Monday 2nd July - Thursday 5th

Monday 2^nd

On Monday I once again helped at the Pregnancy Crisis Center sorting out a lot of the admin because it is the end of the month and new stats need to be worked out. I also surprised myself with my own efficiency finding that I had worked out and tryped out all the information I needed as I had gone during the month so I didn’t have to do loads at the end – get in!

In the afternoon Heather, Anna and I went to the shops because we had an important mission to buy for! Christmas day! We decided that because heather was leaving we would send her off by giving her the best evening ever and what better than Christmas itself. So we went to the shops and found as much English Christmas style things as we could including parsnips, however there was no stuffing…rubbish. We also decided to do secret Santa amongst the teams so we bought all the things we needed for that. On the way home we had yet more car trouble with the car randomly cutting out in the street, luckily a man helped push us and with advice from rob and lots of prayer we finally got it going again.

We got back and it was all stations go; with decorations being put up, Christmas games being made and paper hats being cut out! We ate an amazing dinner, played the hat game and exchanged gifts!

Tuesday 3^rd

PCC again in the morning!

Then we were taken to the visa office again with Jabu to hopefully sort out the visa mess. We were pretty worried and fed up about it all and had no idea what to expect because so much of what happens depends on the staffs mood however its all sorted! Jabu was awesome and they not only cancelled the fine but apologised for the mix up! So thank goodness that’s all sorted out.

In the evening we went to prayer meeting which was just normal and then afterward we went to have pizza to say goodbye to heather as she was leaving on Wednesday morning.

Wednesday 4^th

On Wednesday we left Gateway at 6:30 to take Heather to Durban airport because before she could take her flight we had to go to the Mozambique embassy to get her a visa sorted. We arrived at the visa office an heather needed R750 to buy it and a passport photo – none of which she had on her. After having traveled to floor 27 and being on a strict time schedule we didn’t fancy having to go an get this sorted out so we decided to improvise. Heather searched her wallet and managed to find a passport photo of herself 5years ago so that was that sorted…now R750 to go. We combined all out money and had R740 so R10 still to find, this is the equivalent of 70p – not worth going down the lift for and queuing for the cash point! So we started to empty our bags/pockets for any scraps of money and we managed to gather together R9.80 in change so 20c to go, our only option – BEG. So Anna waited outside the lift and begged 10c of an African stranger [the equivalent of 1.4p!!] WE DID IT! However getting a visa is never that simple, they told us to return in 2 hours as that was when the man would arrive who could sign it. We popped into Wimpy and go ourselves an ice cream then returned 2 hours later on the dot. The lady then said she was afraid we would have to wait a further 2 hours, until 1pm. Heathers flight was at 1:30 so this would have been impossible. On telling the lady this her response was ‘chill out, take a seat’ – not impressed. Luckily a feisty Zambian man came in an was demanding to see the man [who wasn’t meant to be in until 1pm] and just like that he appeared. So this guy was making us wait over 4 hours when he had just been waiting in the office for the entire time. We got the visa signed and mished it to the airport!

We said our goodbyes to heather and then went to Pavilion mall – making the most of being in Durban. We then shopped for fancy dress outfits as we had a cell social later that was cowboy themed.

In the evening we went to the party, ate burgers and played Balderdash – good times!

Thursday 5^th

This morning we got up at around 5ish because hospital feeding was now back on due to the strikes being over [they settled for a 7.5% increase]. This trip was more ‘special’ than normal, because the corridors smelt more of urine, I saw a girl throw up and give soup to a man with no eye.

The rest of the day I have just been sorting out the team accounts with Kate in preparation for our holiday.

We go on holiday tomorrow for 2 weeks [so no email contact etc]. We are going with our cell pastor dean around South Africa to the Drakensberg [mountains], st. Lucia [beaches] and Cape Town!

25th-30th June

This week I have been at Pregnancy crisis center as usual in the morning. Everything is just chugging along as usual. I have to do quite a lot of admin using different statistics about how many people we are working with so that funders can see what their money goes towards. We also welcomed a new girl into the house, so at the moment we only have 2 – the staff are just having a break I think after having 7 babies delivered in one month! On Thursday I went to the community care project instead for a bit of a change, and they work with a lot of people teaching them about HIV, helping families in the community and HIV testing. I spent the day there helping to prepare a sex education talk and working with the rest of the team.

