Sunday 12th August - Monday 20th

This last week has been full of exciting things, tramps fighting, dead cats and Kate running over mikes foot.

The scary thing is that this now takes us up to only having two weeks left, so our time has been getting pretty hectic. I am still working at PCC everyday, but I guess you are bored of hearing about that now, so I’m just going to write about all the extras.

Sunday 12^th

We visited Pastor Richards [he works at CCP] church in a township called Dambuza. His congregation is about 25 people max, small but very welcoming, they meet in the side room of this huge warehouse. It was pretty daunting however when we were asked to go up to the front and sing and share, however we were happy to ‘submit’ to rob and mike and leave it to them! Score!

After that we went to Thabile’s house for lunch and spent some time with her family. They have just moved into their new home in one of the townships, very basic but also very homely. She cooked us some awesome food that we got to eat with out hands [always good].

In the evening we went to NCF and it was a special night called Astounding where a guy [legend] called Mark Wimble did a tour of the galaxy’s to show the awesomeness of God [a rip off of a Louie Giglio [sp?] preach] and then it was followed by a nice bit of Mug and Bean [our last ever!].

Tuesday 14^th

We had a bit of change to our schedule in the morning I went to the devotions at CCP [lots of good zulu singing] and then we went to visit Tandi’s crèche in the community. The councel gave her a plot of land and said ‘build a crèche’ so she came to project gateway for help. The crèche was really nice and well decorated [mostly by previous gateway teams] we brought along with us some toys and played and sung with the children.

We then went and had lunch with Jeff and Merlin who we do hospital feeding with and Karen and Nigel, the leaders of the feeding also joined us. They invited us over to say goodbye and a thank you before we left. They are an Indian couple so we arrived ready to be overfed delicious foods and we weren’t wrong. There were all sorts of different dishes and our plates were refilled at every opportunity. It was a really nice chance to socialise with people we had only previously worked with and to hear more about how the project had been started [Karen and Nigel never having taken no for an answer!]

The day was ended by the usual prayer meeting at NCF which I always enjoy.

Wednesday 15^th

Wednesday we did the school assembly at Gateway Christian School. It was really good and the kids behaved and joined in well. We did a bit of singing with them, some drama and taught them about Gideon and the Israelites when they went into battle. It was nice for the kids to show the school what we have been teaching them in music and P.E. I then made my way over to PCC only to find that Michael’s [PCC] car had just been crashed into by a Comby! There was a massive dent in the side and he was a bit shaken, the police came out and everything is fine now, insurance will cover it.

The rest of the day I spent putting the DVD together with mike and editing it – it’s surprising how long something like that can take.

In the evening us and the summer team were invited over to Baba Urnest and his wife’s house/church. He was one of the men who helped start up Project Gateway [when at the end of apartheid a Zulu, English and an Africans man came together to unite and work in the area for God].. They had prepared traditional Zulu food which was steamed bread and a bean sauce. It was pretty tasty until rob found two massive hairs in his, then it seemed a little less appealing! We then sung lots of zulu worship songs and heard about some of Baba Urnest’s experiences so it was a pretty cool night.

Thursday 16th

On Thursday I spent most of the day trying to sort out my University place. I have a place at Warwick for Philosophy and Psychology but have never really felt settled about it, so Rebecca called me and told me all the places in clearing to see if there was anything I preferred. The morning was spent making lots of phone calls back and forth, and as of yet nothing has been decided, so watch this space!

In the evening we had cell, which we cooked for. It was a special cell round a bon fire so we cooked hamburgers and had marshmallows. It was a really nice evening and pretty sad to think that it was one of our last.

Friday 17^th

On Friday Kate and I went with Pregnancy crisis center to Maritzburg College[the top all boys school in the area] to sit in on a sex talk. It was strange to see the contrast between this school and the township school we had previously been in. Michael did well with the talk and I managed to not laugh so it was a success!

