I’m writing this on Tuesday morning, so here’s an outline of the past week; which has been a fairly typical week here in Cape Town. Last Tuesday afternoon we had an Elder’s meeting from 4-6pm, this being a new slot for the Elders time together. But this was a week of prayer so later that evening we met in prayer hotspots in various homes around the city. All the congregation were given a prayer booklet for the week full of good suggestions on what to pray for each day. Wednesday was a regular study day but with a church prayer meeting at the Jubilee building in the evening. This was an excellent time; a good turnout, fervent prayer and a lot of intercession for student work and the launch of a new church plant at Port Elizabeth. On Thursday afternon we had a staff meeting - also in a new time slot. This is when all the full time staff come together for about an hour to agree the details of the church programme for the next couple of weeks. This particular meeting seemed to be rather dominated by anxieties about how much cake we should serve, especially to the students at the close of the Sunday meetings!
On Friday mornings we have a an Elders prayer time beginning at 10.30 but again a new development means we are now bringing in other full time staff with pastoral responsibility and the Elder’s wives - we had a great time together as we focussed on the weekend. In the evening we went to dinner with our good friends Rob and Christine whose company we have enjoyed many times on our visits here. On Saturday we were invited to the student team lunch. This is the group currently working on campus and welcoming new students and helping to carry their bags. There were about 25 - 30 of us and lunch was followed by me leading a time of prayer before the team went on campus for the afternoon.
We’d noticed that just a couple of hundred yards from where we stay there is what looks like a very popular pizza restaurant. To be honest, from the outside, it looks a bit seedy and I’m not a tremendous lover of pizza, but with so many people pouring in we thought, on Saturday evening, that it must be worth a visit. It proved to be a great discovery. It looks even more seedy inside, but it was absolutely packed. Every table and chair is individual and it looks as though everything has been rescued from bottom level junk shops and also everything could probably do with a good scrub, including the menus. But the pizzas were cheap and really superb. When I saw ice cream and chocolate sauce on the menu for $1.35 it seemed almost cheaper to have one than not to have one. Sue felt I definitely shouldn’t have one, but when it arrived with 2 spoons I noticed that the far half of the ice cream was disappearing as fast as my half. So we have discovered the Cape Town equivalent of Donatellos in Brighton, though I submit that the latter is more scrubbed.
On Sunday we had lots of student guests at Jubilee and we had Sam and Sheralyn the new, full time, student leaders to lunch. They are a dynamic young couple, full of energy and ideas, and for dessert we had ice cream and chocolate sauce. Lex preached, at our repeat morning and evening meetings, the first in a new series under the heading, ‘Right or Wrong?’ and did and excellent job on dealing with doubts about the truth and authority of the Bible. I’m due, myself, to preach 3 messages in this series.
Monday was a day off and we went to Fish Hoek, a rather drab little town just south of Cape Town, but with a magnificent beach. It’s the Worthing of South Africa and people retire there, including, so I am told, many Baptist ministers. No, we weren’t looking for a property for ourselves, but we did witness the landing of a a huge catch of Yellow-tail fish; very popular here in South Africa. Apparently the local fishermen haven’t caught much for a long time, but suddenly yesterday morning the Yellow-tail were running and they landed hundreds. These are serious fish, each 2-3 feet long. People were buying them straight off the beach and others were immediately being shipped off to restaurants and hotels.
From there we drove back towards Cape Town and stopped at Muizenburg which has a bit of a Bognor Regis seaside feel about it. Here they sell superb ice cream under the brand name of ‘Sinnfull’. I felt that I had been a bit short of ice cream in the previous few days so I considered a scoop of chocolate and one of honeycomb. I was tempted, yes it was sinnfull, but I ate and was entirely unrepentant. We wandered across to the beach at a furious lick only to see large numbers of sad looking surfers in their wet suits and holding their boards at the edge of the water, but none of them in the sea. Then we noticed the flag up warning of great white sharks off the coast. This is a serious issue here; in fact a tourist was killed by a shark off this beach just a few weeks ago. What they don’t tell you in the guide books about Cape Town is that on one side of the peninsular there are some of the most stunning beaches in the world, but the water is ice cold. On the other side the water is warmer, good for surfing, but you risk being eaten by a shark. As for me, I prefer to be sinnfull. That reminds me - another Elders meeting this afternoon.
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In my last post I mentioned the South African obsession with keeping fit. News from Brighton this week reminds me that the need to be fit has to be taken to an even higher level. Brighton, which cannot even organise the removal of dangerous bits of metal that lie in the sea year after year from its collapsing pier is nevertheless going to organise a marathon. I hear that various members of Church of Christ the King are committed to run more than 26 miles whilst a lot of other church members are going to cheer them on and steward the event; which is probably the more life saving option. I remember once talking to a young lady from Moorlands Bible College, where I was teaching at the time, about her experience of running the London Marathon. She said she’d never do it again as she nearly died of boredom with no one to talk to for 26 miles!
