Krans winery, just a shortened map reference which proved inadequate to the task of pinpointing the winery. Searching for it, a tumbleweed hit us head on leaving a part of itself lodged in our radiator grill. But we did eventually find it, and bought six bottles and had coffee and rather nice rusks (with raisins). Then we drove on to Ladismith where we had a surprizingly good lunch. After that, on the R62, we couldn't find a coffee shop that was open (although most had signs up saying they were), so we made it to Montagu a little thirsty. The Victoria Hotel 1906 seemed to be shut, but there was a notice on the door with a telephone mumber which I called, and 15 minutes later a lady arrived to let us in. L-A had confirmed a ground floor room, but she had us allocated to an upstairs room. With a little persuasion she found a ground floor room. We were the only guests, but they were having renovations. About 7:30 I walked down the street to try and get some takeaway, but the only place open was a grocery store without any ready to eat food other than Lay's crisps, so we dined off them and chocolate. I tweeted about the lack of food places and the fact that very few of the businesses in Bath Street had visible street numbers, a pet peeve of mine.

Sat 30 Jun
I slept right though in luxurious bed. In the bathroom were face cloths. The previous guest house in Grahamstown had also had a facecloth, just one. This was bucking the trend I mentioned a few days ago. After a really classy breakfast I attempted to call a Mercedes repairman in George, whose office and home numbers were on his web site, but he wasn't answering. When we got underway I watched the oil temperature gauge closely, and the engine temperature was exactly as I would have expected. So yesterday's blip must have been due to the colder weather. Today was sunny and perfect for our
mountain pass excursion. We filled up with petrol in Oudtshoorn and then aimed NE towards the Swartberg Pass. (Black Mountain in English). It took about 30 minutes to reach the foothills, and at that point the road became gravel. This added to the fun index. Soon we were winding our way forever upward along a narrow road with passing places, and ever more glorious views when we glanced over the edge usually on our left. There were a few other cars whose drivers stopped to take photographs, as I did. One of them took a picture of me. Each time we thought we had reached the high point of the pass, we turned the next bend and saw it was far off in the distance. After about 45 minutes from the start of the gravel we reached the Swartberg pass, and stopped for a photo break and to survey the way ahead. If anything, the downward trail was steeper, and with huge auburn mountain outcrops. I often thought of Thomas Bain's team of convict labour 130 years ago who took 8 years to build this road. How on earth did they even find the best way round every obstacle? It was a beautiful drive through God's creation. We stopped at the Meiringspoort waterfall, and I walked the 200 metre rocky pathway to see it. It was worth the walk. After leaving the foothills we tried to find a restaurant in De Rust, but although there were a fair number of people around, the restaurants and coffee shops were all closed. So we pressed on back to Oudtshoorn where we had dinner in a Wimpey. Then returned to Mooiplaas Guest House, and spent the rest of the evening uploading photos and drinking the free port which had been placed in our room (this area is South Africa's port and ostrich centre). Went to bed with the computer still trying to publish a bunch of today's photos.

Fri 29 Jun
At breakfast had a pleasant chat with a lady and her daughter Kate up for the festival. When we were packed I called George and gave him a R50 tip for being an exemplary host/staff. We went to Home Ground coffee and greatly enjoyed their coffee and cranberry biscuit. Bought a bag of the coffee. Then we got on our way back east towards Oudtshoorn - the longest drive of the holiday. By lunch time we reached Jeffreys Bay and had lunch in a seafront restaurant. I had mussels followed by carrot cake. L-A spotted Amaretto in their bar - hard to find in SA - and had one for her dessert. Back on the narrow Langskloof Valley road, R62, and things were fair enough, except that the Garmin kept on shutting itself down. I realized this must be connected with the engine warning that I had hoped MMJ had fixed - but they hadn't. When the "Battery protection: Convenience functions temporarily unavailable" engine message came up, the Garmin switched to its own battery power, having lost power as a convenience funcion. The interior light also stopped working when this happened. Garmin's batteries only lasted about 5 minutes. After ten or fifteen minutes the error message would disappear and Garmin would start up. It got dark and started raining. The Merc's lights are not the greatest unless on high beam. The road was bumpy and narrow, and L-A prayed while I drove. Then I noticed that the oil temperature, which normally is about 60 degrees C, had dropped to between 20 and 30. The only thing I could think of is that the interior heater, which hardly works, was nevertheless cooling the engine significantly. Also it was quite cold outside. We reached Oudtshoorn. I hoped that the Garmin would keep on, and it did, maybe due to L-A's prayers. The Mooipaas Guest House is 5 Km east of the town next to an ostrich farm. As we turned onto the final stretch of road, a small truck which had been following us, also turned. L-A thought we had taken a wrong road, and I stopped, and so did the truck. Its driver got out and asked if we were looking for the guest house, and then he led us to it. We were greeted by two staff who got us signed in and one, John, took us to our room, and then got our luggage. The place is very classy. We had dinner, and L-A chose an ostrich steak which had been braaid (by John). I had Karoo lamb (for we were in the Little Karoo). Back in our room - actually 2 large rooms and a bathroom, we watched some world cup highlights replays including England vs Belgium, before going to bed. I am concerned about the car, and the possibility that the battery has a problem, and I want to get some advice about it tomorrow before we drive on the next leg.

Thu 28 Jun
We left the guest house at 9 so that we could reach Global Mercy Missions in East London before Josh and Rachel would be leaving in the afternoon. We were low on petrol when we left, so not knowng where the next petrol was we stopped after 10 minutes drive and checked Garmin for petrol stations. The nearest was back in Grahamstown, so we went back. Garmin took us the shortest route through a narrow road of residences. We were going about 30 KPH when a small grey spaniel (?) ran out right in front of the car. I saw him the moment he came into view but there wasn't even time to brake, and he went under our wheels. His body shook for a few seconds, but by the time I got back to him he was clearly dead. Some neighbours were around but he didn't belong to any of them. I put him on the grass at the side of the road. He had a collar and he probably was a pet, not a stray. This hasn't happened to me before. We continued on our drive. The road was excellent for about 25 minutes, and then we were driving on a small original road alongside an unfinished new highway for the next half hour. The small road took us to about an hour out of East London, when we were back on a modern highway. We aimed for the address of Global Mercy Missions from their web site but saw no sign of a ministry. So I called Josh, and he told us their base really was in a garbage dump off Garth Street. We found Garth on the GPS, and we got there after about 15 minutes. And guess what, it had been a garbage dump, where over the last 5 years about 250 people had come and built shacks to live in. The municipal government had closed it down as a place to leave garbage, but people didn't know this, so garbage was still arriving. Josh and Rachel welcomed us warmly. While Josh supervised the soup kitchen for about half of the 250 residents (today being a public holiday when some were away), Rachel took me on a tour and I took a bunch of photos of some of the poorest living conditions I have seen. Rachel introduced me to Dylan, a South African who had come to Christ a few years before and joined them to help. He showed me the vegetable garden that Josh had established. Meantime Josh had co-opted Laurie-Ann to the food line and she gave out the bread. This was the only meal the people would get today. What struck me most was the peaceful and relaxed atmosphere. These two Holy Spirit-led missionaries had turned a potential social disaster into a place of love. After everyone was fed, we drove to Josh and Rachael's home about 25 minutes away. We chatted over coffee with Josh while Rachael attended to their children (4 and 2). Then we set up the Marantz on their dining room table and interviewed them for CWCP. I hadn't brought the SM58 mic but it was better anyway to use the Marantz'internal stereo mics. This will be our fist stereo interview. Both of them gave their testimonies and told the extraordinary story of how they came to be working in a garbage dump with the poorest of the poor. We left around 4 and made for King William's Town where we had chicken strips on yellow rice at Nandos (the South African chain that is also in Canada). By the time we left it was dark so we drove with care along the windy narrow road back towards Grahamstown. Back in St. Aidan's Guest Cottage we were offered (and accepted) glasses of wine by George, and chatted with him for a while. When I said we would like to pray for him, he was immediately on his knees, hungry for it.

Wed 27 Jun
Slept till 8 without leaving the bed or taking meds: first time in last two weeks. I must definitely be healing! In a bedside table we found an Afrikaans/English side by side Bible - which L-A has been able to buy anywhere. We will contact the Gideons. After an excellent breakfast in the guest house we went to the Walmer mall Cum Books to try and get a DVD of "I can only Imagine." It isn't out yet, but while there I asked if they had any Willie en die Wenspan CDs or DVDs. They had a new 'best of' selection, which included "I wanna be a star," so I bought it. Then we tried to find the Port that was named for Elizabeth. According to Google Maps there was a street called Marine Drive, but we didn't know what end of it to aim for. So we went to its western end, and found a beautiful rocky shore. We spoke to a man who had been fishing with an 18 ft pole and his wife, and they told us to go eastern end, which we did. After 20 minutes we were in the port area, with docks and hotels and an attractive concrete pier. From there we continued east to Grahamstown, which took us about 5 hours, during which we listened and enjoyed 'Beste van Willie & die Wenspan. Grahamstown is a university town, with an arts festival starting the next day. We found St. Aidan's Guest Cottage, and were warmly welcomed, particularly by George, a Zimbabwean who seems to the one who does everything. He recommended the Haricot restaurant, where we enjoyed artichoke linguine and were surrounded by an art exhibition as a part of the Grahamstown festival. We particularly liked the pieces by Nicola Byers. Grahamstown has an atmosphere reminiscent of Cambridge, and steeped in history. In the evening we communicated with Josh and Rachael Minter whom we visit tomorrow in East London at their IRIS affiliate base.

. Tue 26 Jun
For the first time in two weeks I wasn't woken up by leg/back pain at 5 am. even though I hadn't taken Synaleve since yesterday morning. Instead I was woken by leg cramps. So I got up (without pain) and took a Cramp Ease tablet, and Synaleve for good measure, and slept till 8. This night was the least painful since the start of this saga. We went for a large breakfast at Delfinos, as we watched surfers riding waves. Back in our room I paid the R 8,100 rent to Grondbeurs now we had a positive balance. However, I needed to top up the FNB account to enable other automatic debits. We checked out at 10 and went first to FNB in the Mossel Bay Mall, deposited R 400 cash, and then redeemed R 1500 from Simplii. Then we went to see the Bartolomeu Dias museum complex, including the Post Office Tree, a famous attraction here with history going back to 1488. Next stop was Knysna, where we had a good lunch in the Bosun's pub. Then on towards Port Elizabeth via Bloukrans Bridge, the world's highest bungie jump. Noone was actually jumping during the time we visited (certainly not us), but I took some pictures. We got to our guest house in Port Elizabeth about 6:30, and rested. One of the things we are used to in North American guest houses and hotels is washcloths in the roooms. In South Africa you get every kind of towel except washcloths, so either people bring their own or shower and wash just with their hands. Back to my medical situation, one thing it taught me was the bravery of Laurie-Ann as she endures every day simular pain to what I have felt for a couple of weeks, and now seems to be lessening. If anyone ever reads this, please pray first for her to have relief before you perhaps pray for me.

Mon 25 Jun
Checked FNB account and was relieved to see that in the overnight batch update they had recalled the rent payment, so that the account didn't actually go negative. We don't have overdraft protection. Later in the day the wire transfer from Simplii arrived. Feels odd - first Monday in months I wasn't in Pick'n'Pay buying food for Avaian Park kids. But we are on holiday for a week! By 11 we had packed and were on our way East, first nightly stop Mossel Bay. We stopped for coffee near Sweldendam (where the group of us on outreach had stopped on the way to Whitsand nearly two years before, and where Laurie-Ann had heard prophetic words that contributed to our decision to come long-term to South Africa). A man called Ernest asked us to help him. He had been driving to Cape Town but had run out of money and petrol. His plan had been to pick up hitch hikers who would pay for the petrol, but he hadn't found any, and last night had slept here in his car after it ran out. We felt he was being honest and I gave him R100, prayed with him that he would make it, and then we watched as he got some attendants to push his car to the pump. I am writing this at Point Village Hotel, and get this: didn't need to take pain-killers since we left home. Driving is like a continual message and we drove about four and a half hours to get here. Mossel Bay is a resort and our hotel is just fine, including free sherry in the reception! We dined at the Kingfisher on Angel fish and were well served by Ratasha. Lisa-Marie who we had last seen nearly 2 years ago, introduced by Mattys at IRIS Pomegranate happened to come into the restaurant while we were there! When we arrived at Kingfisher, surfers were riding the Waves. I am beginning to have that holiday feeling.

Sun 24 Jun
Surprized by pain level when I got up - worse than yesterday. However, the meds - plus one regular Tylenol - were sufficient. I am getting better at not making movements that hurt, and I choose to believe that over time the cause of the problem will be naturally/divinely dealt with and I won't need the meds. In church I sat in the front row and Johan had me announce tonight's soaking prayer meeting at our house. After church I cleaned the floors, planned the meeting, got the music ready. Laurie-Ann baked cakes and prepared a flask of rooibos tea. I picked up Tendai and Janey. We had 9 people come and I think the evening went well, though there were fewer words of knowledge than previously. L-A and I sang four praise songs, using the regular guitar. Taking Tendai and Janey home, she asked if he would paint her kitchen cupboards, so we all went to her house first so he could estimate the job. I believe he will be doing it. Said goodbye to Andre and Janey for the next 10 days since we are off on holiday - a trip to Eatern Cape - tomorrow morning. I checked our FNB bank account to see if by chance this months wire transfer had come in, and was shocked to find a negative balance of R 530. My instruction to delay the rent payment a few days had not been followed, and the rent had been paid. I e-mailed the bank to say that the wire transfer was coming.

Sat 23 Jun
I wasn't in too much pain, and no spasms when I woke up. Took the meds. and a shower. When I turned on the computer I realised that it had been Diannes' birthday yesterday, so I found her a Jacquie Lawson. When L-A got up I mentioned Dianne's birthday, and she remined me that it was March 22, not June 22! I mention this to illustrate that when you get older, sometimes the neurons take a wrong track, and you just have to accept it. At 11 I went to collect our laundry and to buy groceries, and some Panamor Gel, which Janey had recommended. Similar function to Voltaren but different ingredients. With pain medications the only way to assess them is to try them. What works for Janey may not work for me. I went to Avian Park at 3 and picked up four of the girls for the Mailbox Club training, and they were pretty sure the other four were on other trips today. At YWAM we waited for Soraya till 3:30, with no answers to calls or texts, so at that point we came to our house. L-A gave them sandwiches and juice, and then I took them into the office to see if they could identify the pictures of kids I had taken on 11 June, and they did so with about five. Then we watched the final segment of Heidi, which they'd missed on Monday. Then, something encouraging happened. Three of the four girls started working through lesson 5 of the Overcomers course, without Soraya there to supervise! By 5 pm they had all completed it. Soraya by now had seen my messages and apologised that she had got the day wrong in her mind - but would be able to come for dinner as L-A had previously invited her. Maybe she has neuron problems too! I took the girls to their various homes, and by the time I got home Soraya and her son Nathan had arrived. L-A had been cooking up cottage pie and apple cake, and dinner with Soraya was fun. Nathan wanted to watch Da Vinci Kids TV as he ate, having been imressed on a previous visit here. Good for him! After Soraya and Nathan had left, I got down to preparations for tomorrow's soaking prayer in our house, and picked out three songs that I will play on my acoustic guitar now that it is repaired. Setting the guitar up was the only thing today that caused me any severe pain. It has been my best day yet; maybe I am on the road to recovery. When I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth I noticed that more than half of our bottle of Listerine mouthwash had disappeared. The seond ingredient in Listerine is alcohol. It could only have been the girls on the Mailbox Club course, who always wanted to go in there together when they arrived in our house.

Fri 22 Jun n
Set alarm for 5 am. The red disk had defragged successfully. I was at the early prayer meeting by 5:30, where a full breakfast was cooking up. Marius was very happy about his broadcast the previous night. In the prayer time afterwards, I gave thanks that my plea for response from Brandlvei had been answered, and asked for prayer for my hip/back. By 7:15 I was on my way to Brandlvei, and was in Glenda's office by 8. She convoyed me to the medium wing, which holds about 500 inmates, and introduced me to area supervisor Hilda Immelman, and the lady who we would liaise with directly, Thondekq Smouse. An inmate on a work party called out 'Hi sir' to me! The atmosphere was calm. Thondekq took me to a smallish room which we would be using for Alpha, which would only be able to hold 15 I feel, though apparently they have squeezed in more. It has TV with USB input, amplifier, speakers - all the stuff I had been asking Glenda about. It's actually quite cosy, and I am sure we will get on well with Thondekq who says she'll attend the course. She gave me her WhatsApp number and let me take a photo of her. The motto on her Whatsapp is 'God is in control.' I drove home in time to do 15 mins brush up on my Afrikaans pronounciation before we went to Andre and Janey's for our Afrikaans lesson. This was actually about 85 mins of socializing and 45 mins of learning (no complaints from me). I gave Andre the files of Tapes E7 and E8 that I had prepared for Jan, and he gave me a bunch of Ivan Rebroff recordings, the German singer with 4 1/2 octaves vocal range. After our lesson we got talking about the radio show and I suggested interviewing Janey on her activities as a private tutor and homework assistant. We decided to do it - later that afternoon. I went home, worked out some questions, returned and she did a good interview. In the evening I dealt with some financial matters Lynn had contacted me about: paying my property taxes, and dealing with the 9 July end of my Canada Life term policy. I instructed Carlos to keep the present premium and see what cover that would provide. At the very early start of today I had taken three Tylenol in addition to my prescribed meds, which had done the trick, and had got through the day on the regular meds but with some pain. I set up the final phase of backing up the red disk. First I deleted the scan made previously on the WD Elements disk. Then plugged the red disk into the computer, and started the copy process. Estimated time was 8 1/2 hours (at about 47 MB / sec). L-A had gone to bed some time earlier, and I was now very tired and very sore, but thankful when my head was on the pillow, It is said that we roll over many times during the night, but rolling over can give me severe pain spasms. I don't believe I rolled over once during the night.

Thu 21 Jun
At 10 am I was in Dr Eric van Dijk's office to report pogress. I was out of the pills he had prescribed. I was able to say that things were improving as I discovered the movements I shouldn't attempt. I asked if he thought my lumber situation would cure itself, and he didn't think so. His objective is that it not worsen. He gave me a prescription for 3 weeks of pills slightly less strong than the first batch: Arcoxia 90 Mg (1/day) and more of the Synaleve, as needed. I dropped into the Radiology Department and they gave me (free) a copy of their X-Rays. Then I went to the HVac company that had serviced our aircon/heaters and asked how to program the controller so that it wouldn't come on spontaneously. Turns out there is a pinhole I hadn't seen which, if you poke a pin into it, cancels all timer programming. This was a relief, since we don't want the heating to come on when we are on holiday in Eatern Cape next week. Then I went for a haircut with Joan. Then picked up my dry-cleaned trousers from Perfecto. Then visited the Kleinplasie arts and crafts warehouse where several cell group friends have set up stalls, but didn't see any of them. There's a need for signage so visitors would be drawn to this operation. I had been considering it as a possible GIG project, but now I am not so sure. Got home in time for lunch prior to picking up Khanyo and Mpho - and their cousin - and bringing them to our house for a movie afternoon. This was to make up for not having been around to show them a movie on the last day of school. We watched a couple of Mr Bean episodes, about a fifth of 'Heidi,' the beginning of 'A Child Called Jesus,' and Willie en die Wenspan shich they sang along with. They hadn't eaten since breakfast, so they got toasted chicken sandwiches, satsumas, cake, apples and coffee. I took them home about 5 pm, and on the way back dropped into Jan's. I had previously WeTransferred her Tape E7, classical music, and now I gave her E8 from a memory stick. We talked about the coming school holidays, and she decided that we should not provide food to her ministries in Avian Park till 16 July, and she left a voice message for Amedja. When I got home I echoed that with an SMS, and also called Andrew Cloete to say not to deliver any more bread till 16 July. Before retiring to bed I set the red disk to 'defrag.'

Wed 20 Jun
The red disk scan was complete by morning and it showed no bad sectors. Today I decided not to supplement Dr. Eric's meds (Spec-Etoricoxib and Synaleve) with L-A's super powerful painkillers, and see how I would manage. Was at MMJ for 10 am to sort out an engine error message on the car. Not sure if they actually fixed it yet, but they did diagnose a problem with the heater, which is only operating at 1/3 capacity, and the driver's side door lock which needs multiple tries to get it to open. Neither of these jobs did I feel justified the rather large estimates. The work on the engine computer/error messages, which required a replacement battery, took many hours but they drove me home and picked me up. I posted a bunch of photos to our Hooggelegen album. I also updated a link on one of my more obscure pages to The Personal insurance Company (under Financial Planning links) at their request; amazing that they would take the trouble to ask me. In the afternoon I went to the mall and managed to buy a nice purple draining board in the Crazy Store. Walking back to the car, for the first time I had to do what L-A has to do all the time, stop and sit for a few minutes every so often for the pain in my hip (referred from my back) to reduce a little. However, by the evening I had not taken any of L-A's meds.

Tue 19 Jun
Was able to get out of bed and walk to bathroom unaided. This is an improvement on the situation before I visited Dr. Eric. However, I must move pretty slowly. Received a Whatsapp from Glenda Fredericks asking if we are still interested in coming in to the prison. I responded 'Yes!' but the first thing would be for me to come up alone and see the facility and equipment. I suggested Friday morning - and she responded with a time: 8 am. Progress! Drove with L-A to Stacie Meubles where we found an office chair, and then to the mall where she bought a winter coat and sweater from Eagles (see 1 June below). So she's happy! Time to start the triple process of backing up the all important red disk onto our new WD Elements. On 12 June I had done such a back-up, for safety reasons prior to doing it properly. Tonight I set the red disk to 'scan,' one of the options when it is first connected to the computer. This scan searches for bad sectors on the disk, and can take many hours when we have 2 Terabytes to search, so it's an overnight job.

Mon 18 Jun
Called Amedja and told her we wouldn't be running the Monday afternoon ministry till 16 July, and asked her about her Wednesday group. She said it would continue throughout the school holiday. I informed Jan of this, and also Andrew Croate, deliverer of bread. Took a couple of Tylenol to supplement my prescription, and hobbled to Pick'n'Pay about 11 to get the food for AP. I had an idea for the ministry in the afternoon, that since it was the last one for a month we should do something different. Soraya had asked me to pick up some sweets to reward the good children, which I got at OK Foods. Then I went next door to the video store. I asked about Afrikaans films for children, and the proprietor said he didn't think he had any, but then I saw the 2016 version of the 1880 classic Heidi in his rack, with English subtitles. Picked up Soraya. Didn't take my guitar. We had 40 kids from the start, and L-A spoke to them about colours in art and their meanings. By the time she was done I was ready with the movie. Soraya had all the children move chairs closer to the screen, because I had only brought the battery powered guitar speaker. From the moment we began the film, the children were enchanted and no-one was talking. The Afrikaans sound was crystal clear on the little amplifier. Around 4:30 we served sandwiches and juice as they sat in their seats. The 2-hour film hadn't ended by 5 pm, when the library wanted us to leave, but the kids accepted that with good grace. The film was exactly right for this group, showing how love conquers all. When we got home, L-A and I watched the ending. At 6:30 we arrived at Fowler's Grill for a lovely anniversary dinner. Not only was the food excellent, but the service was very friendly, including a free Jagermeister liqueur. I had oysters, pepper steak and creme brulee. We shared a bottle of De toitskloof Pinotage. It also helped us that the Canadian dollar is high against the South African rand right now, making it affordable (about $70). It was just a thoroughly enjoyable celebration. 19 years with my still very sweetheart. It had been a very good day!

Sun 17 Jun
We were both up to see Brian Houston TV, showing how sin can even be seen as a qualifier to the new life. The new meds had made it possible for me to walk in a haltering fashion unaided, but not enough to get me to church. So I again supplemented with Solpadeine. At least I haven't had Arthrotec for two days. Johan announced that next Sunday's Soaking Prayer in Action would be at our home. This was the first time it had been mentioned in public with the new name. I mentioned to Ruloff about my back pain and he said he wanted to pray for me, but not right then. He is house-sitting for Mella, so we agreed I would come after the service. First I took L-A home. the, back to see him, but there was no sign of him there. I left a note with my telephone number on the gate, but so far he hasn't got back to me. I have been very slow much of the day, but am learning how to avoid using movements that could hurt. I have also felt somewhat lethargic, as expected from the medication. (None of L-A's medication ever made me lethargic.) I slept from about 4 to 8, and sense that extra rest like this is what my body needs to heel itself. Are the meds that Dr Eric prescribed strong enough for me to be able to do simple things like dressing? As I heel, will they become all that I need or will I still have to dip into L-A's power store of pain meds? There are some things I can do with zero pain: driving, and using the computer. The next challenge is children's ministry tomorrow afternoon. Soraya is able to be with us. I think we should show then a movie, instead of Alpha, since this is our final one before taking a break till 16 July. We need to be extra quiet, to pacify the library staff. This evening I am trying to get up to date with classifying the children's photos.

Sat 16 Jun
I slept through till nearly six, time to take Synaleve. Then back to sleep till 8. Compared with yesterday the pain was less, but still there. I was able to walk so I had my Saturday shower, and then slowly dressed. At 9:40 I had a Spec-Etoricoxib and an apple, reflecting on the subject of pain and God's healing. Am I going to be able to handle the kids training here this afternoon? I think so, but may have to have some of L-A's meds just for the duration. In fact I had a Solpadeine around noon with Synaleve. L-A cooked up a pear cake, some of which was given to the children that afternoon; it was yummy. There were some groceries we needed for the children, so at about 1:45 I drove to the mall. By the time I had shopped it was about 2:40 so I went straight to the library where 4 children were waiting. They told me that several more wanted to come for the training, so I got the first batch home and returned. One of the new ones, Cay-Lene Witbooi, hadn't been to any of the previous sessions, and as we drove, the girls spotted Marsha Browers, who had been in hospital after the first session, for attempting suicide by swallowing pills. Soraya had said she wouldn't be able to come in her car, so we picked her up on the second run. We now had 8 girls in our home, and needed the folding camping chairs and the shower chair to seat them all. l-A served sandwiches, pear cake and juice as I gave an introduction to the Mailbox Club concept. Then Soraya ran the lesson, which was well received by all. The lesson ended after 5, and we had Andre and Janey coming for dinner, so there wasn't much time for the turn-round. I took off with the first batch, on of whom, Chantelle asked if she could stay in the car and ride back to our home to pick up the others. I declined on the grounds of 5 rather than 4 in the car. When I was back home, the other 4 came out, saying they had had a lovely time with Laurie-Ann. I took many to their individual homes again. They took delight in yelling to friends from the windows of the Merc. After dropping them I went to Andre and Janey's to pick them up. We were home for six and got down to enjoying one another's company. L-A had made an excellent jumbalaya using 'russian' sausages, with pear cake for dessert, sparking wine both alcoholic and non. This was an anniversary celebration for us, though a couple of days early, and the conversation was warm and very friendly. We still learn things when we are with them. As we relaxed after dinner I was feeling very drowsy from the pills. I took them home around 10:30. By now my pain was creeping up again, but once behind the wheel I was just fine, Back home I was able to get into bed on my own, having figured out how to do it without sideways strain on my leg. Slept well.

Fri 15 Jun
At what I later found was about 3:15, I woke with pain. I took a pill. It was warm in the room. The heater had decided to spring to life again - there is some kind of pre-programming facility that I cannot figure out on the controller. When I tried to get out of bed (to turn off the heat) I was hit with a most severe stab of pain in the middle of my upper leg. I painfully got back in and tried to get comfortable, waiting for the last Gen-Payne tablet that we have to work. Half an hour later and I was in much the same state. I painfully got out of bed, and found walking to be extremely difficult and very slow. I turned off the heater, left the bedroom (still with my light on) and worked my way to the Exact pills, and to the bathroom for some water. Then I went to the living room, turned on the TV and sat in an arm chair. Watched SABC news, and then BBC World Service, catching up on the first day of the World Cup from Moscow, and saw the five amazing goals by Russia against Saudi-Arabia. By now I was able to move a little more easily, so I went to the bedroom and turned off my light and alarm. If the painkillers worked well enough, at this point I still would have liked to go to the early morning prayer group. It is now 5:55 and I just sent a message to the group asking for their prayers. I can't get back into bed without the stabbing pain. Don't want L-A to lose sleep. I will work on the computer or watch TV for the next two hours and then must get to the Medi-Clinic and get some X-Rays. I posted some more news videos relating to the aftermath of the Trump-Kim Jong-un summit to Facebook. Around 6:30 I decided to take Arthrotec and Tylenol again, so this meant I needed to have breakfast, which I did. I made it 4 Tylenols this time (6 is the maximum).

When L-A got up and heard what had been going on with me, she reminded me that before rolling up at Medi-Clinic I should call Dr Eric van Dijk. She was quite right of course. They confirmed that Medi-Clinic wouldn't see me without a letter from my doctor. They had an opening at 9:45 for me to see him. This was going to make it tricky to bring Khanyo and Mpho to our house at about 10:30 for some Mr Bean movies. I Whatsapped Mandisa to say that she should make arrangements to have the children picked up at 11. Laurie-Ann messaged Janey to say we wouldn't make it for our Afrikaans lesson in the afternoon. I Whatsapped Amber at school so she would know this plan. I also e-mailed her the exam results that I knew of so she could share them with the children. I checked that I would be able to drive. At 9:30 we drove to Dr Eric's office. He saw me almost immediately and examined me. He checked for pain in any of the areas that would have been caused by a malfunction of the hip surgery and found none! But when he touched one of my lower back joints, I felt the same character of pain that I had felt when I first got up this morning. In the radiologists report later that morning it said: 'degenerative grade 1 anterolisthesis is present of L3 on L4.' So all the pain I had felt in my leg was referred from these vertebrae, and Dr Eric knew exactly what vertebrae could be causing the problem. This was extremely good news for me, because Allianz may not pay out on complications from my hip surgery, except as I explained below. We drove to the radiology department, close by, and although there were 7 or 8 people apparently waiting, I was in front of an X-Ray machine within 10 minutes. By now, the meds I had taken earlier were wearing off, so it was somewhat painful moving to the postions the nurse wanted to take the shots. Back in reception they said I could wait for the results - up to an hour. It was 10:45. I realized we could take Khanyo and Mpho home and be back within 40 minutes - which we did. As we arrived at the school, a car had just arrived to take the boys, following my message to Mandisa. But when they saw we were there they let the other car go and came with us. This gave us the chance to wish the boys well at the end of term. L-A had maple candies for them. We said we would like to have them up to our house in the next week to see the My Bean films they were missing today. Maybe we should have Mandisa as well. Khanyo said that Amber had not shared their exam results, so I asked L-A to read them out from my phone. After dropping them off we returned to Radiology. I was expecting a set of X-Rays, but what I got was a 1-page professional explanation of the X-Ray results, much more helpful. They hadn't sealed the envelope so I photographed the contents, which may be crucial for my insurance claim. Dr. Eric read the results and confirmed what I already knew, and then wrote a prescription for painkillers. I went next door to the pharmacy and had everything within 10 minutes. The medical services we had received in the past few hours had been magnificent. We went home and I started on the pills. Laurie-Ann helped me into bed by taking weight off my right leg and I slept till 6. At this stage I was far from pain-free, though I was able to walk. This showed us just how strong are the medications that L-A takes every day. With the new pills, Spec-Etoricoxib 120 I take one a day for pain and inflamation, and Synaleve, 2 every 6 hours for pain. It's now 10:15 and I am still pretty uncomfortable. Not sure how were are going to manage the Mailbox club trainings tomorrow, but the one thing I have been able to to without pain is drive, so it should be possible. We went to bed about 11, and again L-A helped lift my right leg.

Thu 14 Jun
Dozing in bed early this morning I felt that the pain I'd woken up with the last few days was less, so I didn't take a pill. I keenly wanted to sense the time when the pain lessens, and I felt this may be the time. Unfortunately, when I actually got up I had some pain spasms worse than anything so far. So I had a Gen-Payne capsule (left over from L-A's operation - I had given mine to Maggie) and went to work on the computer for a while to allow it to work. We were due to leave for Cape Town airport with Maggie at 8:30. By 8 the pain had reduced so that I would walk without holding on. I took Arthrotec and Tylenol. Maggie had been warm sleeping on our couch. When I first got into the car I was worried that I might not be able to drive, but in fact, once I was properly seated, I was OK, and we got on our way. It was sunny in Worcester when we left so neither L-A nor I took coats. As we approached the mountains the sun was replaced by thick rain clouds, and when we emerged from the Huguenot tunnel it was raining heavily. We took Maggie to 'drop-off' at the airport and said our good-byes. We were earlier than we had expected and went to a McDonalds for a nice breakfast. We had arranged to visit Sons Saul (nee Dericks) and set the Garmin to her address. We hadn't seen her since Mozambique two years ago when she was with us at Harvest School. Since then she had married Dennis Saul, who had then tragically died a few months afterwards. She has a good roof over her head, which she inherited. But most importantly, she is running several ministries from the house, and doing street ministry regularly. Really enjoyed our time with her. Our home journey was interesting because the Huguenot tunnel was closed, and we had to go 'over the top' in the clouds in a slow moving convoy. At home I decided to call Allianz and lodge a claim for my problem. It will be claim #618478. I asked (Heather) the situation should this prove to be a continuation of hip surgery as a pre-existing condition. She said that if the hip surgery had been stable for a while, they could still pay out, treating it as a new problem. Well, I have my hip X-Rays from last fall to show that the hip was fine then. We ran the all inportant CWCP program featuring Johan Schoonraad without a hitch. We heard there may be a power outage tonight from 10 pm, so we are ready to retire early if that happens - but it didn't.

Wed 13 Jun
Again, Woke in severe pain about 5:30 and took an Exact pill. At breakfast L-A suggested I have an Arthrotec and Tylenol Arthritis. Her knowledge and experience in pain medication is vital as I struggle to get through exam week. I am trusting that the underlying problem here is a pulled muscle, or something else that is actually healing. The science and music exams went well from my point of view as the examiner. Khanyo worked on the papers in the other room, and I sat with Mpho in the main room reading the questions to him, and making sure he wrote down what he said as the answers. In the music exam, only three questions required them to perform, and they both failed to score on most of them. On the other broad-ranging questions about music, some of their answers were comical. One question asked in which genre were some well-known (?) musicians. Beethoven was a rock'n'roller. Hugh Masekela was an opera singer. In science, according to Mpho, five domestic animals would be cheetah, dog, cat, lion and mouse. Khanyo did less well than I would have hoped, but Mpho did better. He really tried to get the answers, and also knew when he would never figure it out, and we moved on. Their attitude throughout was good. Mella wants me to run a movie for them on Friday morning, and I checked out the movie room in the school. It has a DVD player which probably won't work with North American DVDs. So it may be easier just to bring the boys home again and save moving equipment to school. The boys finished the music exam early, so I took them and Amber home. At 2:30 I left Worcester to pick up Maggie in Robertson for the first leg of her trip home to England for a few weeks. We had a lovely evening with Mags. Spag bol, wine, milk tart, cake, chocolate, and then Adventures with God, with Darren Wilson, featuring two of the members of Korn who are sold out Christian evangelists. Later I marked the science and music exams, and forwarded them to Mella with the comments below.

All figures are percentages
                   Khanyo           Mpho
Art                 72               63
Science             54               29
Music               58               32

L-A's comments on art results.
Khanyo: Slightly disappointed since he is gifted, but his exam technique let him down (didn't read the questions 
carefully enough) Mpho  Very Ernest and tried hard. Tool in more than expected.
Tony's comments.  
Khanyo   Same comment as L-A.
Mpho:    Did somewhat better than I expected, and got a number of questions right that Khanyo got wrong.

Other notes.  I had coached them in exam technique for a full lesson.
Mpho's problems often were less to do with the subjects and more to do with his capacity to comprehend (written) English.
In all exams either L-A or Tony read the questions to Mpho, while Khanyo was in another room with the written exam.
At no point were they prompted to get the right answer.
We have not specified passmarks. If you feel this is necessary then please set them.
Neither of them has a natural gifting for playing instruments or singing.  The music course was geared towards music 
appreciation rather than playing an instrument. 26% of the marks in music were allocated to a project running 6 weeks 
involving composing a tune and making a recording using multi-tracking. I have 
previously provided the resulting tunes (and also broadcast them on CWCP Radio).   

Tue 12 Jun
Woke in some pain about 5:30 and took an Exact pill. When alarm rang at 7:15 I was able to walk, though painfully. This was the day of the Trump - Kim Jong-un summit in Singapore, and when I turned on the TV at 7:30 the two of them were emerging from two hours of talks looking like friends. I heaved a sigh of relief and silently thanked the thousands who have been praying for a good outcome. Throughout the day there was never a mention about the summit that I heared on SAFM. The back-up of the red disk was done by the time I switched on. I was at school for 8:45 but the children didn't arrive till 9:15 when the social studies exam started. It went smoothly as a result of the two exam copies I had printed. I went to collect L-A at 10 and brought her back plus computer for the art exam. We set Khanyo to work on it in the other room, and L-A spoonfed Mpho the questions from her screen. We took them home at about 1 pm. When L-A checked the exam papers she was interested to see that Khanyo had performed less well than he should have, while Mpho had done significantly better than expected, getting 63%. Khanyo is clever-lazy, while Mpho knows his limitations and actually tried hard. In the afternoon I felt a tug to go to the hospice, but first went to the mall to see if my new glasses were ready. They were - and when I tried them on for the first time it was like a revelation in sight. Only now did I fully realize how bad my old glasses had become. Yes, the price had been more than the basic package deal, but the optician explained the benefits of the special coating that they had added. I went to the hospice with a new spring in my step and had some good moments with many of the patients, praying and chatting.

Mon 11 Jun
Woke up in the night with bad right hip pain, so took an Aleve. But in the morning it was worse, so I rummaged around our medicine cupboard and took an 'Exact' muscle and pain relief caplet. Also used Voltaren on the back and hip area. By 8:30 when I left for school the pain had reduced. This was exam week, and today were the German and English exams. Mpho was not doing the German exam so I played xylophone scales with him and then read to him for a while. Khanyo finished his German exam in less than half the time. Amber told me she was missing two pages from the social studies exam, and also missing the answers to five of the questions. I left to get the food for Avian Park. When I got home, the WD Elements 2TB back up disk had arrived! I watched the Mike Pompeo press conference live from Washington on the eve of the Trump - Kim Jong-un meeting in Singapore. I e-mailed Mella asking her to send me the complete social studies exam. I had worried about getting the big amplifier/speaker into the car for the children's ministry, but the strangest thing happened. As I lifted it, the extra weight on my back and legs seemed to remove all pain and it was easier than usual to carry! The other things we have to take - guitar, L-A's purple chair etc were also no trouble. L-A and I were again leading the ministry without Soraya, and there were 60 children turned up, right from the start, a record. After praise singing, outside in the sun, I gave my second talk to this group, talking about how hunger can be motivating. I was paraphrasing one of Brian Houston's talks. During Alpha some of the kids opted to go outside. I realize this material is above some of their heads, but I believe that some sinks in and the overall effect is positive. At food time, we knew there were enough sandwiches to go round, but unfortunately one of the leaders started breaking them in two, which caused a problem when everyone had received and there were still many left, This caused noise, and the noise resulted in one of the librarians coming to see me and threatening that we would not be able to come back. I took this to mean 'unless we mend our ways.' Mella got back to me with the social studies exam, and I printed two copies. She didn't send me the answers to the five questions, and I certainly didn't know them, so I Googled and found them, and also that she had the names spelt wrong for two ancient Egyptians named in the test. I set up for the red disk to be backed up to the new WD Elements disk overnight. My hip area was quite painful when I got into bed but I didn't want to take more anti-inflamatories.

