John Hosier on March 10th, 2010

My last post described our rather drawn out attempt to obtain a 2 month extension to our visas from the Department of Home Affairs. All this was meant to come to a happy conclusion last Friday as we returned to collect them. But no, we were told they were still being processed. So we make a [...]

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John Hosier on March 2nd, 2010

Despite all the travelling that we have done over the years; we’ve had very minimal trouble over paperwork. Some people seem to have real difficulties obtaining visas, but I think with a British Passport we are in a fairly priveleged position and usually there are no hitches. I remember being in Singapore on the first [...]

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John Hosier on February 23rd, 2010

Where we stay at the present time in Cape Town is within a complex of appartments built along 3 sides of a rectangle, just 2 stories in height and enclosing a pleasant communal garden. A number of the flats seem empty most of the time and we assume that people have them as holiday appartments, visiting just occasionally [...]

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John Hosier on February 16th, 2010

Last Sunday was Valentine’s Day; so Steve, the Lead Elder here in Jubilee was preaching on hell! This is part of our Right or Wrong series. Steve did point out that this wasn’t deliberately planned but the date was made clear to him after the series had been decided. The sermon was preceeded by some brief video [...]

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John Hosier on February 9th, 2010

I’ve noticed that as the years go by, and no doubt because respect for authority generally seems to grow weaker, that drivers in the UK definitely jump red lights more commonly than they used to. I have to say that there is an even more advanced form of this behaviour in Cape Town. If, say, Brighton drivers [...]

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John Hosier on February 2nd, 2010

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 [...]

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John Hosier on January 27th, 2010

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 [...]

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John Hosier on January 19th, 2010

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 [...]

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John Hosier on January 12th, 2010

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 [...]

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John Hosier on December 8th, 2009

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. [...]

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