However here in South Africa they not only run marathons, they run ultramarathons. The Two Oceans run sweeps around Cape Town fora full 56 kilometers and right now many are in serious training for this fun event. But even this is eclipsed by the Comrades Marathon which is run a full 90 kilometers from Pietermaritzburg to Durban - downhill; but every alternate year is sadistically reversed and run uphill! One of the saddest stories I’ve heard was told to me last week by one of the staff members here in Jubilee who some years ago ran the Comrades. After 11 or 12 hours a gun is fired to declare that the race is over and if you haven’t reached the line, that is it, you are deemed not to have finished. For this particular staff member the gun went off when he was just a hundred meters from the line - he was the first person ‘not to finish’ - surely there ought to be a prize for that.
Runners, of course, need a good and substantial diet. Several people have asked me what I think of the food in South Africa. Well the most important news here is that Marmite is readily available. In reality we eat very much the same here as we do in the UK, and any differences are rather subtle. I am slightly penalised at breakfast because my morning cereal of many years, namely shreddies, are not available here. I therefore eat Weet-bix, which is rather like the English Weetabix except that they add some quick drying cement. Clearly the biscuits can double as highly effective roof tiles, which is what I personally call them, though I do actually quite like them; it’s just that you have to chew a lot harder at breakfast.
One of the slightly odd things here is that green is red and red is green - I’m referring to the milk. In the UK, no fat, no taste milk is purchased with a red top. Low fat, attempting a slight hint of flavour milk, comes with a green top. But in South Africa they swap the colours round to confuse the British. You can imagine the scene early every morning as I stagger towards the fridge to get the milk in an attempt to melt the roof tiles, how that every day I have to think is it red or is it green that I want. And of course on occasions I forget and pour South African green top onto my tiles, to see them, in effect, lying in a pool of murky water.
Fruit is generally quite a bit cheaper in South Africa and there are some rather exotic fruits available. This generally pleases my wife who is a great consumer of fruit. She also produces large quantities of fruit for me for dessert - what’s wrong with ice cream and chocolate sauce I ask? Also any fruit is only available in its season, which actually we appreciate. I’ve never reckoned it to be an advantage to eat strawberries in January in the UK as well as at every other time of the year. And of course outside of the delicious English strawberry season we get those rather grim Spanish strawberries, as large as tennis balls, seemingly produced out of waste rubber and with as much taste as red topped milk - or green topped in South Africa - I nearly caught you out there! In fact years ago Sue’s step father bit deeply into one of these imported straberries and found a large and live worm in his mouth ; but don’t let that put you off; even though it was the start of the Spanish worm flu epidemic.
Meanwhile I continue with the skipping so that should I recieve a sudden call to run the Comrdes or if Matt Davis funks it and pleads a pulled muscle and I have to replace him in the Brighton Marathon, I will be fit and ready. It’s a good thing we can so easily buy chocolate in South Africa as this is a very necessary staple food to support all the exercise.
I am starting a new campaign, to lobby those responsible to provide shelves on lecturns/pulpits. I would invite readers of my blog to sign a petition to see progress in this area. I was clearly reminded of this during the past few days when we had a leaders’ weekend away with Jubilee Church. We gathered in a most beautiful place near the popular coastal resort of Hermanus, enjoying spectacular weather. I couldn’t help but contrast it with the parallel event at much the same time last year; that was our final appearance at the CCK leaders’ weekend with me still as an Elder. We fought our way through a blizzard to arrive at a holiday camp that had clearly served as a POW camp during the last war but had been sold off in kit form to be reassembled at a place of last resort near Chichester. Though I must admit the service and food were very good and it did us well for the occasion that we were there.
Anyway, I was prevailed upon to do a kind of farewell skit, and for those of you that are familiar with the TV programme Room 101 I suggested that one of the 3 things that I would like to get rid of and dump in Room 101 was a preaching lecturn without a shelf. I appreciate that our old lecturn at CCK had probably reached retirement age, but it did at least have a shelf - unlike the replacement model. Preachers need lecturns with a shelf; especially for that all important placement of a glass of water to be easily available when there is a case of preacher’s tickly throat. And occasionally there is a need to take books into the pulpit which can be easily pulled out from the shelf and quoted for the benefit of the congregation. To have to throw your books on the floor and then bend double to pick them up for a quote or practically stand on your head to retrieve a glass of water is just not practical or dignified and indeed demands a certain advanced level of physical fitness.