In the evening we went to The Boston BBQ which was probably the best thing ever. We were given free vouchers [acquired for us by the amazing Di Milford] and it was an all you can eat buffet. There was SO much food, with separate counters where you could get Chinese, curry, carvery, pasta, stir fry’s, exotic [I ate crocodile], vegetarian etc! It was like visiting 10 different restaurants! I ate and ate [no surprise that African people keep coming up to Anna, Kate and I and making weight related comments – nice!]

Sarturday 18^th

In the morning I tried to have a lie in, however after keep going to bed at 9:30 and waking up at 6 this was pretty much impossible. For lunch we went to Tobile’s house she also works at CCP. WE couldn’t stay for very long because the boys had arranged a football match at 2, but the food she had prepared was lovely and her hospitality was great. It is really nice to see where people live and what they are like outside of work, gives you an opportunity to find out more about them.

When the boys went to play football, I spoke to Naomi on the phone [which was awesome] and then went shopping. We had to pick up Mikes present and get some other bits and pieces.

Then in the evening we went to night Kyle from NCF church had arranged a Braai (BBQ) so we went along to that which was nice too. South Africans seem to think a Braai is somehow better than a BBQ, but they are basically the same. Johno and Greg were also there and they are some of our favourite South Africans so it was a really fun night.

Sunday 19^th

This was our last Sunday! In the morning we went to PCF, it was good to sing songs in all different languages and to have fellowship with people we work with. Then Dean came to meet us and we went up to Howick. We popped into some of the local craft shops to get some typical African bits and pieces and then made our way to Karkloof falls. This was where Dean took us when we first met him so we thought it was a nice way to finish off our time here. We picked up some really nice food from Woolworths [SA’s answer to Marks and Spencers] and sat on our rock in the middle of the river. It’s always nice to hang out with Dean, its strange to think how long ago we were there, but then again it only seems like the other day.

In the evening we went to NCF and it was a good service with just worship, and with NCF’s amazing venue, band and crowd of 2000 people this was brilliant.

Afterwards we were invited to Grant Crawford’s [the big Granty C’s] house. This was a bit of a big deal as he is the lead elder at NCF and I was a bit scared of saying something inappropriate. However it went without a hitch and 2 other cell groups joined us, so it was cool to talk to some new people [even though we are leaving soon].

We then watched a DVD with dean, who is trying to spend as much time with us as possible before we go. I fell asleep about 20 minutes in, which I feel was a wise choice considering it had Ben Stiller in, one of my least favourite actors.

Monday 20^th

Monday was Mikes Birthday, we gave him a beastie new bible and case, look how holy we have become! I went to the devotionals at CCP in the morning and the went to macro and Woolworths with Anna to get DVD’s and things for Mikes birthday lunch. I then did some admin at PCC and taught Mum Doreen’s last computer lesson [which I do every Mon and Fri]. I’m pretty gutted to be finishing this as I have loved it, however she last learnt loads and it was nice to see today how far she has come. It’s also good to know that I can now email her when I get back!

In the afternoon we had cake at CCP for Mikes birthday and sorted out some more bits of the DVD. After that we went to eat at a restaurant called the butchery. It was real good, I had vegetable lasagna and the boys had 500g burgers, they were like the size of their heads! The evening was ended but watching napoleon dynamite, I love birthdays!

after the holiday

Once we got back from the holiday it was back to work so I have been going to pregnancy crisis centre every morning, mixing it up with hospital feeding on a Thursday and the rest of my afternoons have been filled with videoing for a DVD mike and I are making about our trip. We also went to watch die hard and transformers [both of which I recommend – especially if you can get a ticket for 10rand!]

The weekend after our holiday [so we had barely got home] the Oasis Team was invited to PCF church camp in Port Shepstone, which is on the coast 2 hours form PMB. It was Friday to Sunday and our job was to be in charge of the kids. I wouldn’t call myself a children’s worked but I embraced this challenge and got excited about the activities we had planned. We arranged a wide game style game, with different giving different tasks and then the teams got a puzzle piece on completion of the tasks. These were then put together to give a code which then de-coded a bible verse. The following day we did a standard bible teaching session [with a twist that included marshmallow and spaghetti towers, toilet paper mummies and making crowns]. It went really well and I turned out to actually enjoy trying to look after and teach over 30 children. It was a fun weekend and it was nice to have a change and serve in a different way. It was really nice to go back to NCF on the Sunday evening after the weekend away, as we hadn’t been since before the holiday and people had missed us and they were really interested in what we had been up to.

