Is this my final blog? Well it is in South Africa unless something unexpected happens, such as more volcanic ash over Heathrow. We are planning to fly home 10 days earlier than expected and on the last BA flight from Cape Town before a strike of the BA cabin crew begins. I like to finish [...]
The other day Sue and I were discussing the way in which in Cape Town everything is more. Certainly in just about every sense things are much more extreme than in Brighton. Only today the headline in one of the local newspapers, and which was attached to lamp posts on the way to the church office [...]
Sue and I think that it is exactly 21 years ago today that we first came together to South Africa. I had been asked to lead the Vineyard (now Jubilee) Church for some 3 - 4 months while the then Lead Elder was on sabbatical in the UK. Well, there has been a fair flow [...]
As I reflect upon the past week, last Thursday was quite a significant and memorable day. I had been asked to go and teach on the subject of grace to one of our smaller churches in the Western Cape. I was told that it would be hosted in the building belonging to another church and [...]
The church we have spent the most time with (outside the UK) is definitely Jubilee Community Church here in Cape Town. Indeed when we return from here in a few weeks time we will have spent more than 10% of the last 21 years in South Africa. The Church that we have visited most times, [...]
Returning for the Easter weekend we had just spent 3 weeks visiting churches and leaders mostly in the Durban area. In fact our first ‘church stop’ was Port Elizabeth where we had an excellent time with Alistair and Suzanne Buchanan who have recently planted a church in South Africa’s 5th biggest city. So good to spend time [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