Which brings me to a real South African obsession - keeping fit. On our way back from the leaders’ weekend - we had to return early on Sunday morning, so that I could preach at Jubilee - we passed vast numbers of runners and cyclists doing their best to sweat it off in rapidly soaring temperatures. And as for people going to the gym; it’s practically at epidemic levels here in Cape Town. Personally I’ve always been of the view that I can’t see anything wrong in sitting down and having a cup of coffee. But that won’t do in Cape Town; you are almost an endangered species if you don’t go to the gym. Even my wife goes to the gym 2 or 3 times a week here - at least she says she does, I’ve no real proof, so she may be sitting down somewhere having a cup of coffee. But now you can upgrade into a more alarming opportunity of joining a ‘boot camp’. This seems to involve an even more strict exercise routine on a very regular basis, in the open air at an hour so early it’s almost before most people have even gone to bed the previous night and under some sort of sergeant major supervision. One of our staff members even won his place on a boot camp as a prize! What kind of sadist invents those sort of prizes? Only this morning one of our lovely young female staff members was moving around the office and up the stairs, clearly in a lot of pain. On asking her if she was ok she told me it was the result of some routine at boot camp - so obviously it’s doing her a world of good.
Anyway, we arrived at Jubilee last Sunday morning and I preached my sermon from the shelfless lecturn that they also have here, stood on my head to retrieve a glass of water in a slightly warmish moment during the sermon, and finally kicked it all over the platform during the appeal.
Last July while visiting our family in Chicago, we went to the magnificent facilities run by Willow Creek Church for a Sunday morning meeting. We met in an absolutely stunning 7,500 seater building with the most wonderful seating, acoustics, audio and visual systems. Everything ran seamlessly and presentations on the platform were flawless. The guest preacher made his way to the centre of the stage to deliver his sermon and I waited for the perfect lecturn to arise out of the floor or be let down from the ceiling - instead of which somebody stuck a music stand in front of him, and that was it!!!
So please join the campaign for lecturns with shelves and save preachers the indignity of having to scramble around on the floor for what they need - it would even save on exercise programs, because, and you’re the first to know this, in order to keep myself supple enough to cope with lecturns with no shelves I’ve actuallystarted skipping.
We returned to Cape Town late last Saturday afternoon, after a delay of more than 5 hours on our flight from Heathrow. The events at London Airport on Friday night were like a little summary and repeat of our Christmas back in the UK. I am not good in queues. In fact I once preached a message, where the illustration I gave about queues has long survived the true point of the sermon. I stated that it was always a disaster to change queues. You are in a long line at the Supermarket till and see the line next to you moving rapidly forward. So you change queues, only to find that when you do, somehow events reverse, the till jams, someone ahead of you has lost their creditcard, or the till operator has a nervous breakdown and the queue you have left now makes rapid progress, leaving you stranded in the now slower queue. Despite what has apparently been a life changing message for some - ‘don’t change queues’, I still did it myself a couple of times over Christmas, with the usual sad and predictable outcome. At Heathrow we arrived in good time and having already checked in ‘on-line’ we joined the seriously misnamed ‘fast bag drop.’ It might have been once, but now that everyone checks in online it has become the slow bag drop, whilst the queue for the few who actually check in at Heathrow has almost disappeared. Anyhow we eventually reached the front of the queue, and moved to the desk to be told they were only accepting passengers 2 hours before the flight. Strange! but as we were more than 2 hours ahead of the flight we moved away to a coffee shop. Timing our return to perfection we joined the queue again and this time when we reached the front were told it would still be 15 minutes before we could drop off our luggage. 15 minutes later we joined the queue yet again, only to arrive eventually at the front once more and be told that we still couldn’t proceed. Now I am a patient man…. but I did make the point that we had been round the circle 3 times already, whereupon we were shunted off into a kind of sub-queue waiting for the Cape Town flight and I was left pondering whether this could be some kind of revenge for my sermon of years ago.
Next we are told that our plane ‘is broken’. This rather alarming statement brought to mind a picture of a Jumbo jet with a wing snapped in two, or a wheel missing. It also brought to mind the Christmas present of a DVD that we gave to one of our grandchildren which caused the computer to crash every time it was inserted. So a change of plane was needed, but we had the assurance that there would be no delay in take-off - now would you have believed that?