Sun 10 Jun
I thought I heard Pieter-Louis call me up to the front of the church to be ready for announcements time, so I did. However I wasn't asked! Turned out it was another Tony. Having got there however, I decided to stay to enjoy the worship up close, and took pics and a video. After church we lingered in Milk and Honey and then went to cell group, where we spent a pleasant couple of hours. I set up the black disk to make a complete copy onto the blue disk, which had exhibited some strange behaviour a few weeks before, resulting in my buying the black disk. I did this using my second Dell computer, which is not so fast, and the transfer will take 15 hours for 464 GB. So I went outside and did some gardening - about three times as much as I usually do, but it was a sunny warm afternoon with no wind. In the evening I Whatsapped Amber and she said she would like me to come in tomorrow, the first day of exam week at 8:45. L-A and I both worked on this week's Worcester Report, since this week I'll be driving Maggie from Robertson to Cape Town airport, staying with us Wednesday night. We are seeing reports of serious danger in Pemba from Muslim terrorist attacks on villages. All the international students are being moved to White River in South Africa, where Tanya is right now.

Sat 9 Jun
I backed up L-A's recent art onto the black disk, so it now has a recent back-up of all four computers. The afternoon Mailbox training for five girls went very well. Soraya came over in her car. We showed the dance video from the previous Monday, and served sandwiches before Soraya did lesson 3. I took the girls home, and Soraya stayed to write her newsletter and have supper with us.

Fri 8 Jun
After school went for Afrikaans lesson. I had been practising my pronounciation of common phrases using Google Translate, and Janey seemed to be pleased. After, we picked up the boys and Amber at the school, and delivered them home. In the evening we attended YWAM Couples Night, which turned out to ne the brain child of Phil Adewemi, who was the M/C. We were pleased to join a table with Marius and Yolande Rabie, and newlyweds Shean and Portia Waite. Near the start, Phil put me on the spot to say an opening prayer, but it went well enough. Sean turned out to be a prison visitor in Brandlvei, four days a week, and he was able to answer questions I had been pestering Glenda Fredericks about regarding audio visual equipment there. They have plenty! The high point of the evening (apart from dinner, and we had already eaten one dinner) was a couple with a skit on how not to begin married life. Turned out they are marriage coaches and have been happily married for 30 years.

Thu 7 Jun
I interviewed Johann Schoonraad, senior pastor at WCC. He is not the most accessible of pastors, being in charge of a very busy church, so this was quite a coup, and wouldn't have happened without the Soaking Prayer in Action connection. All went very well and he clearly took it all very seriously, asking me for the audio file. He also asked me my age. He is 20 years my junior, same age as Laurie-Ann. I feel we could become friends. I went from there back to the school to pick up Khanyo and Mpho whom I had promised to take swimming in an indoor pool they knew of. We dropped off Amber in Roodeval, then went to the pool. Tickets would have been R 85 for the kids and R 150 for me, but we never went in because they demanded we wear swimming caps and we had none. So we went to the outdoor pool but it was shut. So then we went to McDonalds and had burgers sitting in a childrens playground, and ice cream sitting in McDonalds. It was fun. In the afternoon put finishing touches onto the Worcester Reports for tonight, including the jazz sequence based on "All the things you Are" that I did with the kids in their music lesson on Wednesday. Bruno Guntelach's talk about GIG sounded very good. Earlier in the day I had felt like finally getting down to re-repairing my acoustic-electric guitar, where the effects of exposure to sun in the summer had opened up slightly the original neck repair I had made years ago when it was new. I now had a good clamp bought a few weeks ago. I squeezed epoxy resin into the small gap that had appeared, and clamped it down using white kitchen roll between the neck and the clamp. Now, a few hours later I removed the clamp and all seemed very well! The tuning was accurate. I have some stuck patches of kitchen roll to remove, not quite sure how. But this was quite a relief.

Wed 6 Jun
I Whatsapped Amber at 8:30 to see if all was well at school, and the boys hadn't turned up. However, they arrived shortly after. I delivered polony in Avian Park, and then tried to find Gerald Wagner, from the hospice, at the address he had given me, but it didn't exist. Compared with previous Wednesdays, today was a rest cure since Riverview and Vinkriviere kids clubs are on school vacations.

Tue 5 Jun
Mellas' last day before a 6 week furlough in USA. In science class we did an experiment for the first time in a week - I feel we are up to date with revision. At lunch I managed to get everyone to sign a card I had found for Mella wishing her well - she didn't open it but kept it for the plane. Ruloff was driving her to the airport for a 7pm flight. After school we rendezvoused with Andre Cloete at Wimpey and I paid him $400 for bread. Then we drove to the Aan de Doorns winery (because we are out of wine!), tasted about 10 and bought five bottles. Some of their wines are named for the R43 road. Returning through Worcester I got a refil for our back printer cartridge for R 120, and a colour cartridge from Game for a whacking R 429, 90% of the original price of the printer. That is Canon's marketing strategy. Hopefully it will last us a long time. Anyway, I was able to reprint the last five pages of the art exam successfully. I completed sending my 6-month progress report to key recipients in Canada.

Mon 4 Jun
I switched the science class to music revision, feeling that was more needed. Today, L-A and I handled the Avian Park children, 50 of them, without Soraya's help. She was in training for staffing the next YWAM DTS (Discipleship Training School). There were more kids ready at the start than usual. It was warm enough to do music outside - the largest praise group so far. Back inside, as I set up the audio-visual, L-A chatted to them, in English, and they listened! She talked about prophetic art, and then we gave them each a copy of one of her recent drawings to colour. We distributed crayons and they all got to work with enthusiasm. They even quietened down a bit when I turned on some soaking music. Next, I ran through all their pictures on the screen that we have taken recently, and asked anyone not in the pictures to come up and be photographed. There were about 20! This suggests quite a turnover in children each week, which doesn't make it easy for us to learn their names. But we need a more stable group if the future plan for Malbox clubs is to work out. After the art, we ran Alpha; 'How does God guide us?' When it came to sandwiches and drinks time, our leaders fron Saturday's training did well, and at the end when everyone else had gone, they group-danced very well to some music on a phone, and I videod them. We then piled them all into the car and delivered them to their homes. In the evening I visited Marius and Yolande Rabie to interview him for CWCP. They made me very welcome in their lovely home in Worcester West, with cakes and coffee. They had hoped L-A would have come too. We tried to persuade Yolande to be interviewed about home schooling, which she has done for 2 years+ with their three children, but she didn't feel comfortable in English. Marius gave me an excellent interview and I feel we are developing a good friendship. He is one of the WCC worship leaders, and has recorded a CD, 'The Time has Come,' a segment of which we use at the start of every 'Worcester Reports' program. He is at the early morning prayer group I have attended on Fridays, and he sells health insurance, and is part owner of a farm. Back home I colour printed L-A's 15 page art exam. By the last four pages the black was faded and the colour was not very good. We need refils.

Sun 3 Jun
I was quite surprized in church, first when L-A noticed that WCG Soaking Prayer in Action was up on the screens, and then when Johan called me up to talk about it, even though the next one isn't for several weeks. We went straight home after church for the first time. L-A had made cauliflower etc. soup which was excellent. I prepared a chart to document the Avian Park girls as they come for training on Saturdays, so we can keep track. Around three I went to the Hospice. One patient, Gerald Wagner, who was going home to Avian Park that afternoon invited me to come see him in his home. Dropped into a liquor store on the way home to try and buy some more Monis medium cream sherry, but was told that it was now winter and they only stock it in the summer! So I bought a bottle of Sedgewick's 'Old Brown,' because it was in the same part of the store and was only R 40. When I got home we tried it, and it was similar to a cream sherry but a third the price. Just right for missionaries. The word 'sherry' is not used here.

Sat 2 Jun
I started to write a letter to all supporters and friends in Canada. We haven't heard from many in quite a while, but part of this may be that apart from Mail Chimp batch emails, we have been too busy to tell individual people what we have been up to. Since we bought our Garmin GPS on 21 November 2017, I have never checked for updates and downloaded the latest maps, so I did so today. Their software performed perfectly. At 2:30 I drove via Brito the butcher to Avian Park to pick up the girls for their Mailbox Club leader training. Waiting for me at the library were five girls, only two of whom had come out a week earlier. They assured me there were no others to pick up, and we drove to YWAM for Soraya, and then to Hooggelegen. Laurie-Ann prepared sandwiches, and I talked to them about the Mailbox Club concept. Soraya then took them through a review of last weeks Lesson 1 of Overcomers, and then Lesson 2. Soraya told them she would not be at the Monday afternoon kids' ministry, and asked them to support us with controlling the children. They all said they'd be back next week. If there are more than six, we may need to have two car trips to get them.

Fri 1 Jun
I got up at the alarm feeling well awake. The storm had largely subsided. (Later in the day we saw reports of damage from it over a wide area including Cape Town). I arrived at Carlo's home on Deon Britz St. a few minutes later for the early morning prayer meeting. We were the same five as three weeks before. I asked for prayer on Mella's behalf as she gets everything in order for her departure to the States on Tuesday. Marius prayed for the music teams at church. They have lost a whole team. Leaders and guitarists are needed. That got me thinking ... It was a good session and I want to come regularly in future. For the second day I switched science class to music exam review. I had Mella's permission to submit their multi-tracked songs as part of the exam, but I wanted them to have questions to answer as well, going back to the start of the course. The exam will include playing a scale on recorder and keyboard (and maybe xylophone). I played them the segment on last night's CWCP when I had broadcast their songs and voices. I had time for 1 1/2 games of chess with Khanyo. He is learning and maybe will win if we continue the other 1/2. At 11:30 I picked them all up and we went to Moksh Indian restaurant in the mall as a pre-exam treat. As we arrived L-A called to say her course was over. So after we had ordered I went to fetch her. Moksk is a slow-food restaurant so we were back before the food arrived. Mella had been trying to call Mandisa, and had finally reached her - and she was right next door at Mug & Bean having coffee with her boss. She joined us for a while (not for lunch). The food arrived and it was good. I had ordered a chicken korma for the boys (one serving shared) and they ate it. Mella had told me this would be her treat, after I had bankrolled the Groot Constantia trip, and she was as good as her word. I had been ready to pay for the boys meals since Mandisa hadn't given them money for them, but now she was here she did. When we left the restaurant expecting to be a tight fit in the car, by good fortune (?) one of the boys relatives was just driving past and was able to take them home. Mella asked if I would take a book into Avian Park for one of her former students, Henrietta. After dropping Mella and Amber, I then forgot about the trip to Avian Park and took L-A to the mall to try and buy a coat, without success, though Eagles said they would order one her size. We went home - when I remembered about the book for Henrietta, and found a bag of Mella's medications in the trunk. I called Mella and she said to put the meds in her letterbox, but when I got there and tried, they were too large for the slot. I went back to AP and Henrietta's house which is next door to Folla's ministry building. Returning to town I again called Mella and asked the meds. She said she was now in Nik and Gisella's, and to bring them there. After giving them to Mella I saw Stacie Meubles across the road where we had bought most of our furniture. Yes, she had convection heaters. But when I sat down in front of her desk to pay, my foot touched an electric oil radiator heater that I felt would be better - and Esther agreed to sell it. It was indeed better, and our living room tonight was toasty. We wouldn't have the heater if I hadn't initially forgotten to take the book into AP, and if Mella's meds would have fitted into her mailbox. I think God doesn't want L-A to be cold.

Thu 31 May
Went to Van Wyk, Le Roux & Vennote in the Mall for an eye test and to order new glasses. Turned out there were changes recommended from the test last September in Kanata. The equipment appeared superior to what I have seen before, and at one stage she took a flash photo into my eye which showed my retina and optic nerve on her computer screen. When she was out of the room I took a photo of it. She gave me a quote for their basic package including new lenses and frames at R 3205. This was higher than the R 1800 that a friend had been charged, but maybe the extra was for progressives. When we went to choose a frame I picked one out in 30 seconds that was very similar to my existing frame. In the afternoon I went to Worcester Christian Church for a meeting with senior pastor Johan Schoonrad on the subject of changing the name of WCG Street Ministry. I put forward what had come to L-A last Sunday: WCG Soaking Prayer in Action. I think he will go with this. We had a really good dialog and he appreciated that a change was necessary, or announcements about our future meetings in church would confuse everyone. I told Johan about tonight's CWCP guest Pam Hugo, and then suggested I interview him. That was organized fast: it will be next Thursday at 11. On a roll I also put the idea of running an Alpha at the church. He doesn't know much about it but asked for some concise information, which I will take next Thursday. He had given me somewhat more time than I had expected. When I got home I (finally) got down to editing tonight's Worcester Report. After getting Pam's interview done, there turned out to be nearly 15 minutes of spare time. So I included the final mixdowns of
Mpho's and Khanyo's songs, and at the end added a Nick Drake selection. I was not ready till 7:45, so started the preamble music at half time. The show went out fine. I set my alarm for 5:20 am. and went to bed before 11, by when there was a powerful storm going on with winds howling and buffeting. This made falling asleep a little slower than normal.

Wed 30 May
One of today's main challenges, the music lesson at MasterPeace academy, went well. As I played the latest mixdowns, I had them sing the words that I had written along the with the two songs. At first I was disturbed to discover that neither of them could handle singing particular notes after I sang the notes. They couldn't repeat the note at the same pitch. However, they were able to sing roughly in tune if i sang with them. I attempted one version where Khanyo sang without the music background. What worked best in the end were where they both sang on both songs - duet. I still had some time after the recording to review some of the exam questions with them. Then it was time to pack up, since Mella needed a lift home to prepare for Riverview. I waited with Amber and the boys till 2:10 with no sign of Mandisa and no answer on the phone. So we took the boys with us to Mella's. I then managed to reach Mandisa, who suggested we drop the boys at Boxer, a nearby supermarket. This afternoon's class at Riverview was the final one before the school vacation. Mella led the praise time and I accompanied on guitar. Then she picked up on on L-A's talk about soft and hard hearts, and announced that I would do a science experiment to illustrate. It was the experiment with beating crayon residue and then heating with a flame to reconstitute the original solidity of the crayon. The problems were: the crayon we used this time refused to reconstitue itself, either because it was a different kind of wax, or the candle in the wind providing the heat was too intermittent. But the more significant problem to my mind was that her story called for hard hearts to soften, while the experiment was designed to show that soft crayon shavings (like soil) could re-solidify to become a crayon again (like rocks, eg diamonds). Then we handed out the apricot jam sandwiches that I had made over lunchtime. They were received but not liked all that much I think. We had some left when we left. They were wholewheat and possible not enough jam. I went home feeling this last Riverview kids' club had not been one of the best. At home I edited the voices onto the multi-tracked masters. The version where Kanyo sang without the music background turned out to be a tone low in pitch. I increased the pitch in Adobe Audition and edited some of the timing, but his voice sounds artificially high. Still, it was the only recording where he was solo. We had picked up porkloin steaks at OK Foods and enjoyed them very much with mashed potatoes and fried onions, with the final batch of apple crumble for dessert. The evening's GNiTM broadcast went hitchless. We were both tired after a long day.

Tue 29 May
In science class I am continuing to ask the boys revision questions. In answer to 'What differentiates vertebrates from invertebrates, Khanyo ansered 'Clothes.' This is not the answer I was looking for, but it has some merit! Mpho was a lot better than yesterday. When I mentioned this to Mella, she told me that at home Mandisa (mother) had been complaining to Mpho and telling him she didn't want him, and he had got upset and plunged a knife into a couch. Not sure how this would have made him behave better at school unless it was conscience. I dropped in at Van Wyk, Le Roux and Vennote optician in the Mall for their advice about why everything I look at through the upper part of my glasses is blurd. I was concerned my prescription might have changed in the last six months - unlikely. The problem turned out to be deterioration in the coating on the upper part of the lenses. I will be going in on Thursday to have new glasses. It is probable that my prescription as measured last September in Kanata is fine. Maybe I shouldn't be cleaning my glasses with rubbing alcohol. With L-A in her course, I handled her art class. First, showed them a film about Akiane Kramarik made 10 years ago when she was 13 that had been sent to L-A by Lynn in Ottawa. Then I sampled some questions that they will need to answer in their art exam. Kanyo found them easy, and Mpho wasn't too bad. Finally I set them colouring two of L-A's recent drawings. I had offered to run a GIG meeting at our house, and Andre had said he wanted to bring Janey. But when I went to collect Andre, Janey didn't feel up to it. Since I wasn't expecting any other guests I suggested Andre not come to our house since the meeting would be broadly the same as a week ago. So I came home and started working on the science exam for school. L-A was reading a book called 'Foreign to Familiar, a guide to understanding hot and cold climate cultures.' This explains Soraya's comment that I come across as cold. The book has many examples of cultural differences between different climates. In the evening I designed a music exam for the kids on 13 June. Mella had agreed that I could submit the multi-track recording we have worked on for weeks, but I also want to include in the exam aspects from all of the lessons.

Mon 28 May
Took Mella to school for 8 and then took L-A to Jan's for the YWAM course 'Basic Debriefing Training.' Back home for breakfast then to school for another revision session. Mpho really didn't want to conform. Apparently he has been off ADHD medication (ridilin or similar) for several weeks, and for us teachers that means he is ever harder to keep listening or taking notice of anything we are teaching. Yet in the middle of it all, on one of the questions he scored while Khanyo didn't. There is a brain in there, continually challenged by a multitasking system in overdrive. I was back at school for 1:15 to take Mella and the kids to pick-up points. Picked up Soraya at YWAM at 2:45, and happened to mention to her that the most common text I am sending is "I am here," as I arrive to pick someone up. She commented that I come across as cold-hearted, and I should personalize my texts and end with an emoji so that I will seem warm hearted. This is not a trivial matter. My attitude is to get the message out asap, but she is reminding me that in this culture, dealing with matters fast and efficiently is less important than relationships. I have long felt that asking everyone how they are when I meet them or speak to them on the phone is just redundancy, but perhaps she is right about this and I should change my ways. Soraya and I handled 48 kids in the library. We had the singing inside again, and they kept the volume down very well. We showed Alpha 'Bible.' Toward the end no food had arrived, and I suddenly remembered Amedja's car was probably still out of commission, so after a phone call I drove to her home to pick it up. When I reached Mockingbird street I saw that it had been resurfaced with tarmac! That will make things better for the car. I showed the pictures I had taken of the children last week, asked all of those to stand on one side, then called up the rest for a photograph and to get the sequence of names, with the help of one of the teenagers. I thought we would run out of food, but there was enough of everything, and the teenagers did well doshing it out. It had been raining all afternoon, so we took about 6 children home. By the time We got home I was feeling quite weary

Sun 27 May
As L-A washed her hair I cooked boiled eggs for breakfast. Leonie replied to my Whatsapp that soaking prayer was up on today's church announcements. However, when the announcement was mentioned by Pam Hugo (who called on me to wave), it was listed as 'Street Ministry.' a title that probably put people off. After church in the Milk and Honey cafe, we chatted with Mella and other school teachers about Mpho, who has been taken off ADHD medicine by his mother on the advice of a doctor. This has been making it harder for us teachers and hard for Mpho in the classroom. After cell group, we had burgers and ice cream at McDonalds for lunch. I spent an hour in the afternoon battling with Whatsapp to get my picture against my name on the Mozambique phone, but failed to replace the stock phrase 'Hey there! I am using Whatsapp.' At 5:15 we left for church to run the soaking prayer meeting. There were only 6 of us. I feel that the church announcement had indeed been negative. The small numbers did not take away from the quality of the meeting. Everyone's heart was truly in it, and I even had some prophetic words to share. We concentrated on prayer for the lost in the first half, and on discerning a new name for the group in the last section. The music from Kelley Warren and Ruth Fazal was appropriate, and I played three songs on guitar. I felt warm about the event - looking forward to the next one which will be at our home in a month.

In the six months before coming to South Africa, I digitized our music collection. Every LP, CD, cassette, and reel-to-reel tape had to be converted to digital format. In many cases I had time to edit the digitized audio files, top and tail them, normalize volumes, remove duplicate recordings etc, using WavePad sound editor and Adobe Audition. When I started on the reel-to-reel tapes from about tape C10 to C45, rock albums recorded in the 70s, I found many instances of out-of-phase recordings. The polarity of either the left or right hand channels at the record head had been switched. I had done this deliberately in a few cases for technical reasons, but I must have failed to switch the polarities back. Or, the only other explanation is that one of my taperecorders was wired wrongly from manufacture. Now, in the digital editing process, these out-of-phase recordings were only too evident. I searched for answers from social media, and discovered that the technical term for what I needed to do was 'invert.' I looked at all the options offered by Adobe Audition, and was very chuffed to discover an invert facility. It worked perfectly, with the necessary improvement to the sound. In most tapes, only some of the albums needed inverting, so it was a faily slow job. By the time we left Ottawa there were about 35 tapes that I hadn't yet edited, and six months later - now - they were still awaiting the process. I am resolving to do one file each day. That means one tape - Side 1 and Side 2 - every two days. I quite enjoy doing it, but it takes between 30 and 60 minutes, a third of which is just computer processing.

Sat 26 May
With our proposed training course for the Avian Park teenagers in leading Mailbox clubs, I was forced by necessity to go through the materials in detail that we had been given on 20 March. At 3pm I was at the library, and three girls were waiting. They asked if I could drive to a particular house, and there we picked up another girl, and a boy who hadn't attended any of the Monday sessions, but had been going to Amedja's Wednesday sessions. We came home via YWAM to get Soraya, so the car was full! We started with carrot cake that I had got for us but it seemed the right thing to do. Then I showed them the video from last Monday of all the kids saying their names incomprehensibly to me, and they were able to identify them all. This is a question of redundancy. I taught from the club leader manual, and Soraya taught the first lesson the the 'Explorer' course for 10- 13 year olds. Everyone agreed this was good stuff, and certainly better than the course she had been working with when we first started with her. The kids had enjoyed their trip out of the park, and went home with fruit (but not bread, even though they asked for it. I don't want to set a major food precedent.

Fri 25 May
After school drove to Aan de Doorns to interview Pam Hugo. She had taught the membership course at Worcester Christian Church and we had been totally impressed. Other churches should copy, requiring new members to learn Christianity basics. She and husband Steafan(?) live in a wonderful farm house. She made me a latte and we chatted for a while. I had prepared questions which I shared with her. The interview itself ran very well as she talked about Grace Trust within Worcester Christian Church, which includes a number of outreach ministries in Avian Park. We covered a number of other matters of interest to the listeners. I left about 12:15, time enough to drive back to Worcester and shop in Pick n Pay before picking up Mella, the boys and Amber and taking them to various destinations. At Amber's aunt's house, her other aunt, Denelia was there and we had a good chat about GiG. In the afternoon I visited the hospice, and then went shopping in the mall. As I was driving, listening to the excellent SAFM, I heard a comment that 60% of recent graduates from South African universities are out of work, and that The reason was that they were being taught a wrong curriculum for a modern world. That got me thinking. At home, L-A had prepared a cottage pie. We had her apple crumble after that and now I am feeling great! We watched an episode of Adventures with God.

Thu 24 May
Picked up Mella and Tanya at 7:50 and took them to school. For science decided to to revision for the next week or so - if they are to make any sort of showing at exam time. Khanyo did reasonably well. Mpho actually scored on two important questions that Khanyo got wrong! A 'My Father's House' board meeting had been set for 11, but noone except us was able to attend, so we went at 11:45 anyway because I had GiG stuff and computer stuff to deal with. Jan's computer speakers are inadequate (USB-powered). We should take the Blackstar for future meetings. I was able to run video on her machine without any problem, but mornings are better with Breedenet. We dropped off an accounting book at Moriah House and took Khanyo, Mpho and Amber home from school. Then we picked up hake and snoek from Ocean Fisheries. I wanted to try snoek. It has a distinctive (and not umpleasant) taste and many large bones which are fairly easily removed. Back home I was planning to go to the hospice, but we called TD Bank about L-A's visa and were on Skype for an hour. They had sent out a third replacement visa, but this one, like the previous one, had gone to a TD bank in Nepean which L-A had never been a customer of! After 20 mins talking to a customer sevice rep I asked to speak to her boss who was linked into the call. Her name was Marian, and things started to improve. She noticed that there was a setting directing all replacement cards and correspondence to go to the branch, not the home address on file. How 'the branch' was a branch in Nepean she didn't know. She suggested couriering the cards direct to us, so that's what they are going to do. I asked we could communicate by email but she said no, on the basis of security. I asked if they would care to give L-A a stack of Aeroplan points as compensation and she said it was unusual, but yes, 7000 miles. After the call I prepared tonight's 'Worcester Report' and did the music section for the first time, consisting of tracks 3,7 and 12 from Kaleidoskoop. When we ran the show, all went well till the middle of 'Ways to Grow in God,' when the transmission abruptly stopped. This was not a reception problem - it was a new problem. Transmission started again after 15 minutes, and I rewound the show to the beginning of Ways to Grow in God. John Clark (Galcom) said it was some sort of Internet glitch between South Africa and Toronto.

Wed 23 May
Our school outing to Groot Constantia. Slaves were ‘imported’ from Indonesia to work in the Cape Colony settlement after its founding 330 years ago. Groot Constantia is still a working winery but has been turned into a museum of those times. We left Worcester about 7:30 for the 90 minute drive. In the car: Khanyo, Mpho, Mella, Tanya Millette and driver Tony. There were about 35 children and 10 adults there to learn about the history of slavery in those parts. The first stage was in a room turned into lecture room for this purpose. A young lady gave a good interactive talk for about an hour, using a box of historical items as visual aids. She was also good at keeping the children’s attention. There was then a 15 minute break, during which I (Tony) made an audio record of the morning so far, and the boys ate sandwiches brought with them. After break we all trouped over to the manor house, a historically significant heritage building. Our guide led us through a series of rooms, pointing out artefacts such as paintings and porcelain. Photography was not allowed. We heard for example about a society wedding held in the room where we stood which disintegrated into licentiousness and debauchery. We saw paintings of the first owner of the estate Simon van der Stel (who named Stellenbosch after himself, and probably Simons Town also), and of the another early female owner who was an ex-slave. Wine from Groot Constantia was purchased by kings and emperors including Napoleon in exile on Elba. We had a snack lunch in the attractive restaurant before driving home. Here are my pictures. We timed it to arrive at Roman's Pizza at 2:30 to pick up six pizzas. Then on to Riverview for a pizza party for the kids. The word got around and about 35 of them came, some of whom Mella hadn't seem before. Some of our regulars were in Ramadan, so they got to take a slice home to keep till after 6 pm.

Tue 22 May
Picked up Mella at 7:50 and took her to school. She outlined the school arrangements when she will be back in USA in a couple of weeks, a time which includes the school exams. I have never designed exams in my life so this will need some applied common sense and quite a lot of time. Today was the big day when I would present GIG to a group of people who might be interested in joining. I went to Jan's house at 3:30 and checked her computer and Internet. Seemed OK. At 4:30 picked up Tanya and brought her to our home. Went back down town to pick up Heather McComb, then to YWAM to pick up Soraya, and lastly to tick up Andre, who wanted to take Laduma. I said there wasn't room in the car. It turned out a good thing that Laduma didn't come in view of Jan's three dogs. We had 4 guests and four from the GIG club. But when we ran the introductory video it hung up after a couple of minutes. It did start again but clearly Jan's Internet is not fast or strong enough. So I decided to talk more and spend less times on the training videos. I emphasised the lack of financial literacy which is a world-wide problem through lack of education, suggesting this as one of the pillars of the GIG vision. The session actually went well and the guests seemed appreciative. Andre in particular was vocally supportive. He wants to bring Janey to a future session. His endorsement meant a lot (to me). There was another technical problem in that Jan's computer speakers were very low volume. On the way home we stopped at OK Foods to get Andre some milk and Fanta.

Mon 21 May
Picked up Mella at 7:50 and took her to school. She told me about Simone, a girl in Avial Park with aids who calls Mella periodically and asks for food. Her parents are smokers and drinkers and Mella believes that's where the family allowance goes. I bought and delivered the My Fathers House food to Avian Park, and then continued to the end of Mockingbird Street with food for Simone, which I had enhanced with some extras. Took a photo of her in fromt of her house. I went home via filling up the car and pumping up the tire with a slow puncture. Bruno sent me answers to a couple of GIG questions, and I think I will manage the presentaion tomorrow well enough. Tanya came with us to the Avian Park library and the kids greeted her like a long lost sister. We did things a little differently. It was raining and the wind howling, so for the first time I played the music inside, and softly, and the children sang softly! This so as not to upset the library staff in the normally quiet library. Then I showed the photos taken of the kids the previous week holding up their colourings of L-A's art. Then I gave them a talk designed to show brand new Christians that God has plans for each of them, and that he prefers to use people who see themselves without sufficient skills, talents and status, but are teachable, over people who know it all and are less teachable. This was the point of the talk - when we are weak we are strong. Finally we showed them a 'Mr Bean' episode. They all know who Mr Bean is. There were some giggles from the kids, and a few more from the adults. There were only 25 of them on this stormy day so there was plenty of food for them all.

Sun 20 May
We three drove through beautiful weather to the Huguenot tunnel and then not so beautiful to Hillsong Somerset West. We were in time for coffee and muffin before the servive, and second row seats. Pastor Phil mentioned Bishop Michael Curry's address on love at the royal wedding, and then he spoke on the same subject - but not as well! He also mentioned an event when Hillsong Gugulethu (Gugulethu township in the Cape Flats) were transporting all their music equipment in a truck with armed guards and they were held up at gunpoint and the truck and cargo were hijacked. The truck was later recovered - the thieves wanted the amplifiers and speakers. This happened a month ago. A special offering was taken to help them buy more music equipment. After the service we ate hugh burgers from Joanna's food truck, and then went to the mall for Bodyshop reviving pumice for L-A. Checked out the price of a 2Tb back-up drive at Computer Mania - R 1590 My Passport. We returned home via Sir Lowry's Pass, a longer trip that joins up with the R 43. Some fine views. When I took Tanya to Mella's, Mella came out, and then was seriously distressed to see that her car had been broken into with a brick throughn a window. Persons unknown had attempted to start the car from inside, failed, and in their frustration ripped out a lot of wiring. It was a sad sight, and a sad indication of the risks of living in this town. In the evening I prepared my training talk for GIG on Tuesday, edited the keyboard into Khanyo and Mpho's songs, and wrote words for them. Now I think I'm resdy for this week.

Sat 19 May
Picked up Tanya from Robertson where she had been staying in a lovely house on Cedar Rd that Maggie was house/dog - sitting. Then, to the Nuy Festival. We started with brunch at the Nuy restaurant, and right near our table was a large TV with live coverage of the wedding of Harry and Meghan. As we ate, we lingered to watch until the moment when Meghan walked up the aisle. It was magical. Then we visited three other festival locations, firstly the Willow Creek olive oil farm, which was deserted(!) where we bought more of their excellent products; then to Leipzig Winery, where we sipped wine and listened to folk duo Kaleidoscoop. We liked them a lot and bought one of their CDs which we will definitely feature on the Worcester Reports. Lots of people were enjoying themselves, including Marnes from Cafe Hugo, and Jan and Joy. Finally we dropped off briefly at Penhill winery, where we bought a bottle of Rose untasted (L-A loves all Roses). Back home we all ate steak that I had bought at Britos. Mmmm. Tanya stayed the night on the sofabed.

Fri 18 May
L-A woke and asked if I was going to the early morning prayer meeting that I attended last Friday. I had clean forgotten about it - hadn't put it in my calendar - and it was now 6:30 - too late. My leg didn't seem so sore. When I got up, it was much better than last night. Praise the Lord! Pulled muscles don't normally heal that fast. I called Phil Adewumi and confirmed today's interview at 2pm. I added the Friday prayer meeting to my calendar. On my way to school I stopped outside the village gates to put some soil in a jar for today's experiment, called 'Dirt.' We are now on the third day of creation, when God made land, sea and plants. I have become even more in awe of our God's infinite vision and how He made things during my time teaching science. I hope I am engendering in my students some of the sense of wonder that I truly feel. I am sad for the majority of the population who haven't learned this stuff and don't know what they don't know. No wonder many of the leading scientists throughout history have been believers. Back from school I discovered from L-A that we did have an Afrikaans lesson today (I had though it had been postponed) so I called Phil and rearranged out meeting for 7. Janey sent me two questions from her education training assignment that she didn't know how to answer, to do with squares and multiple squares. I had never heard of these questions but I sensed the purpose of them and figured out answers that might just be right. I really enjoyed our time with Janey and Andre (and Laduma). Janey was grateful for the answers to her assignment. i had decided to start working on short helpful phrases we had 'learned' earlier, so I wrote them all out again and during my time with Janey practised the pronounciation. I collected Pastor Phil from YWAM at 7. We have a number of connections. Google had revealed that he taught music for a short time in 2013 at 'Teachers of the Nations' the overseeing entity for MasterPeace academy, so he knows Mella. In Nigeria he had been a pastor with the RCCG, the same denomination that Folla is with, and that has several churches in Ottawa. They had asked him to pastor a church in Worcester, but things hadn't worked out . He was a YWAM alumnus, and they offered him plus wife and children accommodation there. He is an accomplished worship leader and keyboard player and leads some of their Monday and Thursday sessions. He is now a member of Worcester Christian Church, and had been asked to lead the worship at the Overhex church plant, which he does every week. He also works with Pam Hugo in WCC's Avian Park ministry giving music lessons to children. He has cut two CDs and is working on a third. He has published two books, 'Break the Cycle.' and 'The Power of Hope.' For a time he ran a computer repair shop in the High Street. So when we got to his interview, there was lots to talk about. I had met him through GIG. We will be friends. He is a gentle, sincere Christian who has not been well treated in his previous church.

Thu 17 May
Woke up feeling good, and decided to have a good breakfast before school. In fact I enjoyed the whole day and tackled a few things I had thought daunting yesterday, like setting up monthly ETFs with the bank to pay our rent, the Internet, and my GIG dues. The school experiment was building a thermometer from a plastic bottle with a straw dipping into coloured water. It worked so well I got over confident and put our mercury thermometer into the boiling water that we had used for testing the home-made thermometer. It broke immediately. I used the opportunity to explain to the kids why it had broken. Went to a chemist on the way home and was amazed to be able to buy a replacement for about R 18! Ran into Pastor Phil (from GIG Group) in Q-Square and he was keen to meet and chat about music and his writing, so I booked him for 2 pm tomorrow to do a CWCP interview and let me have some of his music. At 2 pm Bruno Guntelach arrived on foot from his home just outside Hooggelegen village. Before starting an interview for CWCP, I asked him to answer a few GIG questions that I needed to brush up on before next Tuesday. The interview itself went very well, Bruno knowing exactly how best to answer my questions with clarity and brevity. We touched on financial literacy, the lack of which is such a worldwide problem. At the end I asked him how he got his African name Loyiso, which turned into a special interview moment. The Worcester Report on CWCP went out faultlessly - I am listening to it as I type this. I seem to have pulled a muscle at the top of my right leg. Maybe when I was a chandala in social studies at school, filling a styrofoam cup one teaspoon at a time from a bucket a few metres away. It was sore this morning, and it's very sore now. Laurie-Ann laid hand on it and prayed for healing. It wasn't instant! It was hard to find a comfortable way to lie in bed.

Wed 16 May
This became another heavy day. I only had time for a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, eaten standing. Had an interesting music session at school to our two songs. Met Andrew Cloete, our bread man at the mall at lunchtime and gave him R 300, and mentioned GIG. Need to send him an invitation to next Tues. We went down to Riverview kids club with sanswiches and narchis (satsumas) for the hungry children. I had forgotten to get the recorders from school, and then left the little amplifier by the door at home, meaning I could provide no music. I have noticed increasing instances of forgetfulness. I have also noticed a new tendency to drop things - nothing precious yet - but that cup and cockroach yesterday is an example. L-A told the story, the Gospel through colours, to a reasonably attentive group, and then Mella quizzed them on parts of the story, handing out sweets. They then had a feast, because Mella had brought food too. My music lesson was a little strained, with only one recorder, but we managed to get the first line of a song down. By now I was very tired and happy to go home. I sent Mella a text apologising for my forgetfulness, and she replied very graciously. L-A made a greeat evening meal with wors, onions, fried potatoes. In the evening prepared CWCP with both Jan Buchanan and Bruno Guntelach on the program.

Tue 15 May
I was at school by 9 to be a player in a social studies drama illustrating life in India centuries ago, and I had the short straw, dalit. So everone else could boss me around and I remained subservient. This seemed to amuse Khanyo and Mpho! And Mella. When I was leaving I saw a large cockroach-like insect in the sink downstairs. I got it in a cup and took it to the front door, but when it then get out of the cup onto my hand I dropped and smashed the cup. It survived. At 6pm I joined the first meeting of the newly registered Worcester 1 GIG Club, the first GIG club to have an account set up with the GIG co-op bank. Danielia conducted the meeting very well. Several had heard Bruno Guntelach's interview on Cape Pulpit Radio. I was happy to tell them that two in the group would be on tomorrow's Worcester report - Jan Buchanan and Bruno. There was training based on Malcolm Gladwell's discovery of the 10,000 hours it takes to become world class at anything. I feel this group will do good work in far less than 10,000 hours. We will be having an introduction night for people interested in GIG next Tuesday and I offered to make the presentation. I have invited Soraya, and maybe will invite Andrew Cloete.

Mon 14 May
More children than ever before at the praise session at the Library. I had forgotten my music stand again, but willing hands held my music. L-A spoke about prophetic art and then each of the 53 kids present was given a copy of one of her recent drawings to colour with crayons. They had to share crayons so lying on the floor was best for most of them. They enjoyed it as much as at the other clubs. Then we had 'How do we pray' from the first version of Youth Alpha, and I felt it worked better than the new version for these young ones. When the time came to feed them there weren't enough apples. I felt bad because I thought there would be plenty, and had kept back some for the Tuesday lunch tomorrow. The ones who went without - about 12 of them - didn't make a fuss. I thing we three (including Soraya) felt tired by the end, but it was actually a good session. Someone had posted a link to an interview on Cape Pulpit Radio with Bruno Guntelach. I contacted Cape Pulpit Radio and got permissions to rebroadcast it on CWCP (and offered them access to our programs).

Sun 13 May
Watched Brian Houston TV 7:30 - 8. Recovered an archived copy of the Roy Young interview from the black disk, allowing me to replace a section missing from the version I made yesterday. Back-ups are useful! I was drowsy in church and the translation not too good. L-A spotted Pam Hugo after church and I was able to arrange an interview next Friday at 11 am at her home. Cell group was excellent as usual and I reported on the soaking prayer last Sunday. Made appointment to record an interview with Jan Buchanan at 5:30. At home added Pam Hugo to the Mox phone Whatsapp and sent a confirmation request to Pam. The interview with Jan went very well. Worked on my medical insurance claim and mixing down the latest percussion tracks into Kanyo's and Mpho's songs. Before turning in I edited the digital version of Tape C22 S2, and resolved to try and do one side of a tape each day if the editing is to be completed before many more months. These are the tapes that dated from about 1970 and many of the contents had been recorded out of phase, which I am inverting with Adobe Audition.

Sat 12 May
In Robertson for 10:30 to go for coffee with Tanya and Maggie, and while they were having coffee, I went to Pick n Pay Hardware to buy clamps to mend the bodhran and my #1 guitar, and an adjustable spanner. Much enjoyed being with the girls. L-A and I then went on to the Bodega restaurant at Rooiberg Winery, the one with the big red chair out front. It was very pleasant eating in the sun, and afterwards I climbed onto the chair for pictures. Home by 2:15 and called Moses to see how his yesterday had gone. Apparently all was well with the financial discussions, including that they would be claiming compensation for his wife's loss of earnings 2 days a week that she has to take off to care for him. At 3 picked up Soraya so she could do her May Newsletter on Pink Dell. I have been able to help her with the technology. I then gave her a 25 minute introduction to GIG including the intro video, and it convinced her; she wants to be part of it. Good practice for me too. We brought in Romans pizza. In the evening I received an email from John Whelan saying that Roy Young had died. I spent a while reporting this on the Ottawa Beatles Site, with the help of achived images I had stored since 2001 when I interviewed him in Pickering, Ontario.

Fri 11 May
I had set my alarm for 5:20, and by 5:45 was at the home of Carlo van Wyk. Coffee and shortbread were ready, and we were five, including Marius Rabie. Others were Hilton and Louis. Sometimes Godfrey and Tendai (Zimbabweans) attend. Carlo is a TV sports producer and his house is really nice. We went upstairs to his living room, and prayed for many things. I brought Moses and Nicki into the prayer needs, but my own feelings were overwhelmingly praise and gratefulness to the Lord for how he was guiding us and bringing joy to us. On my way home I took photos looking north showing the lights of cars against the mountains. I had lots of time before school to catch up on things, including a major backup of the computers. In school Khanyo and I played chess resulting in a draw. In the afternoon we slept for a while. I need to send in my medical claim for the stitches in my face on 11 April, but Allianz has sent me a different claim form from the one we used for L-A's claim, and I am waiting for them to say which is the right one to use. Called Soraya, and she would like to come over tomorrow at 3 to do her newsletter, and have an intro to GIG from me. In the last few days I have uploaded many photos to Flickr, so our albums are getting quite comprehensive. For dinner we enjoyed the remnants of last night's meal.

