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
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!