The following week was pretty much the same along with doing bits and pieces at the community care project [like visiting schools and going into the communities]. Friday of that week was AIDS prayer meeting which is probably my favourite Christian event here; as it is a no gimmicks service where God seems to really move. At the end of the prayer meeting I was whisked off to visit a school in the community to sit in on an abstinence talk that Michael from PCC was giving. This was probably the fist time I have felt intimidated in my trip, the school was in a township and crowded full of teenagers who were laughing and pointing at me [most likely because I was white!] Michael gave the talk in a hall packed with girls who were sitting on random arm chairs and broken seats and the rest standing because the school was so poor. I have also been really enjoying doing computer lessons with Mum Doreen [the cleaner at PCC] she is an amazing Zulu woman and here managing to type and letter on the computer by herself was a real achievement.

On the 3^rd August the new summer team arrived, there are 5 of them, four from Oasis and one Australian. They are here for a month (leave a week after us) and are focused on helping Gateway in a practical way, mainly painting at the moment. It was nice to have people from home to talk to and finding one was from Wallington was also cool! That Saturday we went with Dean, Grant (and brother, Kyle (and brother) went down to watch a rugby match in Durban. I was looking forward to a good read of a magazine and some dairy milk I had brought and the excitement grew even further when I was given a free flag! The weather started chucking it down [probably the 3^rd time it has rained in our trip] a got soaking but it made me feel nostalgic about home.

Thursday the 9^th August was women’s day here so everyone had the day off (so hospitial feeding was off so it was nice to have a lie in!). We decided it would be good fun to take the Duduza kids out bowling. It was so funny, Sponiso ran half way down the lane, threw the ball and then just laid face down, a man had to come and ask him to move! I was pleased that not too many children beat me and then went to buy ice creams. This was a ‘special’ experience with more ice cream going on the ground and clothes rather than in mouths. Everyone seemed to be really enjoying themselves. Veronica also came with us who is one of the Foster mums at Duduza, she got really into it, getting excited when she knocked down the pins, doing a little dance.

Afterwards I was really excited as I got to phone my sister while she was on hill house camp! I’m proper gutted to not been going this year so it was nice to hear from her. We then went back to bowling because the 20’s at church were having a social there, stayed for an hour and then mished it to Benson and Beatrice’s house for dinner. I was very excited about this because they are actual legends, and then when Jabu turned up as well it was like all my dreams had come true.

Gateway also gave everyone on the Friday 10^th a day off, so we all got a long weekend. This was particularly good because it was Anna’s birthday. We went out for breakfast at ‘Bean scene’ and she took all her present there to open. We then got ready to have a picnic at the botanical gardens where we were also joined by some friends from NCF. It was lovely to have a picnic and it really felt like summer. In the evening Anna wanted to watch Bourne Ultimatum at the cinema so Dean and Joe joined us and it was a really good film, especially seeing as I haven’t watched the other two. It was pretty much just a day of eating – my favourite kind of day.

6th-23rd July - The holiday!

On Friday afternoon we set off with Dean in the Venture. The first place we went to was Sani Pass in the Drakensberg. We stayed in a backpackers for Friday and Saturday night. The first night we arrived we were starving so drove down the road to the hotel to have dinner, it was the most expensive meal we have ever had and the worse, dean made up his money in bread rolls. We arrived late on the Friday night and on Saturday we went up Sani Pass to Lesotho which is a country in the middle of South Africa. To get there you have to go up in a 4x4, which was quite exciting especially when the path got icy and the car started to slide. The country is 70% mountainous and the place was covered in snow, we stopped on a frozen river and skated around and the snow came up to my knee! There was a women in our 4x4 who was freaking out completely which was worrying her kids. On the was back she wanted to get out and walk instead of being in the 4x4. Just as we passed them the driver lent out and told her that it was safe to get back in now and just as he said that the back end slide into her…she screamed and broke down into tears. We also visited a woman who lived there in her traditional one roomed round house and she gave us bread and beer.