Thu 10 May
I picked up Khanyo and Mpho at their home (Zweletemba) at 7:45 to bring them to school. Their mother Mandisa had no transport this morning and Mella had thought she would close the school this Ascention Day, but I thought we could deal with the problem. One result of this was I was in school from 8 am, and witnessed a wonderful start-of-the-day devotional led by Mella with flags for all. After science I beat Khanyo at chess! On the way home while filling the car, Breedenet called and I explained what I now believed. I was back at school to take the boys home, and then to Mella's with the flags that she had forgotten. I took the opportunity to find out why I (and Tanya) had had such a problem with her door handle. I found out, and I now know how to open her door - but her door does need a repair job. Moses phoned to say that his first Cape Town meeting with his lawyer had gone well. We had been praying for this each day recently. Pieter Louis and Sume, assistant pastor and staff member at Worcester Christian Church, came at 5 for dinner, bringing salad, and we had a great time with them. This was a big deal for us. L-A had cooked chicken paprikash followed by pear crumble. They are a very special and Godly couple, inspired by both the Word and the Spirit, and they have been super-welcoming to us. After they'd gone we ran the Worcester Reports edition with Arno Pienaar guesting, and it went like clockwork, even when I was multitasking on the receiving https://www.quora.com/profile/Tony-Copplecomputer. This was the program when I played 30 seconds of 29 protest songs. I Skyped Spescare rehab in Cape Town on behalf of Babra, but they said that for professional and privacy reasons they were unable to facilitate arrangements for her as a visitor. However they did suggest I call a nursing agency. I called Med X, and found a lady called Rochel, 084-208-1368, who offered help. I texted this to Babra, who replied very grateful - 'Now i hv seen that God hs surely directed to u fo a reason. im truly humbled. Will contact her soon thank u.' Before we came to South Africa, one of my hopes was that we would be able to help people with admin and problem solving (one of the skills I list on my Quora profile). I'd expected it to be with township folk among those we are working with, but it turned out in this case to happen via our web presence. L-A saw a Whatsapp that one of the early Friday morning Worcester Christian Church prayer meetings would be at 11 Deon Britz street, close by, and immediately I felt I wanted to be there.

Wed 9 May
After science class I visited Grondbeurs to report that we would need help to get our garage door operating. It will be arranged. They didn't seem upset that they got our rent a week late because of my learning curve on EFTs. At the Riverview kids club, Mella was visiting someone for the first 15 minutes and the kids were getting restless, so I started the praise and worship. It was a pretty roudy session, shades of Vinkrivier, and no music teaching. One of the children fell into the dry swimming pool with a glancing blow to his head, but we felt nothing serious had occurred. Mella led all the children in prayer for him. After the club packed up Mella and I went to his house and talked to his mother, who didn't seem worried. With the weather getting colder and wetter, the present arrangements will have to change. There is a community hall called Chip Ross where they used to meet indoors, but for some reason it became unavailable to them. L-A spent 45 mins on the phone giving comfort to Nicki, someone who had found our web site and needed personal help. She is in a really tough spot in her life with no friends. We don't know how she found us. The Good News in the Morning CWCP broadcast was interruped as we listened to the download by many dropouts, and I emailed John Clark at Galcom. He listened in, and told us that the whole show went out fine. The penny started to drop for me, and I listened for a while on my phone with wifi turned off. On data, the playback was perfect. This told me that our problem all along was with the download, not the upload, and that our listeners had not been interrupted. Why there was insufficient bandwidth for downloading, when we have nominally 2 MBps, is unclear to me, but it is far less of a problem.

Tue 8 May
Wind blew all last night and all day like a low level tornado. L-A not feeling well, but determined to do her art class, which she did. Mella was back in school from her mini-vacation in the Strand. By 11:30 I had done most of the preparation for CWCP on Thursday, with Arno Pienaar as interviewee, and my soundscape of protest songs. I finished reading 'From the Guttermost to the Uttermost' by Erena van de Venter, and reviewed it on my on-line book reviews page. I can't speak too highly of this book (or its author), but sadly it is out of print. I texted Babra with a contact name for Western Cape Rehab, Tessa Samuels, 021-370-2351, who had told me she could guide Babra towards companionship opportunities with patients recovering from stroke. I also suggested she start a 'stroke group,' mutual support in her area, which Beit Bracha had suggested. She replied, grateful.

Mon 7 May
After school I visited the Beit Bracha rehab centre for stroke patients to understand if similar organizations in Cape Town might offer Babra volunteer positions. I called them and will report to Babra. We missed Tanya (and Christie, now in Istanbul en route for Richmond) at the library. L-A presented the sponge analogy to about 36 children who then watched 'How can I have Faith.' I had the thought that the previous version of Youth Alpha might be better for these kids, who seem to be younger every week. The ones who offered to be leaders haven't been coming. Bought large lamb chops for supper. Breedenet measured our upload speed while we are broadcasting and it was well within the 640 Kbps that we are contracted for. They will do more tests - we are still suffering drop outs when broadcasting. Was able to fix a Skype problem with a help line chat. Skype was saying we had insufficient credit for a call, when we had $15 clearly listed. The solution appeared to be to sign in with Skype name rather than email. I completed the soundscape of protest songs to play on CWCP. Listened to DJ Aviici on Spotify, who committed suicide recently at age 28 and at the top of hs profession as a dance music producer. I had never heard of him but I like his music a lot.

Sun 6 May
Got up in time to see Brian Houston (Brian Houston TV) speaking on when we are weak, we are strong - a powerful message for enabling us to operate outside our comfort zone. New Facebook friend Babra Musiyiwa phoned and said she was coming to Worcester to see us! I suggested we meet after 1. In church, Johan called me up to make an announcement about tonight's soaking prayer, which I did by suggesting that prayer = talking to God is only half the story. During the sermon Babra tried to call me several times, and when I deflected her to text I discovered she was en route and 30 minutes out of Worcester. At the end of the service when we were having a coffee in Milk and Honey, she texted me that her taxi had dropped her near the police station, and asking how to get to the church. 30 minutes later she turned up on foot. She didn't want lunch because she was fasting. We took her home and heard her story. Her mother had died of stoke recently, and Babra wanted to set up some kind of organization to help victims and potential victims. We discussed her options, finally settling on her connecting up with an existing stroke support group at least initially. At about 2 I drove her into town so she could continue her journey by thumb. I loaded the music for soaking prayer onto my Blackberry. At 5:30 we arrived at church for the long-awaited soaking prayer event. Seven others joined us; several new. It was a very special two hours, though I say it myself. Ruth Fazal was new to them and perfect for soaking. There were some words received which led to some good discussion. The music played through the Pyle amp and the Dixon speakers sounded fine. When I started playing Revelation song on guitar with L-A singing too I knew the tech stuff was good. I gave a very short homily on encouragement, and shared my vision that this group would become a heartbeat for the church. When I put Ruth F on again at the end, people didn't want to leave, but I stopped the music at 8, and we were out in ten minutes. We drove home feeling that the Lord had been with us, and that doing this monthly would be something to look forward to. When I looked at my phone there was a text from Babra saying she was safely home.

Sat 5 May
L-A spent a lot of time today working on setting up a new accounting system for Moriah House, and polishing and recording more "Ways to Grow in God" for CWCP Radio. I worked on computer back-ups, and making a sound collage from the protest songs I had introduced the boys to hange, and in their music class. Continued practising the music I'll be playing for the soaking prayer event tomorrow evening. I have managed to get a good sound from the travel guitar plugged into the Blackstar amplifier, which feeds a line output to the Pyle amplifier and the Dixon speakers. I can also play music with this setup from my phone using the Bluetooth input on the Pyle. At about 3 I visited the hospice. Several patients were sleeping soundly, and I prayed for them just the same, softly without waking them. I am grateful that they appreciate this even though some don't understand English.

Fri 4 May
I needed Epsom salts for the experiment and was able to get a packet in the Q-Square pharmacy. It was fun breaking water down into hydrogen and oxygen with a PP9 battery. After school I went to Breedenet. They told me that I should call the support line when I am having the problem. I went back to the school for 12:15 to play chess with Khanyo, and beat him on the first game. Half way through the second game, the boys needed to leave for drama class. Took some Pick n Pay lasagna home for lunch. After lunch I set up a test broadcast. Almost immediately the 'internet' problem manifested. I called Breedenet support and they said they would look into it. They didn't call me back, and the problem persisted until the evening when it seemed to lessen. I had brought home a braai pack of chicken, and there was almost no wind, so at 6 I started braai-ing. I was still at it 45 minutes later, and when we sat down to eat, it was undercooked. I just wasn't able to build an even fire, and the charcoal brickettes I'd bought months back just don't seem to work. Oh well! We watched one of Darryl Wilson's 'Adventures with God' in the evening. Always powerful.

Thu 3 May
Cleaned up the study in preparation for the boys coming. Got to school about 9 and Amber had everything under fine control. My science experiment needed a stove and cooking pots, so I described it in the class room, and had them make their notes, but we would actually do it at our home, as well as music. After school I went to YWAM to interview Arno Pienaar. He was very gracious and I think we have a good interview. Includes his testimony. Went home for an hour before returning to school. The timetable I had worked on is now posted on the wall and being used, but it had an error at this time - maths instead of abacus. I noted the changes that were needed. Took Amber to Stockenstrom street and brought the boys to Hooggelegen 48 for the first time. They were very well behaved. Didn't touch any of our stuff but just watched and listened. I had constructed the cooking apparatus on the stove. I added the hot water to the saucepan and tuned up the heat. Then we went into the study and began the music lesson. This consisted of a survey of music used for political purposes, protest and encouragement. I had prepared about 10 examples on audio files, and checked out another 10 on YouTube. In each case I taught what the song was trying to express. The boys listened well. After the first two songs we returned to the kitchen. There was plenty of condensation from the steam, landing on the saucepan lid that had an icepack on it. Back to the music lesson. I played Phil Ochs' 'Here's to the state of Mississippi,' the tune of which I had used for one of my (two) protest songs, 'Here's to the leaders,' so I played that next. They weren't sure who was singing (L-A and I). At our final science experiment segment, drops were falling often enough for me to try and snap them, and the stove top was awash. I turned off the stove and cleared up. Listening to samples of all the protest songs I had prepared took us to nearly 2:30, when I took the boys home to Zweletemba. They had behaved very well - no playing with our stuff at all! Then I went to FNB, which for a change had only 10 minutes waiting, and the teller who served me was good. He got me a new card, and changed my cell number on their files to my correct number 081-840-9589. Back home I got on to the FNB site and now I was able to complete the EFT to Grondbeurs. It required a final confirmation code that was sent to my cell. Our rent will be late, but I had informed Grondbeurs what was going on, and I think we'll be OK. L-A cooked a great roast lamb dinner, followed by pear crumble. We set CWCP running, and all seemed well, but during the program proper there were several internet blips, and about 20 minutes in, it hung completely. I tried listening to one of the other Galcom streams, and it ran fine. This suggests that the problem is with our upload stream. Either the Raspberry Pi streamer has an intermittent fault, or Breedenet isn't delivering the upload bit rate we are paying for, or Galcom isn't performing correctly. Tomorrow I will visit Breedenet - they are the most likely culprit. I got busy with the podcast, changing the order of the first two items to follow the previous format. Preparing tomorrow's science lesson I saw that it needed a stove. I wasn't going to bring the kids home again this soon, so I decided to skip that lesson and fit it in later. L-A completed Part 4 of her teaching on art history for MasperPeace Academy, and I posted it on Flickr, where the previous three eposides were. It's a fine piece of work.

Wed 2 May
I was down at school by 8:30, but Amber was doing just fine. After school I went to FNB plus passport, and after investigating, my teller asked if I had had SMSs (texts) from Forex, and the penny dropped. I had received 3 asking me to confirm something but I hadn't connected them with the wire transfer. Went to Vodacom again about getting Whatsapp to work, and spoke to their #1 phone fixer. He told me that adding memory wouldn't solve my problem, which was space being taken up by Whatsapp photos and videos. He deleted them all, and reinstalled Whatsapp with my South African number. This indeed solved all the problems, and I now have a Whatsapp presence under my own name again. Back home I was able to activate the rent transfer from Canada and deposit it in the FNB bank account. However I wasn't able to complete the EFT to Grondbeurs, and after a phone call with FNB, will have to go back to the bank tomorrow. This was Tanya's last day in Worcester. We picked her up at 3:30, loaded her cases, and drove to Vinkrivier kids club. Cree was there, back from outreach in Muizenberg. Kaysha was back. I played cricket with three of them for a while. It was another tough session just getting the older kids to quieten down so we could do music. With them finally quiet, I told them why they must stop shouting if we can do anything helpful for them. But as soon as I started playing the noise started again. After, we drove Tanya to a house in Robertson where Maggie is house sitting for three weeks. Chat and tea. Au revoir Tanya, and back home to run GNiTM on CWCP. It was after midnight when I turned in after preparing tomorrow.

Tue 1 May
Workers Day! Downloaded all the photos from Priv, deleted them from Priv, uploaded relevant ones to Flickr, and will file on black back-up disk. Cooked breakfast for Christie and L-A. At about 11 we left for Muizenberg where Christie will stay in a guest house for several days. It was a good drive and when we arrived we enjoyed remembering when we were here with Faez Busch on our Cape Point tour. After some searching we found a quaint and delightful restaurant called Octopus' Garden. (@OctopusgardenrestaurantStJames on FB). Great food and friedliness from the owner. It was right beside the beach, the rail tracks and the station, and a couple of trains went through. Dessert was creme brulet and mulva pudding (we shared). Afterwards we delivered Christie to her guest house and drove home. It has been really nice getting to know Christie better. She is a member of IRIS Virginia and L-A had met her there. I am getting worried about my wire transfer to pay our rent, which still hasn't arrived at my FNB account.

Mon 30 April
No school, but this is not a bank holiday. That is tomorrow: Workers Day. I transferred the complete Alpha videos from the red disk to my computer ready for My Father's House. I delivered food to Avian Park, then went to FNB to report my lost bank card. Turns out I would need my passport to replace it. However, they did show me how to make an e-transfer, or EFT as it's called here. Maggie delivered Christie Adams to our house about noon. I brought home paella for the three of us. Tomorrow we'll take Christie to Cape Town on the first leg of her journey home to Richmond Virginia. While the sun was up I attempted to boil water with the focussed sun's rays for Janey's project, but although they (the rays) could maintain the temperature of water in the small pan, I don't think they will boil it. At 2:25 the three of us went to YWAM to pick up Soraya, and then to get Tanya (full car) and on to the Avian Park library. There were fewer than 30 girls because of the long weekend. The music went very well. Christie gave a testimony as I set up for Alpha. We had been running for a couple of minutes when I realized something was wrong - no subtitles. A couple of minutes later, L-A came over to tell me I had the adult version of 'Why did Jesus Die' instead of Youth Alpha. I must have transferred the complete wrong version this morning. Nothing to be done now except keep going. Amazingly these kids carried on watching and may even have taken in much of the message. Perhaps Darryl Tunningly's ex-gangster story struck a chord. One other good thing is that 3 adults who I don't believe have ever seen Alpha before were exposed to it, and to Nicky Gumbel. Towards the end, Nicky talks powerfully about forgiveness, so I took this as my cue when the film was over and asked the children to forgive me for bringing the wrong version. They all had 2 to 3 times the normal amount of food so they were busy eating and extremely well behaved. Some of them, those who hadn't done so on the previous occasion, took home letters for the parents. In the evening we four enjoyed excellent food, wine, fellowship and prayer, before I took Tanya home and Christie made herself comfortable on the sofa bed.

Sun 29 April
Picked up Tanya for church which was half full since this is a long weekend. Johan mentioned me in his announcements in connection with the Street Ministry/Soaking Prayer group meeting now postponed to 6 May. He then preached a masterly sermon encouraging us to share our weaknesses rather than touting our strengths. St Paul was his model. There was an opportunity for prayer and I went up, but I arrived at the front at the same time as Chris from Street Ministry, who wanted prayer from me. When he told me what ailed him, it was similar to what ailed me, so I prayed for both of us, admitting our weeknesses before the Lord. After church had a long chat with Ruloff but got lost in his rhetoric every time he had said a couple of sentences. We went to McDonalds and joined Gary. Then to the first connect group for a month and Tanya's intro to it. Excellent meeting. Heather McComb said she had a draft contract from Cum Books but couldn't understand it. When we left I went to her flat and photographed it (while Heather sold a knit hairband to L-A). Bought some meatloaf at OK foods and pumpkin cakes for our supper, and a chocolate cake to entertain Maggie and Christie on Monday. In the afternoon got down to looking at the garage door opener, and managed to fix the problem, more by instinct than engineering. In preparation for the soaking prayer night a week from now, I realized there might be an alternative way to amplify my guitar. Play it through the Blackstone amp,, feed the line output to the Pyle amp, and drive the Dixon speakers. It worked a treat, with the cleanest sound I have had from the travel guitar.

Sat 28 April
I gave Janey a lift to Q Square, and then parked in the only free spot. Vodacom have an extended memory card for the Mozambican phone, but when it came to paying, they couldn't get my trusty Solutions Banking Mastercard to cooperate. (There's nothing wrong with the card). However, this turned out well in the end ... I attempted to get out the FNB debit card - and - it wasn't in my wallet. I must have left it in an FNB machine a couple of days ago. I waited in the car and fell fast asleep. Woken by Janey rapping on my window. She had called me but got no answer so she finally found me. Turned out I was in a cold spot, so no calls were getting through. I dropped her home and went to the mall on this busy shopping day. In the afternoon I worked on Janey's project to build a contraption for cooking that would work in a primitive location where there was no firewood or electricity. This is part of her teacher higher qualification. I managed to set fire to a piece of paper and photograph the set-up, which consisted of a magnifying glass held by the microphone stand beaming onto my shaving mirror and refecting onto a focal point on the underside of our egg sausepan. By this time the sun was too low in the sky. I'll try and actually boil some water next time we have strong sunlight, maybe Monday.

Fri 27 April
Freedom Day in South Africa - no school, no banks, but a fair number of shops open. Maggie and Christie Adams called to say that her plans had changed and she would now like a lift to Cape Town on Tuesday, not tomorrow. Tanya came for pizza supper, after which she gave me an interview for CWCP. She then listened as we rebroadcast last night's Worcester Report. I wanted her to hear Erena. L-A and Tanya talked, and talked!

Thu 26 April
Checked the pencil sharpener. It worked fine. Must have beeen a temporary overload situation. Leonie called from the church office, suggesting we postpone the soaking prayer event a week, since this weekend is a holiday starting with Freedom Day tomorrow. So we have another week to prepare. School ended at noon today because the staff of Worcester City Church where we are located were leaving in good time for the Freedom Day holiday tomorrow. I was taking the boys home because Mandisa's (their mother's) car was being serviced. I went via McDonalds and got ice creams for the boys. Dropped off Amber in Roodeval and the boys in Zweletemba. On way home picked up my trusty rain jacket from Perfecto dry cleaners who had made it look like new. The Worcester Reports did not go well. I thought the program was going out, but I was overconfident and did not check that I could receive it. It was L-A who noticed, thank goodness. I checked our systems and could find nothing wrong, so I emailed John Clark at Galcom. Within 5 mins her had restarted the streamer and got back to me. It's a pity that this would happen for one of our most important interviews so far. We lost the first 20 minutes of the show. To make up for it we will rebroadcast the whole show on Friday tomorrow.

Wed 25 April
soaking prayer even a week Here began my toughest day yet in South Africa, when L-A noticed I seemed to have temporarily lost the joy. The science experiment had gone badly wrong - I had used a glass bottle to freeze water overnight instead of a plastic bottle (didn't have one handy) and the glass bottle had broken due to the expansion of the water on freezing. (At least I had the foresight to wrap it in a towel in case this happened). However, since this was what I was trying to demonstrate, in the end it made a bigger impression on the kids than if I had done it correctly! After class I went to Dr Prins' office to pay a bill that according to them we hadn't paid last month, and then to Grondbeurs to discuss future rent payments from our FNB account. Also discovered that if the garage door opener needs servicing, it is Grondbeurs who would arrange it. Back home for coffee (necessary) and to load up the car for the afternoon, and to collect computer and Marantz for music class. Busy busy being a roady. In music today I built on what we had done last week adding harmony tracks on guitar, and we recorded a variety of percussion while playing the mixdowns of their songs from last week. At first they had no idea of the kind of rhythm needed, basically following the timing of all the notes/words, instead of just the key beats repeated in every bar. Now it doesn't help that in Khanyo's song the time signature changes. I shouldn't have let that happen. (It was a novelty the Beatles liked to use and it sounded odd when one first heard it, but it sounds just fine after 50 years). By the end however, we had enough percussion tracks down on the Marantz for me to do further mixdowns (I hope). And the boys now know how multi-track recording is done. As I left the school I suddenly realized I hadn't bought polony for the Avian Park ministry. Since Mandisa had come in good time to pick up the boys, I had time to do this now. Then back home to pick up L-A and everything we'd need for the two kid's clubs. Busy busy being a roady. Tanya, who wasn't feeling too well, had asked me to collect her, but as we arrived Mella hadn't left and could have taken her. We bought some marshmallows for the kids en route. Tanya gave the talk, and afterward played praise music (amplified on my battery guitar amp) while the children drew any impressions they might receive while listening to the music. I thought this is never going to work, since I never get visual impressions while listening to music, but I was wrong. The kids turned in a fine body of work and enjoyed the process. Things went so well we didn't have time for music class. Soon we were on our way to Vinkrivier for the day's biggest challenge - kids club without Kaysha and a bunch of missionaries who were now on outreach. Actually we did have one of them, Christie, who we'll be entertaining on Friday night. There seemed to be fewer kids than normal, and it was a little cold for them to play outside. We brought chairs over from the chapel next door. The loud ones set up the dominoes table. We had laid out two other tables with chairs, and we set one of the children sharpening pencils with our electric sharpener. Unfortunatley it stopped operating after about 20 pencils. I announced that we would have some praise songs, and we had brought the big speaker, but when I played the children ignored me. I went to the tables and asked them if any would like to sing. No response. Maybe the problem was that we had set up the tables with all the colour pencils and they were expecting art. So we switched to L-A's teaching on hard and soft hearts, which many of them actually listened to. At the end of the talk she invited them to colour two of her newer drawings that we had photocopied, and it was as if a light bulb came on. For nearly an hour most of them were fully engaged producing excellent results. At least one of the unruly boys, Francolin, loves to draw and colour, and is talented. He chose to sit apart from the the others and when he was done, presented his drawing to L-A, and then left the room. The other dominoes players had already left by then. I sense that they don't want to be involved in activity that they didn't choose. At this point I played through the speaker a set of limbo songs that I had downloaded to my phone, begining with Limbo rock (Chubby Checker). We had brought our towel rail, and as L-A and Maggie held it at varying levels, about 12 of the children came and limbo'd. This was a new activity and it worked quite well. We did end up with a couple of praise songs, and then sent the children off with a maple candy, which brought back into the room some of the older ones intent on getting more than one, and often succeeding. As we took chairs back to the chapel, it was now being used for a service for local farm workers, who were singing hymns and choruses. The leader was a man called Peter, who I chatted with, who runs a mobile church event for the farm workers. Bless his heart. It was a beautiful atmosphere. I looked back on the last 90 minutes with relief that we had got through, but also with great admiration for Kaysha doing this year in year out. It is so hard to motivate some of the children, probably the ones with fetal alcohol syndrome, who have no interest in any structure being brought in to their lives, and who refuse to communicate in any normal way. But we had survived, and it was time to go home. I was pretty exhausted and not joyful. At home, setting up for CWCP radio, I managed to click on the wrong file. I was replaying the previous week's broadcast, but it was a good one, so I decided just to let it run, This was just the latest example of unforced errors I have been making recently. I know I need more sleep, but my brain and body are just not performing as they have been in the past. Without coffee I am pretty useless. I have turned into an addict. This is not good, and I am meant to be leading a church soaking prayer group on Sunday. A lady called Babra Musiyiwa (originally from Zimbabwe) called to say she had found the Copples Western Cape web site and would love to meet with us. She had recently lost her mother to stroke.

Tue 24 April
Eight for L-A's excellent lunch, though Janey declined a sandwich since she is now gluten free. While L-A conducted her art class, the last of the trilogy on art history, I took Janey and Amber home, and then paid the new bill from Dr Prins. They couldn't get my MasterCard to cooperate, so I paid with FNB debit card, and then went to FNB and transferred R 2,000 from Simplii, and then replenished FNB with R 1500. On the way back from FNB I bought another hamburger for the beggar who is often in the spot between FNB and Mcdonalds. He is severely disabled, and I do see others giving him money from time to time. There's something about him ... In view of Mella's taking a break from school next week and delegating the running of the school to the excellent (18 year old) Amber, I decided to get serious about the school timetable, which seems to have resided on scraps of paper and maybe Mella's phone. I found some free software from
Study Gizmo.com and keyed in what I knew. Over the next few days Mella made corrections to my guesses and we knocked it into shape. The garage door opener, which had been behaving strangely for days, finally stopped working.

Mon 23 April
I went to the Monday morning praise and worship at YWAM at 8. Arno Pienar was introducing it, and he saw me at the back, walked to me and gave me the microphone to introduce myself. It was a good time of worship. Tanya had been brought by Soraya, and when they left I did too, to save Soraya taking Tanya home. I went on to school, and after that delived the food to Avian Park. Time to practise an other Willie en die Wenspan songs. Checked out the album, and decided on 'I like the way you smile.' It's catchy, and easy to play, with a couple of key changes. In many ways the afternoon with My Father's House kid's ministry was the best yet. It was very windy, so we huddled right outside the door, and started with 'I like the way you smile.' It was a hit and for 15 mins they sang away with gusto. Laurie-Ann had prepared 'Changing a hard heart to a soft heart' and by the time she started we had 40 kids. Meantime I set up the AV for Alpha - 'Who is Jesus?' - and eveything worked. In the breaks the children volunteered some excellent answers to the questions, even though most were under 12. By the end of the video we had 60 kids. Tanya and Soraya were great organizing the food, which needed multiplying. We have little faith so we divided each sandwich into two with a pair of scissors. Some children had heard we were looking for leaders to run Mailbox clubs, and two more volunteered. I have their names. L-A had maple candies to give away, but only 40, and I had cut up the bunches of grapes. We had no complaints - all the children were well behaved.

Sun 22 April
Before Church started, David Delille (ex gang member) asked if we might meet for a chat later today so I gave him my number. I was expecting to make an announcement in church about next Sunday's soaking prayer event, but Johan had other plans - a major review of the vision and structure of church ministries, Grace Trust (outreach) and WCC (this church). So when that was done, L-A, Tanya and I left for the IRIS ministry room where the graduation was taking place from the current Father's House school. We had fellowship and an excellent meal. In the afternoon I took Tanya again to the hospice, and while we were there David called, so we agreed to meet outside WCC at 4:30. I took him for coffee at McDonalds, and he told me all about his engagement to a 53 year old pleasant looking lady, currently living with her 83-year old mother in Cape Town. She is keen to get married and move to Worcester asap. She has worked in a pharmacy in the past. I recommended they not marry and move here until he has organized a place for them to live - he intends to build a wendy house on land near his current lodging in Roodeval. He is going to Cape Town on the train this Thursday to discuss these matters with her. He asked me if I would buy him a loaf of bread and some sugar. We went to OK Foods on the High Street (open 24 hours) and got these and also the groceries we needed. I drove him back to Roodeval and he mentioned it was very near Moriah House, so he offered to take me inside and I met about 20 men who are now living there. Took some pictures. Saw the office where L-A will be working 2 days a week.

Sat 21 April
Tanya was moving to Mella's house for the rest of her time in Worcester, and I helped move her stuff at 8:30 from Church St to Napier St. Mella wasn't there, and Tanya had some difficulty locking and unlocking the front door. At 11 we picked her up for a nice drive to Brandlvei prison, Rawsonville, lunch at Du Toitskloof Wine Cellar (lovely ambience), and the Goudini Spa, which we looked at but didn't dip into (not least because we didn't have swimwear). When we took Tanya back to Mella's I had a chance to check the door lock. It was actually the door handle closing mechanism that was causing the problem. Later I emailed a diagnosis to Mella suggesting she needs a locksmith and fast. She said she had never had a problem, so it must have come on very recently. I was delighted to receive a call from Moses in the evening. The clinic in Touwsrivier will deal with the catheta problem on 24 May. The Worcester hospital wouldn't have fitted him in till December. He also expects money from his insurance cover withing a few weeks, and plans to come to the Worcester mall to spend some of it, with his wife. I said we must all lunch together.

Fri 20 April
No school today - not sure exactly why but it's nice! Set the alarm for 8 instead of 7:15 and felt better all day for it. Did lots of catch up on my do list. Tanya and I went to YWAM at 6:30 hoping to join Folla's ministry, but by 7:25 there was no Folla, so we decided to cut our losses. She came back to our place and transferred her pics and the 'Our God is a Great Big God' video to the Priv with Whatsapp using our wifi. Then we watched an Adventure with God video.

Thur 19 April
Today Janey had a medical procedure in advance of which she had fasted 24 hours. L-A and Andre planned to stay with her. I delivered them to Dr. Botha's office by 8:30. Then I collected Tanya, and we picked up Khanyo and Mpho in Zweletemba to take them to Kleinplasie for a special demonstration of butchering meat and breadmaking. We got there shortly after 9. There was no record of our booking, but the receptionist kindly grouped us with a party from Cape Town schools. Since it wouldn't be starting till 9:30 we went to a cafeteria and had coffee and tea. The program began with a 50 year old film of a man butchering a goat, accompanied by loud noise from a machine that made his words very hard to hear, and they were in Afrikaans. The same Brenda was our host, who we had met at the wine-making day here on 20 March, and she did her best to interpret over the din. The stomach was first cut out, then all the organs. Most would be used in the preparation of foods. Little would have been wasted. Around this time I received a text from L-A saying that Dr Botha's office would only accept cash, not cards! The group went to a number of locations where demonstrations were given by staff members Brenda and others of preparing foods like liver pate and sausage. The children had opportunities to play roles in the processes. See Photos and videos. After the first demo, Brenda asked for a volunteer to give the same demonstration. The teenager who volunteered did as good a job as Brenda had done! The making of sausage was interesting, particularly when the sausage meat was squeezed into the intestine of the goat. At this point I contacted L-A to say that I would drive over with the cash in my wallet. I did. Combined with her money we had just the right amount, R 1200. I mentioed to the cashier that I found it archaic that this (and other) Doctor's offices did not accept credit cards. The demo was over when I got back at about 11:15, and the boys ate snacks given by various strangers and by me, ignoring the substantial food they had brought themselves! They had a good time with the other children exploring Kleinplasie.

We left at the right time to allow me to take the boys home, drop off Tanya, and pick up L-A and the van Deventers and return them home. Janey's operation had been successful, but she would be tired for a few days. Erena van de Venter and Mia Heradien were bringing the Moriah House accounting books for L-A this afternoon, so I asked them if I could interview them for CWCP. It turned out well, and I am proud of having captured this saintly lady, Erena, for our program. In the afternoon I worked on The Worcester Report, and got the idea to add some of my favourite (Christian) rock music as the postlude to the show, instead of the regular Bethel Music Without Words. It will be interesting to see if there is any audience reaction.

Wed 18 April
I forgot to deliver polony to Avian Park. Andrew will have delivered bread, so hopefully they have enough cheese. No calls of 'Help' from Amedja. In science I demonstrated music editing with Adobe Audition as we added guitar tracks to the boys' compositions. While we waited for Mandisa their mum to pick up the boys, I took Amber back to Roodeval. Tanya had stayed during the music class rather than go home for half an hour, so she and I drove home to pick up L-A. I couldn't find my music stand. Must have left it in the Avian Park library on Monday. Our Riverview location was pretty damp with recent rain. L-A gave a specially adapted 'sponge' talk, which the children listened to carefully, judging by their good answers to Mella's questions to see who would be given prizes of sponges. In music class I explained the group would collectively compose a song, and we got the first 5 notes down. Didn't have much time because I wanted to get to the Avian Park library en route for Vinkrivier. The music stand was where I had left it. At the Fourie coffee shop I re-examined the wine cask that I had fought with exactly a week before, taking pictures of it and my blood drops still on the concrete floor. This kids' club was the last time the girls from The Father's House school would be there. Magnus is one of the girl's fathers, and he had been teaching at the school. He and I and Maggie played cricket with several of the boys for quite a while. I noticed the batteries in my guitar amplifier were losing power. L-A prayed they would last out the afternoon. Kaysha asked me to play for musical statues, which worked pretty well except for the kids who refused to be 'out.' Then there was only time for 'Great Big God,' and the batteries were still good. We came home and I listened to the whole of the Allen Churchill archive programs that we put out on CWCP.

Tue 17 April
Eight for lunch at school, including Amber, Janey, Tanya. L-A conducted Part 2 of her masterly art history class which the boys found compelling. In the afternoon I went to the MediClinic to have my stiches removed. I don't look too bad. I then stopped by the Dutch reformed 'Mother' Church to get some pictures of what may have been the parsonage that Andrew Murray lived it (or it may not). The writer of a new book about Andrew had asked L-A for them. Tanya came over for spaghetti dinner and brought delicious garlic bread. We showed her Parts 1 and 4 of our Harvest School videos.

Mon 16 April
Science today was showing how light can carry information, starting with Morse code, so the kids had fun sending messages across the classroom with a flashlight and a code sheet. Amber was in school for the first time - and looking very promising as a teaching assistant. After class went to FNB to try again to activate my on line banking. It worked this time. There was a beggar beside the bank - which is beside McDonalds. He was seriously maimed and must have been hungry. One person gave him a coin while I was praying with him. I got him a hamburger and her was very grateful. In My Father's House kids' club were 35 children but although the amplifier worked fine for the praise music (See video clip), it refused to cooperate for Alpha. Same problem as I had 10 days before. I didn't want to dilute Alpha by playing just the computer sound, so instead of Alpha, I told them a parable I had made up a week before about two boys in school, one good and one disrubtive. The objective was to encourage kids to pay attention, and not to follow disruptive kids who learn nothing and end up in the gangs. While the children were eating their sandwiches, I approached 4 of the slightly older ones and mentioned that we were looking for leaders for small groups. All of them showed interest and I got their names: Marsha Maryna, Chloe Hope, Anthanica Henrietta and Jaime ? As everyone filed out they took with them the letter for parents about the future small groups to meet in parents' homes. Here are photos of today's ministry and earlier ministries here.

Sun 15 April
To church with Tanya (& L-A!). In announcements near the beginning, Johan asked me to speak about the WCC Street Ministry. I briefly explained the change of primary focus from street ministry to becoming the prayer and soaking prayer heartbeat of the church. During the subsequent praise and worship, Laurie-Ann received an impression that we should get ready for a spiritual rainy season. She took the opportunity to share this with the whole congregation - something encouraged in our church. There was an excellent message from Graeme Schnell, head of Focus on the Family South Africa. Startling statistics for low levels of South African children born in wedlock. Graeme quoted two lines from a Delirious song: God didn't screw up when He made you, announce u He's a Father who loves to parade you. I thanked him for that afterwards, but he wasn't sure which Delirious song it was. After the service, dropped L-A home, ate pizza, researched the Delirious song, 'Our God Reigns,' printed the lyrics and posted the YouTube to FB. Then went down to Homeless Church, which Tanya attended. Mella led worship with gusto. A YWAMer gave the message. Afterwards I took Tanya to the Hospice for patient visits. My first time when Moses wasn't there. Tanya has a warm and natural way of building trust and rapport and praying for the sick and dying. In the afternoon continued working on L-A's medical claim to Allianz. At 5:30 L-A and I attended a marriage seminar at the church by Graeme Schnell. I gave him the printout of the words of Our God Reigns. and we decided to support Focus on the Family to the tune of R100 pm. They had bundles of excellent materials for supporters (the good news) but so many supporters that by the time I got there they had run out (the bad news) but they will send us one (the good news).

Sat 14 April
Met Andrew Cloete in Pick n Pay parking lot and confirmed he will deliver bread to Amedja till further notice. Gave him R 200 on account. Tanya came for pizza dinner which we picked up at Romans and Travel the Road movies. Worked on my membership application for GIG, and our medical insurance claim.

Fri 13 April
Set my alarm for 6:30 so I could cook some eggs etc for Moses before delivering him back to the hospital. He needs lots of help moving from a bed to his chair and into a car. Yet his attitude is forever upbeat. I dropped him at the hospital where we were told transport could be booked. At school I conducted a good experiment that explains how fibre optic light transmission works. Used a plastic bottle with a ½ inch hole near the bottom on one side. Filled bottle with water. Shone a flashlight through the bottle at the hole. When the water was released and described a curve downwards, the light stayed in the flow of water and could be seen on one of the student’s hands as a ring of light. Mella took video of this! Back in the classroom we showed how the air around the water flow acted as a reflector allowing some of the light to pass down the water through a series of reflections. We then looked at two modern application – under-sea fibre optic cables, transmitting telephone conversations, and tubes being inserted in a patient’s body to provide light for a tiny camera. At about 10:30 Moses called. There was no ambulance he could use to get himself home. This did not surprise me - ambulances don't normally take you home, even if you are disabled. I told him I would pick him up at 1. At 11 we arrived for Afrikaans class, where I read my translations from the 'Sandard' newspaper. At 1 I loaded Moses and his wheelchair into the Mercedes and we set course for Touwsrivier. It is a beautiful drive of an hour, 2/3 of which we had driven on our way home from Montagu. I was back in Worcester at FNB Bank by 3:30. Firstly I drew out R50 cash using my Mastercard. Purpose of this was reset the need for a PIN on my retail transactions (For 3 weeks I hadn't needed a PIN for reasons I don't understand, but it is clearly open to fraud). By 4 had my new FNB bank card! Spent an hour buying groceries, and my Mastercard needed a PIN again - success. At 6 joined the pre GIG Club meeting in Jan's house, with about 8 people interested in setting up a GIG club. It will be called The First Worcester GIG Club. We elected a leader - Danielia, an MD - me, a treasurer - Dilanie, and a secretary - Gerda. Bruno is our wealth coach. Our next Meeting will be Tue 15 May, 6 - 8pm. As an aside, Danielia mentioned to me that she knew an 18 year old girl, Amber, who might be able to join MasterPeace Academy in plave of Jammy Lee.

Thu 12 April
At about 6:30 pm, Moses Goeleman called. He had been at the Worcester Hospital since morning, brought from Touwsrivier by ambulance, eventually seeing a doctor about his defective catheta. The doctor told him to return to the hospital next week for the necessary treatment. The staff told him he could register for an ambulance to take him home at 8 am the following morning. And that's the point he called me. After we had set 'The Worcester Report' running I drove to the hospital. Clearly he shouldn't just sit in his wheel chair all night. I got him and the wheelchair into the car and took him home. L-A was delighted to meet him after all this time. He had the rest of a springbock pie we had had for dinner. We prayed with him. He sampled our Openview TV. We talked about many things. About 11 he turned in on our sofabed - the first time we had opened it in bed mode. Since he had the catheta on and a diaper he didn't need to use the toilet. We all turned in after a long day.

