Joel & Duwayne

Joel walking with Duwayne in CNP. Duwayne is one of Patrick's grandchildren and a very sweet little boy

Great Day

Dean had a great day in CNP today and spent a long time with Patrick and his family. The photo of him is with his grandson Eugene. Patrick was far more lucid that he has been for a long time and we all had a really good laugh together! Dina arrived towards the end and was telling us that 3rd Degree (local version of Panorama) are to interview her on Friday in relation to some missing money from the CNP trust. We were pulling her leg saying that they wanted to see where she parks her Mercedes, poor Dina she was quite concerned but laughed a lot!

At Last!

Over the last week or so Joel has been taking tentative steps in walking but hasn't really gone for it.  Today Joel walked for ages in the local shopping mall surprising us and providing much amusement for many passers-by.  We are so grateful to God that at last Joel is walking and h just looks so proud of himself!

Patrick

Patrick with his grandson Eugene

Encouraging Weekend

Dean was invited by our neighbour Don to join him and three friends for an early morning prayer meeting. Dean really enjoyed meeting with a small group of men as this is something he is looking at starting in our church here. The only downside was that they met at 6.30 on Saturday morning, a bit of a shock for him!

Tortoise

Joel & Tortoise at the Helderberg Nature Reserve.

TB

Dean had a meeting with one of the Sisters at the Govt clinic in Nomzamo (opposite CNP) this morning to talk about the TB epidemic which is sweeping through CNP. We've agreed to organise a TB awareness day in the community and to involve as many other agencies as we can to assist with the day. We're planning for this to coincide with World TB Day on 24 March.

Roller Coaster

Tuesday started with an email from Paula's sister telling us that Michael Howard had died. Michael was the vicar in Weald for several years and was due to retire in a few months. We had tremendous respect and love for Michael and his family and they were key supporters of our ministry. Michael will be sorely missed by a lot of people and especially in the village of Weald, please remember them in your prayers.

FYP's

Today was the first full afternoon that the Frontier Year Project (FYP) were with Dean in Chris Nissen Park (CNP). Their main role on a Monday afternoon is to follow up on the children who attended Sunday school and to make contact with their families. We hope that this will build further bridges between the church and the community as well as encouraging the parent/s to come along to church. Please pray for this initiative as we believe this could be a real blessing to the church, the children and their families.

Tough Week

This week seems to have been completely manic for both of us but probably more so for Paula, we don't feel that we've had a chance to catch our breath. The week culminated with our hard disk collapsing leaving us with a complete headache! We've lost lots of emails and a months worth of photos which is very frustrating! We were budgeting for a new laptop later in the year but have had to bring that forward to late Friday afternoon. On Friday we also had the dentist and as new patients the dentist wanted to do x-rays etc. This led to Paula getting a bit of bad news and has to go back for a few more appointments.

Busy As Ever

.This week has been a great week so far, not least because Joel has decided that standing unaided is actually a good thing and something he wants to do!  We're rejoicing that he is making such major moves towards walking, and he certainly appears to be happy.  Joel had his second day at nursery today and again he appears to be thriving on it, however he was so hyped up that he didn't have his lunchtime sleep so mum & dad are feeling a little frazzled!

This afternoon we went to a braai with another English couple who are getting involved in a variety of social action projects and it looks like we may be able to develop some positive links and share resources which would be great.