On the Sunday we drove to another part of the Drakensburg. Rob ran over a dear.

We stayed in this really nice lake side cottage. We screamed when we saw it, compared to the back packers having our own cottage was amazing. And the location of it was so picturesque. It was a small thatched cottage with two bathrooms, decent size rooms, a fire and a spacious kitchen. There was a lake just in front surrounded by mountains and we had our own rowing boat that came with the cottage. The days there were spent hanging out, reading, making the most of our amazing beds and I had a bath! We also visited a falcon show, which freaked me out, not impressed by hench vultures being able to roam around freely. We stayed there from Sunday until Wednesday morning.

Wednesday we made our way to St Lucia via PMB. It was our final trip to the visa office to get our visa put into our passports. That was 5 attempts it took to get our visa’s how ridiculous is that. I don’t even want to think how long it would have taken if Jabu hadn’t of come with us. Compared to all the other trips this was a very short visit.
Then it was back on the road to St.Lucia. We arrived there late afternoon. We checked into our very basic flat before heading off to check out the beach…..which was 5 mins away and was gorgeous and un-spoilt.

For the next two days(Thursday, Friday) we had beach days one at Cape Vidal and the other was at the one around the corner. Cape Vidal is a huge national park which leads to the beach and has a protected coastline, so was beautiful and had hardly anyone on. On our way back through the reserve a leopard was just walking in the road infront of us it was wicked.

Sunday we left early-ish for Umfolozi which is a game park full of the big 5 and lots of deer. We spent two days there, staying in fancy ‘safari’ tents for the boys and round huts for the girls. The most scared night I’ve had in ages. Anna, Kate and I were sure we saw a lion on our way walking from the car to our room.

For two days we hardly saw anything apart from animals we’d seen already. So we saw Rhino, giraffes, warthogs, Wilderbeast, buffalo, Imparla, Imparla, Imparla [we decided that booing the boring animals was neccessary]. We were all getting really disheartened until the end of Monday when we saw and elephant it was massive! It came really close- we later learnt that they had had problems of elephants ruining cars. We were able to watch it for a good 15mins before it walked off into the bush.

Monday evening we went back to St. Lucia, the minute we got back we shoved our stuff into the flat (same flat as before) and we went straight to the beach for an evening swim. We’ve now been told that people shouldn’t swim on that coast as there are crocs there, being so close to an estuary. That was only a brief stay in St Lucia because we were flying to Cape town early Tuesday morning. At 2.30 we woke up having already packed the car and Dean drove us to Durban to catch our flight at 7.30am.

We arrived in Cape Town around 10am to be greeted by Cameron who is Kate’s next door neighbor’s brother. He showed us where we would be staying and took us to get our weeks shopping. He also gave us a tour of the peninsular (as he’s a tourist guide) the following day which was a superb way to see the coast line and to also hear some background knowledge. We had a visit up Table Mountain on the cable cart which was spectacular and got to see the Cape Town penguins.

For the rest of our time in Cape Town we saw the waterfront, had a girly evening, watched the rugby and went to church. We also met up with Shelia who is Kate’s next door neighbor’s sister. Both her and Cameron were so welcoming and helpful to us they made our stay in Cape Town amazing. On the Sunday Sheila took us around and we visited a craft market and then we went out to see seal island where there were tones of seals for some reason on a random rock in the middle of the sea!

We had the most amazing holiday and had a real mix of sights and experiences!

Holiday

Sorry for the lack of updates but I have been very busy, we went on holiday for 2 weeks, travelling around SA and had the most amazing trip.