Eventually we arrive at the departure point and of course there is no plane - perhaps they were supergluing that wing. Eventually they find a spare jumbo jet in a garage somewhere and an hour and a half after take off time we are at last on board. Then of course it was weather problems. The British obsession with weather has been indulged this Christmas to an extreme degree. Snow meant we couldn’t go to the staff lunch, snow meant the leaders meeting was cancelled - disappointing as we missed out on seeing so many people. On board our plane we can’t take off without being de-iced, but because we don’t get extreme weather in the UK there are approximately only 2 de-icing machines for all the airports in the country, so we’re in for a long wait.
One of the big stories over the festive season was about the guy on a plane going to America who tried to blow it up over Detroit. Everyone is nervous, so next up we have a security scare that shuts down Heathrow completely for about an hour or so. Some drunk on an Emirates aircraft was talking about carrying a bomb - well you’ve probably heard the story on the news. Eventually, after they have sorted that incident we are back to the weather and the overworked de-icing machine which is trying to reach every plane in Heathrow, until finally after more than 5 hours delay and at one o’ clock in the morning we take off ice free into the freezing air around us.
Despite the weather we had a really good Christmas. It was great to see the family in Poole, to preach at Matt’s church and for Sue to go to see David and family in Chicago.
And actually it wasn’t even so bad on the plane - we were upgraded to Business Class, with acres of space and flat 6 foot beds to sleep on (obviously we drank the orange juice rather than the champagne). What a blessing.
So we’re back in Cape Town for another 5 months and delighted to be here. So don’t change queues, just keep walking around the same one and after 3 times you might get an upgrade, and after 7 times the walls of Heathrow might fall down.
We’ve reached the firm conclusion that currently the favourite word in South Africa is, ‘hectic’. People here don’t have a busy week they have a week that’s been ‘hectic’. Lives aren’t really busy, they are ‘really hectic’. The year’s been hectic, last Sunday was hectic in fact just about anything you can think of has been hectic. Which seems a suitable point at which to make the comment that this is intended to be my last blog for a few weeks, for if all goes according to plan, we should be back in the UK next Tuesday morning. Those who are going to struggle over Christmas without this particular weekly blogfix need to tune in again about Jan 13th 2010 for some ramblings about our hectic Christmas.
Passionate followers of the beautiful game will be aware that the major event in Cape Town (and for some the major event in the world) during the past week has been the World Cup Draw. As host nation South Africa was hoping for a soft first round but have actually been drawn against some quite tough opponents and then comes the news that they have lost their Number 1 position in Test Cricket and that India have now surpassed them. Living next door to the Cape Town Cricket Stadium sort of highlights the challenging week that South Africa has had in the sports realm. But I must say that the newly built Stadium in Cape Town where some of the World Cup matches will be played is absolutely stunning. One of the more bizarre news items accompanying the Cup draw was that a 68 year old journalist joked that he was carrying a bomb when he entered the hall where the draw was taking place. He was immediately arrested and put into prison awaiting a court hearing - you’d think a journalist of that age would have a bit more sense! Another journalist was robbed at knife point and another one had specialist camera equipment stolen. It somehow sums up Cape Town; surely no city more beautiful on earth and yet a threatening city as well.
So we are leaving this lovely city, basking in summer sunshine, for a 3 week stint back in the cold and damp of the UK. One of the effects of the summer climate here at this time of year is that somehow Christmas seems a lot less hectic. There are Christmas decorations about, but you hardly notice them in the sunlight. There is mention of Carol services, but they seem vaguely remote when you are considering how to cool down. I suppose people are buying presents and mince pies, but somehow it lacks the frenzy of Christmas preparations in the UK.
It’s been a fascinating few months. I’ve preached nearly every Sunday - last week at Helderberg now led by Gary Welsh, have been mugged in some public gardens, visited Dubai, been to a snake park, spent 10 days in Zimbabwe encountering crocodiles, hippos and every kind of insect known to man. We’ve stroked a lion and watched whales coming right up to the shore line, seen dolphins jumping near Cape Town Harbour and then read sensational newspaper headlines nearly every day; ‘mayhem in street due to murder’ being a fairly typical one this week. We’ve had a great time in Jubilee Community Church whilst here and been very privileged to have been co-opted onto the Eldership team led by Steve van Rhyn. Cape Town is beautiful and violent, it has some of the best scenery in the world and some of the worst slums in the world. People prosper and high numbers suffer from AIDs. You can view some of the most fabulous houses you can imagine and a few minutes later be looking at some of the worst shacks you can imagine. You can buy top luxury goods in huge shopping malls and at every traffic light encounter people begging for money and food for survival. Such a wonderful city in which to live and such a challenging city in which to live.
