Returning To Normal - Slowly

We arrived back to glorious sunshine, the temperature was about 30°C with only a light breeze so we had a very pleasant welcome home. HUGE thanks to Richard & Sal who took the boys off our hands for an hour on Friday morning, without their help packing would have been a nightmare!

The week seems to have disappeared in the midst of getting Joel ready for his return to school (he started in Reception today) and Eli ready for his return to nursery. Eli is now going five mornings a week which is a real blessing for Paula as she can get more involved in our work and hopefully enjoy a bit of time to herself.

We're both glad to be getting back into our regular routines which also means getting back into healthy eating and exercise. I over did things over Christmas so will have to work a bit harder to shake the unwanted kilos off. I started with a 57km ride yesterday with my usual crowd which was great fun. Paula has already been into the gym a few times.

I've been into CNP a few times and it's been really good to catch up with friends there and find out what's been happening. Sadly little changes and there are already quite big problems between one of our church members and some other community members. The sad part is that our church member is the problem. We're hoping to deal with these problems a bit more directly this year as our whole strategy and involvement with the community can so easily be jeopardised by one person. On the other hand it was great to see Michael and Aunty Poppy, they are such quality people!

News wise things have been fairly quiet in CNP. Sandra who runs the Tiny Bubbles Créche was interviewed for an article by the Cape Times. The article was poorly researched and badly written, painting a very bleak picture of CNP. Tom who has been part of my bible study group had a stroke and is now severly disabled. We also heard that one of the Home Based Care patients died which is sad.

Please pray around the issues in the two paragraphs above, we really value your support in this way and know that together we make a difference.

Amazingly our thoughts have already had to return to our next trip to Blighty in June when we'll undertake several weeks of mission education (that's what we call furlough these days). Things are beginning to shape up well for the trip, the biggest problem being the issue of a car. If you happen to have a spare one laying around do let us know.