Here are some pictures:



Lesotho:












Drakensberg:

Our cottage [from our boat!]

Not too impressed by the birds at the falcon show:
Lake infront of our cottage:


St Lucia:

The sea had nothing on our beasty sand castle:

Umfalozi [game park]:

The 'tent' we stayed in: Cape Town

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.

22nd-24th June

On Friday we went to Northdale for the weekend, with Pastor Collin [the vice chairman of gateway]. After making up a lot of reasons about why we couldn’t attend we finally gave in and agreed to spend the weekend with his family in the Indian area of town. However when Friday came I was really excited about going, looking forward to proper showers, beds and finally getting out of the prison. The four of us girls stayed with his sister who has a massive house all to herself as she is a widow. We had a brilliant weekend which included going bowling, shopping, to the cinema and double beds!

The main part of the trip however was being force fed. The Indian families here are amazing hosts and we had so so much food. When we arrived we had cottage pie and curry, bacon and eggs for breakfast, lasagna for lunch and a roast for dinner. As soon as our plates were empty they were refilling them and having had 3 portions already was no excuse because ‘we don’t count here’! We also went to Collins church on Sunday which was a nice change and then went to his afterwards for a Braai. We got to spend time with his kids, nephews and nieces. This was the most jokes part of the trip because Colin had previously given us a talk about how well disciplined his children were, however in reality it was a very different story. As soon as we arrived to the bowling all them were drinking and smoking and saying ‘what our parents don’t know won’t hurt them’! We didn’t really know what to do! It was also pretty neeky because they clearly thought that this some how made them ‘cool’ – not so much.

In the evening on Sunday we went to the church service at NCF and then followed by a standard Mug and Bean session.

30th May - 20th July catch up

Hey everyone sorry about the lack of blog for the last few weeks, but I have been really busy and it’s been hard to get to the computer [also the longer I leave it the worse it gets to write!]
So I am just going to sum up the last few weeks, and then I can start afresh!

Pregnancy crisis centre
Work at PCC has been really busy which has been really good because at some points I have felt just like I have been hanging around. All the ladies that I was working with originally have now had their babies so we have had 8 babies born in the last 14 days – including twins!
It been really exciting going into the hospitals to visit the new born babies and their mums and it has really hit home how important the work that PCC do is. Each baby is beautiful and has so much ahead of them and without PCC they wouldn’t exist so it had been such a big encouragement. One of the highlights has been the house mother turning up saying one of the girls was in labor and Michael was out with the car so I had to leg it over to find rob so we could drive the girl to hospital! We were just praying the whole journey that the petrol would last and that we would be actually able to get into the hospital, because there is so much uncertainty with the strikes [ill write about that later]. However along with the excitement there has also been some very difficult moments. The most emotionally draining moment of my trip so far was going with a girl, who I have worked with since I have been here and visited in hospital, so that she could give her child away for fostering. It was really tough because she really didn’t have any other option with no job and only temporary accommodation. It was hard for me having to be there when it happened, so I cant imagine how it must feel to have to give your baby away [prayer point: that the mum can get a job so she can then afford to have her baby back]. The foster mother is incredible, she has around 16 children living with her and each one is loved and cared for.
I have also been doing some admin to free Michael up and another exciting thing is that I have begun computer lessons with some of the Zulu ladies who work with us and at CCP. It was awesome to see how excited they were with being able to just open a word document! One of the ladies I am teaching had never even switched a computer on, so it was funny trying to keep a straight face while reminding her that she had to click the mouse to make things happen. It’s nice to have an area that I can get stuck into and start seeing results – even though it takes a lot of patience.