We also spent the week finishing the room we are decorating, it’s almost done apart from a few touch ups! In the evenings I had prayer meeting on Tuesday and cell on Wednesday. They were pretty standard yet still fun to go to. On Thursday night we all went to Spur because it was Rachel’s leaving thing as she is going back to Western Super Mare, it was lots of fun and I had Fajita’s yum! This week has also been interspersed with watching A LOT of the OC season 3, this has pretty much made my life.

On Friday in the morning we went to chapel, this is one of my favourite things of the week as it is all the gateway staff getting together and singing ‘African style’ basically with no instruments and in Zulu. It was particularly good on Friday as there was a lot of jumping and dancing and also Benson [the leader of CCP] preached and he is a legend. After that Pastor Colin picked us up and took us to the Indian side of town to go shopping. It was really nice to be taken out and everyone but me got something new – I just enjoyed the shopping experience. Colin then took us to Kara Nieches which looks a bit like Gregs, but does curry take away. I got a bunnie with curry, which is half a loaf of bread hollowed out filled with curry, it cost 60p!

This week Heather and I have been planning a dinner party for the rest of the team on Friday evening, so we have made a lot of list and done a lot of shopping. It was well fun, we planned it so that it would be very formal so we had invites with mints left on everyone’s bed, etiquette lists, place names, menu’s, dinner party games and party favors at the end of the night! We decorated the room with fairy lights and laid the table perfect! We cooked:

‘The finest creamed plumb tomatoes, hand picked form the vine gently simmered into a sumptuous soup. Perfectly accompanied by rustic French bread fresh from the bakery

Succulent premium cut chicken straight from the breast resting on a bed of crisp, roacsted Mediterranean vegetables seamlessly combined to create our infamous Roasted Ratatouille finished with a soft touch of rosemary

A platter of ripe, exotic fruits perfectly prepared to be drenched ina decadent chocolate basin’

We also played the chocolate biscuit game where you have to move the biscuit down your face an then catch it in your mouth, and the game where a famous person is written on a post it note stuck to your head and you have to guess who it is! Everyone who came had to prepare and interesting question, anecdote or party piece, so we had mike playing guitar, rob using a ‘fortune teller’, Kate showing a magic trick and Anna giving some good ‘would you rather’. It was such a good evening!

Visas

This week the main hassle however has been getting our Visa renewed. Our visa runs out on the 16^th of July and we had to renew it a month before it runs out. This isn’t normally a problem however because of the strike we didn’t think it was safe to go into town so we missed the month renewal date. This means that technically if we don’t return home on the 16^th we are illegal immigrants! We have been to the visa office 3 times now and it is SO hard to sort out. The first set of people we have to see is the Visa Office who are basically a few women on a power trip, that don’t like foreign people/women/the opposite race or anyone else depending on their mood [Sarah refers to one of them as ‘Hitler’s wife’]. On the fist visit the lady we very rude to us and Babalwa [the women from gateway who’s job it is – she speaks Zulu for us] and said the strike was no excuse and that we would have to pay an unfixed fine and bring a letter in with an explanation for why we were late.

The next day we brought an awesome letter in written by Di and the lady didn’t even bother reading it and said we would definitely have to pay a fine and sent us to immigration. The man at immigration is a lot nicer and seemed more understanding but told us we would have to pay R1000 fine each! We then explained the whole strike situation and he said that he would see what he could do [the visa office hadn’t told him anything about it]. We then went back again on the Friday with Jabu [head of gateway and actual legend] who went back to the visa office, had to be very demanding with the evil women to even get to see the immigration man again and finally managed to get some progress on the situation. So as it stands at the moment, we can be here until the 16^th legally, we haven’t yet renewed our visas and we are refusing to pay a made up 1000 rand fine! So please pray!

This weekend we went to Durban beach on the Saturday with Dean, Trevor and Rachel. The weather was lovely and hot and the beach is very sandy. I sunbathed and listened to music and went into the sea! We ate at Steers for lunch [a bit like Mc Donald’s] and met some new people [who turned out to be homophobic/partially racist Christians…great].

We then came back and watched some more OC – best day EVER.