Wed 11 April
In preparation for music classes I worked out the guitar chords for the songs Mpho and Khany had written. I planned to teach them the concept of harmony. As each of them played a part of his tune on recorder, I played along on guitar adding chords I had written. Purpose of this was to show them how the tune exhibited a certain richness as a result of the harmony. Then we added the recordings I had made on recorder of the two tunes. This is giving them some experience of ensemble playing. I collected the cake for the Riverview kids. Then I picked up Tanya and Laurie-Ann. Mella was in good voice and spirits for the party they were being given, making up for the party that Jammy Lee failed to show up for on the day we had climbed the mountain. They all got a good-sized slice of cake, some crisps and drinks. Tanya had brought balloons which made it all photogenic. When they'd had their fill, all went home except my four music students. As they played "This is the Day that the Lord has made," I accompanied on guitar. At 3:50 we three left for Kids' club Vinkrivier. We stopped for coffee at the farm cafe. Then something happened that could so easily have ended our mission. I tripped over something in the entrance porch, and fell heavily, but on the way down hit a wine barrell contraption that has some blunt hard edges. My left cheek bone took the force of my fall and dug a 1-inch trench in my face. Blood started flowing. A gentleman in the cafe had seen it all and rapidly got me a wad of kitchen roll to stem the blood as I went to the wash room. Back in the cafe he had located a first aid box. The girls from The Father's House school had arrived and one had nursing training. She did a good job with gauze and plaster. Despite the gash in my face I wasn't in bad pain. My glasses had come off and were bent but not broken. I was extremely relieved that it wasn't as bad as it might have been if I had been hit in my eye or my teeth. Instead it was midway between them. Folks, whatever you plan for, what you get is something you never thought of. I wondered if the Lord was telling me something by - or if angels had rescued me on the way down so that I wouldn't be injured too badly. We got into the van and went to kid's club. I played and sang 'Jesus het my mooi gemaak' and other songs and it sounded good. Kaysha had planned a painting game. As she read about Jonah and Nineveh, the children were invited to paint parts of the story, and then move to the next position to paint the next part of the story, and so on, till there were paintings in 6 quadrants on the papers. An extraordinary thing was that one of the youngest tearaway kids, Francolin, turned out to have significant talent. He could paint fast and represent the scene well.

We returned home after dropping off Tanya. I planned to drive to the MediClinic to have a doctor examine my face, which was still bleeding, but while I called Allianz travel insurance to get a claim number (608297), and also quizzed them about L-A's claim and whether we should do it electronically despite their requirement for original receipts. She suggested we do exactly that. Nik Wullshleger called L-A who had posted my plight on our cell group Whatsapp. Nik said he would take me to MediClinic. He arrived and we were in the clinic, where there was no line-up by 9:15. I was examined by Dr Viljoen and his nurses, and he gave me the first 3 stitches I have had in my life. We were out of the hospital by 9:45. Truly efficient medicare! I managed to take a couple of 'before and after' the stitches selfies.

Tue 10 April
First day back at school. At 8:40 I emailed Mella to ask when the poet should be filmed. 8:45 she said (!) So I had a quick breakfast. Peggie was teaching the children when I arrived. I set up the Marantz and the regular Flip video and started recording. 45 minutes later I had two of her poems and a fair amount of her teaching on audio and video. For my class I asked them revision questions covering most of the classes since I had started there. L-A started a 3-part art history class which had taken a lot of preparation, and was well received. Tanya came over for dinner at 6 and in addition to social time she was able to change an air flight and print an air ticket.

Mon 9 April
At 8:15 received a call from MMJ to say they were ready to fit my new fan belt. I was there about 8:30 and they took about an hour. I then picked up the food for Avian Park at Pick n Pay, seeing Mella briefly at the fruit stall outside when I was buying pears. After delivering the food I paid the air conditioning maintenance bill, then grocery shopped. Went into FNB to book an appointment. Went home for a cheese sandwich. Got a text from FNB saying I would be next in line soon, and was there by 1:45. In half an hour we had a bank account! Went home to get the computer after dragging "Who is Jesus?" - new youth version - to it from the red disk. Picked up Soraya 10 mins after I had said, then picked up Tanya. There were only 4 children for the praise songs, but when I started 'Jesus het my mooi gemaak', all 4 clapped, sang and did the actions. We went inside and I set up for "Who is Jesus?" By now there were seven all under 11. Yes they watched the film with generally good appreciation considering their ages. When the question sections came up, Soraya translated and many answers were astute for kids so young. Since there were only seven of them they had a feast while there, and took home bunches of sandwiches and pears for their families. They were very happy! When we dropped off the food containers at Amedja's house, guess who were there: Marco and Rens! And Amedja. Introductions all round. So Tanya has hugged an ex gangster. On our way home I suggested to Tanya that I bring her to our home, and then we go out to Pastor Folla's ministry. She jumped at the chance. We were at YWAM by 6:60, and Folla knew we were there because I had texted him (though I have not been out on a Monday before). We didn't leave for AP till about 7:30 with a group of YWAMers. When we got there the place was jumping with about 80 kids. Folla did all the leading, all the better for Tanya, and there was some music items I hadn't heard before, but were lovely. Both of us helped with handing out cakes and chips. Clothes were also distributed. On the way home, Folla stopped to speak to a friend of the lady I had prayed with on 2 March who had died - the word in the community was that her wine had been poisoned. Folla had also prayed with her before she died. Back at home I saw a message from Mella asking me to bring audio and video equipment to record a Zimbabwean poet called Peggie Shangwa who would be at the school tomorrow.

Sun 8 April
Rose about 7:15 and joined the breakfast table - excellent porridge and coffee, to both of which the boys added table spoonfulls of sugar. Kevin asked me if I had heard the car noises in the night. Turns out the road below his house is part of a circuit where local daredevils race cars around 2 am when they figure the police won't be coming out. Kevin invited me to play his beautiful guitar, which is perfectly in tune even though he doesn't play (yet). Soon all 4 boys were singing all the words of Jesus het my mooi gemaak. I need to learn the rest of the Afrikaans words after the title. I left them about 8:20. By 9 we were on our way to pick up Tanya and then to go to Hillsong in Somerset West. We had time so added a circuit round Stellenbosch en route. Among other subjects we chatted about the desperate need for better parenting in the world, and particularly in South African townships. Still arrived 30 mins early but this was good. Fati Thobejane came by and confirmed she had heard the interview we had made 11 March. After great coffee and lemon poppyseed muffins we got seats in the second row. What a difference, and what a photo-op! The music was thrilling and included a number from the brand new Hillsong CD 'There is More,' which we bought after the service. Both Lucinda and Phil Dooley spoke over the network link, since it was the 10th anniversary of Hillsong in South Africa. The focus of both their talks - better parenting! After the service we prayed with Stephanie, our Canadian friend and Hillsong staffer, who must organize transportation for 600 women for the Hillsong Colour conference this week. we bought 'curry bunnies' from Joanna's food truck. Messy and yummy. But when I wandered over to the car it wouldn't open. I thought the battery in the key - if there is one - may have run down. Serious problem. The mechanical key allowed me to open the door, and then I saw it: the headlight switch in the 'on' position - ever since we had come through the Huguenot tunnel. So it was a (very) flat battery. Out came the heavy duty jumper leads. Back inside the church, Stephanie was also eating a curry bunny - and agreed to give us a boost (after she had eaten her lunch I insisted). Which she did, and saved our bacon. We drove to entrance 3 in the mall, the way to Cum Books. Leaving the car running I went in with Tanya. L-A had been wanting a large print New Living Translation Bible for six months, and seriously searching for two, and this Cum had one! I suggested they sell us some tranquilizers to quieten L-A down when she saw it.

We decide to go home a new route - vial Wellington to the Bains Kloof pass, a toutist attraction not recommended for the faint hearted. In Wellington we searched almost in vain for coffees, evenually finding then in a Shell station. Then we left to cross the moutains. It was a narrow winding road for 27 Km., see photos. Had originally been built by convicts in the 1860's then renovated in 1934. It is one way to Ceres so might have been made to bring fruit to market. We didn't go on the Ceres but joined the R 43 to Worcester and home after dopping off Tanya. It had been a good day.

Kl Sat 7 April
Pcked up Tanya at 7:45 for a visit to Montagu and the Little Karoo. Started the trip playing her last week's Worcester Report from CWCP, since I had an audio CD version in the car ready to give to Cosmos next time I see him. Now she knows about Avian Park. We stopped at the Fourie's (a) for her to say 'hello again' to Johan and Marie, and (b) to get Johan's signature on our application for a bank account with FNB. Then we were on our way to Montagu. As soon as we entered the town we saw the Montagu Dried Fruit Factory / Route 62 Farm Stall and Restaurant where L-A stocked up on a range of dried fruits. In the outside restaurant area we enjoyed coffees and cakes surrounded by parents with children having fun. Photogenic. We drove slowly through Montagu till we reached the Cape Dry Bistro for lunch (the women had Bobotie and I had excellent calamari). Got a call from Mella asking if I might be available to chaperone Kevin tonight having some of the Riverview boys over for a sleepover. Yes, I would. We also bought frozen game pies which we wrapped in our coats and got them home without defrosting. We planned to drive home a different route, the Fruit Route which would take us to the N1 not far from Touwsrivier where Moses lives. However, I hadn't heard back from Moses with his address. We drove over four mountain passes and through thrilling scenery and came to the N1, but no message from Moses. So we turned left towards De Doorns. Stopped near there to buy grapes from one of the many young men eager to sell to passing motorists. ontinued home, dropping Tanya off at her guest house. Once home, washed and tried out the grapes. Excellent. Prepared the bank forms that Johan had signed. Checked the amplifier/speaker and it decided to work normally! Thank you Lord, that's a problem gone. It must have been an issue with the internal rechargable battery - or maybe a prayer answered. I was a little later than I should have been driving to Kevin's house in pitch darkness, and I wasn't certain of the exact road to drive out on into the foothills.in and I I drove on for several kilometres after I should have seen his entrance. So I turned rounf, reset the GPS to home and, now knowing i would be on the right road (which I had been before) soon saw his home lit like a lighthouse. As I entered the four boys all gave me a clap. Jelenzo, (Alro)Mano, Kenwald and Previn (I think). We had tea and they chatted, Kevin occasionally switching to English for my benefit. At bedtime they moved into a smallish room with two single beds, and two sleeping bags on the floor. Kevin passed his Afrikaans Bible around and each of them picked a passage and read it - beautifully! I had no idea they could read so well, and would have the capability to select passages. Kevin and I then went upstairs and made up my bed, and then talked for some time over glasses of port about South African politics, and Islam. Isaid I needed to understand why bright and articulate people would find Islam attractive. He gave me a copy of his book, Truth in Love, about Islam. In the middle of the night I heard some strange sounds, which I decided must be the wind. I slept well.

Fri 6 April
My parents wedding anniversary, and the 31st anniversary of my arrival in Canada. Tanya Millette is a Harvest School and "My Father's House alumnus ( Oct 2017). She, they had wanted to come to IRIS Western Cape as a long termer, but had only been granted a 90 day visitor visa to South Africa. We drove to Cape Town airport to pick her up at about 11:45 (We had a bit of an adventure en route since out GPS took us somewhere else other than the airport). On the way home we came 'over the top' rather than through the Huguenot tunnel. Spectacular views, which I had seen once before, but L-A and Tanya hadn't. We enjoyed her company very much, and bringing her to a guest house in Worcester and having tea at Tea Cup onenjoyed Baring, which had always been closed when we might have tried it in the past. We hope to have her come out so some of the ministries we are engaged with. In the evening I tried to do some music practice and found that the big amplifier/speaker wouldn't work. I sent a text to Brian James, Andre's audio-tech friend, to see if he might be able to diagnose the problem.

Thu 5 April
At YWAM for 9 am start to the GIG Institure training. There were 7 of us including Jan and Dinelda. It was fairly intensive and comprehensive, and though I was aware of most of the underlying principles, the way they are brought together to create a pwerful and practical tool for both individuals and communities to improve their situations was new to me. I purchased three copies of Jasper's book 'Legacy' at discount, sold one at a discount to someone in the room, and took the others home, one signed by Jasper. Jasper tells the full story of the GIG philosophy of personal finacial planning. During a break, Folla saw me and came over with bad news. The lady I had prayed for on 2 March had died a week before. While our class was going on, Laurie-Ann had phoned me because her phone wouldn't go on line, but soon realized the problem was bigger than just the Internet modem. In fact it was a power outage, which had started about 9 am, and continued to 2 pm. By the time I was home the power was back. I was tired and took an hour's nap. Then I started on the final edits to Cosmos' interview for tonight's program. These proved more time-consuming than I expected, and in the end, we were only ready to broadcast about 15 minutes before 8 pm, meaning the normal half-hour music prelude was shortened, and the switch over from that to the show was not as smooth as I would have liked. However, The Worcester Reports started on time, and for any who listened would have been quite an eye-opener as Cosmos told the Avian Park story.

Wed 4 April
Paid Dr Farbas' medical bill in cash. At 10:40 went to FNB Bank and arranged a no waiting appointment for 12:45. Ouside McDonalds there was a 1-legged man on crutches begging. By the time I had got to the car I knew I had to go back and pray with him and give some money, which I did, and he was grateful. At 11 went for meeting with Mella. Outside her house saw Cornelia, the lady who had sold me a meat pastry a week before, and she remembered me. Mella wants to produce a book, like the Lesotho book, and wanted to select photos that might be used. However we talked about many other aspects of Teachers of the Nations. In the end she asked me to prepare a section on Khanyo and Mpho with about 6 of the best photos and my words. At 12:45 went to FNB bank, and yes, I would be able to open an account there. They gave me two forms to complete, one of which will need Johan's signature. Went home to finish off tonight's CWCP production. At 4 we left for Vinkrivier, and had the big amp and travel guitar with us, L-A also was prepared to give a talk, but when we arrived there were very few kids, and Kaysha decided to postpone L-A's talk for a week. However, more kids did come, but not the complete bunch. When I played 'Jesus het my mooi gemark,' only a few of them recognized it. These children have grown up in some separation from the regular school system. Nevertheless, the fact that we tried to sing in Afrikaans was positive, even though they did laugh at some of my pronounciation. We were back home by 6:30, time for me to set up the broadcast so that L-A could turn it on with one click. I then went to YWAM for the first GIG cource training - Generational Inheritance Group - led by founder Jasper Cloete. Jasper is a visionary and a fine trainer. He painted a picture of a compelling solution to the lack of finance that dogs so many throughout their lives, replacing it with abundance to the third generation or more. This I need to hear more about, and i will be on the one-day course tomorrow.

Tue 3 April
L-A woke up feeling good, and had her best day since the operation! The consipation problem had gone, thank God. Left voice and text messages for Amedja asking if she planned her Wednesday ministy in Avian Park. Reveived no reply so will not be taking in food tomorrow. Drove With L-A to Pomegranate for 11 am where she delivered her talk to The Father's House students. It was very well received. Listen now. It was composed of two "Ways to Grow in God" talks and her famous "sponge" talk in between. All the girls on the course were keen to see her, particularly Christie Adams whom she had met in Richmond VA in March 2017. We had lunch with them befor returning to Worcester. Went to Mediclinic to pay the additionals on the hospital bill but discovered that I han't read the bill properly, and we are actually in credit - this will be wired to our bank. Their estimate which I had paid had been high.

Mon 2 April
Bank holiday and few shops open. The library in Avian Park would be shut today so we wouldn't be able to run My Father's House kid's ministry there - and I wouldn't need to collect food this morning. Transcribed Willie & Die Wenspan's Jesus het my mooi gemark from our DVD and started learning it in Afrikaans and guitar, in preparation for kid's clubs. Soraya and her son Nathan spent several hours with us writing her monthly report for her supporters. At 3:30 picked up Cosmos to interview him for the Worcester Reports. He gave a historical description of his ministry - True Foundation of God - and its work in Avian Park in matters of health from 2007. He then described how the violence had got so bad last year that he had to close down the ministry.

Sun 1 April
Watched Brian Huston TV with an excellent Easter message. L-A in severe pain with constipation. Not coming to church, though by the time I left she had some relief. Church only 1/3 full on Easter Day! I made recording of Pieter Louis' sermon for L-A from a translation socket. As I started home, Mella was walking to her car, so I asked her if she would like to come to our place for coffee. She followed me in her car. Once there she invited me to play guitar at the Homeless Church at noon. I managed to russle up some of the music from Song Select and took Jan's amplifier. It all worked well,
Lovejoy shot a short video, and Mella gave the sermon. Then the 25 or so congregation were fed with sandwiches, Easter boiled eggs and cake. Lovejoy amd Mazvita were there, and I gather regularly so. As I drove home I realized I should go to the hospice, having missed it on Friday. And since I had the guitar I should sing them Jesus is Alive. So I did, in each of the three wards, and most of them knew it and joined in, particularly the nurses. After praying with everyone, I saw Moses who was in a room on his own. Aparently he had been discharged yesterday, but was back in because something went wrong with his catheta. He was on his way to hospital to have it dealt with, and then he would go home again. He told me his children were waiting outside in a car, so after praying with him I found them, and told them their father was special, and I gave my number to the oldest. If I hadn't picked up Mella this morning, probably I would not have come, or come at a different time, and would have missed seeing Moses at a time when he was in some difficulty. Thank you Holy Spirit. When I eventually got home, L-A was OK. Spent some time transcribing the words and music of Jesus het my mooi gemaak and practising it. At 5:30 went to Jan's with the drums. Turns out the library will be closed tomorrow so no ministry there. Called Amedja to confirm this and then Jan had a chat with her. Also called Soraya. At home during roast lamb supper listened to this morning's Over my Head.

Fri 30 Mar

Picked up Janey for the Good Fri service at WCC, which Pieter Louis preached at (very well), ending with a remarkable painting, Reformationsaltar by Lucas Cranach showing Luther watching the crucifixion. After the service picked up Andre and Laduma (his aging guide dog) and we all had a most enjoyable lunch (fish cakes) at home. Introduced Andre to cream sherry and Toffifee. About 2:30 L-A was fading and had to rest, and a little later I took them home. We were at the Mall by 6:30 for an evening of praise in the arena outside the food court, and it exceeded all expectations. See video and listen to audio here. This was all organized by Kenneth from WCC, who included a homily (in Afrikaans), which clearly had the attention of the good-sized crowd.

Thu 29 Mar
L-A not up to coming to Pomegranate Homestead for our talks to the Father's House school, so I went alone, and occupied her slot as well. I had met most of the girls on the course at Vinkrivier, so from the start they were an attentive and appreciative audience. Here's my talk in full. I had posted the subjects that had come to me in church on Sunday to my phone and used it to prompt me. L-A cookes us a great spag bol for supper.

Wed 28 Mar
L-A's operation day at MediClinic. Picked up Janey, who wanted to stay with her throughout, and were at the hospital by 5:50. The reception was so friendly and professional. I went home once the reception phase was complete. At about 10 I delivered the Wednesday food to Amedja's house. At 1:30 Janey called to have me pick them up. It had all gone smoothly. Thank you angels! I took L-Ahome to rest. I did not go to Riverview or Vinkriviere, but at 3:15 realized this was my chance to see what went on at Amedja's house with the kids on Wednesday aftwrnoons. She was laid out on her couch and there were no children. She mentioned something about their not having arrived (yet) due to a clash of activities. It was however very good that I had found her because she had received my messages but hadn't replied. We need her to help identify potential leaders for Mailbox Clubs.

Tue 27 Mar
Last day of school till Monday week. Instead of her normal art class Laurie-Ann took 12 boiled eggs in and some Easter decorating paints and the boys decorated the eggs. In the evening I decided to join L-A at the Intimacy with God course she had been attending. Camae away with a list of many apects of communicating with Him. I need to spend more time doing this and now I have some instruction.

Mon 26 Mar
Taught the boys about the electromagnetic spectrum and demonstrated infra red with a DVD remote control. Since I had the DVD player there I did another experiment - subliminal - on Khanyo and Mpho. The disk I had in the DVD player was Willie & Die Wenspan. As soon as we started operating the player with the remote, the tune 'Jesus het my mooi gemark' (Jesus made me beautiful) started playing and they started singing and moving. They knew all the words. In fact Mpho was still singing the song 10 minutes later! At My Father's House with Soraya after the praise songs, we showed them a couple of Willie & Die Wenspan songs, which the children immediately started to sing and do the actions for! This despite I had forgotten the cable to plug my computer into the amp, so the only sound they could hear was from the computer speakers. Yet they sang loud enough that the library manager asked me later not to do that again. Then we ran the intro to the new Youth Alpha series, and again, though it was hard to hear, they actually listened (they had the English subtitles), and the answers to questions that came up awed me. "What makes you happy?" "God." They are more God focussed than any other group I have taken through Alpha. Apparently these Christian songs are used a lot in regular schools - it wouldn't be allowed in Canada in case atheists were offended. So we will continue with Alpha. In the evening I went to the biweekly Street Ministry gathering. There were only 6 of us. Marius gave me a copy of his CD "The time has come" to play on CWCP (which we did on Thursday). A decision was made to turn us into a soaking and praying group, meeting monthly. And then, when I offered to run one of the sessions, I was persuaded to become the group leader, and prayed for. Well, it's time I got back into a leadership role. One of the team, Magdel Burger had written out a prophetic word that had come to her: "Look back to how God has been faithful. This is a huge blessing the Lord has released. You will establish foundations in this next season. This isn't just for our church. "I'm about my Father's business." Don't care about personalities etc. The eyes of the Lord roam to and fro ... You have a beautiful generous heart that will be imported into others, eternal values."
Wow!

Sun 25 Mar
At 7:45 I remembered that Brian Houston would be on E.TV which we can get on Open View, so we watched some Hillsong music. Took Janey to church. Elza Meyer spoke. I suddenly got inspiration to list subjects to talk about when I address The Father's House school on Thursday. We had coffee with Janey in Milk and Honey, and then took Heather McComb back to our place for light lunch and to record an interview.

Sat 24 Mar
Up at 6; picked up Heather McComb at 8 and we were on our way to Mitchells Plain to see 'It's Time' with Angus Buchan. Thanks to L-A we had a reserved parking spot for disabled visitors, and a shuttle took us to the event. We set our chairs in a good spot. I went on a photo recon. Adjacent to the location were some large sand dunes where people were perched to take photos so I went up there. What I saw the other side of the dunes shocked me - the township of Mitchells Plain stretching as far as the eye could see. Sad that more of those hundreds of thousands weren't out to see Angus. There was praise and worship until he arrived (by helicopter) and then - we watched in wonder as he spoke - plainly - succinctly - logically - to the heart of the Christian condition, announcing that the expected new Cape Town revival was starting today. While the drought was mentioned it wasn't top of the agenda. I recorded the complete event on my phone, but not sure how good the playback will be. Then at about 1:20 he challenged all gang leaders present to come to the front to begin new lives, and amazingly about 12 did come. He got down with them and with some emotion, as he encouraged them to exchange their guns for Bibles and preach the gospel, he gave away to four of them firstly his hat, then his Bible, then his shirt and finally his boots. This was a modern illustration of Jesus' call to 'love your enemies,' and I feel those young men will have been strongly touched. I was certainly touched by the whole event and the love Angus has for our saviour.

Our return trip was less efficient since there were many more wanting rides back to parking lots than there were shuttles, but we made it after about 40 mins, during which Angus had driven past us and waved. We decided to drive to Paarl for supper at Spar. L-A is looking for a large print NLT Bible and we went into Cum Books. She didn't find her Bible, but I found a DVD by Willie & Die Wenspan DVD with some of the songs that Folla uses, which may have a role to play for the kids in My Father's House.

Fri 23 Mar
At the hospice, Moses was waiting for me, with another patient. I gave him the peaches he had asked for, and a copy of 'Why Jesus,' and the booklet 'Do you know for sure?' I only had time for a few visits, but did them (the test match was on TV sets), and then returned to Moses. He asked me to wheel him outside. We found a shady spot among the sunshine. He had received blessing after blessing. Though his finances had sunk to a low ebb, he had heard that his disability payments would be re-started. His lawyer had been able to secure some additional moneys in advance of the expected settlement, and the people he had negotiated with on these matters had all been friendly and helpful. His question to me was, "Why were people unusually friendly and helpful to him, when they weren't necessarily so to others. I answered (essentially) that he is a friendly and outgoing guy. I wished people would be equally pleasant to unfriendy self-centred people, but life just wasn't like that. I prayed with him in thanks for his good news and for his new-found salvation. I was 10 mins late arriving to see Soraya at YWAM; however we had an excellent brainstorm about My Father's House. We developed an approach that would launch several Mailbox Clubs over a few months, and also a transition from the present arrangements. But how would Jan feel about these ideas? I texted her and she said we might be able to get together on Sunday afternoon. Laurie-Ann was seeing encouraging stats from the CWCP Radio web page, and decided to set up a FaceBook page. It gained traction.

Thu 22 Mar
Went to ABSA bank to see if I could pay the bill in advance for L-A's operation next Wednesday. It didn't work, but they suggested I pay it at MediClinic, which I did, and also I now know where I am taking her. Normally I would take the kids swimming, but because Mpho forgot his trunks, Mella suggested I spent that time doing a music lesson, and I then said I should do the songwriting lesson with just Khanyo that I had done with just Mpho last Wednesday. Mella had cleared up the second room, so we did it in there, with no interruptions. Khanyo co-operated fully and produced a song without much help from me. He used the keyboard to compose, and I had him write down each note on the music stave as he did it. Not at all bad for a 10 year old in 40 minutes. Now I have to find time to learn it and record it! The Worcester Report on CWCP radio went out smoothly - I felt it was perhaps the best so far.

Wed 21 Mar
Left home without coffee - big mistake. 8:30 delivered food to AP. 9:00 at Riverview to pick up 5 children, and take them to Kevin's house in the Brandwacht foothills. Mella had another 5 in her car. Under Kevin’s expert guidance the kids prepared a wholesome meal of sandwiches and fruit. Used an antique bread slicer. Drove to the foot of the hill where today’s climb started. From the start the kids were so enthusiastic they wanted to run, not walk! Kevin carried a large container with the sandwiches. I brought up the rear. As we walked on towards Kevin’s target for lunch, we got somewhat spread out. At about 12:30, after seeing some good views, we reached the lunch place, from where there were some great views. We all proceeded to tuck into the sandwiches, pears. By now most had finished their water bottles. However, the kids could clearly see that we were not at the top. From here I could see Fairway Heights. They spotted a higher summit in the distance, and they wanted to go there. Kevin suggested that those who wanted to go could do so. About 6 went, plus Mella and me. When we eventually got to this summit, we saw exceptional views. But no children, who had run on ahead. But after a few minutes, they all jumped up from their hiding place in the veldt. It was now that Sorita’s flip flop broke. She was able to fix it temporarily, but for the rest of the walk she had to stop about every 100 metres. I accompanied her, getting somewhat behindhand. Kevin had decided to take his group back to the cars, so there were now two parties on the return trip. I did not know this and was trying to return to where we had last been with him. Mella and the kids wanted to take a different route - they were aware Kevin had gone. Mella eventually told me this so then I quit worrying that our bags were still on the hill. The kids ran on, way out of our sight. We eventually all got back to the cars, where Mella gave them an earful for not staying closer with us. We drove back to Kevin’s house for more to eat, namely the fruit I had brought.

After dropping off my group at Riverview, I was pretty tired, so snatched 30 minuted sleep at home before driving to the other kid's club at Vinkrivier. The coffee shop was closed for the Human Rights Day holiday, but Kaysha managed to get me a coffee, my first of the day. The music organized on a phone was played though my Blackstar amp and everyone danced their hearts away. Then we had a skit about Naaman the leper, which I narrated. I finally got home about 7:15, so plenty of time before the Wednesday night broadcast, which went smoothly.

Tue 20 Mar
Kleinplasie – Worcester Museum
At 9:30 Mella, Kevin, Jammy Lee, and Tony arrived for this school outing. Khanyo and Mpho were held up by family transportation but were there by ~9:50. Our guide Brenda addressed the group of about 35 children and their minders and explained that we would be seeing how wine was traditionally produced on the hundreds of wine farms in the area. She used a traditional slide show to do this. She engaged the children in the learning process, and clearly enjoys her job. She then invited us to leave our lunches and shoes in the lecture room as we went out for the tour. Notice to readers – strongly recommend not taking off shoes at this point, but later if you actually want to stomp on wine. On a beautiful day the group made its way to the demonstration areas where all the paraphernalia associated with traditional wine making was laid out. We started at the sharp end (in more ways than one) where lots of grapes, stalks and other foliage were tipped into a large round metal and wood canister, into which first the little children, then the older children, and finally the adults were invited to jump, and then stomp on the grapes. A lot of fun was had, judging by the sound track. Khanyo and Mpho certainly enjoyed the experience – but then they both love new experiences. However, when it was my turn to get in I found the discomfort in my feet was only marginally less than I had experienced walking from the lecture room on some pretty sharp surfaces. No way would I have made a grape stomper, doing this all day. That’s probably why they needed slaves. After we got out I checked the underside of my feet for blood and walked to a tub of murky water to wash them. Between us we had produced several gallons of unappetizing-looking grape juice, certainly not yet ready for Ceres. Remember, it had all the dirt from about 80 feet. Next stop, the boiling process where the foot dirt and other residue is removed from the juice by boiling, vapourizing and condensing the juice. According to Brenda, at that stage and after fermentation it is 75% proof, but they didn’t let us test that for accuracy. We then walked to a place where there were three boiling pots. One was producing a syrupy liquid which we all got to taste, and another was for blanching grapes destined for raisin bread. They were put out in the sun to attract flies and get wrinkled over time. (I can’t remember what the third pot was for. ) Then we went on to a place where we heard how grapes and raisins could be preserved in rum or vodka or similar for use out of season. The adults got to taste some of these and became noticeably friendlier with one another after that, reminding me of a trip on the Jolly Roger in Barbados 35 years ago (where it was definitely rum). Then on to the final attraction, real raisin bread, and we all got to have some. I had suggested to Brenda that she take the opportunity to entreat everyone not to drink anything while pregnant, and it turned out that FASfacts had given their talks there, but she forgot. Now it was time for sandwiches etc and feeding some very friendly donkeys with pomegranates, and for the children a chance to explore the whole intriguing campus. I would highly recommend anyone to come on one of these tours at Kleinplasie. See my photos and a video here: bit.ly/2u6WGvi.

At 2:30 I picked up Soraya for The Mailbox Club (TMC) training. At 3 pm, Carel Strydom, Gerhard Strydom, and Louis ? arrived to give us a 3-hour course. From the start it was a revolutionary new paradigm in teaching the faith to children. The whole church has got this wrong, failing to comprehend Jesus' message when he said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me." They are the most important and the least resourced group in the church. We learned so much about how to reach them with the gospel and bring them to Christ, using a model that incorporates some network marketing concepts. The goal is to reach 1% of African children in 10 years, and the existing network of clubs is already very impresssive, with children tabing club leadership roles. Mazvita Nyaruwo from Zimbabwe joined us at about 4:30 having walked with her baby Eliora from town, and being challenged at the gate so I needed to verify her by phone. It is sorrowful that she and Soraya were the only two who took up my invitation to join us for the training. Mazvita had suggested audio recording the training so she could catch up, and as a result I recorded the whole thing. I hadn't thought of that. Soraya and I need to do some major work to see how to transition the existing Monday group into the Mailbox Club model, in liaison with Jan. At 6 we were done. Our living room had proven its value as a venue for such events. Then disaster nearly struck when I heard a scream and ran to find Laurie-Ann fallen on the garage floor having tripped on the step into the garage. Falling is one of L-A's biggest fears, but with Soraya's help I got her up and there were no sore parts! I drove L-A and Mazvita (and Eliora) to WCC for their Tuesday class, and then dropped Soraya at YWAM.

Mon 19 Mar
For the first time managed to buy all the groceries in time to deliver to Avian Park before school, and pick up the amplifier/speaker. Mpho was away from school having a doctor's appointment. Khanyo enjoyed burning holes into paper with a magnifying glass, today's experiment. On my way home went to the mall and tried our Simplii cards in an FNB ATM, which is part of the Plus network. It worked! And no R50 charge. Just $3 charged by Simplii. At home I did tests to see if the amplifier would accept the audio output from my computer so we could run movies in the Avian Park library. It worked very well. Erena and Mia arrived to discuss with L-A the technical details of the bookkeeping for their new Moriah Heights venture. They went into our office and L-A demonstrated how she planned to set up the accounting spreadsheet. Picked up Soraya as usual and arrived at the library. As I got out of the car two of the children came up and hugged me. This hasn't happened before, but it was a good sign that I was becoming trusted. I set up the music stuff, but with the kids standing so close last week I hadn't needed the microphone and stand, a saving in roadying. I did use the the travel guitar, and we got under way with our praise songs, and it went well. When we were done I wired up the computer and the amplifier/speaker. While I did it everyone was quiet as they awaited the movie. I had selected 'What's in the Bible?' I liked the beginning, showing Phil an introduction, which was the only part I had previewed at home. The projection and sound were excellent, but as the film progressed I found it less and less suited to introducing the Bible to anyone. Sadly the kids generally felt the same, judging by their chatter. At one point an animated version of a science professor comes on to say that the Bible was made of paper, ink, and cow leather. The whole film trivialized the most sacred of holy books. Not recommended. I pray that the children won't have been imprinted with some wrong impressions for life. On our way home Soraya said she felt the same misgivings. I must find some better materials for future sessions.

Sun 18 Mar
After church which finished earlier than usual, the Milk and Honey cafe was shut so we decided to go to McDonald's for coffee. Who should we see there but Gary Miedema from Iris. We joined him, and by the way really enjoyed our McCafe and ice cream cones. When we mentioned the problems we were having with drawing money from ATMs, and the costs of doing so, Gary recommended FNB Bank. At cell group I mentioned the upcoming Mailbox Club training, and said I would post to the Whatsapp group when I had confirmation of location. I emailed Gerhart and asked for his confirmation that Carel would be here as planned, and got a reply from Carel. Called Soraya and she didn't know how to make a room booking at YWAM, so I decide to hold the training at our home, and put notices about it on about four Whatsapp groups. Received a response from Simplii that suggested we call an number in Canada not-toll free for help. But it also mentioned that the new cards were linked only to the Plus and Interac networks, and that Interac doesn't operate outside Canada.

Sat 17 Mar
We have the go-ahead for Mailbox Club training on Tuesday at 3, but before I publicize it more, I need confirmation from Soraya who works in the office at YWAM whether we can get a room there. I am also awaiting a text reply from Pastor Folla whether I can interview him for CWCP Radio. I got out the second curtain we had bought in Stellenbosch and was slightly dismayed to find it wasn't tall enough for the window in the office. In my hurry I hadn't checked its dimensions properly. What to do? Try and return it? Then I thought of the kitchen windows which is half the height. When L-A got up we discussed it and she was very happy to have sheer curtains in the kitchen. This one was in two sections joined neer the top so I snipped it in half and put one half up on each window, They fitted perfectly! Because I had missed visiting the hospice yesterday, I went today at about 12:30. It would have been nice for L-A to come but she seems reluctant. I think she worries about mobility moving from bed to bed with only her stool to sit on. When I got there Moses was visiting the women's ward in his wheel chair and we had a chat. After the experience last Monday at the Brewelskloof TB hospital, on the same campus, I was eager to bring him to a decision for Christ, but didn't think this would be comfortable for him (or me) with others around listening in. I had brought in some Pakistan crosses to give out but he reminded me I had already given him one. I gave out about 5 to other patients. Carolina was no longer there, and Moses worried about her trying to manage life with her muscle disability. After praying with the patients I went back to the car, where I found Moses in his wheelchair enjoying some sun. This was perfect. I asked him if he had ever given his heart to Jesus and felt he had a personal relationship with Him. He said, "No." I asked if he would like to . He said, "Yes." So I took him through the sinner's prayer, which he said after me. I told him there was rejoicing in heaven, and there was certainly joy in my heart. It was a very special moment. I have a photo of him in the chair. On my way home I went to Sheet Street and bought another sheer curtain of the right size. That evening we had a delightful dinner and company at Andre and Janey's. Charl chicken Marengo and lemon meringue pie. Talked about all sorts of things including the Florida footbridge collapse that had killed six people the day before.

Fri 16 Mar
Message from Mella to say no school today - the boys were going to Cape Town. In the present uncertainty I felt my best contribution would be to progress the page on the school website listing teachers and their qualifications - here. At noon we went to the gynecologist's office and L-A was examined. He wants her to have a D & C procedure at the clinic, and a date of 28 March was set. We went to the Mediclinic to set up the details. Everyone involved was professional and caring. L-A believed this will put to rest problems she has suffered with for years and she feels very comfortable with South African medical services. We then went on to the van Deventer's for an Afrikaans lesson and social chat, congratulating Andre on his radio stardom the night before. I e-mailed Simplii Financial about the bank cards not working. I also e-mailed the Bank of Montreal to have them activate the card that they had replaced after fraudulent activity weeks ago. They called me back within 10 minutes, and activated it. I also have on-line access. At home at 6:30 I went to Folla's ministry with a bunch of YWAMers. It was an excellent night. I was particularly impressed with a 12 year old interpreter for a YWAM girl giving the message. On the way home I asked Folla again for a radio interview, and agreed I should text him, which I did before turning in.

Thu 15 Mar
Spent a while writing up the music lesson report from yesterday. One of the first things I write on these daily reports is the date, and I glanced at my watch. It said the 20th. I continued on for a while but something seemed odd. Then I realized my watch must be wrong. I checked the calendar, and it was only the 15th. Then the penny dropped; the boy at kid's club yesterday must have turned the date knob on my watch! I was very troubled by the events that had happened at school (see yesterday's journal) and not sure how best to act. As I was writing the report for the music lesson, it seemed to offer the least bad way of letting Mella know what was going on. What I wrote is copied to my journal for yesterday, below. I made an audio recording on recorder of the tune that Mpho had 'written,' and included the audio file in my report. At school I was dismayed to hear from Jammy Lee that the boys would leave at the end of the current term and go to a prep school. Jammy Lee said that she would be leaving too. I made no comment but got on with the class. The experiment needed sunlight, and this was the first day for months without any. So when the time came to ask the boys to feel both the black plastic bag an the white plastic bag, I asked them to imagine the situation had the sun been shining on them both, and each of them correctly stated that the black plastic was warmer. They went on to learn about the conservation of energy, and the transfer of energy from one form to another. I went to the mall to try out our new Simplii bank cards. Neither of them worked. As I was driving home I saw a coloured man sitting in the gutter on a stretch of main road near where we live. He was on the other side, but I was prompted to turn the car round and take a closer look. It wasn't possible to stop near him so I drove about 500 metres past him to a place where I could stop and walked back to him. He wasn't hurt, but he was intoxicated I think, and said he was hungry. I persuaded him to get up and frogmarched him to the car. He spoke very little English. I drove him to OK Foods and took him into the cooked food section. I asked the sales girl to ask him what he wanted, and he chose cold curried fish, so he got two largish pieces. After paying I continued frogmarching him to a table outside the store where he could eat, and got on my way. He was probably trying to get to the highway when I had picked him up, to get a lift, but his body had needed some food energy. In the evening, the CWCP broadcast including Andre on Afrikaans and Worcester went out with one hitch - there was repetition near the end of one of part of my announcements. The announcement was a brief overview of our missionary activities here. I fixed the problem in the podcast. I had publicised this particular broadcast quite widely to Whatsapp contacts and groups.

Wed 14 Mar
Khanyo was excluded from the music lesson today as a punishment (!) for not completing written assignments in other lessons that day. While the lesson was in progress with Mpho their mother was in the classroom hearing about Khanyo’s ‘crimes’ at the end of which she said she may need to take the children out of this school and send them to boarding school where sharper discipline might get them to toe the line. She added that getting them to do their homework was such a strain on her that she may be going into hospital for a few weeks. My challenge was to find a way to engage Mpho on his own. Normally Khanyo learns and understands the concepts being taught far faster than Mpho. This is understandable since he is two years older. For his age, Mpho is equally talented in my view. On the lesson plan, today was when they would be introduced to songwriting (technical term: music composition). What happened was surprising. I set Mpho the task to write a song using just the notes on the recorders, and this meant it had to be in the key of D. We had a stave of sheet music set up so we could write each note of the song. I asked him which note he would like to start on and he chose one (F#). I then suggested options for the next note, and he picked what he liked. We continued on, and sometimes I suggested more than one note at a time. He was fully engaged in the process. We completed the four line song. This would not have been possible if I had needed to entertain both boys at once. While I don’t condone Khanyo being taken out as a punishment, the result – individual tuition for Mpho – was very satisfactory. Here’s the tune Mpho wrote, although he’s not playing it. These boys are bright. Regular school-type discipline is dumb for bright children, and will only turn them into cookie cutter schoolkids with all their creativity knocked out of them. They have to be allowed the freedom to express themselves and as Caroline Leaf explains this may well involve getting up and walking around the room for a time. Keeping them sitting at desks being obedient to every instruction is counter to their sharp intellect. In a regular school, unless taught by people who understand this, they will only sink to mediocrity. The trick in our school will be achieving this without putting Jammy Lee’s nose out of joint. She is ideal in so many ways for her teacher-assistant role, and a lovely personality, and I for one don’t want to criticize her, in case she would feel unappreciated. But I would hate to lose the privilege of teaching two boys as exceptional as Khanyo and Mpho.

