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.
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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.
On a previous visit to Cape Town, I would think about 10 years ago, I lost 5 minutes of my life. I was in the shower of the home we were staying in and Sue had just gone into the kitchen to fix some breakfast. When Sue came back I was lying on my bed totally dry with a towel modestly secured around my middle. As she came into the bedroom I ‘came to’ and for a few moments had no idea where I was and absolutely no recall at all of coming out of the shower, drying myself off, wrapping a towel around my middle and lying down on the bed. I reckoned that there was certainly at least 5 minutes of my life that I had lost completely. The event was sufficiently disturbing for me to go to my doctor when I got home and tell him the story. He passed it off with remarks like, ‘it sometimes happens’ and ‘you were probably somewhat stressed at the time’. I was never really very happy with this as at the time I don’t think I was stressed at all.
After that I sometimes had moments in the shower when I wondered whether it would happen again and used to concentrate very hard on what I was doing in the ablution routine! There was an interesting outcome to this story which occurred about a year later. Sue used to read a medical column, always included at that time in the Saturday Telegraph and not surprisingly authored by a a qualified doctor. ‘Look at this’ she said to me. I read the column for the week which recorded how this doctor had himself visited a Scottish women doctor whom he obviously highly regarded. He went to see her because he had been swimming, came out of the pool and then, you’ve guessed it, lost part of his life - he simply couldn’t remember what happened after he left the pool, there was just a blank. The doctor he was visiting suddenly lit up with the cry,’ You’re the person I have been wanting to meet’! In her medical research she had discovered that there is a syndrome recognised in France, but not in the UK, where individuals having had some contact with water suddenly lose part of their life and cannot recall what they have done or what has happened. The good news (at least for me, but possibly not yet for you) is that this is something that only ever happens once in a person’s life, it never gets repeated. As you can imagine since reading that article I have taken my showers with a sense of complete freedom.
Anyway, all this came flooding(!) back to me in the shower this morning as I remembered that particular shower (though not the immediate aftermath) that I experienced in Cape Town 10 or so years ago. Then I thought of the time that I am aware of. We’ve already had 12 Sundays in Cape Town; though strictly one was in Dubai, and there are only 8 more before we return to the UK for Christmas. So time passes quickly on and those of you who promised to keep in touch by email and haven’t are running out of it! No condemnation… More importantly it’s always sobering to think of using the time well that God that has given to us and which we can remember. Meanwhile enjoy your shower tomorrow morning, but do beware the water.
Being in South Africa, and I suppose this is true of being in any other country which uses English as a main language, reveals some fascinating language differences. For example South Africans commonly express things with a negative whereas we would use a positive. So in a Church service I’d say ‘will you please sit down’, but here in Jubilee you are more likely to hear, ’won’t you sit down’ to which which I have an overwhelming urge, so far resisted, to shout, ‘ No’! Then there is the use of the word now. In South Africa you have to differentiate between now now which means immediately or just now which could be any time from here to the end of your life. So if someone tells you, ‘I’m going to take you out for a delicious steak just now’, don’t get too excited, it could be a long time before it happens. What you are looking for is a now now steak; that’s worth getting excited about. Then there is the confusing use of the word couple which of course for us in the UK always means two, but in South Africa seems to mean anything from 2 to 3,000 (if not more). For a couple to tell you that they have a couple of children can be extremely confusing. How many are in this relationship and how many children do they actually have? So if a husband and wife tell you that they are coming round for a meal just now, with a couple of their children, you haven’t really got a clue as to how many are coming or when they will turn up. It reminds me of the time when years ago as a very young Pastor an American told me that they were all coming round for coffee. I was expecting the entire church, but actually it was only the one guy with his wife!
Steve van Rhyn has a quite delightful stock of phrases which he uses when preaching. For example in Steve’s vocabulary people never arrive, they ‘rock-up’. And where we would speak of someone being ‘top of the pile’ Steve uses the far more descriptive phrase of ‘top of the log’. In the UK we are fairly familiar with certain catch phrases that seem to be popular for a time. So a few years back we were ‘kick starting’ all sorts of things and more recently we’ve all been trying ‘to sing from the same hymn sheet’, which is strange really as in NewFrontiers we never do sing from a hymn sheet! Mind you within NewFrontiers we also have our stock phrases, the chief of which is we are in transition (If I had a pound for every time…….!). There is also the highly descriptive phrase sometimes used these days for referring to someone we may be a bit concerned about that ‘he’s one sandwich short of a picnic.’ Which brings me to my all time favourite expression here in South Africa. A few weeks ago a lovely lady here in Cape Town was referring to someone she was a bit concerned about asking me whether I thought ‘his cheese was slipping off his cracker.’ Beat that!