Back in the UK I’m expecting to go to a CCK Directors dinner on the first night and then a CCK staff lunch a couple of days later. There are dentists to see, bills to pay, the car to get serviced, presents to buy, visits to the family at Poole, another visit to preach at Poole, friends to catch up with, a Christmas Tree to erect, a visit to Heathrow to put Sue on a plane to Chicago, and 5 days later another visit to Heathrow to pick up Sue flying back from Chicago……Well, you know what Christmas is like in the UK…..hectic!
We have returned from a fascinating and exciting visit to Zimbabwe. First to Victoria Falls. Fantastic; a wonderful sight, plus a magnificent sunset cruise on the the River Zambezi with plenty of hippos and crocodiles on view. A stunning sunset over the river.
Zimbabwe has no currency of its own, as it became totally worthless, but now trades in US dollars and South African Rands. This has brought goods back into the shops and fuel to the pumps. But do they charge! We had a hire car arranged for when we arrived at the airport and they wanted a 1000 dollars as a deposit. Was the banger we drove even worth a 1000 dollars?! I didn’t have a $1000, so they had to be content with less. We paid 15 pounds for a plateful of cheese and tomato sandwiches at our B & B and there wasn’t even any pepper. When you pay in dollars and need some change, even in the hotels, someone disappears for a mysteriously long period of time before returning with the change - where did they go? Perhaps to get the change from under the bed or to the Bank! Baboons almost in the town centre and warthogs in the hotel grounds. A great couple of days.
We flew to Bulawayo on Air Zimbabwe; not exactly the world’s leading airline, but an excellent flight. Met by Mbonisi (’Bones’) who leads the church there and who then told me that they have 2 services on a Sunday, not the one service I was expecting, and as a visiting preacher I could feel free to preach a different message at both. I somehow found the freedom to do it. We set off for the meeting on Sunday morning after a night of rain straight onto a dirt road that was now a sea of mud. Travelling somewhat speedily down the road, in order to gain momentum and not stick in the mud, so Bones informed us, the wheels suddenly went and we did a total 180 degree skid, missed a telegraph pole by about 2 feet and ended up bogged down in mud in the ditch at the side of the road. While waiting for a tractor to pull us out several farm workers came past, slipping and sliding through the mud, to give us a friendly wave as though we were sitting on the side of the road having a picnic. Eventually, back on the road and travelling again to the meeting, Bones asked me if I ever get nervous before I preach. Recalling my hairy Sunday morning journey into a Cape Town township (see earlier blog) and now skidding into a ditch did rather force the reply, ‘Well I’m getting more so’!
Great time with the church and then after a staff meeting and a Leader’s meeting on the Monday we were off to a church planting and agricultural project an hour and half’s drive deep into rural Zimbabwe. No electricity, but great faith in God as a church hall is being built, the congregation currently meet in a tent, and crops are being planted by a group of trainees. These Believers are wonderful. Back to Bones’ house and his wife Tash - a bat in the living room and a plague of flying ants - talk about bugs, Zimbabwe in the rains breeds them at the rate of billions a minute.
Next day we were off to Antelope Park, a really beautiful game reserve in fairly central Zimbabwe for a training week with leaders from the NewFrontiers churches. Some confusion over where we should sleep but in the end we appropriately settled for the honeymoon suite under a thatched roof overlooking a beautiful river hosting an astonishing variety of birds ,whilst the suite we were in was hosting increasing numbers of 6 inch juicy centipedes and every beetle and bug known to man. Must be a fasacinating honeymoon experience to know that every time you walk across the room you can hear the crunch of insects under you feet. One evening after a long days teaching I was lying on the bed,only to see a rat sized field mouse (everything rodent or insect comes bigger in Zim) looking down on me from the overhanging wooden chandelier. Now I am not an expert on how to deal with mice with extraordinarily long tails swinging from the chandeliers! I went to enlist help and was eventually assisted by the splendid Alan Norton who, armed with a heavy shoe, knocked it off the light, clobbered it over the head and sent it out of the door with a migraine. Meanwhile we continued to shovel out the centipedes who seemed to be enjoying some kind of centipede convention in our room.
But what a beautiful place to lecture in. Stunning scenery and excellent food under thatch, but in a dining hall open to the view and at the evening meal accompanied by large spiders on the table and a billion flying ants - apparently you can fry the ants and eat them - but nobody did.
Having spoken 16 times in 6 days we had Friday afternoon to ourselves and we walked with lions - we really did. The Park operates a lion breeding program with the aim of releasing lions back into the wild. Up to the age of 18 months (the lions that is) you can walk withe lions. We had a health and safety lecture beforehand with advice such as DON’T PANIC which of course brought one to near panic before meeting with the lions. But when we met our two big cats, who were 14 months old, we strolled along together like the best of friends. We even stroked them ( we have the photos to prove it) but Sue felt she didn’t want to put her head in the lion’s mouth - so obviously not destined for a life in the circus. A once in a life time treat - really quite moving to walk with and touch such magnificent animals.