I had time to go home for half an hour after dropping Jammy Lee off at Mella's, and then went to Riverview, but without L-A, who wasn't up to it. In the music lesson there we learned to play "This is the day that the Lord has made," which starts with the same notes as Wavin' Flag which they had learned last week. My star pupil is sorita. She asked me how Laurie-Ann was. At the end of the class, she (with help from Mano) wrote a note to L-A: Mano and Sorita ask how you are. Mano and Sorita love you. We love you. I asked Mr Tony where you are and he said you are at home. So I will pray for you.I love you." Onto the Kids club at Vinkrivier, and I was able to get an interview from Cree, one of the students at The Father's House school. The kids were in boisterous moods today. One of them was trying to fiddle with my watch. They are not aware of psychological barriers that normally would limit ingress into someone else's possessions or space. I attempted to give a science lesson about the creation of domestic animals, creeping things and wild animals. We homed in on chickens (actually created on the previous day) and specifically eggs. I offered the chance to break the egg by pressing on both ends and noone was able to. The noise level throughout the class was deafening. I like to ask a lot of questions and everybody wanted to shout back the answers at once. In the evening, back home, we put out the second Wednesday program on CWCP Radio.

Tue 13 Mar
Khanyo was feeling ill with a stomach ache when I got in. He had accepted a swig of an unknown energy drink from another child on the way in on the taxi. This is never a good idea because drugs are introduced to children in sweet drinks. Just this morning David had posted on the Street Ministry Whatsapp group a warning about Strawberry Quick, a sweet drink said to be laced with meth-amphetamine. Google has a post saying in effect this was a hoax (now caled fake news in the Trump era) and there are no reports of children taking it. I prayed for Khanyo and asked if he was well enough for science or wanted to go home. He stayed, and later in the day was feeling OK. I was glad he didn't miss science because I decided to teach them about the solar system and gravity as a lead in to If we had no moon by Christine Lavin. After class I went for my second haircut with Joan and much enjoyed our conversation. Then picked Janey up and took her to school - she has decided to teach maths one or two days a week after all. Our lunch at school was untouched by ant hands (see last Tuesday), and then then L-A gave an excellent art lesson which needed each of us to handle both children. In the evening I put up the new curtain in the bedroom I had bought in Somerset West, and it was exactly the right length. Looks like it needs ironing, but perhaps the packing creases will come out when it's hung for a few days.

Mon 12 Mar
Andre had given us the number for a recommended air conditioning maintenance company, and they arrived about 8am. It was clear they knew what they were doing and 90 mins later we were cool people again, though by then I was in school teaching the children how light can be split into colours with the aid of a dark room, a candle and a CD. In the ensuing teaching, Khanyo asked, "What if we had no moon?" Tomorrow we'll change the science schedule to answer that one, because we know! I took my computer into Avian Park in the afternoon to see if the library computer projector was serviceable. The praise and worship went down better than ever before because the kids crowded round me, and maybe because the travel guitar which I played for the first time actually sounded rather good, and was certainly cool. The computer projector was indeed compatible, and uses uses a VGA cable. I was only testing the system, but the kids wanted to watch so they saw Part 1 of our 4-part Mozambique experience. The sound was just from my computer speakers. Next week we should be able to use the big amplifier I use for the guitar. There were 36 kids, very few more than 12 years old. This ministry was designed by My Father's House for teenagers, but the children have largely taken over. Certainly the class was quieter. Rumour has it that the older kida are aware of Marco's leaving My Father's House. A message on Whatsapp told us that the WCC Street Ministry group would visit Brewelskloof TB hospital that evening. After a talk from the leader of a group of regular prayer warriors at the hospital, we split into couples and went to find sick people in 3 wards. I was with Chris. We used the same approach with each of the three people we prayed for. One of us prayed for their salvation, and the other for their physical health. All three made a committment to Christ for the firt time - though they were all nominal Christians. They were also very sick, and unlikely to recover barring healing miracles, and we prayed ernestly for those. All three were appreciative that we wanted to spend time with them. 15 patients came to Christ that night. It was a thrilling experince, particularly for me since I am weekly in the hospice next door, and I had tried to get into Brewelskloof months ago but they told be they had enough volunteers.

Sun 11 Mar
At about 3am L-A 'gave birth to' a cervical polyp. According to later research this is rare so she was blessed. By morning she was feeling somewhat better, if not free of discomfort. She was well enough for the drive to Somerset West. But first we went to Stellenbosch, the De Hoek Manor guest house to be precise. Here we were able to pick up our Simplii bank cards and other cards, plus some David's teas for L-A. Marianne Botha works at the guest house and her sister Marna Stassen had brought them from Ottawa. This was all masterminded by Lynn Williams, our trusty home base manager. At last we would be able to use the new Simplii cards after the switch-over from President's Choice Financial. We thanked Marianne most sincerely, and gave her a thankyou card to pass to Marna, who would be coming by soon. Mission accomplished. Then, on to Somerset West, half an hour further, and Hillsong. An invigorating service as always, with Lucinda Dooley giving the message to all the South Africa Hillsong churches. In the foyer afterwards, a charming staff member called Fati Thobejane whom we had met before came up to say 'Hi.' I offered her a coffee if she would give us an interview. So we now have an excellent Hillsong interview in the can. We had to be back in Worcester by 4 pm for (a) Mella's 50th birthday party and (b) the big pray-for-rain event with all Worcester's churches. So I dropped off pies at Mella's and joined the crown on Church Square. L-A was not with me, needing to rest. The prayer (and praise) meeting was well organized with about 200 in attendance and seven local pastors. I took audio clips which later L-A made a sounsscape of, and it will be played on radio. At about ten past five I joined the group at Mella's house for her 50th. It was a fun bunch, and I knew about a quarter of them.

Sat 10 Mar
Saturdays are the closest we get to a day of rest and I cherish them! At 9:30 was with Jan, who lent me some chhildren's Bible story picture books and DVDs (eg Vegetales) that we might use on Monday afternoons. This Monday I will check out the computer projector in the library that I can't say I have noticed and see whether it is feasible to use video material, and maybe even Youth Alpha, for the the kids using our equipment. We discussed Marco's departure (?) and its effects. Apparently there used to be 40 teenagers and now we only have 20. More of them may leave now. After seeing Jan I went to the van Deventer's house to interview Andre for CWCP Radio. Janey was out shopping. We had an excellent session, recording two programs, one about the history of Afrikaans, and the other anout his blind + deaf life. When I got home I edited the second one and sent it to Shelley-Ann Morris for use on Welcome to my World on CKCU. The first one we will use this coming Thursday. L-A is not too well and I was unsure if she would be able to leave the house on Sunday for our monthly Hillsong visit.

Fri 9 Mar
Science class reverted to the beginning of the course book, Day One of Creation, and the experiment was "Let there be light." One of the rooms in the Church building where the school is housed has no windows and is almost totally dark when the door is closed. I took the boys there, and turned off the lights. Mpho was not comfortable in the dark. In a sonorous voice I spoke the words from Genesis 1, 2-3 which I had memorized: "The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light;" (at which point I turned on the light) and there was light." It was dramatic! We continued the experiment using a torch and a mirror (my shaving mirror), showing how light is reflected and we only see anything when the reflected light ends up on our retinas. Back in the school room I also mentioned (briefly in passing) that science has now shown that indeed (in the big bang) the first entities to speed forth in the universe were photons.

Back home, L-A was not doing too well and we did something like a science experiment on her to diagnose the problem. We called Dr Eric van Dijk's office (recommended by Janey) and made an appointment for L-A for 4 pm. After lunch I went to the Hospice. Carolina was doing quite well and said she had been looking forward to seeing me. She expected to go home in a few days. I gave her my phone number. Moses was watching the second test match - South Africa and Australia - and brough me up to date with it. On my way home I bought a new cartridge for the printer. We went to the doctor's office and L-A was very pleased and comforted by Eric van Dijk. She should bever have been put on Premarin by Dr Esguerra. He arranged a specialist appointment at the hospital for Monday with a gynecologist. On our way home we picked up a large pizza from Roman's which should keep us going for the weekend. I had been trying to see or reach Jan Buchanan since Monday and this evening we had a good phone chat about 'My Father's House' Monday ministry. M and R say they want to move on from the ministry and leave the YWAM councelling course 3/4 through it, which Jan had funded. Is this real or a hissy fit? I will go see her tomorrow at 9:30, and pick up some video materials that we might try on the children. L-A went early to bed, and I caught up on a number of actions, including joining GIG - the Generational Inheritance Group. This is personal Financial Planning, with a twist, and offers training materials for personal financial planning. I also needed to search for a video that might have been archived on one of our back up disks, and was dismayed that the disk appears to have a serious data error. It began a recovery routine and I left it running when I went to bed, worried about what ww would do if this disk was toast. There is a duplicate of it in our Poulin appartment in Ottawa, but that is inaccessible by others.

Thu 8 Mar
For the science lesson based on the 7th day of Creation when God rested, the course book, 'Science in the Beginning,' by J Wile suggested the students also rest and mull over all the good things God created. I didn't think Khanyo and Mpho would mull very well, but if I gave them something relevant enough to listen to, they might be able to rest and listen. The beginning of part 1 of Trevor Noah's 'Born a Crime' was my choice. They had heard of him as a comedian, but not this (bestselling) book. That part of the book has him as a ten year old, same as Khanyo. Also same tribe. I had the boys lie on their backs on the big rug. Hey, they listened. This science experiment on whether two boisterous kids with energy could actually 'rest' for 40 mins was a partical success. They began twisting and turning after 15 minutes, but they didn't get up and run around. And they listened to South African post-apartheid history from one of their own. I went home and promoted tonight's CWCP broadcast focused on fetal alcohol syndrome with Francois Grobbelaar. At 12:45 I was back at school to take them swimming. On the way from the pool to Zweletemba after our dip, I stopped at PostNet to pick up our police security clearances. I gave 2 rands to a parking attendant and asked him to keep an eye on the boys in the car. Two minutes later when I was in line in the store I heard the sound of the car alarm, and the parking attendant was at PostNet's door looking for me. Yes, one of the boys (Mpho) had managed to set off the alarm. I cancelled it with the remote and threatened no more ice cream, and returned to PostNet. And then the alarm went again! The many knobs and pushbuttons in the Merc are like a red rag to a bull to Mpho! I gave the attendant another R2. When I got home I felt great, partly because of the swim, partly because it was cooler today, and partly because I was free for the rest of the day. In this frame of mind I took our Pyle audio amplifier down to Cash Crusaders where there was an affordable pair of Dixon speakers. They let me test the speakers with the Pyle, using my phone on bluetooth as an audio source. As soon as I heard the sound I decided to buy them. They clearly were a good match with the Pyle, and the sound was good enough for our enjoyment. We will have stereo again! In the evening I installed the speakers and they do indeed sound good in our carpeted office for the price of about $CAD 70 for the pair. The Leak Minis Sandwich will still be used foer certain functions, eg when I need music or spoken word for part of a school lesson, as I did this morning. In the evening we broadcast the CWCP program opening with the interview with Francois Grobbelaar, monitoring the broadcast on our new speakers. I think this was our first broadcast without any technical hitches.

Wed 7 Mar
L-A is bleeding (like the woman in the Bible who touched Jesus' garment). It began yesterday. She Was unable to leave the house today, and rested. It is amazing how she keeps smiling and doing all she can physically when she is smitten with one affliction after another. We pray a lot for her health. For the music class with the boys, I had hatched the idea of learning to play Wavin' Flag, a song they had recognized on the first music class when I played the 38 genres. I taught them three more notes on the recorder, enough for the first 4 bars of Wavin' Flag in D. Then I taught them the tune on recorder, piano and xylophone, showing them the written notes on the music at the same time, and the two sharps that are involved. At this stage, playing even 4 notes with the correct fingers on a piano is a stretch, more for Mpho than Khanyo, who really kept trying. They recognized the tune before I played the original on my phone. After the class I took them to McDonalds for pick up by their father, and bought them and Jammy Lee a dipped cone. Dropped of Jammy Lee and then went back to McDonalds for a dipped cone! And a Fanta. Then to Riverview for the kids club. The worship went well, and I then taught music class to the same four kids as last time. Wavin' Flag again, though they didn't recognize the tune, and three out of four made a pretty good job of it. FRom there I drove to the Fourie farm cafe for coffee. After a little while I was delighted to see all 9 students from the Father's House school, who were coming to kids club. On the drive to the club I chatted to Christie - aka Cree, and she told me the school had started really well. She is from Glostershire, England, and had aready done mission work on her own in China (Visions beyoud the Veil). Kaysha came up with innovations: that instead of them sitting for music, they could dance, and she had some Havaian-type garments (?) the girls might use as props. This all worked very well, despite the fact that my little guitar amp refused to turn on. The other innovation was rewards with 'coins' for being good. The coins (plastic disks) would be dropped in a jar. When it was full, they would fund a tire swing. This would also teach them the value of saving, which Kaysha asked me to explain to them. I don't know if it was the good behavious plastic coins, or the presence of 9 charming strangers, but the kids were better behaved than I have seen them, and even restrained themselves from jumping on the van when we left on pain of losing coin points in the jar. The evening back home was focussed on our first CWCP broadcast of classic Good News in the Morning shows, but when the time came to broadcast, I made an error and switched from one audio file to the other too soon. There was some confusion till about 9:03 by when we were back on track, so I hope listeners were three minutes late tuning in. So easy to make a mistake like that in the stress of the moment. After that the show went well and I listened to an hour of Allen Churchill apologetics. So invigorating.

Tue 6 Mar
A week ago today I had fasted, with mixed results. Today I didn't risk a repetition. Thrilled to get an email from Kevin Bennett at CFRA to say they had no problem with our rebroadcasting GNiTM shows from way back on CWCP. So we'll be legal. At 3 pm I arrived at FASFacts HQ to interview the founder Francois Grobbelaar. He recognized me from the early morning prayer meeting 2 Feb. Either he has a superb memory or I am very ugly. Or maybe he has seen me at Worcester Christian Church, which is his church also. We got on very well and I got my interview which will be broadcast this Thursday. I have huge respect for him and the way he has pursued his vision to eliminate fetal alcohol syndrome. In the evening as I was editing the interview I looked at the time and realised I had missed the prayer and fasting meeting. Even though I hadn't fasted, it was my intention to attend. I took L-A to her Tuesday church meeting. I worked hard on the two radio programs, and publicity for them, that we'll be broadcasting this week.

Mon 5 Mar
For some reason my bedside clock was an hour early, but I didn't discover I was way ahead of everyone else till I found Pick n Pay closed at what I thought was 8:30, but was actually 7:30. I returned home. Message from Simplii Financial that use of our President's Choice bank cards would soon be invalid. I called the De h Hoek guest house, proprietor Marianne Botha, in Stellenbosch where a kind lady Marna Stassen in Ottawa had offered Lynn to hand carry our new Simplii cards, and, praise the Lord, they had them waiting for us. I checked an ATM and it was true, no money available to me using the President's Choice card that has kept us solvent thus far. At one point today I was down to R30 in cash. Then I remembered Jan owed me R500 for goceries I had paid for that normally My Father's House would buy. Jan took the trouble to bring the money to me right at the school, bless her. The lesson from this story, readers, is that debit and credit cards cannot be couriered abroad, and short of flying home the only way to get a new card is by finding someone to hand carry it internationally. In the evening I produced the new Wednesday program for CWCP which will rebroadcast classic Good News in the Morning shows by Allen Churchill Wednesdays at 9 pm SA time. I included nostalgic music by the Messengers in the 5-minute lead in to the show. Allen always used them to round out his shows.

Sun 4 Mar
On this 23rd anniversary of Worcester Christian Church, the service started late so everyone could enjoy free muffins and coffee in the cafe. I got chatting with Kobus Kriel about entrepreneurship - or the lack of it - in townships, and what were the causes. In church, Marius led worship extremely well. We had got to know him at the street ministry meetings. Johan's sermon was foundational Christianity, probably an extened version of what he is giving at the new Overhex church plant. Instead of cell group after church, it had been postponed to 4 pm so we could go direct from there to Avian Park for the great praise evening - which we did. I have posted pictures here. This was extremely well organized and executed by Worcester Christian Church. For 90 mins we sang our hearts out for the Lord, encouraged by a rocking band and lead singer Bernadette. It drew a local crowd of about 100 from Avian Park residents, in addition to anout 150 members of the congregation. Marco and Rens turned up. I recorded much of the sound on the Marantz, but used automatic volume control, a mistake because the loud drum sound is too sharp and fast to trigger the AVC in time, so I don't think I can broadcast any of it.

Sat 3 Mar
Bought a drill bit for our cordless Black & Decker drill. It was the only size sold by Builder's Express, but it was the right size to fix our two broken chairs, including the one that had let L-A sitting on the floor. I drilled two holes in the leg wood, put epoxy resin on the broken section, and used the tension from two screws to hot the leg in place while the glue hardened. It worked! We are under attack by ants in this hot weather. They are very small but clever. If we leave out certain food residue, it will be found by an anr, which returns to base and tells the other ants. Soon there is a column of ants walking to and from the food. If I remove the food they will eventually disappear. Usually I can find the crack in the wall by which they have entered, and I can block it odd with bathroom sealant. We usually wake up with an ant or two walking across us. There was an ant in my cereal that I couldn't remove, so I left it in there and ate the cereal anyway. I lived. I wathed an ant carry another ant back to the base, even though at one point it dropped its load, which walked around, and was then picked up again for the rest of the journey. The communication between the ants is a wonder to watch. Just after writing the last sentence I went to the kitchen to pack the sandwiches for our Tuesday school lunches, and several of them on the kitchen counter were swarming with ants - the ones wrapped in foil. The ants really like egg sandwiches. L-A bewailed the situation - much hard work wasted. The egg sandwiches went out for the birds, I rescued three meat sandwiches where only a few had got inside the cling wrap, and made a fresh peanut butter and tomato sandwich for Mella, a vegitarian. We arrived at school a little late, but everyone got something to eat (except Mella took the tomato out of her sandwiches).

Fri 2 Mar
Made contact with Francois Grobbelaar, founder of FasFacts, and confirmed I can interview him for CWCP on Tuesday. There has been very little reaction to last night's broadcast. After school I went shopping for a new power transformer, and started ny search at Tele Fonics. They had an ideal device, capable of handling more power than the one that had failed. Bought it; about $30. That made me feel good for the rest of the day. In quick succession the ideas came to me to start a second program on CWCP, rebroadcasting the. I lived. classic Allen Churhill Good News in the Morning programs. I did a test run of two programs and found them very impacting, and the quality was fine even though they had been stored on cassette since 2001. I sent a message to Dave Kemp and Alm telling them what I had in mind. In the afternoon I visited the Hospice, where I met a white lady, same age as I, who has lived through a rare muscle disease for 4 years. We had a good talk and then I prayed to the great healer for a miracle. She has exhausted the resources of medicine and it was clear to me that her only hope is Jesus. She is already a believer. I pray again here as I write that He will show his power to her and everyone in this town by making her muscles as new. I suggested that Moses chat with her, and by the time I left he did so. In the evening I went to Folla's ministry, and took photos, and also 40 minutes of audio from the praise and worship that I may well play on a future CWCP show. I also want to identify these songs (Shazam) and learn them for my own kids' worship leading. As we were leaving we saw a drunk woman being led home by friends. Folla knew her and stopped the vehicle. he asked me to pray with her. Later he told me that her husband was due to be released from prison, and she is very worried that he will then return to his serious drinking. She was so concerned that she had masked her pain by drinking, and was now worried that if he found her like this, he would be more likely to return to drink. Vicious circle.

Thu 1 Mar
For science, taught the sense of touch, for which I learned (and then taught) that messages from the touch receptors in your skin to your brain are turned off after ~15 seconds if they don't change, but the brain assumes you are still touching the same thing(s). In our experiment we proved this by switching from two different touches (rubs) (left and right hand) to another where both hands rub the same thing and noticing that the feelings from one hand were different from the other until the brain syncs into the new touch messages. Absolutely fascinating. And when you think about it, if this were not so, our brains would run out of bandwidth processing every touch from everything all the time. At 12:45 picked up the boys from school and took them swimming. Both had forgotten their towels so they used mine. They asked for ice cream on the way nome, so I used this as an incentive to get out of the pool, and it worked. We went through the drive-in at McDonalds and they got sundays, and didn't spill them on the uphostlery.

Picked up Marco and Rens from YWAM at 4 to come to our place. Showed them the 'Adventures with God' video involving top Chicago gang leaders coming to Christ, and then the intro to the band new Youth Alpha series. I think they were impacted and encouraged by both. We had goolash at 6 with great conversation. First time we have entertained ex gangsters. They need to be back by about 7:30, so I took then and was home in time for the CWCP pre-broadcast set-up. Problem. As had happened last time the Raspberry Pi wouldn't come on when I plugged in the power. Again I had the spectre of confusing and disappointing our embryo listener group. Took about 10 minutes to figure out that the issue was not with the device, but with the dubious design of some South African power sockets which don't always connect. I had also forgotten that I had faded the volume on the Media Player app after the last program. When I realised this we were able to get the pre-broadcast music transmitting by 15 minutes before the show (instead of 30 minutes). After that the show transmitted just fine at 8. After it was done I put on one of the Hillsong CDs that L-A had bought recently. Ran fine for half an hour then started breaking up. L-A was attempting to upload a video and our upload speed wasn't sufficient for both. Another learning moment. By 11 pm we had the podcast up.

Wed 28
Slept pretty well, and when I got up, didn't feel hungry. However tasks (like washing) took more effort and no joy to be felt in anything. So I got to the stove and prepared the first real break-fast of my life fried egg, back bacon, tomatoes, toast, baked beans, coffee, more toast and marmalade. Now I was beginning to feel a little more like me. I don't think anyone is reading this journal; I am writing it as a historical recond for myself, but I certainly wouldn't want my experience to put anyone else off fasting. Indeed, experts will tell you to take baby steps, just fasting in some things, until your brain is ready for it. Hunger isn't the main issue in my case. I could have fasted for longer, and they say it gets a lot easier after day 4, and you start to feel healthier and better as toxins are burned up. My problem is not liking the slow brain. It remined me of a computer that needs a disk clean and a defrag - so draggy, and multi-tasking very time-consuming. Dropped L-A off at YWAM about 9 and went to school to teach the most complex and engaging subject yet - the sense of balance. I didn't even know it is now classified as a sense. It certainly deserves to be. An amazing piece of biological engineering by the creator God engineer supreme. After the science class I sharpened about 20 pencils with our electric sharpener. This device runs off 110 volts so I used our voltage converter that L-A had had for 30 years, and on the 21st pencil it failed. It was pretty hot. We also need it for our scanner and L-A's electric toothbrush. All our other devices can run off 240v. After class got the groceries for Amedja and delivered them. Prayed a bit beside the land where the praise and worship will be on Sunday, then home to put finishing touches on my music class and prepare music for the farm children. Taught the boys about musical notation and they practised simple note sequences (over and over). Dropped them at McDonald's where their father's taxi was parked; dropped Jammy Lee at Mella's, then met up with L-A and Jan Buchanan at The Barn restaurant. Chatted, then took L-A home and took myself to Riverview. Today was special for the kids - swimming. After ensuring they had OK letters from parents (two didn't and couldn't therefore come), we drove them the short distance to the pool. Most of them went in the kiddies' pool, but five or six who could swim went in the big pool. Mella and Soraya even got in, but not Jammy Lee. Someone I didn't know, Kevin, was a great help with the older kids, and we all sang happy birthday to him, and ate large helpings of ice cream. At leaving time I drove 5 back to Chip Ross, and then got on the road to Fourie farm children's kids' club. I parked the other side of the road to reduce the possibility of the Merc being damaged. At praise and worship time I chose just songs that they know, and didn't need word sheets for. It worked better, but I did stop playing several times to counter noise and shouting from about three boys. Kaysha had photos to show from her visit to Rwanda, but these same three boys just wanted to interrupt anything that seemed to have form or organization. They went outside for a while but only so they could burst back in and shout. At one point they were shouting down Kaysha so I grabbed one of them by the leg and dragged him out of the door. Another of them came close enough for me to grab him by the leg. I now had them in my grip and asked them why they so wanted to disrupt everything. Although they weren't in a mind to reason, I tried to impress them that this kind of antisocial behaviour was unacceptable. Back inside, I noticed an improvement, and before I left I gave the ringleader a hug. On my way home I picked up a seller of brushes named Jordan. I aske if I could pray for him. As I dropped him off in Worcester I bought one of his brushes for R40. I think it's made of ostrich feathers.

Tue 27
So, no food for me today. I did have 2 small glasses of fruit juice, but no coffee. Picked L-A up from YWAM at noon to take her to school to give her art class, which went very well. I have felt I was running on two cylinders for much of the day. I went to the prayer and fasting meeting at church from 5:15 - 6. It's a group of about 30 who will fast every Tuesday till the Angus Buchan event 24 March in Catpetown. David spoke forcefully and very well. I am going to try and make it a 24 hour fast. I came home and took L-A back to the church for the Intimacy with God class. I don't have the energy to join her. When I got home I was drained in body and brain. I wan't able to make decisions other than not to try and do anything useful. I certainly couldn't formulate prayers except in tongues and frankly didn't feel like doing that. So I loaded up my video series of the 'Old Grey Whistle Test' from about 1973 and watched the great recordings of rock and punk bands of that era. I didn't like punk then, and still don't. But still interesting to watch. L-A got a lift home, so after she arrived I went to bed, setting my alarm clock early so I could cook a big breakfast.

Mon 26
L-A is auditing the counselling course at YWAM this week, and on this first day I dropped her at 8 so she was also able to take in the regular YWAM Monday 2-hour praise time. I picked her up in time to go to MFH ministry with Soraya in the afternoon. Had a chat to Amedja. The young children's ministry was led by a teenager, while Soraya conducted the teens Bible Study. In the evening went to the street ministry meeting. David was there. He invided me to join a prayer and fasting meeting tomorrow - ie fast all day and come to a meeting at 5:15. I feel drawn to this.

Sun 25
Early to church for 'new members meet the elders' in Grace Cafe. In church all of us came up to the front and were welcomed by Johan. The Avian Park worship session was mentioned for next Sunday, and also a prayer gathering of all Worcester churches on Church Square on 11 March, 4-5:30. After church we drove to IRIS Roberson for the monthly get-together, though most of the formal part we knew we would be too late for. There were several visiting missionaries, two with guitars so the music had been catered for.

Sat 24
Early to rise and to pick up the Van de Venters so we could all attend a church bazar. Church bazar's are a relic of an earlier age when farmers from remote locations would converge every couple of months on a church for communion, both of the holy variety and also with one another for social reasons, with traditional foods cooked up. Today's bazar was in the
National Institute for the Deaf, a world class establishment. We were having a big breakfast by 8:15. Andre had several reunions with old friends; he and Laduma his trusty guide dog had lived on this campus within the last few years. Many of those present were deaf, and energetically communicating with sign language. After the eggs we had poeding, a mixture of about 5 puddings. The tradition held that all the farmers brought their favourite puddings, and everything went into one very large pan. Andre and I had hoped to try crocodile sosatie, but I screwed up and failed to get two before they ran out. Nearby was the open-air cafe where Andre and Janey had been married two years ago, and we stopped there for tea. All the while we had great conversations with our friends. When we left we went to buy some bulk fruit juice from Wimpie Sieckers. After dropping A and J back at their home, L-A and I tried out Starpark, the only Chinese restaurant in town. The food was good. Then we went home and did stuff for the rest of the day. We are struggling a bit with the heat because both our air conditioning units have stopped delivering the goods. They both still work in fan mode, and the bedroom one will cool the air but insists on dropping water right onto our bed, so we are only using that one in fan mode at night.

Fri 23
Yesterday we received the report from IRIS Canada on donations we received in the last month. They had slumped by a factor of 5 from the previous month. Bless the faithfulness of our monthly donors, but the current total from them is way below what we will need to fund our three years here. Janey was present for my science lesson on depth perception in the sense of sight and told me I had missed my vocation - I should have been a primary school teacher. (Isn't encouragement sweet). I encouraged Mpho by sticking a second gold star on his forhead for answering a review question from a month ago correctly (Khanyo, 2 years older and not suffering from learning difficulty, got it wrong). Afrikaans lesson at 11, and I sense my pronounciation is improving. At the fruit stall I bought beautiful looking fruit for the standard price R30, and felt called to give a tomato to, and pray for, a woman sitting on a pile of bedding on the sidewalk. In the afternoon I went to the hospice (missed last week). Moses is up in a wheel chair. Several others are doing well and may be discharged soon. But there were two ladies with cancer in a bad way; one of them very thin. In one ward I missed one of the patients and he called me - he didn't want to miss being prayed for. Chatted to Alida whom I hadn't seen since I started coming here. Maggie arrived about 6:30, and just as she came through the door Laurie-Ann's chair collapsed and she landed on the floor, banging her head on the wall, with half a glass of wine spilled. After healing prayer from Maggie for L-A's head, the wine and the chair turned out to be the casualties, and I'll have a go at repairing the chair. After dessert we all watched 'Darkest Hour.' How close we came to being enslaved by Hitler.

Thu 22 Feb
It finally had arrived - the day of our first broadcast on CWCP Radio. For me this is big. For most others, not so big. It started 8 Aug 2017 when I visited Tim Whitehead at Galcom in Hamilton. And that might never have happened if it hadn't been for Amanda Tanner who needed to be taken back to Guelph. At the meeting with Tim, he showed me the Galcom museum, and also one of their recent innovations, an Xstreamer based on a Raspberry Pi 2 made by Element to enable missionaries to broadcast on line. The licence for one of these was $100 a year. I signed up! Didn't received our kit till a couple of weeks before we left for South Africa and there was no time to test it out. The rest of this story is in this journal below. We had now come to the day for the first broadcast. Our testing had proved that the technology worked and the audio quality was excellent. We had the audio files all set up on the red back-up disk. There was a glitch at about 6pm - the Raspberry Pi wouldn't come on when I plugged in the power. The spectre of failing to show up when we had told all relevant contacts about it hovered before my eyes. L-A was waiting for me to come to supper but even she realized this took priority. I played with the power plugs and - then - hallelujah the lights came on. Thank you Jesus. We ate, then went to the final night of the newcommers course at WCC. There was a group photo, then Johan spoke to us with quiet logical passion for half an hour. After that, who wouldn't want to join this church? And since he had another engagement, we finished by 7:15. We were home by 7:29. At 7:30 I started the half-hour prelude music (Bethel's "Without Words") and the show was on the road. At 8 am I switched to the pre-recorded program, and then just listened to the broadcast for the next hour. It was good. We even had a couple of messages from listeners to say they liked it (Janey and Maggie you are jewels; without you I would have assumed the whole thing was a failure). When it was over I worked on a podcast version which L-A uploaded and tested by about 11 pm.

Wed 21 Feb
Not enough time to get to Avian Park before school, so dieseled up the car, and got to school on time. After the class, took the food to Amedja's and then continued on to Sabela's house, hoping he wouldn't be there. But he was, eating breakfast and looking glum. Turns out he was fired by K K on Monday, ostensibly for being a slow worker. From what he said I have an impression the other workers made life hard for him. I should contact K K to hear what happened. I have a feeling that Sabela failed to understand the potential of the opportunity and managed to fall foul of the others involved. He also admitted that they all took smoke breaks, including him - this is a man who had asked me for R5 to buy bread three weeks before. I am sad about the whole story.

I returned to school to prepare for my first music class when they would actually play instruments. They need to understand that mastering an instrument takes practice, practice, practice, so the choice of instrument is important. We have recorders available which I will use primarily to teach musical notation. We also have a keyboard, my guitar and a glockenspiel. By the end of this 45 minute session we were making 'music' ensemble using all these. And I mean music, not noise. In the afternoon we went to Robertson, but while we were in the Fourie cafe we saw Johan and learned Kaysha was not yet returned from Rwanda. So instead of kid's club we went to see Maggie, and I took the opportunity to interview her on my phone for next week's CWCP. She is coming to us on Friday to watch 'Darkest Hour.'

Tue 20 Feb
On way home from class, I passed a middle aged man lying half in the road quite near Hooggelegen village. I stopped, mainly to check he hadn't had an accident. He was just hungry. His name is Wilson. I prayed for him and gave him R50 when he asked for 100. At 12:15 we took the lunch sandwiches L-A had prepared and had our Tuesday meal, after which L-A taught more on Mondrian. She also showed them some of our site and her artwork, and they were genuinely interested. When we got home, Heni from acress the road came over to chat and gave me some grapes. We had a couple of hours before we went to Jan's for a training on the GIG Institute, which teaches finacial literacy and gets members on the road to what they call multi-generational planning (Biblical concept). I think I should sign up with a view to leading a group. The 'wealth coach' was Bruno from YWAM. Then I drove L-A to WCC for a new course on intimacy with God - which she really enjoyed. I went home, did some gardening, and sent off notifications about the CWCP broadcast. L-A called me about 7:30 to pick her up.

Mon 19 Feb
Collected groceries for MFH, including new fruit vendor Adele who runs a soup kitchen in Avian Park. After delivering groceries, continued on to Sabela's house and was relieved to find him; delivered him to the site on Porter. I so hope this could be regular for him, but told him he would have to walk there in future. Mpho not at school - doctor's appointment, so Kanyo and I examined the worm. It was Khanyo's 10th birthday so we had cake. In the afternoon I went with Soraya to Avian Park. I allowed several of the children to sing at the mic, and although none of them could sing in tune, fun was had, and they didn't break it (the mic). Amedja arrived with food but told me she wouldn't be staying to teach the young ones. However, thankfully two of the older children were prepared to teach the young ones, while in the other part of the room, Soraya taught the teenagers. When the time came to give out the food, I organized a cafeteria-style queue and the kids picked up a sandwich, a drink and 3 plumbs. It worked better than the previous system. In fact today was the most civilized MFH ministry so far. Soraya came home to our place and I assisted her with her newsletter on Pink Dell.

Sun 18 Feb
First thing I sent an email to St Paul's and Blackburn Hamlet Community Church about the radio program on Thursday in case they would like to mention it to their congregations. In church a guest speaker Kobus Theron spoke on really communicating with God on a semi-continual basis. Afterwards I accepted the call to go up for prayer and a nice lady called Tanya prayed for me. At cell group we discussed the need for spiritual protection over those planning to attend a praise event in Avian Park on 4 March. En route for home we stopped at Jan's and she and I discussed some suggestions I had emailed her for My Father's House ministry, and she invided me to a training event in entrepreneurship and managing personal money on Tuesday. I should attend. At 3 Soroya and her son Nathan arrived. Soroya downloaded the pics on her phone to a subdirectory on Pink Dell, and then wrote her newsletter. We have offered her computer time. Nathan watched De Vinci learning. After they had gone and Da Vinci was still on we watched an excellent program on Marie Curie. Received message that John Bridges had mentioned CWCP debut in church this morning! Called K K and yes, he would like Sabelo to come in tomorrow, particularly to help him with things that would be hard for him because of his sore ribs.

Sat 17 Feb
Happy to hear back from Jammy Lee that she has no broken bones. Washed the car with the mop again. Ants had found their way into our inside compost bag so I spent a while with Mortein ant killer attempting to destroy their main centres. Thankfully they are a very small species. At around 1 pm we drove to Ceres, a wonderful drive through spectacular mountains including Mitchell's Pass. At one point Laurie-Ann spotted a steam train on a track way above us. We learned the next day that this train started in 2012 - 100 years after the track was originally laid - running tourists from Cape Town to Tulbagh to Ceres, and we had seen the only February excursion. We have to go on this train, from Tulbagh to Ceres and back! We had an excellent lunch in a Wimpey in Ceres. Coming home we detoured to Tulbagh, and L-A drove from then on. She is still nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road, and this was only the second time she had done so. She was fine, bringing us home safely. I drove to Mountain Mill area where there are small ponds and a park, but it was closed. I was needing a worm for Monday's science experiment. Across the road a man was fishing. He was kind enough to dig with a spade and found me a worm in the bank of the waterway. In the evening I checked out a few things on the Galcom Xsteamer, discovering that there is a unique URL for CWCP Radio, which can be accessed even when we are not broadcasting. It's a long link so I shortened it to bit.ly/2EAoWr1. Then I googled 'Automatic logo generator' and found Logojoy. 15 minutes later I had a logo for CWCP Radio. I sent an email to singer Dan Cummingham to tell him how to listen to the show next Thursday, and that we will be playing his song 'Revival.' Nearing midnight and L-A was getting frustrated with Weebly, but I was able to help her out with posting the latest blog, and then she added the CWCP logo to the 'Listen' page.

Fri 16 Feb
I called K K about 8:30 to hear that a ladder he had been on had collapsed, and he had fallen to the ground, hurting his ribs. He didn't think he would be back to work before Monday. We agreed that I would call him Sunday night to see how he was, and possibly to bring Sabela again on Monday morning. Apparently things had worked out fairly well with Sabela yesterday. This is good news! Accident at school: Jammy Lee lost her footing on the steps in the classroom and fell, one of the tables breaking her fall, but she was in some pain. After science lesson, Mella had a cake for my birthday. After the cake, Jammy Lee was feeling worse, not better, so I took her to her medical clinic, via a visit to her mother who has their health card. Walking was hard for her. At 11 I was at Dr Jan Hofmeyer's dental practice wondering what he would make of my mouth, and particularly the missing tooth from 26 Jan. He is a fine dentist. He gave me one filling, and arranged to add a tooth to my plate, which would be ready later in the day! L-A and I had our Afrikaans lesson at 3, reading from a Children's Afrikaans Bible, and then our translations. At 4:45 we were back at Dr Hofmeyer's, and he fitted my augmented plate, now with 8 teeth, but still enough real teeth to hold it in place. In the evening I attempted to go to Folla's ministry, but by 7 pm had seen none of the group that I would have gone with. On the radio I was listening to the early part of the State of the Nation address by Cyril Ramaphosa. I decided to cut my losses, go home, and watch this historical occasion, live on TV. It was remarkable. He had beome president a day before, and here he was presenting a well-thought-out agenda for his term in office. He was comprehensive, logical, sometimes humourous, always smart and articulate. Mybe this is the start of the time prophesied in Charlie Shamp's prophetic Word Released January 23, 2017: While in prayer the Lord began to highlight the nation of South Africa to me. I was shown a map of the world and suddenly the nation of South Africa began to illuminate light. I saw the years 2017-2020 and the Lord spoke and said, "I'm bringing the nation of South Africa into the light, a crystal clear vision for blessing and prosperity." I saw the words, RADICAL ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION FOR THE NATION. I was brought into a large industrial building that was thriving and I asked the Lord, "What is this place?" The Lord said, "This is the nations manufacturing industry, I'm bringing it back!" The Lord says, "Import and export, your ports will thrive and come back to life." I saw car companies from around the world coming to build cars in large automotive factories putting many people to work.The word "INCLINE" came to me and I saw the currency in its current state and suddenly it began to rise, the currency is coming back from the dead. The resurrection power is upon the rand! The Lord also says, "There will be a changing of the guard." I saw a new political party will take power as more governmental corruption is exposed in the current administration. Again I saw the word "INCLINE" and the phrase "Wine on the Incline" The Lord spoke to me that the production of grapes will greatly increase in the nation the next several years. It will be a sign to the people of the new wine being released across the nation, a fresh move of the spirit is about to come! -Prophet Charlie Shamp

This evening we broadcast a trial run (without telling anyone) of next Thursday's first CWCP Radio program. The technology worked fine, and we noticed a few spots of dead air, which I fixed before turning in. It has been quite a day!