So last Sunday I was preaching at Langebaan on the West Coast and once again found myself in the midst of language differences as they have repeat meetings on a Sunday now ( which has almost become a NewFrontiers value), the first service is in Afrikaans and the second in English. However they let me preach both times in English as they reckoned that my Afrikaans wasn’t up to much. Mind you I do know the Afrikaans word ‘lekker’ which means ‘really good’ and is a word almost universally used over here even by those who only speak English. So we had a really lekker time with the church - one I’ve visited reguarly over the last 11 years.
I believe I’ve mentioned before that we belong to a very stimulating Lifegroup (depending on your context understand at this point; small group, cell group, home group, focus group, action group, growth group or ‘what on earth are they calling them now’ group). Well, last week we were discussing Terry Virgo’s sermon from the week before. The splendid Herma Adams, wife of church Elder Dave Adams, was saying how much she had appreciated what Terry has said about being fervent in prayer from the story of Elijah who had fought the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel and how he had built the altar and poured water all over the alter. In fact Herma went into great detail for about 5 minutes on all of this causing in me a rising sense of panic. I simply hadn’t heard Terry describing Elijah building the altar and pouring water on etc, etc. Was I fast asleep while Terry was saying this - after all I had only got back from Dubai the night before. Did I snore as I was asleep or had I simply blanked out. Was I losing my memory even. So eventually I could take it no longer and stopped Herma by exclaiming, I just can’t remember Terry saying any of that. ‘Oh no, he didn’t,’ she said,’ I was just having a bit of a preach myself.’ I then discovered that Sue was having exactly the same thoughts as me and was also on the edge of a panic attack thinking she had completely lost it too while listening to Terry. Anyway we were both greatly relieved as we had really thought for a few minutes that the cheese was slipping off our crackers.
We flew back from Dubai to Cape Town last Saturday after a very interesting few days in Dubai. With the change of leadership soon to take place there, the Friday meeting (not Sunday in Dubai) was a really important one. Steve Oliver told the story of his call to Dubai to the congregation; which seemed to be very well received and then I preached a message on God’s purpose for the Church. We were so glad to have been in Dubai at such a crucial phase of the churches’ history and Clive and Heather Cernic will be very much missed as they leave shortly before Christmas, but we believe that Steve and Heather Oliver are going to be very well received as Steve takes on the leadership of the team there. One of the the issues that was very much on the mind of people while we were there was the terrible flooding in Manila. A number of the congregation come from the Philippines and have family in Manila and we also have a church in Manila which was planted by Eden who used to be in the Dubai Church. So the contacts are very close and in fact Clive was due to fly to Manila just after we left to minister to the church there. However it seemed best for Clive to postpone this visit until things have returned to a more normal state so that he will have a better opportunity to minister and speak to the church then. So in Dubai we stood and prayed together for the saints in Manila during our Friday morning meeting.
Back in Cape Town for Sunday morning I was taken into one of the townships to preach at our church there. The journey proved to be interesting. The splendid young man who was driving me assured me that he knew the way until we hit a traffic jam shortly after we’d started out. From then on the nature of the journey can be judged from a number of his remarks which I quote as accurately as I remember: ’Well John I think I can work my way around this jam - John I am going to give you a bit of an adventure today - Lets pray; Lord may we have a great meeting, please Lord let us arrive safely and please keep us alive - we are now driving through one of the more dangerous areas, this is where a lot of the gangs are functioning - I am keeping my distance from the car in front at the traffic lights so if anyone jumps on us I should be able to accelerate and get away - I’m glad we’re not doing this in your (newer) car, but in my (older) car as it helps us to keep a lower profile - I think the building is along here somewhere - it must be a bit further on - I think we may have missed it - I think it must be down a road futher back - I’ll ask the way - I decided to ask that guy in the truck because I thought with his wife and kid in the car he probably wouldn’t attack us - here we are and only 45 minutes late, but they tend to have a long time of worship.’ Safely in the building I’m giving thanks that the prayer had been answered!
Great time preaching in the church - the only time I’ve ever preached to a congregation to have them on their feet and clapping during the message - or were they trying to suggest it was time I stopped, by dropping a gentle hint? But no, poor as probably many of them were, they were wonderfully responsive to the Word of God.
Got it right on the way back. Straight out of the township and onto the motorway. We weren’t shot, mugged or attacked. Back at Jubilee in the evening Terry was there to preach at a great regional Celebration. Super time and Terry very relaxed, but then he’d only driven 2 miles through the suburbs!
We arrived in Dubai from Cape Town at 5 am last Thursday morning. The real reason for our being here is because of leadership changes that are taking place in the Dubai Church. Clive and Heather Cernic who have done a brilliant job over the last 4 years are moving on and Steve and Heather Oliver from South Africa are coming to take up the lead here. As Sue and I have the longest and most consistent relationship with the Dubai church we were asked to be around at the present time. I spoke to the Leaders on Thursday evening and then on Friday morning Clive told the whole church of their intention to move on about Christmas. It felt a bit tense when I got up to preach immediately afterwards, but I spoke on standing firm in a time of change and by the end of the meeting people seemed really positive and faith filled about the future. We’re seeing people all this week and then I preach again this Friday after Steve Oliver has been introduced to the Church - though he has been here before and so is known by the congregation.