And so back to Cape Town after meeting with some amazing Believers who never complain in the midst of all the challenges of this rather broken nation. They are full of joy and commitment and through building the Church look to be the answer to their nation. An extraordinary and unforgettable 9 days.
No lack of new experiences in Southern Africa. Last week when at the office I received a phone call from a neighbour saying that Sue was shut out of the flat and could I return as quickly as possible. To get shut out of the house in South Africa can be more complicated than in the UK as on some of the recent Facebook accounts. Sue stepped out of the front door without the key and the door slammed behind her, but only 3 feet in front of her was the typical metal security gate, also locked. So now she was holed up like a bear in a cage hungrily looking through the bars to attract attention and in a space only 3 foot by 3 foot. She was there a full hour before she got the attention of a passing neighbour and I was able to get home and release her. Good job I had a key or we would have been feeding her buns and bananas through the bars!
The next adventure is Zimbabwe, having once been there about 10 years ago which was also an interesting time. In those days Piet and Hettie Dreyer, dear friends of ours, were living in Zimbabwe and ministering there so we went to be with them for 2 weeks and for me to bring some teaching on the End Times. It proved, temporarily at least, to be their End Time because after a week of our being there they had to leave the country at very short notice over a visa issue. They had 2 cars so the only reasonable thing to do was to leave Zimbabwe with them and for me to drive one of the cars into South Africa. We turned into the first camp site we could find in Northern South Africa and simply had a weeks’ holiday with them. The site had an enormous hot thermal pool so life wasn’t too bad. Eventually we got a coach back into Zimbabwe so we could fly home from Harare.
Some time later when Piet and Hettie had got the visa issue sorted and gone back into Zimbabwe we rang them one Sunday afternoon to ask how they were and sensed great excitement as they told us that they had guests staying in the same room we had been in but presently there was a black mamba outside in the hallway. (Don’t cosy up to a black mamba - bad idea - see previous blog). This was the same room that had a bathroom facility in the garden outside. When Piet first showed it to us he said that if we needed the loo in the night we should just check the bathroom as we went in to make sure there were no snakes sleeping there overnight. It was the kind of advice to ensure perfect bladder control - we never visited the bathroom at night! Indeed when we were first picked up from the Airport a snake shot across the road in front of the car as Piet shouted excitedly - ‘black mamba’.
And now we are going back! On Thursday we are due to fly to Victoria Falls, spend a day or so there and then on to Bulawayo and I am booked to preach on Sunday at the NewFrontiers church. This is followed by a week of Leadership Training when I am teaching a group of Elders and Leaders gathering in for an intensive training week. Guess what I’m teaching on? The End Times!
Some years ago I was doing a fairly regular exercise routine based on the program developed by the Canadian Airforce and called ‘11 Minutes a Day’ (12 minutes if female). This is a graduated program of increasingly demanding exercises that are to be completed in a maximum of 11 minutes and designed to keep you fit, lean and healthy. Those who know me can testify to the obvious and positive effects of this! This exercise routine was resurrected as the ice-breaker for our Lifegroup last week by one of our very energetic ladies who has been following this program herself for some years. It certainly proved to be the most original ice-breaker I have known in a small group context! All 14 of us varying from the reed thin to the somewhat more substantially built spilled out of the modest sized lounge in which we were meeting to overflow into hallway and kitchen as we flung ourselves to the ground to perform, what for me, was a rather nostalgic routine. The highlight came at the conclusion of the exercises as all 14 of us did 50 high knee running jumps on the spot in concert together in a way that could surely have challenged for a place on one of the current TV talent shows. It was also a test of the strength of the floorboards, which held up well, much to the relief of the house owners!
Following this we had a somewhat breathless discussion on the subject of dreams as we were responding to the Sunday message about Joseph in prison interpreting the dreams of Pharoah’s cupbearer and baker. It turned out that some of us felt that we had never experienced a significant dream in our life while others testified that God had even identified a life partner through a dream. It appears that some of the men in the group are not yet old enough to dream dreams as promised in the Bible!
