England 32 South Africa 16

We managed to watch the rugby with some good friends and needless to say they were gutted by the result. The South African team have been very arrogant calling their UK tour 'The Grand Slam Tour' which of course it isn't. Still, it made trouncing them all the sweeter.

Dean preached at the evening service last night. He really enjoyed it and is now waiting for feedback from the elders. Dean would like to be asked to preach again and would like to do the morning service, but we'll have to wait and see. The congregation were generally very positive afterwards which is always encouraging, especially when you haven't preached for several months.

Sandra from CNP was in church in the morning, it was great to see her and we had a good chat afterwards. Dean will see her on Wednesday, please pray for her, we would love to see her saved and part of our church.

Dean's Bible Study group kicked off finally on Thursday and went well. The men are really up for it and raring to go. They had some good ideas about how they would like to see the group go which is encouraging. We started with three; Dean, Patrick & Cyril, but Michael will be joining us properly this week. Hopefully as we get established they will start bringing along friends too. Michael needs prayer support at the moment. As we told you he broke his leg very badly at work. Unfortunately his employer is trying to worm his way out of paying Michael any compensation and is leading him on a merry dance of missed meetings and lies about what forms he has filled in. Michael simply wants to be treated fairly but unfortunately his boss treats his dogs better than folk like Michael. Dean is going to go with Michael if he makes no progress this week. Please pray the Michael would be treated fairly and receive the compensation he is due.

Paula has started doing a little bit of admin work for Gary (our line manager) and is enjoying exercising some gray matter, it certainly beats singing yet another rendition of 'The Grand Old Duke of York'! One of her main responsibilities is to coordinate all the volunteers coming to work at the church next year. This is quite a big task as there is a lot to arrange for each of them before their arrival and then she must ensure that they remain occupied and happy during the time that they are with us. She will also be helping to do the admin for an HIV/AIDS peer education project into 5 local schools. Because of local government and Trust funding, much form filling and report writing will be required and the woman in charge of the project does not have experience of this!

As we write it is 10am and we've just had a call from Dina to let us know that Patrick has had a stroke and is seriously ill. The ambulance is on the way and he should be in the local hospital within the hour. Please pray for Patrick, he is such a dear man and has become a real friend to Dean.

Dean is going to meet Dina at the hospital at 11.15 to see Patrick and pray with him.

Joel continues to be really happy. He is enjoying being able to 'swim' in this lovely hot weather and gets really excited when his swimming trunks come out!

I'm just back from Chris Nissen Park and had a good afternoon with Patrick's family, and was able to reassure them that whilst Patrick is very ill he's not about to die. I saw Patrick this morning and he can move his left leg (stump) but can't move his left arm, however he can speak although his mouth is turned down on the left side. Patrick did not recognise me so we didn't stay for too long. Dean will visit again tonight. Please pray for a swift healing for Patrick.

Many thanks

Dean