CNP Update

Things have been very frustrating in Chris Nissen for a while now, mainly because the same old issues of gossip & jealousy keep rearing their ugly heads and damaging the work we're doing. Frustratingly it's church members who are the worst and behaving terribly. Things came to a head last week when Paula was told by some ladies that they want to join her cell group but are afraid to because of certain church members. I then had one of the men in my group tell me that he was no longer coming to my bible study as he was scared of one particular church member who verbally abuses him and accused my group of gossiping about them.

MTB Race

I rode the Tru Cape 40km mountain bike race this morning and whilst I enjoyed it I'm now very tired and just a little bit sore, more about that in a minute! I rode with my friend Paul and a friend of his, Paul & I ride early on Wed mornings. This was my first MTB race and like an idiot had to choose what is arguably the toughest on on the calendar. The race venue was the Grabouw Country Club and the surrounding mountains.

Google Earth

We're a little way behind most in terms of playing with Google Earth, mainly because our connection at work is 'broadband' but the computers don't have XP and our home computer has XP but only very recently have we had a 'broadband' connection (see previous post: It's Broadband Jim, But Not As We Know It).

So here are three local scenes we've pulled from Google Earth:

Videos

Perfect Sense is of Joel singing along to his favourite song; Perfect Sense parts 1 & 2 by Roger Waters (ex Pink Floyd). He makes me so proud with his choice of music!

Bible Study

Today was a really good session for the simple reason that most of my old faithfuls turned up! Eight men came today which after the last couple of weeks is brilliant. I deliberately hadn't prepared a specific study as I wanted to talk about the future of the group and the direction of it. I'm really pleased that the guys decided they do want the group to continue, but more importantly they want to get back to doing 'proper' bible studies. This means a lot more work for me but it's a price I'm happy to pay! For the last few months we've been following the same material as the rest of the cell groups but it hasn't really been very good for my study group as most aren't members of our church. So, starting next Thursday we'll begin working our way through the book of Acts, looking at it's background, context and meaning of the text.

Long Weekend

We've just had a very long weekend thanks to two public holidays, Freedom Day on Friday and Workers Day on Tuesday. Everyone seemed to take the Monday off too to make the most of the break. We had lots of fun, especially as we had 'big Joel' staying with us for the weekend. We last met Joel when he was 2 years old, we were part of a CYFA camp leadership team on which Joel's dad was the Vicar.

Life In Perspective

It's so great to live with a 4 year old!! Not only are they the boss, they know it all and they live in a fantasy world - how brilliant. Whilst we run around worrying about life, the rent, what to eat, cars breaking down etc. Joel is fighting imaginary battles with Captain Hook and watching at every twist and turn for the crocodile. He will not go out without his sword and would in fact prefer to be in full Peter Pan costume no matter how hot it is. He will relent and wear school uniform only because he knows that his little Peter Pan and Captain Hook figures are in his school bag all morning just outside the classroom window! He is never happier than when he plays with his pirate ship whilst watching Peter Pan the movie. When playing outside he is always flying and changes his happy thought daily.

CNP Stuff

A strange old week in Chris Nissen Park last week typified by the complete absence of members from my bible study and only two ladies from CNP at Paula's cell group. Part of the problem is the plethora of public holidays just now, as folk get into holiday mode and find it hard to get back into a normal routine. This coming weekend is another long weekend with public holidays on Friday and Tuesday, so Monday is also a write off for many. Whilst it's great to have some time off it can get a bit frustrating from a continuity point of view so this week and next will probably be no different.

Holiday

What a wonderful two week break we had on Rietvlei farm outside Montagu on ‘Route 62’ just off the Garden Route. The farm was a fully functioning wine and fruit farm with peppers on the side. The pepper harvest was well under way whilst we were there and each day we got to throw the spoilt harvest to the pigs and goats. Needless to say Joel & Eli thought this was great. In fact, Eli got so into it that he took to throwing all his food to the pigs which became a bit of a problem!

Health & Fitness

Here's the first installment of holiday photos and stuff. One of the joys of the farm and the Montagu area is that there are lots of mountain bike trails, so there's much fun waiting to be had. I did several small rides around the farm as sadly the website had oversold their '3 Mountain Bike Trails' which turned out to be almost non-existent.

I was able to ride over a few hills and into the neighbouring farm in the next valley but apart from that most of my rides were spent trying to hack a way through the fynbos, which is only fun for a few minutes until your legs are gashed open.

Match The Picture..

Here's an excellent post from Ben Witherington's Blog: You Look Tired-- Exegeting Proverbs. Match the Picture with the Scripture.

Ben's Blog is always worth reading but this post is very good. Enjoy..