While on the subject of dreams it would be easy to begin a discussion also on the subject of nightmares and I wouldn’t be surprised if some didn’t express that dreaming about snakes could be a real nightmare for them. Over the last few days we have had a short break away from Cape Town and been staying in an area known as Plettenberg Bay on South Africa’s famed Garden Route - an extremely beautiful coastal area of the country. There are a variety of tourist attractions available and we elected to visit a snake park. Being the only ones in the park at the time we had the young man, who acts as guide to show visitors around, all to ourselves. He clearly really loves snakes ( and has only been bitten twice!!) and seemed to have comprehensive knowledge of his subject. Eventually I asked him whether he’d studied snakes at a College of some kind, wondering whether perhaps he had a BA in serpentology or similar. But he replied by saying that he’d learnt all he knows by observation and that many things he reads in books about snakes are actually not correct, something that proved very interesting towards the close of the tour. We picked up a couple of snakes, learned not to cosy up to black mambas - bad idea - and I even now have a photo of an albino python draped around my neck. Pythons of course are constrictors but this snake obviously didn’t find me interesting enough to constrict me - I should have thought after all those Canadian exercises….. But this was the really interesting part, he showed us claws on the underside of the python and told us (as I have indeed heard previously) that scientists say that they are actually the vestiges of legs that snakes used to have but have now lost in the process of evolution and presently serve no purpose. However, this very knowledgeable and observant young man told us that what he had noticed is that the pythons use these claws to grip hold of another snake and work their way along it to gain the right position for mating. So the possibility is that snakes have always had these claws and used them for the same purpose and that they are not evidence of losing legs in an evolutionary process. Pleasant dreams!
Some readers of this Blog will already be familiar with my story of booking for an eye test a few months ago. Following a reminder letter to do so I phoned up Specsavers and tried to fix the appointment during a lunchtime when I would be free to be away from the CCK Office. On the phone the lady asked me for the date of my birth and then said, “We would be able to see you at that time, but as we are rather busy then we’d only have an upstairs clinic to see you in - would you be able to manage the stairs?’ I’ve been exploding about that remark ever since, not least because up until and on the very last day I worked at the office at CCK in Brighton I would run up the stairs.
At Jubilee Community Church in Cape Town I am continuing the practise as a very similar flight of stairs leads to my office here. I leap up them, past the photocopier (as at CCK) and turn first left into my office - again exactly as at CCK. There are in fact a whole number of things that are very similar here in the Cape Town Church as compared to how it was at the Brighton Church, but there are of course some differences as well. For one thing on reaching my office at CCK, and I occupied the same one for about 20 years, the only view I had of the outside world was through a skylight which usually afforded no more of a view than a grey sky and a few seagulls and also risked a stiff neck. Here in Cape Town I have proper windows and, can you believe this, I even see some of Table Mountain through them. At CCK most of the Elders had offices together on the same floor around an open square. It’s a similar arangement here in Cape Town although the open square here is occupied by some of the Church’s administrators, three really lovely single young ladies ( recommended visiting times are 9-4.30 Tuesday through Friday). This is a vast improvement on the situation at CCK where the equivalent space was occupied by Steve Horne’s smashed up bycycle, the result of a foolhardy if courageous attempt to drive it up a vertical concrete post. Again a distinct advantage here in Cape Town is that a splendid lady called Cynthia delivers direct to one’s office a coffee in the morning and a tea in the afternoon, or indeed whatever drink one happens to fancy, although I’ve been careful not to fancy anything too fancy
On Tuesdays we can have a rather more crowded morning than at CCK. We begin with staff prayers ( the same) but following on from there we can also include teaching by me on the Book of Revelation; a treat that the CCK staff never benefited from; a full staff meeting, a pastoral leaders meeting and an Elders meeting. The Elders begin by attending the Prayer meeting and continue to the end of the final gathering as during the morning various people vanish at the conclusion of the other meetings. The Elders are therefore like the finishers and survivers at the end of a marathon though as the morning progresses the excellent Cynthia appears from time to time with another drink and finally when only the Elders are left standing (sitting actually) muffins also appear!
Once a month on a Thursday the Area Leaders have a meeting together. This is equivalent to the Zone Pastors meeting at CCK. Like CCK it tends to comprise Elders plus some other senior Pastoral leaders. But here in Cape Town it includes a lunch and what a lunch. The food arrives courtesy of an amazing caterer called Bertha. Sometimes there is a fish course and a meat course and the most exotic deserts I have ever eaten in a church. As you can imagine such an offering means razor sharp minds and an intense and keen discussion.
Again, once a month on a Sunday afternoon there is a Leadership Summit which is equivalent to a Leaders Meeting ( a rather duller term) usually held during an evening at CCK. At both churches it’s an opportunity to share vision, news and do some equipping. Can Jubilee really call together all its leaders on a Sunday afternoon and expect a big turnout? Well the secret weappon is Bertha who provides a tea that rallies leaders from the length and breadth of Cape Town. I don’t think that I ever previously eaten smoked salmon sandwiches at a leaders meeting and to reflect Hebrews in another context that only foreshadows the good things that are now here.
