The reason for not writing on here recently is due to the teams travelling over the past week. On Tuesday we travelled one and a half hours in the car to Durban to spend the next two days at the Integral Mission Conference. We were staying with a host from Grace Family Church, where the conference took place. Ruth, Esme and Londy (our boss at Ethembeni) and I stayed with an amazing Indian lady called Valerie, a policewomen in the area where she lives called Umhlanga. We were so priviledged to stay with her, she took us out for pizza on our first night in a massive mall called Gateway - the first biggest shopping centre in the southern hemisphere! We drove there in an open top car and I put my head back and stared up at the stars and couldn't stop smiling! Staying in Mpophomeni for the past three weeks really makes you appreciate everything and when moments like that come along, I just can't believe how lucky we are. As well as having hot showers and staying in a beautiful home, the conference itself was brilliant. Although it was aimed at men and women who have given up their normal lives to commit themselves to mission work full time, some of what was said had a big impact on us and had relevance to what we were doing. It was also really good to spend some time as a team but also by myself, relaxing and thinking and having some quiet time to pray and spend time with God.
On Friday, after a stunning thunder storm while driving home, we had our first night in our new house in Mpophomeni. The girls are together in one house (which has a bath but no shower, but has a kitchen so we can cook for ourselves - we had spaghetti bol on Monday night!) and the boys are in a different house but they come to ours to eat supper together. Having said that, people have been so generous to us and we have eaten more at other people's houses than in our own!
The weekend was spent mainly in Howick with the wonderful HCC youth on friday and sunday lunch at Esme's house. However, Saturday morning was slightly different...there was the Ethembeni Jumble Sale. We got up early that morning and drove to the Care Centre where we found lots of the Ethembeni ladies already up and about setting up. As soon as we were settled at the table which was the 'till', the gates were opened. I don't think I have ever seen so much enthusiasm before as the small crowd threw themselves sprinting through the gate. Immediately two ladies began to fight over an item of clothing, it wasn't at all dangerous but it gave us all a bit of a shock, definitely woke us up! In the end, with items that were priced between R1 and R25 we managed to raise over R3400 which was amazing!
Monday was our day off this week. We had a relaxed morning, reading and listening to music which was so good and needed! However after the boys left after lunch we began to have our first experience of 'cabin fever'. We can't leave the house without a car or someone to go with us and unfortunetly all of Ethembeni's cars were being used so we apart from a 'turn' around the garden/yard outside, we didn't leave the house all day until Londy got home and we took the car to the petrol station to buy bread! We had a chat with Londy though and shes agreed that if we are on the main road we can walk to the petrol station together so hopefully we won't have that situation again. However, the relaxed day had a positive result because we are all feeling refreshed today which is brilliant.
