"South Africa is losing its way"

The former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has spoken out at the recent Steve Biko Memorial Lecture on contemporary life in this amazing land. Tutu's comments are quite revealing and at times even a little shocking, but having read what he's saying I think he's not a million miles from the truth.

Click here for the BBC article and make up your own mind.

Aunty Kuku

Aunty Kuku died in the early hours of yesterday morning. Sadly this is the third death in Chris Nissen in 4 days. She had really struggled since Patrick's death last year and was deteriorating rapidly. Paula spent some time with Aunty Kuku before we went on holiday and felt at the time that she had said goodbye. The funeral will be next Saturday as there is another big funeral this Sat in the community.

We're really grateful to Aunty Kuku's family for looking after her so diligently since Patrick's death, they really did do a great job!

Blogging Friends

Our dear friend Hazel and her husband Martin have had a website about their ministry for a while now, but recently they have started a Blog too. The Blog can be seen by clicking Martin & Hazel's Blog and their website can be seen here.

Holiday Photos

We had a lot of fun on holiday and were blessed with an amazing house to stay in for free for the 2 weeks. The break came at a great time for us and the boys really thrived on so much quality family time together. Joel's highlight was the 'orange train' at the railway museum, we're not sure which train he's on about but it made a big impact on him.

 Eli's highlight was probably learning to pull himself up and then cruise the furniture, he also really enjoyed the beach.

The Lighter Side

We're Back!

We've just had a wonderful couple of weeks in Sedgefield, chilling out with the boys and re-acquanting ourselves with each other, brilliant! The weather was OK, we managed 4 days on the beach and were only housebound on one day due to really heavy rains.

We had a lot of fun doing all sorts of stuff. Joel discovered pizza and can't get enough of it. He also discovered Tom & Jerry and giggles himself silly watching it.

Holiday!

We're off to Sedgefield on holiday tomorrow morning for 2 weeks and have absolutely no intention whatsoever of Blogging whilst away!

See you all in 2 weeks.

Snow On Hottentots Holland Mountains

We know that many of you don't believe us when we say it is cold here in winter, so we posted a picture of ice in the garden once. Well now we have real proof of just how cold it gets here... below is a photo of the Hottentots Holland mountains and you can clearly see a sprinkling of snow on them.

Getting The Shakes

We're always happy to publicise the Blogs of friends and we've highlighted this one before.

Getting the Shakes is the Blog of Roger & George and their preparations for emigrating to New Zealand. Their lives have been very hectic of late especially as they race around and try to catch up with friends and family before they leave on Sunday! Wow that came round really quickly!

Rog' is an excellent writer and his Blog posts are always good. Recently he Blogged about our brief overnight stay with them when we were in Blighty and you can read this post here.

Keep an eye on the WHSmith bestseller list, one day Roger will be there with his novel!

HelderPos

Recently Bell Valley Initiative held a 'graduation ceremony' for the 10 volunteers they have trained in Chris Nissen Park. One of the local free rags picked up the story and ran it on the front page. As you can imagine the guys in CNP are really pleased to be in the paper.

Matthew's 3rd Birthday Party

Joel went to Matthew's 3rd Birthday party at Kidzoo yesterday. Needless to say all the kids had a blast and the parents enjoyed catching up with each other and having a good yarn as you can see from some of the photos below.

Birthday Boy on the train

A Random Number

No idea what this is about but have a go anyway....

Random Number