Cape Argus

Wow! I rode the Argus, lived to tell the tale and cracked a decent time of 4hours 6minutes according to my bike computer. The official results will be out on Thursday and I expect it to be a bit longer, maybe 4:20ish as I stopped for a few drinks along the way. My computer stops when I do but the official timing chips don't register stops.

Church Planting In Durban

Last Friday I had the amazing privilege of leaving all my boys and flying up to be part of a team that was gathering from all over South Africa to boost the current congregation of Hope Church, Durban and to encourage them by participating in all sorts of evangelism before the official church launch on Sunday afternoon.

Reasons We Love Africa - Pt2½

What can you say about the following pictures...not a lot so enjoy them.

It's Broadband Jim, But Not As We Know It

We finally have a 'broadband' connection. It's great to ditch the unreliability of dial up networking. However, our broadband is actually a 384kb bandwidth adsl line with a 1GB monthly cap for both uploading & downloading. Hardly the whizz bang one would expect in the 21st century, but a step in the right direction. And the cost for all this; a mere R500 (£40) per month, what a bargain - not!

The View From Here - Pt 3

This one is a shorter post than the others as there are only two photos but both are of great views. Today we're showing you views from our church building, so we're at work rather than play.

Almost There

I love our family routine as you know that by 7pm peace & quiet reign supreme as the boys are in bed and adult time takes over - bliss! We've had some fun today, church was rocking this morning, Nick, one of our worship leaders has played with the hymn 'How Great Thou Art', basically he's written new verses and really beefed up the chorus, brilliant. Once again about half the church came forward to be prayed for to released in their gifts, this is really exciting. Steve Van Ryhn from Jubilee Community Church preached on 'the local church' and as ever he was superb. Steve is a really gifted expositional preacher and probably my favourite local preacher, you know you're going to get solid biblical teaching from him and today was no exception.

The Jesus Tomb

I couldn't resist posting this cartoon, judge for yourself but I thought it was quite good.

Further to my previous post about the Tomb of Jesus, Ben Witherington has written two further posts on the subject, both of which are excellent!

Fatherhood - For Real Men Or Not?

So here we are, the first of three nights without Paula and the house is calm. Eli was in bed at the usual time (6.30pm), fed, watered, bathed and with clean teeth - all 6 of them. Joel was an hour late to bed but that was planned as we had pizza for tea whilst watching Disney's Peter Pan. Joel really enjoyed both and after demolishing his pizza asked for more! He went to bed at 8pm very tired but very happy. I even managed a two hour ride up Sir Lowry's Pass (could that be misconstrued as a 'double entendre'?) this afternoon. I know it's only the first night, but it's great to know that our family routine continues despite any changes.

Paula Heading To Durban

Paula's off to Durban tomorrow for the weekend as she joins the team planting Hope Church. 

The View From Here - Pt 2

In this installment we're taking in some of the views from Chris Nissen and more specifically from Michael's stoep (porch) at the front of his house. The reason I've included this is because we meet there each Thursday morning for our men's bible study.

Free NHS Treatment

There are many drawbacks to leaving the UK to serve in mission overseas but the benefits DEFINITELY outweigh the negatives. However we tend not to focus on those negatives but every once in a while it's worth drawing attention to them. Some of the biggest drawbacks are unsurprisingly financial.

The View From Here - Pt 1

Inspired by a feature in another Blog: Following An Unknown Path listed on Missionary-Blogs.com I've decided to do a short series entitled; 'The View From Here' in which we'll post photos of the various views we enjoy throughout the day in the passage of our lives at work and play.

Does The Pope Drive?

After getting all of Pope Benedict's luggage loaded into the limo, (and he doesn't travel light), the driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the kerb. "Excuse me, Your Holiness," says the driver, "Would you please take your seat so we can leave?"

"Well, to tell you the truth," says the Pope, "they never let me drive at the Vatican, and I'd really like to drive today." "I'm sorry but I cannot let you do that. I'd lose my job! And what if something should happen?" protests the driver, wishing he'd never gone to work that morning.

Church Ansaphone Messages

Sean, one of our elders at church recorded a series of spoof ansaphone messages which I managed to get hold of and convert into a movie file and upload onto YouTube. Such are the joys of the digital age, if you don't want to be found out, hit the delete button. Hope you enjoy the messages..

Excuse the highly dodgy accents!

Jesus's Tomb

one can't help but feel that the silly season is upon us again, or is it a 'slow news day' so the wires have to be filled with something.

The BBC news website is carrying the story: Jesus tomb found, says film-maker. the last part of that headline really does set the context for the rest of the article. Read on through it and you see that the archaeologists do not claim it to be the tomb of Christ rather; [they] said that the burial cave was probably that of a Jewish family with similar names to that of Jesus."

Getting Fit - Mountain Biking

The big news is that I'm now down to 92Kgs, that's a loss of 5Kgs so far. The target remains 85Kgs so we're headed in the right direction.

The regular riding is definitely helping as is the change in diet. amazingly I'm actually enjoying the changes and don't miss snacking on an entire packet of biscuits opting instead for a banana. The riding continues to get easier and consequently more enjoyable. One of my secret joys is the comments from other riders, especially the fit ones. Last week I was riding with a friend and as we were half way up a 20 minute hill I was chatting away (a new development for me, I used to be dying at that point) when I heard my friend puffing & panting. On asking if he was OK? he asked me to slow down so he could keep up. Not words I would ever have expected to hear especially from a guy almost 10 years younger on a fully carbon bike!

Weekend

Saturday didn't start too well as Joel was running from the kitchen to the lounge and slipped on the tiles smacking his mouth against the step - Ouch! There was much blood and screaming so Dean took him to casualty (a private and expensive affair) where he was brilliant for the doctor! It looks like he will lose both front teeth but thankfully all will heal quite quickly and no stitches were needed.

Oscars And Bits

Well no we haven't won an Oscar (although some of Eli's tantrums could well be nominated!), actually our Blog is now listed at Oscar which is a UK based online mission resource, so well worth taking a look at.

Got to rush as I'm off early for a ride before the manic day ahead; leadership training session followed by birthday party and stuff.

Star Of The Week

Joel continually makes us proud, but this week is a bit special as he was awarded the 'star Of The Week' award for the nursery class. What makes this all the more special is that he got it for listening! We had to check that this was right but it is.

Joel got to wear the 'Star of the Week' badge and was given a little certificate too. Needless to say he's very proud of them both.

What a star!

Butterfly World

Paula accompanied Joel and his class on their first school trip today to Butterfly World in Paarl. He had an absolute ball - firstly riding in the car with one of his new friends, Pabatso, who is a Sotho speaker solely and yet manages to get by in an English speaking nursery - aren't kids amazing!! He was then treated to up close and personal experiences (a) with the butterflies themselves in a wonderfully humid and hot enclosed area, and then with a couple of snakes and (thankfully!) some enclosed tarantulas and other such "lovelies".

Valentines Day

Joel's school emailed this photo to us. For Valentines Day the kids were allowed to ditch the uniform and wear red & white (so some went in blue & white!). Joel doesn't look too chuffed by the whole thing. The kids are from both his nursery class and the reception class.

Sadly the reception class teacher wore a Man Ure shirt but luckily she's not in the photo, phew!