Social
We have been really blessed to have a lot of social things going on over the last few weeks. We started off by having a Braai with the American girls for their leaving. It was really fun, lots of people came and we got a taste of south African culture with an American twist! Braai is basically a SA way of saying BBQ and there was also a big bonfire. The American twist: ‘salad’ with mars bars in…
The following Saturday we went to a girl that we met on mini missions 21st birthday party, it was awesome with a big bonfire and curry. We also played a game called 30 seconds, where you have to describe words in a list with a 30 second time limit. This was rubbish as it made me look really thick as I don’t know anything about African famous places or people and having to describe ‘summer of 69’ lead to many people now thinking I need prayer.
The last few weeks have also been hard because they have been the run up to Sarah’s leaving [the Irish girl who has mentored us the whole trip]. Sarah is my best friend here outside of my team and who I go to if I feel frustrated so I have found it really hard her going. We had a leaving party for her on Thursday which also involved a bonfire but also a ‘rock on’ theme. This was wicked as we all dressed up and it meant I got to put eyeliner on boys and straighten their hair – get in!

The Friday after was a girl at Duduza’s birthday so we had a party for her and got to see Zulu dancing which was jokes. Two of the kids at Duduza have won best gymnastics in the whole province for their ages [an area bigger than the size of England] and they are now going to nationals next week so we bought the girl lots of things for her trip. It’s so exciting that these are children that have been brought up in gateway for the majority of their lives and now are competing in a national competition!
All of this has been surrounded by various DVD nights and Mug and Bean trips making us become better friends with the people who live here and making us feel more at home.

Another blessing has been that two girls from Brighton have come to Gateway as individual volunteers, Heather and Becca. They have been in cape town for 5 months and Heather is now hear for a month and Becca came for the weekend. It has been fun to have some new people to get to know, after always being with the same people for 2 months and nice to have people who know about where I live. Heather went to Brit School and understands when I say things like ‘this is just like west croydon/mitcham’. She is really out going and has encouraged me a lot already on the ‘God front’.

About 2 weeks ago I was feeling a bit low and quite frustrated about being here. Not that I’m not grateful but the novelty of being here had worn off. I had been finding it frustrating only being in about 5 different locations and spending about 70% of my time in a prison. However after sleeping a lot and crying a bit I’m now over it and looking forward to the next chapter of my trip. I also feel like God has blessed me so much by being here what is the point in complaining? I need to make the most of being here!

Strike
One of the big things that has been going on for the last few weeks are the strikes. Before anyone starts getting worried – as I mentioned before, I’m in a prison about 70% of the time, so I’m not really personally affected by any of it. However all the teachers and people in hospitals are striking hoping to get a pay increase. The way I understand it is that there is enough money in the government to give these people - the people who need it, a pay increase but they have been lining their own pockets instead. So the people cause is pretty fair however it has caused a lot of disruption. The other problem is those who are striking feel so strongly about it that they want everyone else to strike too, so they have been trying to make this happen by force. Therefore we have head about a nurse being shot for still working and a head teacher being beaten up. This has meant that when going to the hospital with PCC, not only have we been met at the gates by people picketing but also with locked doors to all the wards and had to prove that we aren’t there to attack anyone for working! The schools have also all had to be closed and any child who is still attending school has had to go in in their own clothes to stop people attacking them on the way. Gateway Christian school hasn’t wanted to be involved in the strike as all the teachers there are being even more underpaid anyway, but that’s not what their at work for. But they have been forced to close for the safety of the children. They reopened on Friday however 3 times people from the union came to see if they were open and after the 3rd time said they didn’t believe no one was their and that they were sending a ‘mob’. This then meant that we had all the kids hiding in our conference room [where I’m sitting now] so that if people came they wouldn’t be found.
Another annoying this was that the day we normally are free to go food shopping is Wednesday but last Wednesday was a day where all the strikers were marching so it was even more dangerous so we couldn’t get food for a week! We were told that strikers were kicking car doors in and dragging out passengers incase they were potentially going to work!
There are also threats that the police will be going on strike and the power company. There is only one main electricity company where we are so if they strike it will cause a lot of chaos such as traffic lights not working etc! so please pray that the government take the strikes seriously and give people the wages they deserve before things get even more out of hand.


Another project we have had on the go is decorating the room we use this has been lots of fun as well, choosing painting, sanding walls and painting. It has also all been done to up beat clubbing style music which has made it jokes.