Thu 15 Feb
I am 77! Still kicking. Up early to find Sabelo's house in Avian Park and rouse him. Garmin took me to his door. I wasn't able to warn him since he has no phone, living from handout to mouth. I got him a hot pie and a coke at the Avian Cafe, which I was interested to visit. It's a convenience store selling a few foods ready to eat. When we reached the rendezvous on Porter St., K K came out and asked me to drive him to a store to get a face mask. I dropped them back at the site. It was still an hour before I needed to be at school so I bought fruit. After class heard news reports of Jacob Zuma's resignation the night before. At 12:30 was back at school to take the children swimming. After that, and after taking them home to Zwelatemba I went to Mella's home to interview her for CWCP. She was excellent. As I drove home I heard a live speech by the newly elected President Cyril Ramaphosa. I liked what I heard - eloquent, articulate, logical and even humourous. My eyes had become very painful with the complaint I'd had several weeks ago, and when I got home the only thing I could do was try to sleep. This shortened the time available to edit Mella's talk into the CWCP program. In the end we just didn't have the time to broadcast a trial run tonight. Sabelo called (from someone elses phone) to tell me the news that K K had hurt himself at work in an accident, and wanted me to call him the next morning. At 6 we were at our long awaited meeting with Johan Schoonraad, WCC, which was a joy. We are to draft a letter for the prison which he will sign on church paper. He led the membership class and told his extraordinary testimony. His life has been directed by a few powerful words of knowledge which he faithfully obeyed. Now he leads a largish church, which is beginning to plant satellites (eg Overhex Christian Church). He is an important figure in local church circles. Today in Erena's book I had read how he and his wife Linda had worked with Erena in the early days of the Kibbutz.

Wed 14 Feb
For music class I introduced them to primary formats for composers to use, playing samples, eg symphony, concerto, ballet. When the children heard the example of an instrumental piece, Etude, (Mike Oldfield) they instantly broke into a Xhosa rap version, which they continued with the Arabian music, and lastly (their request) Waka Waka, Shakira's song for Africa. I filmed this: Watch it here. Soraya was coming to our place in the afternoon, and the plan was that I would pick her up at YWAM at about 2:15. But when I was waiting there she called to say Mella wanted her to drop Jammy Lee home after the Chip Ross class. So I bought a chocolate cake at OK Foods, picked up L-A, and we went to Chip Ross for kid's ministry. After we had led some worship, Laurie-Ann did the Bible study using meaterial specially prepared for this: 'Hearts of stone to God's heart,' and they really seemed to 'get' the message. We took seven of them back in the car up the street a short way. Soraya arrived later, but not with her son Nathan which we had expected. We had a great time of sharing and discovering about each other (and eating chocolate cake). Before she left I interviewed her for the second CWCP Radio program and she told the powerful story of how she cane to YWAM 8 months before. In the evening I called K K to tell him Sabelo was keen to meet with him. We agreed that I would try to pick up Sabelo the next morning eforeand bring him to the work site on Porter St. where K K has a contract.

Tue 13 Feb
With L-A at 12 back to school for the special Tuesday lunch, and then her art class, she started today to use one of her own pieces, Sintra, to show certain art matters to the children. In the afternoon and evening at home I was able nearly to complete the CWCP radio program. All we need now is the interview with Mella which is set for Thursday. We have in mind airing the first broadcast Thursday 22 Feb at 8 pm. That would be 1pm in Ottawa. Chris de Burgh's Cape Town concert which we preview in the show is 28 Feb. I think what we will do if the program is complete this Thursday is broadcast it exactly a week early as an unadvertised trial run. Also on this Thursday at 6 we have finally got an appointment with Johan Schoonraad, WCC, which we need to get a recommendation from him for prison ministry.

Mon 12 Feb
To Pick n Pay 15 mins earlier than last week, with the result I was able to deliver the food to Amedga's house in Avian Park and get to school on time, bringing with me a bowl of Avian Park red clay that I needed for today's science experiment. Was shocked at school to hear that Jammy Lee's nephew Andre, 21, had been killed that morning by a JCY. He was an Eggbater. She was obviously in a bad way, but preferred to be at school with us than at home. She is a very gentle soul, and extremely good with the children. She acts as an all-day teacher's asistant. These killings in Avian Park are getting altogether too close to home. In view of her knee ligaments, Laurie-Ann rightly decided not to join me for My Father's House ministry at the library, but Marco, Rens and Mario were there. Marco said they would like to come to us for dinner Monday - Thursday evenings. The other nights they are in the Park. Mario is now giving computer familiarization lessons to about a dozen Avian Park residents twice a week. I would like to sit in to see how he is doing this (maybe help out?). At 6 we went to WCC for the street ministry prayer meeting, and David was there. That's THE David from Chapter 9 of Erena's book 'From the guttermost to the Uttermost.' What a privilege to pray one-on-one with this intelligent and so experienced ex-gang member. He remains in regular contact with Erena.

Sun 11 Feb
Our ~monthly visit to Cape Town. First stop: Somerset West. In the mall I bought a memory foam mattress topper at Woolworth's. Not cheap, but our bed is on the very firm side, and this may have exacerbated L-A's pulled muscles yesterday morning. The cashier asked me about Alpha, seeing my T-shirt, which led to a brief chat about Christianity. Then to Hillsong for their 11 am service. The preacher at all South African Hillsongs this morning was Levi Lusko from Montana. Wow. Do you see the arrow in the FeDEx logo? I didn't. But now I do. We look at so many things without seeing, or by seeing something negative when the message is actually positive. After the service we chatted briefly with Steph, their Canadian team member. We ate sandwiches I had bought in Woolworth's, then drove to the home of Rev Jeremy Jobling, National Director for Alpha South Africa, and his wife Brenda. Their daughters Ruth and Nici were having lots of fun in the pool. This was a really important meeting for us as we prepare to run Alpha in Brandvlei prison. Jeremy was able to give us resources we'll be needing, and we were encouraged to hear the healthy state of Alpha acree the country. I interviewed Jeremy for our first CWCP Radio show, hopefully broadcasting in the next two weeks. We left in time for the 5 pm service at Hillsong Southern Subburbs, where the preaching was by Jenny Lusko: "Go, grow and Glow." We drove home via Spur in Paarl for dinner. I checked the interview quality - it was just fine and not a single edit will be needed!

Sat 10 Feb
Journal, gardening, devotions. Then, when L-A tried to get up, she could hardly move. We think she had pulled one or more ligaments in the back of her knee during the night. It was very painful for her to move anywhere since she will only take Arthrotec with food, and not just a few grapes. So she just somehow handled the pain, and after a couple of hours it had reduced. This put paid to our planned visit to Ceres, but we hope very much tomorrow's drive to Cape Town will still happen, when we will be meeting Jeremy Jobling, Alpha Director. I am only using brown water on the garden now, and washing up with cold water which gradually becomes brown water as the day progresses. Decided that for the first CWCP broadcast it would be fun to edit down the 38 genres of music I had introduced to the kids in my music class to about 6 seconds each and challenge listeners to identify the genres from these short clips. The editing down took longer than I expected because of selecting the best 6 seconds in each item for this purpose. I didn't include birdsong and whale music, so there were only 36 selections. I went to the mall, and with help from Pick n Pay customer service, was able to to find lemon curd! Hidden away, nowhere near jams. Also bought stem ginger in syrup. Both these are ingredients in syllabub, which L-A has promised for my birthday ...

Fri 9 Feb
For today's science experiment I needed a chicken bone, so I went to school via OK Foods and bought a drumstick. The previous ckass ended early so we got started, cutting the meat off the still warm chicken. The boys got chicken for breakfast. I broke the bone and we learned that apart from marrow, easily removed, the bone was hollow, an important way that birds are desiged for flight with less weight and more lift. We had time for the lesson I had given the kids club last Wednesday - earning and spending projections for a lifetime. Money comes from a good job (they thought it came from banks). On my way home I paid R60 at my favourite vegetable stall and got lots of beautiful grapes, potatoes, tomatoes, nectarines, cucumber and a pepper. In the afternoon I went to the Hospice. A new patient had been a pastor on the farms and he prayed for me with thanks! Another new one was badly stricken with lung cancer. I would think that he is terminal. Everyone was happy to be prayed for and recognized me. At 6:30 I went to Avian Park with Folla and he told me of a tragedy that happened the previous Monday. A four year old girl who came to this ministry regularly had been killed with a rock to the head by her step father (now in custody) apparently in anger not for the girl, but wanting to hurt her mother. Don't dwell on this; it's too horrible. I sensed a sombre tone when we arrived. I had come partly to talk to Sabelo. When I spotted him I asked him to come outside so we could talk. I told him there was a possibility of an apprenticeship with C C. He has no phone but gave me his address, Kalkoen St. 108. His full name is Sabelo Stanford. On the way home I asked Folla about his background, and heard he had been in rehab for drug use but no serious misdemeanours. That evening James had come up with several versions of a theme jingle for CWCP Radio, so L-A and I got started on putting together a first program and had about half an hour prepared by the time I turned in.

Thu 8 Feb
We heard from Marie Fourie that they were having a braai for visitors Henk and Antoinette tonight, but right at the time we attend the impressive new member classes at WCC. So reluctantly we will miss the braai. As I drove through the Hooggelegen gate, Cosmos handed me an envelope. Thursday is the new weekly swim day for Khanyo and Mpho, so I was back at school at 12:30 to take them. In the pool they quickly made friends with two young brothers. When I went in everyone wanted to stand on my shoulders. As last week I took the boys back to Zwelatemba, which Garmin seemed to remember even though I had not programmed it. L-A had prepared a great cottage pie for dinner which which I augmented with The Scallyway IPA from Drifter craft beer, good, which means no more Castle for me! At 6:30 we joined the newcommers class where Pam taught on the Holy Sirit, the gifts, and briefly on the fruits. I have never been a member of a church where all the fundamentals are taught so well (and these classes are mandatory) and I would add most churches don't teach them at all other than indirectly though Alpha. I have started taking water conservation more seriously, eg only watering the garden with brown water, not letting the tap run till it gets hot but using the cold anyway, and not washing up under a running tap, and of course minimising toilet flushing. I the afternoon I took a look at the envelope Cosmos had handed me in the morning. It was a description and charter of an NPO he had founded in 2008 called True Foundation Centre. Objectives: developing and empowering the youth of Avian Park rural settlement. It is an extraordinary document - a template for such organizations trying to improve the lot of township people here. I wonder who among the missionary community are aware of this. I need to find out from Cosmos - who is Bishop of True Foundation Ministries - if this organization is still alive, though I suspect not from the way he was talking when he visited us for tea on 23 January. I will scan his document.

Wed 7 Feb
Humpday is the one with the most activity and preparation needed and today was full and fun. Delivered food to Amedja's house and On way back moved a heavy stone off the side of the road on the R43 that would have wrecked a car if it had hit it. It had been there for several days. In science class showed how birds flap their wings, with the help of an umbrella and this video 12 mins in. Home via the mall where I bought our second ream of paper at Pick n Pay. Lynn had emailed that courier costs to send us our new bank cards were quite high. I called 3 courier companies and discovered that none of them would transport bank cards, debit or credit. Too risky. What to do about this. I told Lynn to stop searching for carriers. Back at school by 12:45 to deliver my music class. Mella wasn't there so later asked me for notes on the class - here they are: Music class began with learning what was the scientific nature of music. It is a sound wave that a musical instrument creates which we hear with our ears. To illustrate sound waves, we built a telephone with two drink cans joined by a long piece of string. Unfortunately the telephone didn’t work (and we will do it again with regular tin cans) but both the boys had seen it before, so it was still useful in understanding what a sound wave is. We discussed low pitch notes vs high pitched notes, and notes in between. We related it to what we have been learning in science about air pressure, and that sound waves are variations in air pressure that our ears can detect as sounds of different pitches. Then we got out the keyboard, a guitar, and a piece of paper with one line of music notation where we wrote the notes of the key of C. We pointed to the notes on the piano, played them on the guitar, and wrote them on the music notation as the scale of C major. We recalled various instruments of the orchestra and classified them as fixed tuned or variable tuned intruments. Fixed: Piano, piano accordion, most drums, brass, guitar. Variable pitch: strings, timpani, (African talking drum). Hence the need for an orchestra to tune up before playing, so that the variable tuned instruments can be tuned to the fixed tuned instruments (ie piano). Finally we returned to the music notation sheet and learned about time signatures: 2/4, 3/4. 4/4. and that it is important for the orchestra to keep time – the role of the conductor.

After class we waited downstairs for the boys' transport to turn up - and waited. I couldn't leave because I would be taking Jammy-Lee to Mellas's house. Eventually the transport came, we left and I got home about 2:30, the time our music session in Riverview was starting. I changed into shorts, got the instruments, and then drove with L-A to Chip Ross in Riverview. The kids were ready for us and L-A (bodhran & voice) and I led them in worship with several songs starting of course with 'Great Big God.' Eggs and apple percussion were played by kids. The Blackstar Fly 3 Watt battery powered guitar amplifier is fine for this setting. The children already knew several of the songs and learned fast with the others, coached by Soraya and Mella. After singing Soraya gave them a 10 minute Bible talk in Afrikaans. Then this bunch of happy kids enjoyed cookies and drinks. L-A and I drove into Riverview afterwards, and it's pretty large. Garmin then took us towards the Fourie's farmhouse via roads new to us with spectacular mountain and valley views. We arrived at the cafe at Fourie & LeRoux Vintners around 4:15 and enjoyed great coffee and carrot cake. L-A selected several bottles of wine and sparkling grape juice to take home. Kaysha and Harvest School 23 alumni Trevor soon joined us and we loaded the music stuff in the van. We picked up Henry and Brenda from Uganda at a cottage. Kaysha had told us that the kids were not car-friendly and it was better not to take the Mercedes anywhere near the Vinkrivier kids club. I had noticed a small grill was missing from the car after my visit a week before but didn't make any accusations because I couldn't be sure it hadn't just fallen off due to heavy driving in Avian Park. The kids had 45 minutes play time to use up some energy. Then we led the ones who would stay without shouting and running in two songs: Great Big God and Say Say. They sang well, and I think the sheets with the song words are good in this environment where learning English is beneficial to all of them. Kaysha had earlier felt they were too boistrous for a lesson from me, but we sat the willing ones down theatre style and I taught them some economics: earning and spending projections for a lifetime. Where would the money come from? A good job. What if no job? End up begging on the street. How to get a good job? 'Education' answered my star pupil, bless her! That's why we are here, said I. You have an opportunity to get some education. Take it. Trevor translated my key points into Afrikaans. The class was punctuated by the small number of trouble makers bursting into the room and shouting from time to time. But those who had decided to listen, listened. I made it as interactive as possible. When the economics was done, and they had listened for far longer than Kaysha had expected, I carried on and taught them the principles of flight, starting with a simple experiment on air pressure, and ending with a diagram of airflow over a plane's wing, generating lift. Kaysha then had a great idea - make paper aeroplanes to illustrate the talk. We ended with a paper aeroplane throwing match which I filmed. On the way back to the farm house Trevor and Brenda were very complimentary about the teaching. When we arrived, still in the van, Trevor gave us his testimony - street evangelism and the 3 foot rule are his main methods. It was powerful to hear. He had been a successful businessman. Before we left he asked us to pray for him. As we drove back to Worcester we thanked God for a very special day, and one where we had operated as a couple for much of it. But the good news was not over yet. At about 11 pm Lynn called to say she knew a couple who were shortly leaving Ottawa for Cape Town (they live in Stellenbosch). They would be happy to bring our cards. Hallelujah!

Tue 6 Feb
I asked Mella to tell me the format for the music class I will be giving in Riverview tomorrow. Janey taught her first Maths class at MasterPeace Academy. I think she'll fit in well. Briefly to YWAM at 11:30 to pick up the song sheets from yesterday that Soraya had. With the high cost of ink for the Canon printer I can't afford to lose these. Saw Folla briefly and told him I would be joining him this week because I want to speak with Sabelo. At home L-A had prepared the sandwiches for our Tuesday lunch new tradition. We took them to the school and I set up a table for 7. We had grace and a nice lunch time, with Ceres juice and lots of grapes. L-A's art class yielded some good pics as she showed them how to make their own versions of Mary Cassatt's 'The Hat.' First they learned how to colour more softly by holding the crayon in a different way, kind of sideways. They cut out the outline of a face, traced around the face on to a black card, and cut out the black face. On sheets of paper, with the face resting on it, they drew a large hat – the kind that was fashionable then, and then then cut out the hat. Then they glued the black face and the hat on to a blue sheet. Finally they coloured the hat, adding the hat band. So now Mpho and Khanyo had their own versions of Mary Cassatt’s well-known picture. Leaving school, L-A and I drove to the police building which deals with security clearances, near Shofar church. There are no signs on the building or on any of the rooms inside. Lucky I had met a policeman who had told me where to go last week. After waiting a while, and falling asleeo in a chair, they woke me, and I collected L-A from the car and the process started. The clerk took our passport details, charged us R114 each, took fingerprints (somewhat messy business) and gave us an envelope to courier to Pretoria. We got cool snacks from McDonalds, then went to Post Net to arrange the courier. They strongly recommended we pay a further R300 to have the certificates returned to us by courier and to have Post Net collect from the Police department. No one trusts the postal service! By now we were both exhaused (probably partly due to singing in the hot sun the previous afternoon) so we rested for an hour before the preparations for Wednesday, which took me till 11.

Mon 5 Feb
8:30 is too late to get to Pick n Pay for the grocery supplies for my Father's House. I wasn't able to deliver to Avian Park in time for school. However, it turned out Jammy-Lee needed a lift there around 10:30 so it all worked out - except that I forgot to drop off the cheese, and the charging cable for the amplifier was nowhere to be found. On the way there I went to Boland Cartridges, 59 B Stockenstrom St and paid R100 to have my Canon ink jet cartridge refilled. The bird feathers we had found last week for today's science experiment worked just fine and Mella and I learned a lot about the miracle that is a bird feather, and particularly the fact that the barbs hold together with the same hook and loop method that you find in Burdock seeds and Velcro. I picked up L-A and we went to Ina's Eden to meet Erena, Mia, Reggie and Aubin. This was a brainstorm about Erena renting Moriah Heights in Roodewal to be the HQ for the Changemakers and Boa Boa. Her supporters in UK are right behind it but want to see full financial accountability going forward. The bookkeeper for the Kibbutz had died two years ago and was sorely missed. So Erena really needed someone looking after the bookkeeping, and Laurie-Ann agreed to be the one. L-A had felt strongly called to play a role in the Kibbutz, and this was even better - Erena's new project.

We bought Big Macs on the way home because our time was tight. With the cartridge refilled I printed off the rest of the songsheets version 2. At 2:45 we picked up Soraya at YWAM and drove to the Avian Park Library. It was so hot I temporarily placed the music equipment inside the library. We waited till 3:45 but only half of the kids had arrived - the younger ones. We went out and sang some songs including 'Say Say' and 'Sandy lands,' and all the children crushed into a small portable hut for its shade while L-A and I sang in the full heat. I couldn't hear or see if they were singing, but they were. Before Soraya gave them the Bible study, I gave them a pep talk on what a library was and that we needed to keep voices down (after a complaint last time from Library staff). Because this class had none of the older rowdier boys (and not because of my talk) they were very well behaved, listening to Soroya's every word. She had decided not to use the sophisticed teaching guide from the last few weeks, but just to talk to them. I support her in this decision. We attended the street ministry prayer/brainstoming at Worcester Christian Church (which from now on I will call WCC) at 6 led by Peter Louie. As he commented, there were disappointingly there - just 8. Laurie-Ann brought up the concept of prayer walking. I suggested that as an intial project we prayer walk the area in Avian Park in the week before WCC will be holding an evening of praise, Sun 4 March, but this didn't gain traction, I think because it is seen as too dangerous. I still think we should do it and if push comes to shove I would be prepared to lead it. In the evening I phoned K K, owner of C C whom I had met after the early prayer meeting on Church Square last Friday, and put the suggestion to him about taking on an apprentice who he could train up eventually to run the company while K K remained as owner. He is interested in meeting my candidate for this position. Received an email from Mella asking me to document tomorrow's art class in words and photos (as she does for many of the classes, and posts them to FaceBook. She would also like me to create a page for the Teachers of the Nations site with headshots and bios for the 5 current teachers.

Sun 4 Feb
To the best service we have yet attended at Worcester Christian Church. The worship band had everything right - first time we had heard this particular band. Johan repeated for emphasis some of the points he had made a few weeks before about the Word being seed that we are responsible for sowing, but the Holy Ghost is responsible for nurturing, while we can rest. It occured to me that we do have a major responsibility for finding good soil (parable of the sower). We had a pleasant coffee at the church cafe, and I chatted to the keyboard player in the band, before going to cell group. Nik brought us up to date with the ongoing meetings (one tomorrow afternoon in the same room we will use for kid's miistry) in Avian Park seeking some sort of solution. There was another killing there this morning - a 24 year old man. I asked him afterward if they had not sought wisdom from Erena van de Venter who had solved similar issues in Roodewal in the '80s, and it seems they haven't. Strange. I spent quite a lot of time at home preparing a new song sheet for the (now) three kid's groups I'll be leading in song this week. Found a great song, Say Say when I Googled 'praise songs for kids.' Learned a new chord, F2, necessary of this song. When the time came to print out 20 copies, my second ink cartridge dried up half way through. Turns out it is only rated at 180 sheets. There is an XL version which does 1000 sheets. Time to investigate refilling cartridges.

Sat 3 Feb
I like Saturdays, not just because there aren't so many scheduled appointments and tasks, but because I can catch up on no-stress housekeeping and small tasks listed on my do list, without looking at the time and the calendar. I started today mopping half the floor (I had mopped the other half yesterday) and then I used the brown water for mopping the car. It was an experiment but it worked! Try washing your car with a mop and you may be surprized. The main advantage here is that it needed no aditional water other than I had left after the floor, and we are under water restriction, though not as severe as Cape Town. The water that was left went on the garden and I cleared three trough fulls of weeds and small dead branches from under a bush at the left hand end. Yes, I've reached the left hand end! I am discovering how the sprinkler system is laid out now much of the the surplus growth is cleared. By the time I finished, the floor had dried and L-A was still sleeping peacefully. I cooked us breakfast. During the morning I edited and posted the film of the MasterPeace Academy boys swimming, and selected 5 more praise songs to add to the repertoire for Monday and Wednesday's kid's praise. Laurie-Ann prepared our February update and Mail Chimped it to our email lists. She has single handled all such updates (though I proofread and edit) and the coppleswestercape.ca site is all her work. I just post to Facebook and Twitter. Yesterday when looking for something else on YouTube I found a fascinating scientific report on speaking in tongues, so that went to Twitter. Items specifically related to our mission generally go to FaceBook. L-A spent a while preparing dinner - Maggie came over from Robertson to help us eat it and we had a most enjoyable evening in her company. It wasn't just small talk; we looked into some theological questions which Laurie-Ann contributed to most expertly (I thought). We all watched the swim video and then an episode of 'Adventures with God' where Darrel Wilson looks into some of the less obvious ways in which God in his wisdom sometimes communicates with us/gets our attention.

Fri 2 Feb
Got up early to attend a Worchester Christian Church 6 am prayer meeting on Church Square. After the meeting I was drawn into a conversation with an entrepreneur I will call K K. We talked about his business and I asked about succession planning. I wondered if he had considered what his wife's financial situation would be if he died prematurely or became unable to work. I sowed the idea of training up an apprentice with the potential eventually to manage the company while he sat back as president and spent the money. After school I picked up L-A at home and we went for Afrikaans - now just one day a week. We heard that Janey will be teaching maths at MasterPeace Academy, following my call to Mella. She had been in to meet them and surprize surprize she had taught Khanyo at primary school some years before. We returned home in time for me to go to the school and pick up the boys for a swimming. Before going into the water myself I took video of them on my Blackberry. They had such fun together in the pool and tried their best to have me let them stay till 3. But I had other plans and got them into the car before 2, and following Khanyo's directions brought them to their home in Zvelatemba, the black township. Their house was quite nice, brick construction and not too small - and Zwelatemba was more like a suburb of Worcester than a township. After driving home for a cup of tea, I went on my weekly visit to the hospice and prayed with about 13 who are beginning to feel a bit like friends, and they seem to be glad that I am coming in. When I left, I wandered onto some vacant land looking for a bird's feather. In fact I prayed to the Lord that I might find one. After walking for 15 minutes I was returning to the car, and on the last yard of waste land I saw a feather! It should be fine for Monday's class. At 5 pm we were at the Worcester House of Hope, a refuge for abused women and children. Louise Ademolu, whom I had met at YWAM, welcomed us and told us all about this important resource, which has 15 beds and where residents can stay up to 6 months. The demand is high, and they are having to turn down people who have been referred by the emergency serices. We feel drawn to invite individuals there out for a drive to Hermanus, or even just to our home for tea and a chat. Louise will send us application forms. We ended our travels today as the Q Square annual Moonlight Bubbly Fest was getting under way. We had most of what was available, e.g. a bottle of sparkling wine, boere rolls, coffee, and my favourite, pancakes as nice as my mother used to make, for which the serving lady, Ansi, went to the trouble of buying a lemon in the nearby Spar because I had mentioned earlier to her that I like my pancakes with lemon and sugar. Later at home I skyped Cindy, who sadly had recently been in a serious car accident and wrecked her new car. Sounded like a question of two vehicles crossing an intersection on yellow. She has been having physiotherapy and I hope her injories will heal fast. She is a first class driver so hopefully won't lose points etc. And now, here's that film of Mpho and Khanyo playing in the pool that I mentioned earlier.

Thu 1 Feb
Thankfully, Laurie-Ann felt a little better ths morning. This is a relief when your health insurance only covers emergencies. All was well at school. In the afternoon I went to the police station to get a security check for Brandvlei. They referred me to another office in town, where I went. After some searching and help I found the right person, but she told me I should come back next street ministry week with R140, and that she wouldn't need my clearances from Canada and UK, just my ID. Two ladies, Stephanie and Kathy from the Hooggelegen social committee paid us a pleasant visit to make sure we had settled in, and left us a package of cookies. Nice touch. Apparently there is some strife in the village between those who support the community centre unde construction by the main gate, and those who don't want it. The building is progressing, but the roof tressels were the wrong shape, so they are now compensating by building the walls a few bricks higher. At 6:30 we attended the second Christianity orientation at Worcester Christian Church. It was as powerful as the first talk. We reminded Leonie that we need to meet Johan Schoonraad. Turns out he was away at a conference in Pretoria for the first part of the week. When we got home I started to prepare tomorrow's science class, and found that it required a bird feather and velcro. Velcro I have on my sandals, but after searching by tourchlight down and up our street there was no evidence of birds having flown. So I switched the experiment with the next one, and was able to make it work at home. L-A received a Whatsapp that Johan had called a men's prayer meeting for 6am Friday to cry out to God for rain in Cape Town in this worst ever water crisis there. I felt uncomfortable with skipping this (read: 'God told me the attend'). I had a little time for continuing translating an Afrikaans children's Bible. Tonight would be interesting since Laurie-Ann was attending a LIFT board meeting via Skype at our time 2:15 am - 4 am. So we set the alarm for 2, and when it went off, re-set it for 5:30.

Wed 31 Jan
It was clear when we woke that L-A wouldn't be making it to school today, so I would take over her art class. There was a FB message from Johan Fourie asking when might be a good time for Christine (whom we had met on Sunday) to take video of our music ministry, or anything else we were doing. I replied 'Tonight' at Kid's club. As I was having breakfast, Mella called with an emergency. A couple she knew in Avian Park (right next door to Folla's 'church,') run a children's 'soup kitchen' for about 60 kids, but they are right out of food today other than some cabbage. They had asked Mella to bring them food for the children as soon as possible. Mella couldn't just leave the school, so she called me for help. After hearing more details I agreed. When I went to Pick n Pay to buy bread and polony for My Father's House I also bought 10Kg rice, sugar, salt and canola oil for them. The challenge was that though I knew their house deep in Avian Park, I wasn't sure exactly how to get there, so I prayed. After delivering to Amedja, I continued to the early part of the drive to Folla's church. Then I was hailed by Sabelo, an early 20s who comes to Folla's church. I asked him to jump in and direct me. When we got there it was clear they saw us as an answer to prayer as I gave them the food. She showed me the registration book with the names of about 60 children. Some may be the same kids who come to Folla's. I prayed with them and then I got on my way to school. This morning's science class at
MasterPeace Academy was 'Foot crawling and jet propulsion,' looking at how some species made on the fifth day of creation get around. I had the boys sit on a cushion and propel themselves using one foot on the floor to illustrate how a clam moves, and then we filled balloons with water and put them in a bucket of water to see the way an octopus moves by squirting a stream of water in the opposite direction. I let them release blown up balloons in the air so that we could extend the analogy to jet planes. We even touched on how crabs and krill get around. We are using a wonderful book: Science - in the beginning, by Dr. Jay Wile for these classes. Mella asked if I might be willing to take the boys swimming periodically. I said I would and we can start Friday if they remember to bring trunks and towels. I can maybe drive them home afterwards to Zweletemba township.

I went home and Laurie-Ann taught me how to do her art class for the afternoon. The art part was relatively easy. The hard part was bringing up the 'Meet the Masters' software protected by Mella's ID/password. In the end I took the easy road, put the computer in sleep mode, and didn't need the password when the class began. I took the boys through a review of last week's class, and then on to a test of their comprehension. They got 100%! Then we got to several pages of drawing basic elements of a picture: eyes, noses, chins. While Mpho found this more difficult than Khanyo, he was extremely persisten in his efforts to do it right. Such a difference from when he hadn't taken his meds. He clearly has a liking for art, but his coordination prevents him drawing well or copying. After art class, I went home for a bite to eat, until Jammy Lee called to say the boys father had turned up to take them home. I then picked her up at the school and took her to Mella's house. After half an hour we drove in convoy to Riverview township, where a bunch of Mella's students from the previous term materialized, happy to see her. Soraya was also there. The lease had ended on the building she had used to teach them music, but she was able to negotiate an instant deal on a room in another building! So, from next Wednesday, I will be singing some praise songs with them, and then teaching them music. I have a week to figure out how this can best be done and what form of teaching will work best for them. At 4:15 I left to drive to Vinkrivier, where the IRIS Western Cape farm kid's club operates every Wednesday. Kaysha and Maggie have been leading it. Today Chistine was there shooting video. These kids are pretty wild and they like to attack cars. Next time I will park on the street. I set up my guitar and the battery amplifier at about 5pm, and started on 'Great Big God.' It was an instant hit! We sang it several times and Maggie added actions. After that I played a couple more but the background noise was rising. We sat them round two tables and I taught them about the Fifth day of creation - the first talk I had done at MasterPeace classifying animals and plants using a Venn diagram. It worked. Apart from a few troublemakers who were asked to leave the room, the others listened, were very interactive, and ended up with real information. This went on till about 6pm. I believe it had been worthwhile, and given Kaysha and Maggie a break. I returned home, buying some food on the way home which I turned into a meal which we had with a glass of wine. Today I had been involved in more activities than any day so far. I prepared tomorrow's science class, but wasn't able to make the experiment work the way it was described in 'Science - in the beginning' so I figures out some changes until it did work. I found Dr Wile on Facebook and sent him a message describing the changes he should make to the book!

Tue 30 Jan
L-A is not too well, so we will switch the days that she does art at school and I do music. Hopefully she'll feel better on Wednesday. Despite feeling ill she got up early to make the sandwiches she had offered to bring once a week. I attempted to pour one of the three jellies on to a plate, but it had hardly any more strength than the previous batch. So I started working on other ways I could teach the lesson without actually pouring the two remaining jellies. One problem was transporting them in the car. I foolishly put then on a plate on the back seat. Before I had driven for 5 minutes, both of them had fallen over onto the car uphostlery. I put them in the bag with the sandwiches. On my way I took our laundry bag to a laundry in the OK Food mall, which has hours of 7:30 - 6pm. At school it was hot. There is no A/C and little breeze though the four open windows. But, as I started my lesson on vertebrates and invertabrates, one thing was better: Mpho had taken his medication and was a lot more social. I illustrated the strength that comes from a backbone by having the boys stick toothpicks in one of the jelly cups, and illustrated shell-carrying invertebrates (eg snails) with the jelly I had wrapped in foil. They got the message. After explaining the key differences with a Venn diagram, for the first time in this course I introduced them to Wikipedia, something that had come to me when brainstorming the night before, which has tables of the 97% of invertebrate species and the 3% of vertebrates. We are hugely outnumbered, folks! Around this time, Mpho said to me that it was raining. I could see no rain. The lesson had gone well. I had told Mella I would stay all day (and plan to on every Tuesday) so I got to teach Khanyo arithmetic. We worked through some grade tests, and he is up to the grade level of a 9 year old, even though he is 7. We got to a point in the questions where I didn't know the answers, so got a quick lesson from Mella. [7 8/9 - 2 5/6]. I can see long division is coming up, and I don't know how to do that either.

At lunch time I set a table so all of us would sit together, including Jammy Lee, back from her sickness. Khanyo said grace and we all enjoyed the lunch L-A had prepared, including some tropical Ceres fruit juice. For my music class, 'Instruments of the Orchestra and not of the orchestra,' I had found 3 excellent on-line resources, this, this and this. After that we spotlighted an instrument not in the orchestra, the electric guitar, by watching solos by Mark Knopfler and David Gilmour. However, the boy's favourite instrument is drums. On my way home I picked up the laundry (they did a good job). In the evening, L-A's temperature rose to 100 F, and we decided that if she didn't have a miraculous overnight recovery, I would teach her art class, which meant she would have to teach me tomorrow morning. At around 7pm it started to rain. Just a shower, but the first rain we had seen for weeks. I thought about Mpho. Cape Town is in a serious drought, with April projected as the date they will run out of water. Worcester is not short of water, thank God.

Mon 29 Jan
It's Monday, so I went to buy the food supplies for My Father's House Monday afternoon session. By the time I had bought most of the stuff (plus more jelly for the science experiment re-do), I realized I wouldn't have time to deliver it to Amedja in Avian Park before school, so I called her to check she can receive it at 10:30 after my lesson. In the lesson I taught all they might understand about radio propagation, Internet and Internet radio, recording studios and sound waves in about 15 minutes. Then I got out the Marantz digital recorder and the SM58 mic and interviewed the boys about how they like school. Today Mella is taking them swimming at a public pool at lunch time. I thought it would be fun and a bonding experience so I met them there. The pool is huge and nice and with only about 5 people swimming. The water is at ideal temperature and the boys and I had fun for half an hour. Mella took pictures. I got home and get the musical stuff into the car for My Father's House. I picked up Soraya from YWAM at 2:45 and we are at the Avian Park library by 3. There were about 40 kids, and we go ourside into the hot for music. By now now the mic was too hot to hold, but I forget the mic stand anyway. We sang about 6 praise songs, including teaching them 'Great Big God.' Back in the library room, they all want to talk at once, but Soroya tames them to some extent and teaches about Christian character. Pastor Mario (Brazil) was there with moral support and a good word of welcome. At the end one of the library staff told me that we were making far too much noise for a library. engaging in conversations most of the time. In the evening L-A made the jelly that I needed for school, measuring the powder and the water carefully, and put it in the fridge to set.

Sun 28 Jan
We drove to Johan and Marie's house, the HQ of IRIS Western Cape on the road to Robertson for the second IRIS family get together, organised by Maggie on 28 December (see below) after the first one. She had asked me to lead worship for these events, and Laurie-Ann to give a talk for this one. L-A had shared her talk with me the previous night, and it was not only an intriguing call for foundations and for encirling believers and potential believers in holy nets, it was also an encouragement for this group to build a tighter sense of family among us. Johan was not feeling well, but joined us despite this. Afer Maggie had spoken an opening prayer, I played all the songs I had prepared for the Avian Park children the previous Monday, including those like 'Great Big God' which had blown away then. The battery-powered amplifier chose this morning for its batteries to be exhausted, so I played unamplified, but it was OK. Then L-A gave her talk, and it was indeed appropriate for the occasion and appreciated. I recorded it on my phone which meant I took no pictures of her, but I do have some pictures of the event. After the talk, Mike and Carolynn's children prayed for Johan which was special, and the rest of the time was spent in prayer for one another before we ate toghther the food we had brought. In addition to the regular members of IRIS Western cape we were joined by an American girl who had come to South Africa after being compensated by an airline with a free ticket to anywhere she wanted after the airline had screwed up. There was another couple from Uganda (he was originally from Holland) who are planning to start a wine business there and were here to see how it is done. L-A and I drove home about 2 pm and spent the I spent time on my do list including preparation for CWCP Radio. Mid evening I decided to prepare the jelly for tomorrow's science experiment. I had left it in the fridge to set the night before. But when I turned the jellies on to plates they collapsed into formless piles. I must have had the proportions wrong. It was too late to buy more jelly. Then the idea came to me to change the lesson to explaining how radio works, and then interviewing Kanyo and Mpho for our first broadcast. I called Mella and she agreed. I prepared the lesson and got the recording equipment ready.

Sat 27 Jan
I feel a sense of accomplishment after last week, replacing a sense of minor forboding. Early mornings, time at the school, time spent preparing the school work, yet also managing to go into Avian Park and the hospice. The geyser thermostat continues to work just fine. Laurie-Ann also was active, and we worked together on praise and worship for My Father's House. It was such a relief to me when the kids joined in singing the songs. She is feeling better than she has been since we arrived in South Africa. We can do this! There is a lot to be done but we have contributed in a number of areas and seen benefit to children and some adults. All these good things can only be the results of prayers of many people faithfully interceding - I can sense them. We are so grateful to them.

Because we were so busy, my do list grew somewhat during the week, so today was an opportunity to catch up with a number of tasks. It was also an exciting day for cricket as the Proteus and India began the day neck and neck in the 3rd test. I catch it in the car on Radio 2000 and in the house on TV. The quality of play has been high; after all these are the top teams in the world right now. I have also continued to do a little gardening most days and to water the patch with brown water. I have e-mailed our landlady with a friendly message since I would have thought she would like to be in touch with her tenants. I also e-mailed James (my son) and he has agreed to compose and record a 5 second theme for CWCP Radio.

Fri 26 Jan
Mella called early to say her car was fixed, so I had a little more home time (eg for this journal and a coffee). I arrived at 8:30 since I needed to put a blue egg into water for an hour to show osmosis. I then had time to do Afrikaans homework - translating a poem about an owl into English, which I did with help from the iTranslator app on my Blackberry. The science class went reasonably well, but once the experiment was complete, the boys grew restless when it came to my explanation of diffusion and Mella was out of the room, and I think they took advantage of that. After my class I left and went to Grondbeurs. They had informed me that the rent I had wired them was short by R261.41. They don't accept credit cards or cash, but they agreed just to add it to next month's account. Then went home to pick up L-A for Afrikaans lesson. We had fun reading our versions of the translated poem. I suggested it might be better to translate prose next time - less contrived sentences. Janey printed off a suitable piece. We will see them just once a week on Fridays now that we are very busy with the school at the beginning of the week. After lunch I prepared 7 Africaans phrases that I could use repeatedly; for example: Ek besoek die pasiente (I am visiting the patients) and then went for my weekly Hospice visit. There were more patients that I had seen before - about 15 in wards accessible to me. Of course I had a good chat with Moses and gave him a can of ice tea.