Is this the most amazing city in the world? In certain respects I think it is. The ‘can-do’ attitude here is quite remarkable. A few years back they decided to build a metro system and bear in mind that it has to be constructed on and under sand. It opened just 3 weeks ago at 9.9.09 on the 9th of the 9th month 09 - good job they aren’t all 6s! (Note the eschatological reference here). It’s a great ride with an elevated view of Dubai’s stunning architecture and then plunging underground in the city centre. Clean, quiet but with the same 4 bars of music playing in the background all the time - a bit like listening to Windows opening up every few seconds. I was musing on the fact that in the time they’ve built this whole Metro system that in Brighton they haven’t even managed to remove the rubbish from the West Pier out of the sea! As for the handful of proposed building projects in Brighton - well as Brighton dithers, in the same time Dubai constructs the tallest building in the world. We went to view it the other evening and also saw what must be the most beautiful fountain in the world playing in front. This was quite astonishing. Every 20 minutes there is a kind of music, light and water show. The fountain erupts in time with the music (different pieces of music are used) and the effect is totally stunning. There was a major competition in Dubai to decide what to call their fountain. After all the suggestions had been considered the winner was declared to have come up with the amazingly original title of: The Dubai Fountain!
My laptop has suddenly developed a need for a password that has never been required before in order for me to acess my Emails. Why should this happen in Dubai - is it something to do with the sand or do they perhaps require an amazingly original password like ‘password’? Anyway, this is something that I am sure only Chris Leversuch at CCK can supply me with so I email him via Webmail ( my computer skills are legendary) only to get a message back that he’s on honeymoon until Oct 12th. Where’s the sense of commitment these days? Here I am labouring in the desert in temperatures of 100 degrees, needing IT back up and the man is on honeymoon!
We are staying with our good friends Tim and Coral who live in a complex that gives us an access to a very nice swimming pool. Sitting by the pool the other day, under a Palm tree, we had the rather original experience of being rained on by dates. We fly back to Cape Town on Saturday after our date here in Dubai.
In England you think Tesco, but in Cape Town you think Pick and Pay. A brand new Pick and Pay supermarket opened shortly before our arrival here and it is just a 5 minute drive away - very convenient. It’s situated in a complex that includes other shops, a gym, some residential flats and a car park. Not surprisingly the multi purpose use of the building has produced a few teething troubles, especially when refunds can be obtained for the parking if you’ve shopped in the Supermarket, though through a slightly contorted system. All of this was discussed in a letter to a local newspaper last week. Responsibly there was an immediate answer from the Manager of Pick and Pay, part apology, part pointing out the efforts being made to perfect the system and also part best wishes for all Pick and Pay customers whom they want to have a happy parking experience. I have never really previously considered the need for an experience when I park. But I notice that ‘experience’ is a buzz word these days. For your birthday, don’t have a boring present of socks or bath gel, go for an experience. There are companies that will drop you of a plane (with parachute) or arrange for you to make your own CD etc. It’s important to have an experience. I must admit a slight dislike of the approach of a Christian recording company in issuing its CDs under the heading of A Worship Experience. Why can’t I just worship?
We had one of those interesting conversations the other day that still surprises even after 41 years of marriage. I know this will bring in a shoal of emails expressing disgust and advice like, do it yourself, and shocked of Hove, but we have a family tradition that Sue always makes my sandwiches for me to take for my lunch. (Yes, I know - terrible isn’t it). So the other morning Sue was short of time and I was doing something extremely important for the advance of the Kingdom on the Computer and my wife says, “why aren’t you making your sandwich”. The truthful answer was that I didn’t know I was supposed to make my sandwich that morning after 41 years of not making a sandwich, so it came as a bit of a shock. I have obviously missed out in my married life on the whole valuable sandwich making experience.
Since last week we have had another very successful Senior Leaders Training morning. again, good attendance and I feel very good content for those that came. We looked at the Doctrine of Salvation, Applying the gospel and the Leader’s Devotional life. Another good Sunday too, enthusiastic worship and people seeming to appreciate the message on the Faithfulness of God.
Our Monday off took us on 90 minute drive to the coastal resort of Hermanus; a favourite of ours that we have visited many times in the years that we have been coming here. It is genuinely the best place in the world to view whales from the shore and they were so close to the beach that you could almost touch them. Others were spouting and jumping out at sea; it’s really quite a moving experience - there we go again.
Now we are packing and getting ready for about 10 days with the church in Dubai. This will include at least 2 Leaders’ meetings and preaching on the 2 Fridays that we are there. The trouble is I have now been to Dubai so often I begin to worry that I’ve told them everything that I’ve ever had to say. But we always so enjoy being with the church there; it’s a real privelege to think we can be with them again. So for the next few days we expect to be involved in the Dubai experience and neither of us will be making sandwiches.