Again, both churches hold repeat meetings on a Sunday, one in the morning and one in the evening, although of course since we moved to Cape Town CCK has added another meeting on Sunday morning. Both churches make a noise about the excellence of their refreshments after each service in order to encourage the congregation to stay on and to help build relationships. But only last Sunday I discovered that here at Jubilee one of the choices on offer is hot chocolate. As the meeting hall in both churches is not at ground level then at Jubilee I’m not only running up the stairs to the service (which I often did at CCK) but also running down the stairs to get at the hot chocolate. Anyone want to visit?
Last Thursday morning found us in a large shopping mall in Somerset West about 25 miles outside Cape Town. We’d stopped there for coffee before going on to have lunch with friends in the town and as I waited outside a shop for Sue, who should walk by but Dave Edwards, a member of CCK Brighton - talk about a global village. Dave actually has some property in South Africa and so was over on a visit. My mind immediately flashed back to a very kind offer that Dave had made to me shortly before we came out to Cape Town. He said, ‘I have a Mercedes in a garage in Somerset West, you would be very welcome to use it while you are in South Africa.’ Well I wasn’t going to turn down an offer of a Mercedes (not that I had ever been offered one before) but I said to David I ought just to check with Steve Van Rhyn. Steve leads the Jubilee Church and I thought that David’s offer could save Jubilee some money as they were probably going to hire a car for us, so it seemed almost certain that we’d go with David. When I had a chat with Steve at the Brighton Conference the conversation went something like this. Steve said, ‘Well we’ve been able to arrange a car for you’. “Great’, I said, “And it’s a Mercedes”. ‘Yes’, said Steve, ‘But how did you know’? Feeling this was a slightly strange question I said, ‘Tell me your story”. It turned out that a member of Jubilee had wanted to trade in his car and get a new one, he couldn’t get a decent price for the old one and so gave it to Jubilee. And it was another Mercedes. So with two Mercedes on offer Sue could see us driving both cars around the city. However, I assured her that only one was necessary, which of course she understood to be entirely reasonable, and so we settled on the Jubilee Mercedes.
Now it is a Mercedes, but it is very small. I think it may have been manufactured during a steel shortage and so they only had enough material to make the front of the car, but not the back. In fact it is so short and stumpy that it does not have any back wheels, just two sets of front wheels. However it has a large engine for the size of the vehicle and is very comfortable in front and so we whizz around Cape Town at high speed. Also because it is so small we can park it on a Rand in very small spaces, so it actually has many advantages.
Anyway back to David in the Somerset Mall who informed me that his (rather larger Mercedes) has been stolen after thieves broke into his house and garage. So now I was torn between feelings of some relief that we didn’t choose to go with David’s car, because it might not have been there when we went to collect it, and feelings of guilt in that had we collected it we might have saved it from being stolen!
Last Friday was British Pub Quiz night at Jubilee, which was great fun although our table didn’t exactly distinguish itself with its general knowledge. We could could hardly name one of ten pop songs from the 1980s and what was particularly disturbing was that in the science section the 2 medical doctors on our table were taking some time to agree on the name of a tube that passes from one part of the body to another. Be very afraid. We eventually came in at 19th in the competition despite the best efforts of doctors, lawyers, accountants and actuaries all assembled on our table. We sped off home in our Mercedes.
We had a busy day on Sunday with a preach at the Bay Community Church in the South of Cape Town led by our good friend Jeff Kidwell with his wife Viv and then zipping back to more central Cape Town to join Jubilee for its Fun Day held in the superb grounds of a local school. It was during this particular zip that the car developed an increasingly loud whining sound. But you know what it’s like when you develop a pain in a tube in your body, how the pain disappears as soon as you enter the doctor’s waiting room. So, as soon as I got a mechanic from Jubilee to sit in the car the noise miraculously disappeared.
On Monday, in our whine free car, we drove around the spectacular Cape Point right at the bottom of the African Continent ( for the benefit of those who are passionate for accuracy, yes, I know about Cape Agulhas being even a smidge further South). The challenge of this beautiful area is the many large and rather terrifying baboons that roam there. Four years ago, when last there, as I got out of the car a baboon got into the car and sat in the driving seat next to Sue. I remember telling this story in CCK and even now I hear Dave Fellingham calling out from the Elders bench - ‘how did she tell the difference?’ Anyway, no trouble this time and we had a great afternoon.
Dave Edwards is coming to dinner next Monday. I expect he’s had to hire a car as his has been stolen and no doubt it will be a rather cheap economical model to keep costs down. I just hope he doesn’t park too near to where we are staying, after all we have got a Mercedes parked outside the front door.