In the evening, Laurie-Ann spent several hours at Jan's home developing a web site for My Father's House. Here's the result. While she was doing that I drove to Rawsonville as a follow on to last week's visit, arriving about 6 and staying till about 8. Many more were in the streets this week. I think I saw some drug deals in progress just a few yards from the police station. Lot's of men were sitting on the sidewalk. In the area of the fish and chip shop half an hour later there had been no increase in activity. People are buying liquor(?) and carrying it somewhere in grocery bags. But people are also buying pop, another addiction here in South Africa, and one of the reasons for so much diabetes. Over the next 90 minutes the activity grew less. I say no fights or drunkenness. I think that reports of such may have been exagerated. At 8 pm I drove home. At 10 I went to collect L-A from Jan's. This was the night one of my teeth fell out. I knew it would happen, but didn't know if it would affect my plate that holds several of my false front teeth. By God's grace, it didn't affect them; neither was it painful. It is only visible if I smile quite widely on the right side. But I do need dental treatment to fill the largish hole left there. I have no dental insurance,

Thu 25 Jan
My science experiment for today was complex in that the key ingredient, an egg, needed to be left in various states for several hours, and the class is only 40 minutes. The night before I had left the egg (shell is a base) in a bowl of vinegar (acid) and by morning the hard shell had been removed in the chemical reaction leaving the egg held just in the semi-permeable membrane. I took it to school and as soon as I was there put it in water with blue food coloring. By the time of my class, 9:30, the egg was blue, and I was ready to teach about atoms, reactions between atoms and other atoms or substances composed of atoms, the periodic table, gases, solids and liquids. This led to the specific case of the egg and what had happened to the shell in a reaction between acid and base. Khanyo and Mpho enjoyed feeling the squishy egg, and then I put it in water containing ble food colouring to allow further osmosis, promising to show the result before the end of school today. I went home. At 1:30 I returned to school, and showed them that the egg was now blue (but the blue dye, a solute, was inside the egg, not on its surface). I passsed the egg round. Unfortunately, as Mpho handed it to Mella, it dropped on the floor, revealing the contents and leaving the sad, blue membrane like a dead snake. Much excitement, and a learning curve as I cleaned up the mess, which needed things we didn't have (a cloth or a mop). I think they will remember this experiment! I took the boys to a 'taxi' (like minibus) at McDonalds, and Mella to her home. I then went shopping for more blue food coloring and a few other things from Pick n Pay, then to the water shop to refill our large plastic container for R4, and then to my favourite place in Worcester, the Traffic Department. I needed to find the status on my appeal made 3 Jan against a R500 fine for not having my car licence disk visible. It turned out I still had to pay, but only R200. I felt much better! I went home and set up the egg and vinigar experiment again, even though I would have to get up at 4 am to switch it from the vinegar to the blue water. From 6 to 7 we attended the first of a 6 week orientation for Worcester Christian Church, expertly led by Pam Hugo. She stated with Adam's sin, causing his spirit to die in separation from God. She covered the Passover blood, atonement, the Lamb of God slaughtered. God is love, demonstrated by sending his Son here. He is grace, He is just. But if we confess our belief, he does the biggest miracle in our life, rebirthing his Spirit in our body. We are reborn in the Spirit of God. We are bought again by the blood of Christ into the Kingdom, and out of the kigdom of darkness. This starts a beautiful process of transformation into the Holy Family. If you die in this condition you will have eternal life. Back home, I ended the day with music practice for Sunday when I will play for our monthly IRIS get-together.

Wed 24 Jan
My shower was fine. Could have been a degree hotter, but not worth the trouble of another loft trip and unlikely to be that accurate. Noone will scald themselves in our house, and we'll save heating costs. I light-breakfasted and got down to Mella's home to bring her to school, since her car is not yet fixed. At the school, Khanyo and Mpho had arrived already, dressed in their perfectly while starched shirts, but there was no sign of the three girls. Probably their mothers hadn't let them come because Mella had asked them to bring lunches with them, and there is an attitude that if a child is good enough to attend school, the school must feed them. So they are forsaking education for a sandwich. Today's experiment involved osmosis and potatoes, so I set up the slices, one in fresh water and one in salt water so they would be ready for my class. I then drove to Pick n Pay for 6 loaves and polony, paid for with My Father's House credit card, and delivered to Amedja Williams at 23 Nightingale St, Avian Park. She asked me for the keys to the Wendy house where today's class would be held, but I didn't have them. I got her number, and returned to school. The experiment with potato slices in fresh and salt water, demonstrating osmosis, went well. After my class I went home for an hour working on the music class this afternoon, but took a time out to collect the My Father's House keys from Jan at YWAM and take them to 23 Nightingale. My first music appreciation class was to demonstrate the richness in musical genres, and just in time I completed preparing examples of 38 western music genres. Jumped in car with computer, Pyle amp and Mini-Sandwich speaker and was back, set up in the classroom by 1 pm. We started with bird and whale songs, and then on to classical music. I had time for just 1 minute of each genre, and I had the kids give marks /10 for how much they liked each selection. It took them a few seconds to decide. Anything with rhythm was good. Experimental music not so good. Wavin' Flag by K'Naan (rap genre) was the song they went away singing, and interestingly they recognised my example of musical play, King Kong, the South African musical, which I'd seen on the London Stage about 1965 featuring Miriam Makeba (still going strong) and Hugh Masekela who died yesterday. There is a revival of King Kong currently in South Africa. My objective in kicking off the music series this way is to widen their knowledge of music so that they don't limit themselves to one or two genres when there is so much to enjoy. Mella likes music, especially jazz, and often plays it on her phone during class because she believes they understand and memorize faster when accompanied by Duke Ellington or Chuck Mangione.

Although it had been a long day already, I decided to go to the Avian Park kid's ministry tonight on the Wednesday (as I did last week) to free up Friday for Rawsonville. But this Wednesday was different because Folla wasn't there till the very end. There was a largish group of young Brazilian YWAMs and we went in a minibus. The same leader who was on recently did a good job with music to an acoustic guitar, and then another gave a good talk acting out the road to Emmaus using three kids as props. I noticed there were more and more adults piling in to take advantage of the food. I got myself to serve the rice since I was worried that with so many kids and adults there might not be enough. In the end, all the kids and half the adults got reasonable portions but the last group of adults got less and less. After the food there was a long period of waiting around for Folla to come and pick us up. There was no leadership and it was all a bit tedius. I started wondering if I shouldn't call it quits, since now I would be very busy with school. The negative would be that the kids were getting to know me, and giving up on them doesn't feel right. On the way home Folla told me that he had been in Avian Park at 6 am to escort a bright young man to Stellenbosch university. The family had tears of joy as he left home. Everything went well including the registration, and he is now a student at one of South Africa's finest universities, quite a feat for an Avian Park kid, and a matter of great pride for Folla who had mentored him for years. I told Folla tht we had run out of rice because of larger numbers of adults there for the food, and he said that tended to happen whenever he wasn't there - the word got around and they took advantage.

Tue 23 Jan
The shower in the morning was just a little too hot for (my) comfort. Today is our debut at MasterPeace Academy, with real students. Mella had sent a message asking us if we would pick her up at her home at 7:45 and bring her to the school. This we did. Her car wouldn't start and she wasn't feeling too well. We arrived at the school about 7:55 and shortly after, Khanyo and Mpho arrived, smart in their uniforms. Then three girls were brought in: Nikki, Estie and Samantha. The opening devotional was interrupted by someone arriving and wanting to speak to Mella, so she asked me to tell them something about Jesus. I started with the Trinity, then the childhood, then the ministry, and ended with the passion and the resurrection. The first lesson each day is English, then science, then social studies, then Maths, and on Tuesday afternoons, arts. Mella made good use of us throughout the day. My science class, taken from the excellent book "Science - in the beginning," by Dr Jay L. Wile. went well enough as we worked on the fifth day of creation: animals and fish. We used on a Venn diagram, showing the differences and commonalities between animals and plants, and including anomalies such as the Venus Flytrap and coral. Laurie-Ann's art syllabus opened with a description of Mary Cassatt, who happens to be one of her favourite impressionists. She gave an intriguing survey analysing several of Cassatt's pieces, and I for one was captivated. The kids' attention spans are limited, but they respond well to being asked questions. Mpho is a special case. About 8, he is ADD, and when he started at the school in October was unable to read. At this school he has very individual teaching and he is coming along very well, though somewhat disruptive since he wants to be doing something physical all the time.

We had invited Cosmos Mphetswa, a friendly guard on the gate of Hooggelegen village, to come to our house for some social time. He walked all the way from Avian Park to be with us at 3 (I had offered to pick him up but he has a car - however on this occasion his sons had driven to Cape Town.) He gave us a first hand account of what it was like living there in one of those tiny houses. Main worry: being shot in crossfire of gang warfare. He had his family have never been involved in gangs or drugs - they are serious about their Christian faith. He had been involved a church plant in Avian Park, but it had since closed. I felt he is the kind of intelligent man that social scientists should be quizzing when trying to find the answers to the problems. The three of us bonded well, and I drove him back afterwards to his door. In the evening I returned to the loft and turned the thermostat down a smidgeon. Hoping this would be the final adjustment, I screwed the cover back, tidied the insulation, and returned the ladder to the garage.

Mon 22 Jan
The shower didn't scald me! Eureka! I have been turning the right knob. In fact I think the water is now cooler than it should be. Today is a big day for us. MasterPeace Academy in the morning - a day before we actually start teaching, and then My Father's House in the afternoon. But before these I was at Pick n Pay at 8:30 with Jan Buchanan buying food for the kids in Avian Park this afternoon, and then delivered them to the home of a lady - Amedja - who will make up the sandwiches and drinks. We arrived at MasterPeace jsut after Mella and Jammy Lee had begun their morning prayers, so we joined in. I spent my time making sure everything was in place for my first science lesson the next day. Also had some questions for Mella, e.g. dress code for teachers. Turns out I'll be wearing long pants and a shirt. Mella's car hadn't started that morning and she had tried to reach us without success. My phone turned out to be muted. I can't allow this to happen again. At 11:45 we dropped Mella and Jammy Lee at Q-Square and went home for lunch (third helping of the Rawsonville fish n chips.) I had picked up the audio amplifier from Jan earlier so I had a chance to re-check it out. Jan sent us a message asking us to pick up Soraya from YWAM, and when we did, Awesome and Folla happened to be there and I was able to introduce them to L-A. We drove in to the Library at Avian and found we were allocated an excellent room. I set up the guitar and mic outside in the parking lot, but there was a problem. Wind. When I wasn't looking it blew away the music sheets for half the praise songs I had prepared. I was able to recover enough of them for today's needs, except Our God is a Great Big God, which must be somewhere in Avian Park tonight as I write this. Hope it blesses someone. Many of the kids who would be on this 'Bible Study' had not heard that today it would be in the library, so they turned up a little late. When they came we played and sang about 6 songs - L-A accompanyiong on Bohdran - all of which they seemed to know and joined in with gusto. This was the answer to my prayers. My considerable amount of practice the last few days had paid off; my fingers worked fine and the amplifier did a great job for both guitar and mic. One of the boys was very helpful ensuring my music didn't fly away. I had prepared song sheets which seemed to work for the kids. After the music the food was served. This was probably a mistake, having it before the Bible study. Soraya came into her own for the Bible study, allocating it only for 12 year olds+. The younger kids had a separate session with Amedja. Both sessions were in Afrikaans, and they were well received for 40 mins plus. We dropped off the people and the amplifier at Amedja's house, and then Soraya agreed to come to our place for a cold drink. We had a lovely chat with this talented ex-Muslim YWAM missionary who just loves so much to evangelize and disciple. She is working with all three of the main ministries that we are/will be part of so we'll see her regularly. After I had taken her back to YWAM I went into the loft and turned up (!) the thermostat.

Sun 21 Jan
Up the ladder to turn down the thermostat further after showering and it still being too hot. Then to church picking up Janey. It was full - everyone back from holiday. After the service was a brainstorming / prayer session on a potential street ministry. Then on to cell group at 174 Stockenstrom which was also a full house. Everyone was invited to pontificate on the state of their world and many praised this particular group's members for their support and friendship. Nik recounted recent meetings called by the NPO Federation of Worcester, with stakeholders associated with soup kitchens in Avian Park, who seek any solution to reduce violence there. Unfortunately no solutions have presented themselves. There are plans for councelling for survivors. There was another gang murder last Thursday, and Discipling the Streets, headed by Marco Ruiters was quickly on the scene to comfort the victim's mother. Significant money budgeted for schemes to help the township populations recently evaporated because it wasn't spent before year-end. Soup kitchens are not the answer either - they become expected rather than emergency provision. Seems to me that unless the young people are educated, the problem will persist. Jan and Joy were there; it was Joy's 10th birthday and she collected some presents including from us. Jan spoke of recent progress My Father's House was making towards the provision of trained trauma counsellors - she is currently attending a YWAM counselling course. In the afternoon and evening we worked on requirements for next weeks teaching schedule. For example, I updated my Christian bio.

Sat 20 Jan.
We had a meeting set at 10 with Mella Davis and two other staff, Jammy Lee and Soraya at MasterPeace Academy to kick off the new school term. My schedule for science teaching will be each morning from 9:30 - 10:10, and on Wednesdays, music from 1 - 1:40. On Wednesday we would go to Chip Ross in Riverview township from 3 - 5 for praise & worship followed by music lessons. There is a possibility of my teaching maths as well but I feel I should walk before I run. Laurie-Ann would teach art on Wednesdays 1 - 1:40, plus some admin duties editing devotional materials and producing T-Shirts that Mella has designed but have yet to find a market. I presented a music syllabus concept that I had devised which I felt would engage the children in appreciation for music rather than just learning an instrument. We will start teaching on Tuesday.

Titus turned up with a ladder. I had mentioned to him that I needed to reduce the water temperature of the geyser (furnace) so that if I turn on just the hot tap in the shower I don't get scalded. Grondbeurs had told us that the geyser was in the loft above the garage, but there was no sign of it. So I went up through the other loft in the bathroom and there it was. With encouragement from Titus I got into the loft and found something that appeared to be a thermostat with a dial setting. I changed the setting and came down. Several hours later the water was still too hot. Titus had said we could hang onto the ladder for a few days so I went up again and turned the thermostat the other way. This routine was to continue twice more during the weekend. Meantime L-A was preparing Hungarian goulash and bread & butter pudding for a dinner party that evening. At six I was at Andre and Janey's house to bring them to be our first guests in our new home, and we had a splendid evening of conversation, laughter and the meal. Laduma, Andre's labrador-retriever guide dog was here too, and benefitted from some of Janey's goulash. He and I should be good friends from now on! At one point of the evening Andre and I talked Christianity while L-A and Janey did the same but at a much deeper level.

Fri 19 Jan
Spent the first part of the morning preparing for my two big events next week: teaching at Masterpeace Academy, and leading worship for 40 teenagers open air in Avian Park. Both have disaster potential so I need to be as prepared as possible. When googling for something else I ran across a description of the revival of 1860 which first broke out in Worcester. Here is a small but significant segment: "Amongst the first to be impacted by the Revival were the coloured farm workers near Worcester. A written account of these farm workers described them as: “debased and shriveled with drink and drunk all day long, sullen wretched creatures…” It was this least expected quarter that the Revival hit most powerfully. Farm workers fell to the ground and cried out for mercy, so greatly was the presence of God felt. At first Andrew Murray was shocked at the emotionalism and apparent disorder. Andrew's knowledge of revival had been limited to the Scottish experience where congregations were far more orderly and restrained. As Andrew sought to take control of a prayer meeting where people were experiencing agonies of conviction of sin, a stranger touched Ds. Murray and warned him: “Be careful what you do, for it is the Spirit of God that is at work here”.." Read the complete document

We went to our Afrikaans lesson. Andre raised the matter of the shape of future lessons. So far we have covered vocabulary and short sentences and phrases. He suggested that a part of each future lesson be simple conversations in Afrikaans where they say something and, taking our time, we reply. Janey suggested that she provide us with examples of simple Afrikaans written text that we translate, and she printed a poem, and will let us have other material. She normally teaches English to non-English speakers; we are her first students learning Afrikaans(!) At 3:30 we drove to Rawsonville to carry out Lynnette Louw's (Dept of Soc Dev) suggestion to watch what happens there on Friday afternoons. We parked the car at one end of the main street and started praying as we watched people gathering around liquor stores. Some were going in and buying but most were standing around. There were plenty of children who seemed contented enough. There was no tension in the air or unruly behavior. After an hour we drove to the other end of town and parked and continued watching and praying. We saw a few backies and other commercial vehicles bringing farm workers in. There was a grocery store which was attracting white as well as coloured customers. I went into it and bought snacks for us. We moved on back in the direction we had come, stopping in various places to watch and pray. We bought fish and chips in a fish shop for our supper later. We detoured off the main street to pray beside the municipal offices. The situation on the street remained stable and fairly constant; people walking along often in groups as if out for afternoon strolls, some of them going in to grocery stores and other stores selling wine. We saw noone drunk or out of control by the time we left at nearly 6 pm. Now it's possible that as the evening progressed people will drink and some might get drunk, so we plan to return on another Friday at 6 pm for a few hours. It's also possible (and a nice thought) that because we were praying for peacefulness and sobriety, the Lord granted our prayers.

On our way home I spotted Titus (from Hooggelegen 38) and stopped to say hi. One chat led to another and he invited us to come into his house. We met Anika and their daughter Sumai and grandson (3 months). He got out the wine and we spent a lovely hour with them in delightful conversation. His career was in the wine industry and now he drank only spritzers. Their home is impressive. After saying goodnight we drove the 30 metres home and warmed up the hake and chips - which were excellent; we only ate a third of what we had bought for R70.

Thu 18 Jan
The day started with a visit from the technician for the panic button system. If one of us desperately needed medical help. this botton rings an alarm at the Frailty Centre in Hooggelegen village, where medical staff are available 24/7. I had tried to test it, but had actually pushed other buttons in the house which only activate local alarms. He found that the panic button was working correctly. We drove to Brandvlei Correctional Services (prison) for our 10:30 first meeting with the chaplain, Rev Glenda Fredericks. She is a delightful lady with whom we immediately felt comfortable. She is open to us coming in for ministry. We discussed matters relating to group ministry using Alpha. Two nights ago I had heard from Alpha Coach Jeremy Jobling (based in cape Town) that a successful Alpha was run recently in Brandlvei with a team which drove in weekly from Cape Town, and used the same (Canadian) Youth Alpha video series which we had used in Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre. They had not continued beyond one course because of the long drive, so our presence in Worcester may prove providential. Although I had driven to the prison gate before, this was the first time we had been inside it. In addition to the management offices, there are three units, Maximum, medium and youth, and they are located in different sections in this huge campus beside a large reservoir.

We drove home via Goudini's winery in Rawsonville where we reunited with Amanda who had served us there a few weeks ago, and with whom we had bonded. She was genuinely delighted to see us again, and we prayed for her and her family, including one of her sons who stutters. They need somewhere better to live with more privacy. She is doing very well in her wine sales, so hopefully her job is reasonably secure. Please add her to your prayers, anyone readding this. We arrived home in time for Breedenet - Gert and a colleague had come to install our Internet system. Because there is no cable TV here, Breedenet uses a dish antenna which points at a Breedenet mast. They did a good job, and 90 mins later we were up and running, and it's fast! I couldn't resist immediately testing our Internet radio. This time I had a router to plug the cable in to. I selected a Good News in the Morning program from last Christmas, hosted by Juliet which we had produced in our home. I went to the Galcome XStreamer galcom.org/xstreamer and bingo, there was CWCP-Radio in the list and with excellent sound quality. I was ecstatic! After all this time it was working and we will be able to broadcast. It will only be for an hour or two a week at first, but will expand over time. We have a lot of material to draw on. I let Galcom know, and then tweeted the good news. I had located the internet radio in a section of the TV stand. This now held a total of six electronic devices, so the plugs were numerous and messy. So I went to the mall and purchased a faily large power bar and managed to get everything arranged relatively neatly. In the evening we watched another of Darren Wilson's excellent 'Adventures with God.' It had been a great day. Thank you Lord!

Wed 17 Jan
On my way out of Hooggelegen at 3pm I saw a coloured woman walking, so stopped to ask if she would like a lift. She was going to Avial Park where she lived, so I took her. Her story was sad. Her name is Esther. She cleans houses including one in Hooggelegen on Wednesdays. 15 years ago she was a farmworker in another part of South Africa, and her father worked for the government. He was brutaly murdered just because he had a regular job and was presumed to have money. I prayed for her when we got there. We plan to be present in Rawsonville this Friday afternoon, so I went to Avian Park with Pastor Folla's group of YWAM young missionaries today instead of Friday. One of them had an acoustic guitar and used it effectively for some of the worship time. The kids are familiar with some of the songs I can do, such as Shout to the Lord, which I should include with my set on Monday with My Father's House. I had brought the 24 Ceres juice boxes that I had purchased last Saturday. Folla told me that someone else had called him to ask if he would like Coca Cola. The combination of the Ceres and the Coke was enough for all the children! Folla had me hand out my joice to the 24 kids who had arrived earliest. For the first time I served the rice, which needs some skill because you don't want to run out! I gave the final blessing (and one of the missionaries commented on it in appreciation; I was grateful because you never know if you are doing something well or badly unless there is some feedback).

Tue 16 Jan
At 8 I was present and correct with the car at Pro Fitment to have the air conditioning looked at. I had forgotten to eat or drink before leaving the house and as I settled down forwhat might be a long wait, I felt hungry. The friedly receptionist took pity and arrange coffee for me, which I sipped as I learned my Aftikaans words. This is a never ending task. As I learn more words I forget those I had learned before. I have particular difficulty with prepositions which bear no resemblence to English, French, Latin (or Greek for that matter). At 9:30 the car was ready, having needed just a top up with refrigerant. I guess the gass-up on 12 Dec had not been done properly. When I drove the car back home I had to turn up the aircon temperature setting - it was too cold for me! I set the climate system to 24 degrees. It was a pleasure to drive L-A to our Afrikaans lesson for 11. After the lesson we bought a cucumber at my favourite fruit and veg stall, and then headed to Nuy for lunch. Air conditioning makes such a difference! The temperature in downtown Worcester was 42.5, but 5 minutes out of town it had dropped to 35. Heading back to town I wanted to see if I could buy a better audio cable adapter (mono instead of stereo) and a microphone stand. I tried Cash Converters, but they recommended Telly Fonics, where I was able to buy both for R308. Not bad at all for a boom stand.

Mon 15 Jan
Our front garden was overgrown when we arrived and hadn't been watered in some time. Each night for the last week I have done some weed clearing and spot watering. There is a springler system which was disconnected. It needed 3 meters of hose to reach a tap on the side of the house. This morning I went to buy some hose. Tried Builders Express, and Game, but finally bought a 20 meter hose with fittings from Pick n Pay. Then drove on to the hospice where I handed in our completed applications. I also asked permission to give a bottle of Sprite to Moses. No problem. When I got there Dr. Boerter was in session in what had been a men's ward, but now was the women's. Moses was in what had been a womens's ward, and I gave him the Sprite, and we talked about the second test match between SA and India, currently in progress which I had been following on TV and radio. He had received my text message. Then Dr Boerter came to that ward and I had a brief word with him; it was a month since my first visit when we had last spoken. I went back to the women, and spent some time with one who was sitting with legs through the bars on her bed. She told me she was very hungry and wanted some bread. I found a nurse who got her half a sandwich. Later on, after praying with the other women, she again asked me for bread. On my way out I spoke again to the nurse, who told me that she has a condition that even when she has food, her body doesn't tell her she is satisfied, so she feels constantly hungry. After the Hospice I went to Jan Buchanan's to try out the amplifier. Marco and Rens are staying temporarily in her spare room. So we all chatted about the upcoming ministry in Avian Park when I will had a role leading worship. We managed to get the guitar working through the amp, and after I had gone home and collected other cables, we got the microphone working. Now all I need a microphone stand, and to practise a bunch of songs. Back home I got to work with the hose for the sprinkler system. The hose I had bought was smaller diameter than would have been ideal, but using three of the four adapters that came with it, I was able to connect it up to the tap at one end, and to the sprinker hose at the other. I turned on the tap and 10 out of 13 sprinklers came alive, much to my delight! I didn't use the system then, becuase the sun was still shining strongly, but after dark I ran it for half an hour. Later I checked Lynn (Williams') Facebook and discovered it was her birthday. I had sent a Jacquie Lawson to be delivered on 16 Jan; one day late. So I also posted a message on her Facebook.

Sun 14 Jan
Took Janey with us to Hillsong church in Somerset West, a seaside town 90 minutes beautiful drive away, past Stellenbosch. Because I hadn't yet figured out cross streets on Garmin, we spent half an hour searching around Somerset West Mall (huge) for the church, but eventually someone in a store knew of it and we were only 5 mins late. Enjoyed the worship an the message on the subject "Joy is not an option." Afterwards I told the pastor about this being one of the IRIS core values. We lingered over coffee and L-A bought the Hillsong movie, 'Let Hope Rise.' Then back to the mall for Cum Books, Spur restaurant for lunch and the Body Shop. Finally left the mall at closing time, 5pm and drove home. In the evening got a call from Breedenet to say they had sent their quote. L-A and I enjoyed watching 'Let Hope Rise.'

Sat 13 Jan
Andre called to ask if I would drive Janey to the mall to get to her bank - this I was happy to do; she also needed groceries. After the mall she guided me to the home of Wimpie Sieckers, 36 Ford Street. He and his wife wholesale frut juice (eg Ceres) are about half price. Fruit juice here is very high quality so I bought about R400 worth with R80 worth of childrens' juice boxes for the kids in Avian Park. I drove to the same fruit stall that I had patronized a few days earlies, and bought grapes, mango and potatoes. (All turned out to be excellent). Back home I worked on the paperwork for volunteering in the hospice, and also on the Hooggelegen paperwork.

Fri 12 Jan
At 10 am both of us went to a meeting of My Father's House in the wendy house on Jan Buchanan's land in Avian Park - Marco and Rens plus another board member and Jan. Discussion was based around appropriate course material for the upcoming term. Jan would like Marco to take on more responsibility for the ministry so she would be less involved day to day. It was agreed that they need to concentrate on 13+ teenagers even if it means excluding the 10 year olds who have been involved in the past, for whom the course material is not comprehensible. Jan asked if I will lead some worship for the children starting Mon 22 Jan. For this I would need to try out their portable amp and prepare words of maybe 10 songs. We had delayed our Afrikaans lesson 30 mins. After it, we lunched at Blindiana Barrista, then, leaving L-A there I went to ABSA Bank to see if I could open a bank account (no, I can't without a work permit) and then to MMJ Service Centre to see if they would fix the car air conditioning - they referred me to Pro Fitment Centre. We drove to the mall and L-A chose two very light blowses and I made an appointment with Pro Fitment for the car next Tuesday at 8am. When we got home we both slept for a while; the very hot weather had tired us. At 6 I had a snack and then went to YWAM. While I was waiting for the transport to Avian Park, a man called Ruloff chatted to me at length. He had been a wine farmer, even paying labourers in wine. Becoming alcoholic and diabetic he realized he had to find an alternative lifestyle, and had come to YWAM and become born again into the world of Christian counselling. He has come close to seeing the end of his diabetes. He had ideas about a number of faith aspects, such as the demonic and four generations of healing. We were a largish team for the kids' ministry, where the leadership was from someone new to me. I gave a pink bracelet to Denver and one of the girls. I had brought a frisbee and played with a bunch of kids, but it was too windy. Folla came in for the food distribution and I handled the soup. I prayed for all at the end. No news of Charlene.

Thu 11 Jan
We went to the Department of Social Security to meet Lynnette Louw. Suzette Wilken at Child Welfare had suggested the meeting. The Department provides Income security and Social Development. Low income families are eligible for South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) grants for three or six months to alleviate undue hardship (eg a shack fire). Social Development has three aspects: Provision of foster parents, the setting up of non-profit orgaanizations, and juvenile crime prevention. There are currently 3,584 foster children in their care (some of whom are under the administration of Child Welfare Worcester). Gerri Jacobs supervises the settign up of non-profit corporations. Any group planning to raise money should set up a non-profit corporation, for which there is no charge. To raise money informally for a public cause is illegal. The Child Justice Act provides for diversion program alternatives to prison for juveniles, and promotes early intervention where substance abuse could lead to crime.

The biggest problem the Department has to tackle is the awful results of Fetal alcohol Syndrome, rife in Avian Park and Roodewal and among farmworkers (but not in ZT, the black township). There are 380 farms in Worcester, mainly growing grapes, with five or six homes for farmworkers on each farm. On Friday afternoons, payday, trucks bring hundreds of farmworkers (+ children) to Rawsonville where they tank up at the nine liquor stores in this small town and proceed to get blind drunk on very suspect cheap alcohol. The result is many unwanted pregnancies among young girls, and total disregard for temperance in pregnancy and while nursing a child. The prevailing attitude is 'It won't happen to me.' A generation of FAS children is currently growing up which has no capacity for living a normal life and many of whom will be institutionalized under amateur caregivers. Lynnette sees only one ray of hope. Every so often among the mothers are born-again Christians who have exchanged alcohol for Jesus Christ. They are known in the community and not criticized - more likely they are envied. These are the only ones whose children have the hope for normal lives. Many farmworkers would attend church, but there are few churches in reach of farms or transport to take them to more distant churches. The recent church plant by Worcester Christian Church in Overhex, a farming area is exactly what is needed.

After our meeting we went for a coffee at Blindiana Barrista, and then drove for 90 minutes to Worcester's favourite seaside resort: Hermanus. I don't think the air conditioning in the car is working, and the outside temperature reached 41.5. But the discomfort was alleviated when we found a lovely bistro on the sea front which served us a great fish lunch on their patio with a gently cool breeze blowing. After eating and taking some pictures we drove on to Grotto Beach, a public free swimming place. There was a disabled parking spot right next to a refreshment bar on the beach. I went for a swim and mingled with the waves and the many surfers, though the Atlantic was quite chilly. We had a nice drink and relaxed. On our way home we picked up a lady hitch hiker and had a great chat. We noticed smoke ahead, which got rapidly worse, with some police around. At one point there were fires burning right up to the road side! Our passenger left us at an intersection where the smoke was quite bad, but she lived near there. Hopefully the lift allowed her to get home before the road might have been closed. When we got home I sent a text to Moses in the Hospice. Wed 10 Jan 2018
I had bought a mop a few days ago and some Cleab Day Tile and floor cleaner. I mopped most of the living area, which is all tiled. The bedroom and study are carpeted. After breakfast I went to the traffic department roadworthy test centre. Presented my list of work done to the only person I could find, and he told me to go to the roadworthy place in the main traffic office. They told me to go back to the roadworthy test centre! I found another man who took my list back to the traffic department and came back with a multi-page form. He took this to the roadworthy office. After a time a man came out and examined the car. All was OK. 10 mins later he gave me the form, now filled out, to take to the traffic department. I did. 5 mins later I had my disk (licence) for my windscreen. This interminable procedure was finally over! It had taken a month and a day after we first drove the car.

A Breedenet engineer arrived to do a site survey for our future wifi installation. This requires a line of sight link from an antenna on our roof to a Breedenet tower. It turns out there are two towers visible from our house! Good news. I asked him about upload speeds and Internet radio, and he had personal experience with the Raspberry Pi which Galcom had supplied me! He also confirmed that we would receive a router with inputs for several internet cables. One of these will be the Raspberry Pi. Hopefully this means we don't need a land line and DSL as I had previously thought (see below Thurs 7 Dec). We can expect his quote very soon. I emailed John at Galcom and asked what upload speed we would need to run the radio. The answer is a minimum of 96 Kbps. Breedenet's minimum upload speed is 256 Kbps, and I was planning to use 640 Kbps, so this should well accommodate other simultaneous traffic.

I had an empty water container to refill so drove to Stockenstrom St. Walking to the water store I saw the man in the green shirt I had tried to get food for last Saturday. I greeted him. After getting the water I went to a pie shop in Q Square and bough a portion of French fries and a bottle of water. I gave them to him and told him Jesus loves him.

The installation engineer from Breedenet arrived to do a site inspection. We are line of sight with two of their towers! We talked about the Internet radio station; he was familiar with the Raspberry Pi, which Galcom uses. He made some recommendations about upload and download speeds.

After hamburgers, corn and kheer for dinner, I did some gardening and chatted for a while with Farrel, our neighbour. He is general manager of a transportation company and he rises about 4 am each day to supervise the departures of trucks. I asked if he had a ladder he could lend us some time so I can get into the roof and turn down the temperature on the geyser.

Tue 9 Jan 2018
When I got up I wanted to put this journal on line, but made some foolish mistakes converting to html, ending up with the whole file being unreadable by both Word and a browser. I had no back-up file. I tried to go to a previous version of the file at a restore point setting, but it didn’t solve anything. Other weird things also manifested themselves on my computer and I began to quietly panic and pray. I wondered if by playing with the restore points I had sent the whole computer to a previous version. Janey and Andre called to say they were tied up at the bank. In the end we picked them up at the Mall and they brought pizza, which we enjoyed in their home before our Afrikaans lesson. Janey had no wifi so I set up a mobile hotspot, which worked for a while. When we got home I was unable to get on line, so, thinking it was a Vodacom thing, I did some gardening. L-A was tired and went to bed after a wonderful paella dish. I went back to the computer and found that I had no data or airtime on my phone – which explained why Janey only had wifi for a while. I was also unable to get on line using L-A’s Priv hot spot. Problem upon problem. I looked at her data usage and found I had set a cap at 5GB, which it had reached. I took off the cap, and we were in business. Powertime had fixed a glitch that had prevented me buying air time from them, so now I was able to top up my phone. I then got down to the problems on my computer, after praying for God’s tech mercies. I soon found that my word processing files were attempting to be processed by Internet Explorer! I changed the setting to Word, and that made all the word docs on my desktop work. Then I went back to the journal file, and saw an option for going to a previous version of the file when the last restore point had been set. I read up on restore points, and decided I hadn’t messed up all the word files. I followed the instructions for going to a previous version of this particular file, and it worked!!! I had the complete file less one week’s journal entries. With this sentence now I complete a rewrite of the missing week. Praise the God of technology for his mercies!

Mon 8 Jan 2018
At 8:30 was at Mirkhon Motors. The owner, Ernie had someone look at my rear view mirror and found it to have been unseated from its normal position. He fixed it for free. This is the second time I had free service from Ernie at Mirkhon. Had a haircut at Salon Joan, which Janey had recommended. I decided to try out a roadside fruit and vegetable stall. For R30 I got tomatoes, bananas and apricots! This was about a quater of the price I had been paying in grocery stores. Then I continued on a trek around town to find a headlight restorer kit. Eventually got one from Midas. My eyes were burning all the time and driving was no fun. At home I dowsed them in a sink full of water and then put in the drops. They didn’t have an immediate effect which was worrisome. I was tired so slept till lunchtime, by when the eyes were OK. Went for my weekly visit to Boland Hospice. Some changes in the patients from last week, but Moses was still there. We had a good chat and exchanged phone mumbers. He asked when he would be able to meet my wife. I asked what he liked to drink, and he said Sprite. He takes no alcohol. As with last week I went on to the women's wards. The young blind girl was no longer there. People seemed pleased to see me again. Went to OK Foods groceries and then to the video store in the same mini-mall. 90% of the stock was violence and fantasy, but 10% was Christian, serving the YWAM market. I rented '90 minutes in Heaven.' In the evening I got to work and brought the headlight lenses to a high level of transparency. We tried out the fruit stall produce and found it to be good! I placed a Nu Skin order for Life Essentials, Overdrive and Balancing Shampoo. I did an application to Breedenet for wifi. We watched – and enjoyed – '90 Minutes in Heaven.' It ran on Pink Dell without changing the region – maybe I had changed the region when we were in Canada to digitize a UK Neil Young DVD

Sun 7 Jan 2018
Worcester Christian Church, where L-A ministered to Janey prophetically at the Milk and Honey coffee shop, and then to cell group. I spoke with Jan about the ‘Adventures with God’ video with Chicago gangsters, suggesting we invite Marco, Rens and her to our place. Jan prefers to do such things in her house because of Joy. She expects that by February her new facility in Avian Park may be up and running and we might have a regular movie night.

Sat 6 Jan 2018
Bought two Michelin tyres from Tiger Wheel & Tyre. While I waited, learned Afrikaans words, as I always do if waiting for something! Later went down town shopping. Walking along Stockenstrom I saw a man in a green short begging. I stopped an prayed with him. He had very little English, but knew he was being prayed for. Driving along a few minutes later I was led to find him some food. I went to McDonalds and bought two cheeseburgers and a hamburger, two French fries and a water. But by the time I got back to Stockenstom he had moved on. That evening L-A and I had an extra hamburger.

Fri 5 Jan 2018
Maggie came over about 3, and L-A cooked Matapa. Maggie would like L-A to ‘preach’ at the second Iris Western Cape monthly get-together on Sun 28th, and would like me to lead worship. To Avian Park with Pastor Folla in the evening and several more missionaries than usual. Awesome goes three times a week with Folla. I had taken two pink bracelets and gave them away, and several of the boys and girls played catch outside with me and another helper using a green ball I had bought. The kids are great throwers and catchers and I gave the ball at the end to the best of them. I had a rough and tumble with a bunch of the boys inside. When Folla gave his talk I cradled a 2 year old who was sleeping and left the food distributing to the other helpers. Folla still asked me to give a blessing near the end, as he has every time. On the way home we went to Charlene’s ‘home.’ She didn’t come out at first, but after a while she met with us and told me the story of the day her baby died. She still blames herself for not getting him to the hospital faster, but I suspect SIDS, and prayed with her, asking the Lord to remove any feelings of guilt. When we were about to leave, she asked why Folla hadn’t brought her any food. We stopped at a grocery and I bought chicken and chips for her, which Folla delivered after dropping us missionaries back at YWAM. I suggested that he arrange a meeting with her counsellor from the municipality to see what can be done to have a funeral. The body is in the morgue. Folla says that the father should use his burial insurance to pay for it, but he is refusing to pay for anything, though she is still in his house. He thinks the municipality won’t pay for a burial because they believe the father should pay. He has a business.

Thu 4 Jan 2018
To Traffic department with the change of address application and a photo. Turned out I had the wrong form, but the lady recognized me from the day before and she still had my applications in her in-tray, so she filled in the data on the right form (which didn’t need a photo). We are making progress here. Around this date we attended an afternoon teach in at the Kibbutz for the ChangeMakers by Jim Stoppenhagen whom we had met recently at Erena's. They were enthusiastic to hear what he had to say to them - broadly character-building. He allowed us to contribute to the training. Jim has been running these sessions when he visits annually for some years.

Wed 3 Jan 2018
To traffic department three times. Appealed my traffic ticket for when my licence disk was not visible. We now have a traffic number, and the car is registered in my name, and we updated the address to Hooggelegen. Took car for the Roadworthy test, and it needs 2 new tyres, wonky rear view mirror to be fixed, and the headlamps lenses cleaned. If these are done within 14 days we don’t pay for another roadworthy test.

Tue 2 Jan 2018
Moving day! We were ready to go by 8:30 and called in at the three furniture stores from which we had arranged deliveries. Dropped off the signed inventory at Grondbeurs. Between 9:30 and 11 all three deliveries had arrived and we were enjoying moving furniture to optimal locations. The dining room table has two extensions we hadn’t expected, but it perfectly suits our dining area, as does the bed in our bedroom. We decided to put both computer stations in the study/ 2nd bedroom – which is more cosy. We feel well pleased with all our purchases, and by 3pm had ice in the fridge. Unpacked a suitcase. However, our cutlery, crockery and towels were totally inadequate. Went on a big shopping spree in the mall working through a list of things needed most urgently.

Mon 1 Jan 2018
To the hospice about 11. They are getting used to me and there were no questions as I wandered through the men’s ward and then three women’s wards. Mishtack and Moses were still in the men’s, and no additions. I prayed rather more fervently than previously – could God not do spectacular work for the kingdom were He completely to heal Moses: Worcester would be transformed. In

New Year’s Eve 2017
Went to Worchester Christian Church, which is becoming our regular Sunday church. Nik was translating and he is very good at it. Janey and Laduma (their dog) came and sat with us. After the service we took Janey and Laduma to 174 Stockenstrom for coffee (and water). Janey told me that to get the electricity to turn on, there was a code number that had to be keyed in to a key pad on the electricity meter. So our problem was far from solved – I would still have to get into the garage. L-A and Janey had a lone talk/prayer and I let them be – it was clearly important. I finished editing out home movie ‘Summer of 24” from about 1978. Then I took Janey and Laduma back to their house, and went on to Hooggelegen with my toolbag. Unfortunately all I was able to do after unscrewing the lock on my side was push the key out of the lock onto the floor behind. I couldn’t unlock the door although I tried to pick it. I tried to get the door off its hinges but they were jammed in too tight for my tools to work. I decided there were only two solutions: either persuade the electricity company to override the need for the code, or to get professional help from a locksmith. I busied myself for the next hour and a half unpacking the last three suitcases. Laurie-Ann called and I gave her the bad news. She immediately started praying for a miracle and at the end of the prayer she was pretty distraught about the potential consequences. I reminded her of Johan’s sermin that morning about words being seeds in the kingdom of Heaven. It is our job to say the words, which seed into the Kingdom. It is God’s job to make the seeds grow and multiply, and we should quit worrying at that point and rest. I suggested Laurie-Ann go rest and let God work. About 15 minutes later, I realized there might be another way. The key might be on the ground behind the door (if it hadn’t bounced down the step), and if I could get a thin strip and stick it under the door I might be able to pull it to my side. The first ‘thin strip’ I though if was the dipstick from the car, so I opened the hood. Nowhere could I find a dipstick. Interesting. Coming back into the house I brought in a fire tong from the braii. It wasn’t thin enough but it still might have moved the key. I looked around, and saw our Canadian flag, which I had perched in the window. I slid it more easily under the door and played around for a while. Bingo, I could see something that might be a key, but maybe it was on a strong key ring. I pulled and coaxed, and the sharp end of the key appeared under the door, like a baby being born. I got my tools, and with the claw on the hammer drew it towards me. It did have a keyring attached but it was just bendable wire and it broke. I had the key!. I unlocked the door! I entered the garage! I keyed in the code. The electricity came on! I called L-A.

