Dina & Miriam

Dina with her boss Miriam from the local ANC office.

Child-Care

It's not uncommon for older siblings to be left 'holding the baby' whilst parents are out working or otherwise engaged. This is an area of need in the community, if we had a suitable building for a pre-school, the lives of so many kids would be improved dramatically.

Chatting

Some of the CNP menfolk stopping for a chat on their way home from work. Thankfully unemployment within the community is quite low.

Playground

Kids playing in CNP. The swings are still holding out and the kids are having a ball enjoying a sunny break from the rain.

Scrapyard

Many folk in CNP seem to turn their gardens into scrap yards. This household has 3 wrecks in the garden and they're trying desperately to get one car working so they can go into business.

Live8

We've recently been asked what we think about Geldof's Live8 and the general issue of Africa, Aid & Debt Relief. These are huge areas and brief answers will always be inadequate. However, we will try to respond as briefly as possible.

Firstly, anything which moves this glorious continent toward debt free existence should not be knocked gratuitously, after all, Africa really needs all the help she can get. We fully support the principals of the 'Make Poverty History' campaign and are pleased to see Gordon Brown doing so much to champion African poverty. Equally however, Africa cannot be generalised about, especially in terms of development as the continent is huge and incredibly diverse. If you've not travelled to more than a handful of countries you can never fully grasp the diversity of this beautiful land!

Dean's Week

Dean's week was generally good, but unfortunately he was told on Thursday that he could no longer use the containers in CNP for his Men's Bible Study group. The reason given was that the key will "..never be given to one of Dina's friends." Oh dear! The petty mind games have begun again. Thankfully Dina has risen above this and is not bothered, but the men in the group are absolutely livid. Cyril went to see the person who made the comment and got a few things off his chest (well done that man!).

It Wasn't Me

Joel had a bit of a disaster at lunchtime... he discovered a pot of Sudocrem and spent quite a while in his bedroom massaging it into his scalp as well as the carpet and on the door. We tried really hard to wash it out but unfortunately the cream is waterproof and after using a whole bottle of washing-up liquid we had to resort to some fairly drastic action...

Drastic Action

As you can see, drastic actions lead to drastic consequences! Thankfully Joel has a lovely smile to compensate for the 'knuckle dragger' hairstyle. If only it was as easy to get the carpet clean.

A Day In A Million!

Thursday morning marked a one-off highlight for Paula and her mum's and grannies cell group! They all went off to the Spur (equivalent of UK Aberdeen Angus steak houses) for coffee and dessert courtesy of a wonderful gift from 2 very special people in the UK (thank you, thank you!). It was a tearjerker as 4 of us drove in to Chris Nissen to collect the ladies and children. All 15 of them were there eagerly waiting, dressed up to the nines, some even with new hair do's and everyone else wondering where they were going!!

Praying The Future

As you might have seen from the posts below we've just had Mary (our Pastoral Director) from Crosslinks stay with us for a few days. Mary's visit was a great time, as we were able to take some time out to visit some of the sites such as Cape Town, the penguins at Simon's Town and drive over Chapman's Peak. We really enjoyed her visit and it was great to have a Crosslinks visit at a time when there is no crisis (present or looming) which need sorting as was the case in Zim when Andy Lines visited!