Sat 30 Dec 2017
Laurie-Ann spent some time praying with/for Kaitrine, who has been cleaning our room at 174 Stockenstrom. I took a load of our things to Hooggelegen 48, and found that the power had been cut off. Worse, I had locked the interconnecting door with the garage on the garage side the night before, leaving the key in the lock, so I was unable to get into the garage to find the meter number. Maybe I would have to unscrew the door lock. I brought in the cases and started working on the inventory check list. On the final page, ‘garage’ was the meter number! Problem solved. I went home via DisChem in the mall where I picked up more Linctagon C for Laurie-Ann’s persistent cold, and some paper towels and toilet paper. At home I keyed in the meter number to Powertime and bought R 200 worth of electricity. After lunch went back to the house with more suitcases and the TVs. The power had not come on. Maybe it will only come on with the next day. The view from the road near our house is breathtaking and I took photos. At 6 I laid off unpacking with 3 suitcases still to go and went home for dinner. I updated my FaceBook main page photo with the view driving down to out new home. This is the first main photo update in about 10 years, and I plan to keep it for the next 3 years.

Fri 29 Dec 2017
Went to Grondbeurs to try and pick up the key to ‘our’ final home, Hooggelegen 48, but Zurike our sales rep told us that the geyser (furnace) there was being fixed at noon and there was only the one set of keys. She took my number and promised to call when the work was done and she would be able to bring the keys to us. We would have been early for our Afrikaans lesson so we tried to find a coffee shop but they were all closed – many businesses here close from before Christmas to after new year. In the end we settled for a choc ice in the Pick n Pay parking lot. Had Christmas cake and mince pied and real ginger beer with Janey and Andre. The lesson focused on the names of the books of the Bible and the Lord’s Prayer, which much discussion about which version; in the end we learned some out-of-date Afrikaans. Went home for lunch but got no call from Grondbeurs till about 2:45 to say that when the plumber was done they would bring us the keys. By now we were on our way to the home in Worcester West of Erena van de Venter and her husband Marius. She had called and said she couldn’t get us out of her mind, and would we come to her home to meet two American supporters. They turned out to be Jim and Elaine. He outlined his vision that every 500 years there was a major shakeup in the church and we were now going through one. Constantine had spoiled everything by bringing greeko/roman methods of teaching (teacher lecturing hundreds in a ‘classroom’) while Jesus had taught with small groups where the leader loved his group into an understanding of the truth and what they should do about it. He felt that we were ignoring the potential Holy Spirit power that was demonstrated at the first Pentecost, and settling in to a passive Sundays only religion. This tied in with what we had learned and experienced on Harvest School which I described, and Laurie-Ann gave the longish version of her testimony. It was great to be with such a passionate group. Jim teaches the Change Makers group at The Kibbutz and I asked if there might be an opportunity to sit in on one of his sessions. We exchanged Whatsapp numbers. During our time there, Stephanie from Grondbeurs phoned and then came by with the keys! After our visit there, we went to see our new home. Electricity was still on from the previous owners so we were able to operate the garage door opener. The main living area is larger than we had remembered it, and the bedrooms a little smaller, but everything is good. Took photos. As we left we say some neighbours chatting on the sidewalk and I stopped and spoke with them. Titus and Anika. Charming, and answered several key questions including the options for wifi. Agreed to have a drink with them. In the evening I started editing the home movie ‘Summer of 24’ and used the App ‘Shazam’ to identify a song I had used: Odyssey’s ‘Who.’ In the evening investigated Powertime, a site for pre-paid electricity. To register I would need our 11 digit meter number. In South Africa everyone pays in advance for electricity, which can be done in grocery and other stores. The on line approach appeals to me and payments may be made with credit cards or debit cards (which they call EFT).

Thu 28 Dec 2017
Dropped off a thank you note for Philip Viljoen at Integro insurance for the excellent service we had enjoyed for the replacement of our windscreen. Because he was on vacation I had been unable to email him the message. Tried to go to the Traffic Dept to deal with a ticket I received because the licence disk wasn’t visible after the windscreen was replaced. However, the Traffic Dept is closed till 3 Jan. So went to Breedenet. We may have to use the gold service for higher up-load data rates necessary for internet radio (about R 840 pm) but we’ll start with the Silver service (R 445) and upgrade if necessary. We can sign up on line. We will almost certainly have to have a satellite antenna installed for about R 3000) unless the previous owners leave one there (they didn’t). Still need to negotiate how we can pay them (Telkom would only allow someone with a SA bank account to do business with them!) We drove to Woolworths in the mall to buy bedding – duvet and sheets and pillows (R 2500). In the afternoon drove to Robertson – Mike and Carolynn’s – for a Christmas get-together organized very well by Maggie. Excellent fellowship, excellent food, good opportunity for us to chat with Johan and Marie about how we are settling in to the community. Photos were taken of the complete group of us. Maggie made a proposal that to build a family feeling among us we should do our own ‘church’ once a month, moving to the various locations, with a message given by members of the group. Maggie has set up a Whatsapp group for us.

Wed 27 Dec 2017
Car battery flat. Left lights on last night. Only person around in guest house had no jumper cables. I went out to buy some, and on the advice of Hundai parts counter walked further down the High St to ‘Diesel Electric.’ They made me up a heavy gauge set for about R 540 ($50). Nik gave me a boost and all was well. I gave the car a good run to Rawsonville and then on to the mall to see Telkom. Had intended to activate the land line but at the end of the negotiations they told me the line did not support DSL. Since we only needed the line for Internet, this mean we will have to use a Wifi company (analogous to Rogers in Canada) rather than a DSL company like Bell. Data rates are higher, but waiting time for getting up and running is just a day or so. My first analysis of our car mileage was that we are getting 35 MPG, but that’s based on just one fill-up and is inaccurate; nevertheless it is far higher than I had expected. I uploaded a video to Vimeo of the Avian Park children’s singing and dancing but will be cautious about using it on social media.

Tue 26 Dec 2017
Went up to the hospice plus my guitar. Stripped down staff, but they were OK with me visiting the men’s and women’s wards. In the men’s were just 2, both of whom were there a week before. I sang carols interspersed with payer for them. One, Moses Goelman, was a pedestrian hit by a truck more than a year ago and has had ~7 operations already on his spine. They seemed to appreciate that I had come in. In the female ward, one patient had a group pf family visiting; the other patient was a blind girl of about 7 with muscular issues. I prayed and soothed her. After the Hospice I went to the mall for groceries and then home.

Mon Christmas Day 2017
Today Christmas day was a lovely temperature, and we spent 11 am - 6 as guests of our Afrikaans teacher Janey and her blind husband Andre. Lots of good discussion, excellent cold lunch (tongue, corned beef, ham, which I sliced on their antique hand slicer), followed by trifle. We have them Nachtmusik and Amarula, plus dog biscuits for Laduma, and out copy of Hillsong’s Peace Project. Andre told us that his Christian beliefs differed form Janey’s (and ours) in that he couldn’t accept that heaven was only for committed redeemed Christians. He felt there was a wider catchment (unspecified). They lent us a copy of the documentary “The Real Kings Speech.” Which we watched and enjoyed that evening. I discovered that we have a reliable wifi spot in our courtyard, which allowed me to dropbox a Mr Bean to them.

Sun 24 Dec 2017
In the morning went to Worcester Christian Church. In the evening we went to an ANiC-like New Year's eve service in a stationery railway coach called the Gospel Express. I had chatted with the 86 year old pastor, Lionel Kuiper a few weeks before. He had checked his congregation out of the regular Anglican Church some time before BHCCh did, but for the same reasons, and I believe he has an affiliation with ACNA, and there are many other similar churches. I need to check this out with ACNA but I can’t find a 'contact us' button on their site. It was a delightful service and out first communion since leaving Canada.

[This from a message to Karen Bergenstein] We are learning so much about the way of life in the townships from friends including our guest house owners (who also lead a cell group from the church we are drawn to). And it is a situation beyond the law without any apparent solution. Although no one apparently has money, about R 3M a year in profit is being extracted from them - ~35,000 people for drugs, prostitution and protection money. The place is run by gangs who's leaders don't even live in the townships and use gang members to carry out their dirty work. The police and ambulances won't go in there after dark. 30 murders last year. In the Christmas school holidays the children miss school meals and the (single) parents spend the child allowances on drink and drugs, and watch their children rely on some soup kitchens. Unfortunately the habit of relying on charity engenders attitudes of anger if on occasion the charity food doesn't arrive, or if a donor brings bread but no cake. There is very little understanding that at the end of the day a person needs to build their own future rather than beg and be dependent. Bottom line: lots of potential for education, mentoring, evangelizing children - all that we were expecting.

Sat 23 Dec 2017
No sign of Folla and Charlene at 10 am. At noon I texted him and he said he couldn’t find her. So there won’t be a funeral tomorrow. I went to the mall anyway and shopped for food. Telkom told me the only part of Worcester with fibre-optic for internet was the Mall.

Fri 22 Dec 2017
Afrikaans lesson – last one before our Christmas with Andre and Janey. L-A gave her ‘Covenant’ by James Mitchener, which had been given her by Anne-Carol. On way home went to Stasie Meubles and bought 2 arm chairs, a computer desk and a chest of drawers. Esther continues to give us the good discount. In the evening I went with Folla’s YWAM team to Avian Park – my third time. Folla said he would bring Charlene to our house around 10 on Saturday so I could take her dress-buying. I figured out a clapping game I could play with the kids – including with eyes shut. Held a 2 year old in my arms throughout Folla’s talk – he was just sleeping.

Thu 21 Dec 2017
L-A sick with bad cold. I was in PG Glass by 8 am for the replacement of the windscreen. I texted Folla and told him I was available for a couple of hours in PG Glass. About 10am he came and told me he had bad news. Charlene’s baby – the one I had held in Avian Park – had died. He had become agitated on Tues night, and on Wednesday morning she had called an ambulance, which took so long she walked with the child to the hospital. He died before they arrived. They kept him for an autopsy – it was natural causes (SIDS?). Folla also told me that the child’s father was a 60 year old grandfather, and Charlene was living in his house. He had not even offered to take her to the hospital. Said he had no money and had lost his job (he is a self-employed seller of lumber and has a truck and trailer). Folla said she had no money for funeral food or for a dress. He said the father probably had funeral insurance, which could be transferred to the child. Big issues here – whether he would agree. Charlene doesn’t want to marry him. Folla is not offering to pay for the funeral food. I said we would get her a dress. Folla knew the mechanic who was in charge of changing our windscreen, and before he left he went to him and prayed for him. The windscreen was filled by 11 am. There was nothing to pay since I had made an insurance claim. The paperwork for this had been remarkably efficient. I had just sent one email claim to Philip at Integro with a photo of the crack. I went to a funeral parlour and asked advice on stores that might sell dressed suitable for a mother who lost her child, and they suggested Akerman’s Mr Price and Pep Store. I checked out the first to and found nothing suitable. Drove to the Mall and found several stored with suitable dresses – Edgars, Pick n Pay Clothing.

I posted a plea to Facebook over frustrations with getting Windows Media Player to play more than one song on some albums. Case in point – Hillsong’s Peace Project, which has no metadata. Several replies including one from Andre recommending Foobar 2000. I downloaded it – and it solved all my problems. I can now easily play anything on the red disk – including any collection of .mp3s. We’ll now give the Hillsong The Peace Project disk to Janey for Christmas. I think it is one of the best Christmas albums ever, since Boney M! – and in the same tradition.

Wed 20 Dec 2017
Walked to Stasie Meubels and paid her (Esther) the balance owing on the furniture. She has a cheap microwave that may suit us. Walled along Stockenstrom. There was a man begging but not having much luck – seemed to have something odd about him. I passed him by but a minute or so later he was still on my mind, and I went back to him. He had no English (unusual). I gave him R 5. In his hand I could see he had just two or three pennies. I asked if I could pray for him and immediately his head lowered in an attitude pf prayer. I continued on to Cash Crusaders and found a fridge and sofabed which later with L-A approval we bought for delivery 2 Jan. Folla texted me asking when I might be available. Then we drove to Ashton where L-A bought wines – alcoholic and non). On way back had lunch in Spur in Robertson. Same seat I had first sat on with Maggie 16 months ago. Food just as good – pork chop. After I was finished I drove alone and tried to find Pich’n’Pay but eyes very sore from saltiness in the heat; made driving and searching very hard. When L-A back in car she showed me where it was (totally different place) and I bought some Nachtmusik liqueur for Andre, a saucepan, and some ginger loaf. Not quite the same as ginger cake, but a passable imitation. On way home dropped in to the Fourie’s house and saw Marie (Johan was out). Part of reason for coming was to see if a pair of sunglasses left by Patrick belonged to Johan. They didn’t. It was a joy to see Marie, back from Germany. We then drove home. After tea and ginger loaf (etc) I was exhausted and slept several hours. Woke up about 9 and wrote this.

Tue 19 Dec 2017
Took car to MMJ Service Centre (33 Napier) which has the Mercedes computer diagnostics, and they fixed the problem where the ‘AC off’ lamp was permanently on. Only charged R 240. Not sure yet whether the AC is fully operational. Then drove to 19th Hole Golf Villa where Angelique gave me a box of things we had left in our room. Then to the Hospice to confirm we would be able to visit their patients. We will! So I visited and prayed for 5 of them right then. Three had injuries from car accidents. All were ready and willing to receive prayer. Gave me a warm feeling the rest of the day. Went with L-A to Afrikaans lesson. On way home bought more furniture from another store, Belastingfaktuur: a TV stand, and computer desk. In the afternoon I did our annual Christmas updates to our web sites, and in the evening finished all the emails to potential sponsors. So far there have been no results from all the people I had visited personally, but we pray some hearts will soften.

Mon 18 Dec 2017
To Grondbeurs estate agent and signed the contract for Hooggelegen 48. The R 16,000 deposit wire transfer had finally arrived from Western Union, so when we got home I was able to wire the first month’s rent – R 8,000 plus incidentals. On the way home we bought furniture at Stasie Meubels (Esther) just up the street on Stockenstroom – bed, dining set with 8 chairs, bookcase, bench/coffee table. They will deliver 2 Jan.

Sun 17 Dec 2017
Since we wouldn’t be able to go to Hillsong, we went to Source of Life church and were of course welcomed very warmly by Patient and his team. The music was very loud (even by my standards) and I was only rescued by Maggie giving me excellent ear plugs. Good to hear Patient preach, and after we were invited into his office for a chat. When we left we went to the huge mall at Canal Walk so Maggie could buy some Body shop moisturizer. We drove home, had cherries, and then drove Maggie back to Robertson where we grocery shopped at the Spar.

Sat 16 2017
To Robertson to pick up Maggie, and then to Cape Town to see ‘Spectacular.’ The Hillsong Christmas show. We stopped at Stellenbosch on the way for L-A to get Body Shop things. Nice meal in the Spur there. Then on to the only Best Western in South Africa, in Cape Town. Rested a shot time then on the show at the Grand Western Arena, same location as the Casino, and it was swarming. Long walk for L-A to get to the arena, but we made it and were ushers into 3 of the best seats in the place, because of L-A’s disability. Enjoyed the show greatly. A Hillsong young lady came to talk to us after the show – very sweet – one of the things we heard from her was that there would be no Hillsong services the next day, Sunday. It also turned out that her grandmother is the owner of the house we will be renting for the long term in Hooggelegen Retirement Village. Godincidence?

Fri 15 Dec 2017
I was at Jan’s by 8 so I could welcome her maid Maria. Silky dislikes Maria and barks continually when she’s in the house, unless I pet her or have her on my knew, which I did while computing. Got some more letters off to potential sponsors I had visited in Canada as per ‘The God Ask.’ Was able to join the Automobile Association prior to our Cape Town trip tomorrow. Jan Buchanan and Joy came round with a generous box of cherries they had picked on their trip. At 6:15 was at YWAM with Awsome and friends to go into Avian Park with Pastor Folla. After 20 mins there someone asked me to comfort a woman who was in distress. She had no English but I prayed and she knew I was praying. Some teanagers from the group then joined us and interpreted. Apparently she has an ADD son. After a while of praying she seemed more at peace. Shortly after the praise singing began – same songs as a week ago. Then the talk by Folla and then the food which I again helped serve. The lady I had prayed for was now smiling and had joined in the singing. She smiled as I helped serve her food. On the way home we saw a 10 year old boy in pants and no shirt running down the street on the outskirts of Avian Park. We stopped to talk to him but the consensus was that he may have been high on drugs but he wasn’t hurt physically. It wouldn’t have been smart to take him anywhere other than a hospital (had he needed medical help). Apparently there is a church in that area and if he stayed there till morning they would be able to help him.

Thu 14 Dec 2017
9 am – Dog sitting for Jan Buchanan. Actually 3 dogs, 2 rabbits, 2 cats. It was 2 hours before she an Joy left to go cherry picking, 45 mins of which explaining to me who was getting what food. Ben is her guard dog, Isobel her German Shepherd puppy, and Silkie the small white globule of fur. Around lunch time I went to get L-A’s phone pumped up and some lunch for us which I took ‘home.’ In the afternoon, L-A came over to Jan’s since she has excellent Wifi. I lost Silkie twice but found her before I might have felt duty bound to inform Jan. I went home about 7.

Wed 13 Dec 2017
Managed to get all our stuff in two loads in the Mercedes. Spent the afternoon, now in our new accommodation, Suites on 74 Stockenstrom St, going through what had been packed randomly, and repacking, bearing in mind we may have to move out for a day nest Monday. Nik and Gisela very helpful and charming. Only bad news – Internet spotty.

Tue 12 Dec 2017
Started the process for the move to our next guest house tomorrow by unpacking one of the steamer trunks, putting the contents into a suitcase, carrying the trunk to the car and repacking it from the suitcase. Then packed another suitcase and put it in the trunk. Will repeat this with the other steamer trunk tomorrow. Joined a ‘board meeting’ at the Kibbutz. This was headed up by Lance and Mia, and Esme, Freeda and Farencia were also there. Each one gave us their history at the Kibbutz. There are all men and women of God. Several started off in a performing arts group and toured with a performance of “I Love to Sing,” a musical about South Africa’s coloureds. There is a lot of inate dramatic talent in this population. Lance, a true gentle man has been here since 1997. The Kibbutz was founded in 1993. His wife is the current director. Freeda runs Forerunner Ministry for kids recreation and education including camps. Mia has been here 20 years and has been service manager, run the ChangeMakers – teaching a new way of life. She got too much into her comfort zone around 2008 which made her uncomfortable, so she quit for a couple of years to do other ministries, but came back. Esme moved to Durban in 2008, but was always returning to Roodewal. She had started sewing classes, but people were leaving. Then, miraculously, ‘Rope’ in England funded some sewing machines which led to a healthy group. Her goal is that ladies who learn sewing here could have their own machines in their homes. She is open to more customers but isn’t advertising (Web page?). The board planned their Friday ‘last day before Christmas’ event. After the meeting Lance took us to see Boa Boa, a screen-printing enterprise introduced by and American visitor a few years ago and now run by Aubin, and Clinton was with him. Hope to employ 15. Biggest challenge is their admin/accounting where help is badly needed. Then we visited the sewing operation. We didn’t see the Eco club which teaches youth love of the environment including animals +life skills. We bought a copy of Erana van de Venter’s book ’From the Guttermost to the Uttermost.’

Back home I reorganized our room so the carpet could be cleaned. Then called the windscreen repair company and the air conditioning company. PG Glass repaired 3 chips, but on the 4th one they cracked the glass, meaning we need a new windscreen, which will be the subject of an insurance claim. I visited 3 garages for the air conditioning. The first replaced the refrigerant, which didn’t solve the problem. The second recommended MMJ Motors, which has the Mercedes diagnosis software, and they booked the car in for next Tuesday. I took pizza back to L-A who had been keeping out of our room while the carpet dried. While waiting for the pizza I prayed briefly with a man called George sitting on the sidewalk looking down and out. He had no English but he knew I was praying for him. After our pizza I read Erana’s book for a while, then did some more packing in preparation for tomorrow.

Mon 11 Dec 2017
Met Suzette Wilken who runs the Government-sponsored Child Welfare office. They have foster homes for 723 children in Avian Park and Roodewal. Foster parents receive R950 pm. Forster parents must have police clearance. Other programs include youth in conflict with the law, and addicted youth. A few years ago she purchased Moriah Heights, a 3-story building in Roodewal to be eventually a safe place for children. To make it so needs R1.3M renovations. Currently a pastor – Kristo Boer - and his family live there and offer church services. If it weren’t for them the squatters would move in and ransack the place. She asked if we would consider renting a living space there for R1,800 a month. When we said we were moving to Hooggelegen she wondered out loud if we would rent that out to needy children, and ourselves move to Roodewal. They have applied to the lottery for the money to renovate. This project is dear to her Christian heart. Suzette recommended we visit Lynnette Louw at the Department of Social Development, which is responsible for related matters, and has an art school and gallery, and a drama school.

We lunched at Moksh indian restaurant in the Mall (very nice). In the afternoon I researched windscreen chip repair, and air conditioner repair – the car has problems in these areas.

Sun 10 Dec 2017
To church at Worcester Christian Church. Near the beginning was testimony from two ex-inmates at Brandlvei prison, thanking the church for their prison ministry. After the service we spoke with one of them, who told us how much need there was, and then we left a message for the church leadership to contact us and let us know more about their outreach to the prison. Maybe we should join up with them. After church joined about 14 members of Nik and Giselle’s cell group as we had done two weeks ago.

Sat 9 Dec 2017
Met Erena van de Venter whose vision materialized in 1993 as The Kibbutz, in Roodewal township. Saintly lady who made us most welcome. It is an oasis in gangland. There are sub-ministries that L-A particularly felt drawn to. It was Arno at YWAM who first mentioned the Kibbutz to me, though it is not a YWAM ministry, but others had referred to it since. We have been invited to their final board meeting before Christmas on Tuesday next. After Roodewal we drove via Brandvlei to Rawsonville. Went into Goudini’s winery and were served a generous tasting by a lovely lady called Amanda, whom we prayed with – which really touched her. She recommended lunch at Inihoek restaurant, which was excellent and for dessert we had a Dom Pedro – ice cream shake with whisky – mmmm. Drove home and rested. Woken up by a knock on the door; it was Ruan with the key to our new Mercedes!!! (2004 E270 CD1) I took it for a drive and it was excellent. Body is in really good condition for a 2004 car. Later L-A drove it; her first drive ever on LH drive roads. We drank a bottle of celebratory Nuy sparkling wine.

Fri 8 Dec 2017
Finally got through to Rev Glenda Fredericks, Chaplain at Brandvlei Correctional Services, after a week of trying, and she had received my letter asking for an interview to become prison visitors. She was friendly and said she would let me know when she could see us.

Patrick, Kaysha and Maggie came over at 3 and we laughed, snacked, swam and enjoyed each other’s company. At 5:30 I left to join Pastor Folla at YWAM for his thrice weekly kids church in Avian Park. Patrick & Co stayed for a further 90 mins with L-A. At YWAM I was Joined by Awesome, a Nigerian, and Leah, from Holland, both on the Discipleship Training Course. Folla drove us first to a supermarket to get bread. Then we drove into the heart of Avian Park, off the regular roads to a building where children had been gathering, ages 2 - 15. Many/most would have been the children of gang members. I photographed a girl with a T-shirt saying ‘Who actually cares?’ There were about 50 kids, most English speaking, all playing and having fun. One of the kids persuaded me to give her my newly acquired bracelet from the Blindiana Barista wine. We joined in the kids fun and they wanted to be friendly, and many tried to get my other bracelets but I wasn’t giving them! After an hour Folla set up a music machine with Christian pop and the kids danced and sang along with gusto. It was wonderful to hear the kids singing these upbeat songs (mainly in English) and having a great time. I took pictures and videos (but won’t be posting them on social media). Folla then gave a talk (in English) about the birth of Jesus, and the girl with the T-shirt translated into Afrikaans. After the talk, a good meal was given out to all, rice dinner and bread, and sweet treats. I gave out the bread, 2 slices each. After the kids were fed, about 30 adults were fed. Noone went hungry. Finally clothes were distributed and Folla personally made sure that people only took what would fit them. After all had gone and we were preparing to leave, a gang member on crutches who had been shot in the legs came to talk with Folla outside the hut. Folla was firm: either choose Christ and give up the gangs, or you will run out of your nine lives. He then asked me to pray for him. This man had been brought up Christian and had other practical skills, but wasn’t making use of them. On our way out of Avian, Folla got a call from a friend who’s Ford Ranger had just been stolen. We were passing a spot where 3 police cars were waiting. Folla gave the police details of the stolen bakkie. While he did that Leah and I went to see a family in a nearby shack where she knew a baby had been born recently. Going inside the simple dwelling was very special for me and I held the baby and got to pray for mother Charlene and baby. She hadn’t eaten that night because she had been promised some of the food, but there was a slip up. I felt God wanted me to help her and I gave her R 100. We drove on and Folla asked me where we were living. I said a guest house in Fairway Heights, he said 19th Hole, I said yes, he said the man who’s car was stolen was the builder of our guest house. I later heard from our guest house proprietor Ruan that he had also received a call. As a result of the two calls, and he had called the police also – the car was found within 15 minutes in Worcester High Street and an arrest was made. When we got back to YWAM, and prayed and Leah and I got out, Folla and Awesome drove back to Avian to give food to the lady with the baby.

Thurs 7 Dec 2017
Woke up with a feeling I needed to reach Daniel Abrams, Program director at YWAM. Had called him every day since Monday, but today he was there. ½ hour later I was in his office. He told me this was the last day for YWAM before the Christmas break and he was organizing the end of term celebration. Then he told me about a Nigerian missionary called Pastor Folla with a church in Avian Park, and an RCCG church in Worcester. He introduced me to Louise Ademolu in the YWAM H/R department who runs the Worcester House of Hope – safe house for women and children. Need to see her again. While we were talking, Daniel noticed that Pastor Folla was in the house, so he introduced me. We chatted for 15 mins and he told me of his ministry in Avian Park with church nights for children. I asked if I could come with him the next time he was going in, which was the following night. He agreed! On the way out with him he introduced me to a young woman who is quite sick for whom he is trying to get treatment at the hospital. I prayed for her.

L-A and I went for lunch to Blindiana Barista, bought some wine with a bracelet on it, which I added to my left wrist, and then drove round the country to NW of us – beautiful . We noticed Hooggelegen nestling on a hill. That evening I realized (with the help of Galcom) that internet radio may need a DSL Internet connection and a modem to plug in the internet cable that uploads the stream signal. Can’t easily be done on a wifi-only link. I went to Telkom next morning and they were able to tell me that Hooggelegen 48 has a land line. So this is on hold till January, but should happen.

Wed 6 Dec 2017
Received an email from Dr Theronz explaining that he currently has more volunteers than he can manage and he had experienced situations were some were getting in the way of patient treatment. These issues must be quite a stress for him, since he made the decision without meeting us. However he said that the Hospice might well want to have us.

Carols by Candlelight at Worcester United Church. Tool pics and audio. My plan was to broadcast the audio on our debut Internet radio broadcast. After the carols we photographed the Christmas llghts which had been switched on a few days earlier.

Tue 5 Dec 2017
Afrikaans lesson; we’ll miss the next two because they are taking a holiday. At the end of the lesson, Andre put some on his favourite audio books on a memory stick for us: the complete Outlander series, and some thrillers by South African writer Deon Meyer for me. It was fascinating watching a blind man operating a computer with total facility. While we were doing that, Janey was opening up her heart to Laurie-Ann, confessing her faith, but admitting that Andre was not yet saved. Janey feels very comfortable with L-A as a mentor and wants to do regular inner healing with her.

Our Advent newsletter went out that evening. I set up a web page listing the various ministries we encounter in our search for opportunities in Worcester: web.ncf.ca/dq579/worcesterministries.html. Many just have Facebook pages and are hard to find in a hurry. Maybe this page will help others.

Mon 4 Dec 2017
At breakfast. L-A gave her drawing of the 19th Hole Golf Villa to Ruan and Angelique. It was time to set up hospital visiting. We had established that Brewelskloof Hospital, 5 mins from our guest house, might be the most appropriate of the three hospitals in Worcester, catering for all parts of society with tuberculosis. (There are really good private hospitals in Worcester, but they’ll discharge anyone who runs out of medical insurance or can’t pay cash.) I chatted first to Sister Jacobs, who introduce me to Louise, assistant to Dr Danie Theronz, to whom I should apply to become a recognized volunteer. Both gave me a great picture of the hospital and seemed most welcoming of me (us) as potential volunteers, and both clearly Christian. Part of the hospital is given over to aggressive/infectious strains of TB. I was also introduced to Dr Benin Boerter (?) who practises in Canada as well as here. Then I went to the hospice, located in the grounds of the hospital. Here the welcome was even warmer. Apparently there is only one occasional visitor, a pastor. They asked if I would be able to be on call for dying patients – what a privilege. The hospice is not just for palliative care, but for other conditions including malnutrition. It turns out that there are nurses, paid for by the government, who knock on all doors in the townships and proactively seek people who should be in the hospice, which will take them for periods from 2 to 6 weeks or longer if still necessary. They asked if I would be interested in going with these nursing teams. Yes, of course! The lady who took me round is another salt of the earth, Alida Theron. In the first ward we visited, there was Dr Benin Boerter, and we had an excellent discussion as he outlined the differences in medicare between Canada and South Africa. I asked him about living wills, and he said they are rare her; worse, there is a tradition of denial by relatives of dying patients.

Sun 3 Dec 2017
To Shofar church for 8:30 – we were late because we didn’t know the location for sure and the surrounding roads were all closed for painting. After very familiar worship from Marnes (?) and girlfriend, a talk was given by Brazilian missionary Mario who had been at The Father’s House AGM. He told us of his time in YWAM Brazil, and his 6 months so far here. Then he spoke on how the Israelites had reverted to the worship of images of calves/bulls and credited them with their good fortune in getting out of Egypt! Matt and Gary from Robertson were at the service. On our way home we stopped at Brewelskloof tuberculosis hospital, a possible place to visit patients, but there were no admin staff there. In the afternoon I drove to Brandvlei Correctional Services, but wasn’t able to enter the gate. Then to Rawsonville, then to the Fairway Heights golf club, before home. I climbed the foothills behind the guest house. Reached a spot with a splendid view of the area I had reached on Thursday afternoon. Had a swim on my return (have swum every couple of days recently – cool but refreshing. See pics from my afternoon at http://bit.ly/2nrD81p In the evening, for the first time we watched a movie we had digitized from VHS in Ottawa, ‘Selena.’

Fri 1 December 2017
Lunched at Nuy winery, bought wine and beer, drove into the Nuy valley. In the evening for dinner with our Afrikaans teachers Andre and Janey. Their friend Brian was there, specialist in classic audio and TV repair.

Thu 30 Nov 2017
In morning to Dr. Mella Davis’ Masterpiece Academy. She has needs in the school that we could fill, and the results she is getting (with Holy Spirit help) are remarkable. The children come from Avian Park primary school who are seen as high potential. One of my dreams was to mentor bright children and this would be their source. We basically agreed to get involved. In the afternoon I spend several hours figuring out how best to wire money to the lady who has agreed to sell us her Mercedes. In the end, EV Money Transfer, a Canadian organization, has the best rates, saving us $200 over Simplii Financial, and I can do it from my computer. Will do it when we have pumped another $1K in from the nest egg. In the afternoon I took a drive around the area between us and the mountains. In the evening we attended Jan Buchanan’s “The Father’s House Worcester” AGM and met and learned a lot. Marco and Rens were there. I talked to him for some time and heard how after he had become a Christian he was acquitted of several crimes that he was actually guilty of, and has been steadily working for good in Avian Park ever since. I offered to go with him if he gets any calls for healing prayer among his previous gangster friends. His cousin is leader of the JCYs for the whole of Western Cape, and Marco is working on him.

Wed 29 Nov 2017
By morning the upload of the video was 91% complete, but it never got above 96%. Vodacom problem? Must do another night. I went to Grondbeurs to give them our IRIs Ministries contracts. Addi explained to me that they had a duty to actually ensure the rental payments in the retirement village, since in South Africa the tenant has all the leverage and cannot be evicted except in extreme circumstances, and sometimes not even for non-payment of rent. Addis asked me also why we had come to Worcester since there are plenty of missionaries already. He felt there was not see there was any obligation on him or anyone else to help the township residents. They had always been around, and they didn’t affect his life. It was similar to ‘Don’t feed the baboons.’ I went down to the Traffic department and they accepted my documentation to get a traffic number! In the afternoon I went to Integro to finalize house and car insurance with Philip.

Tue 28 Nov 2017
Afrikannans lesson, and Andre and Janey invited us for Christmas dinner, and also for dinner this Saturday! We are really bonding with them. Both seem strong Christians. Then went to Integro Insurance Brokers to see Philip Viljoen about insuring our new car when we get it, and also our possessions. After, L-A and I lunched at McDonalds for the first time (excellent) and then dropped off my best pants at the dry cleaners. They were stained with tar from the side of the car. Then to the Traffic dept, who told me I needed signature from the police to confirm my current residence. So I went to the police station and got the signatures and stamps. Also got passport photos for the application. That evening I completed the 2016 South Africa film, and set it to upload to Vimeo overnight. This is a slow process with the upload speed available on the mobile hotspot.

Mon 27 Nov 2017
Coffee with Jan Buchanan at Mugg and Bean. Told us of her work – nurturing of Marco and Renz in Avian Park. Then we drove to Marco and Renz’ house in Avian Park and Marco told us the details of his switch from gangster and convict to evangelist among the gangs and drug lords in the park. His siblings still on the dark side but secretly learning about Marco’s new found peace. Jan also told us more about her daughter Joy who was abandoned as a baby and has lived with her since. Joy needs friends – but Jan can’t get any of her friends to take her in for temporary time. In the afternoon I went to see Andries at Bergsig Motors to say we wouldn’t be buying his Hundai after all, and he could keep the deposit. Then went to the Traffic Dept to progress getting our traffic number. Then went to Grondbeurs Ontvangs Estate Agent to progress the rental agreement.

Sun 26 Nov 2017
To Worcester Christian Church for a great welcome (stranger called Johan, Jan Buchanan). This was the day the church opened a satellite in Overhatz winery, yet even though a chunk of their congregation had gone to Over-hex it was still pretty full here. The music was pretty good, all in English, and the sermon was given by Erika (also worship leader on piano). We listened to an excellent simultaneous translation on headphones. She spoke about the significance of purple in the Bible, and extended her talk into purple vegetables high in anti-oxidants. L-A had a word of knowledge and shared it with Erika. We had the chance to encourage the lady who did the translation. We were invited to an after-church soup and coffee in someone’s home, and it turned out to be the same home where we will be staying next – Nik and Giselle Wullschleger! They showed us the apartments they have.

We spent much of the rest of the day waiting at home for the chance to see the Mercedes owned by Angelique’s aunt that we might buy. That chance cane at 9 pm and we went for a drive in it. Wow. Sure we would like to buy it!

Fri 24 Nov 2017
At 10 am Maggie and Mattys visited and we had a fine time chatting and picking brains, particularly on the thorny subject of buying cars and dealing with the traffic department, always a challenge. I had been told I would need a work permit to be able to complete a registration traffic certificate to buy a car (which turned out to be untrue).

Thu 23 Nov 2017
A lovely lady called Emma Addams has been the one mainly making our bed and tidying our room. I have her number. Solid Christian, always smiling and helping. At 11 went for Afrikaans lesson, and then drove to Villeirsdorp on the alternate route to Cape Town -
see photos.

Wed 22 Nov 2017
Found a Hundai at Bergsig Motors for R 59K that could suit even though manual transmission. Put down R 1K deposit. Visited Hoogellegen 48, in a retirement village in Langerug, not far from here, loved it and agreed to rent from 1 Jan. The current tenants are missionaries from Taiwan with YWAM. Evening, to a braai at Michael and Carolynn’s house in Robertson where we spent a splendid evening with the Robertson missionaries. Gary is a very interesting guy I spoke with a lot.

Tue 21 Nov 2017
Our first Afrikaans lesson with Janey and Andre. Learned the pronunciation of the alphabet, and double vowel sounds. Afterwards to the mall where we had great lunch at Ocean Basket, and then bought Garmin GPS at Game. Dropped L-A at home, then I went car hunting. Found 4 young people sleeping rough outside a dealership. A coloured person woke them and gave them crisps and cigarettes. So when they were away I spoke with them and prayed for them. They were gentle and one at least spoke English. In the evening I played praise music and then we spent 30 mins in prayer. We repeated this on several subsequent evenings.

Mon 20 Nov 2017
Tried to visit YWAM but our contact was off sick. Will try another day. I dropped L-A off and went shopping. Bought a printer and some more food. Also drove through Avian Park and got a feel for another township. Before going home went into the Hyundai dealership and sales exec Johan said her would look for a car for us.

Sun 19 Nov 2017
Attended Father’s House graduation, Robertson, with meal and fellowship. Precious time with the students and leaders. Bought wine and beer on way home. Swam in the pool.

Sat 18 Nov 2017
Met potential Afrikaans teachers Janey and Andre van Dedevnter, 26 Adderley St, 061-692-5927. Will give us lessons twice a week, first one Tue 21 Nov 11 – 12. Swam in the pool – cool but so refreshing. L-A took pic of me by the window into dining room. Fri 17 Nov 2017
Spoke to 2 car dealerships and asked them to look out for cars. Dropped off my African shirt (from Ansa) to have the sleeves shortened at ‘Alter all.’ Bought a loudspeaker in Cash Converters for R200. It will do temporarily but I need to find a 15 ohm speaker as companion for the Leak mini sandwich. Visited Breedenet for the lowdown on uncapped wifi and discovered I must spend 3000 R for a satellite receiver. Before going in I was asked for money by a youngish man (20?) named Sunia so I prayed for him. Really enjoyed being out in the warm weather. Laurie-Ann googled properties for rent and found an interesting bungalow in a retirement village in Worcester north west. The rent would be affordable for us, and the gated community would remove security issues.

Thu 16 Nov 2017
To Pomegranate Homestead for fond reunion with Johan and Maggie, and sat in on Father’s House class. Saw Marie but no chance to talk to her. I had a good talk with Michael Rev Lionel Kuiper (86) who pastors the Gospel Express – church in a train half way to Robertson – told his fascinating life story. Turned out he is part of ACNA, and says there are 60+ ACNA affiliates in S Africa. We went for tea in Maggie’s house.

Wed 15 Nov 2017
Got phones working! Vodacom had failed to offer me air time when I went in the previous day.

Mon 13 November 2017
Victoria House, Cape Town. Uber to Avis Truck Rental. Drove to BIDair Cargo, which took an hour to find (street not on GPS). Verna helped me collect our two trucks and suitcase. Back to Victoria House to pick up L-A and we were off on the final leg of this journey, the drive to Worcester – beautiful, through a 4Km tunnel through a mountain. Arrived at 19th Hole Golf Villa and warmly welcomed by Angelique. I drove to High Street to get pizza and a man offered protection for my car while parked. I gave him 5R and asked if I could pray for him. His name is Roger and he has mental illness. He showed guts by attempting to earn a living. I felt the Holy Spirit’s involvement as I prayed and he seemed touched. It made the day special that a divine appointment had been set up on day 1.


Copples in Western Cape