This morning heralded the dawn of Tshwaranang internet. It was very good to be able to use the web in the office. Hence, we now have www.tshwaranang.org, we have stuff@tshwaranang.org email addresses, and I can upload my blog with minimal effort.

It turned out that the instructions we had received in the box about the setting up the cable, were wrong. What I want to know is, why? I ended up on the phone to tech support, cracking up the whole office, as every time he did something that worked, I exclaimed that he was a very attractive, almost beautiful young man, that I could tell this over the phone, and if I wasn’t already engaged, then… well!

That aside, most of the day was spent doing fairly mundane things. I mean, I can tell you about filling out the registration form, which involved writing 70 names, ages, qualifications, job descriptions, etc – but you probably won’t be that interested.

Went to a place for pizza at lunch; it wasn’t amazing though, and the bloke annoyed me by commenting all the time and not leaving us alone.

I got some good footage for the video I need to make up at the townships too, which was helpful. Then I spent the evening at home, watching a preach called “Indescribable”, by Louie Giglie. I’ve seen another version before – its an extra on the Facedown DVD. But this one was pretty cool too.

Mohau was meant to come round this evening, but he didn’t lol – nor did he reply to my texts; and I cooked him dinner! Oh well, I’ll make him eat it tomorrow. Instead I read a book someone gave me called “Khayeelitsha, uMlungu in a Township”. It’s a true story about this white dude, who goes to live in the biggest township near Capetown. uMlungu is Xhosa (pronounced ‘Click’-os (as in hose)-a (as in bat) for white man.

So that was my day. And from God:

“Thus declares the LORD of hosts: Return to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts.”
Zechariah 1:3

That sounds pretty similar to the New Testament to me!

Much lovings,
Chris

You gotta click that one, and look at the big version. I took 5 photos of my two mates jumping, with our Pentax. I was perched on an adjacent rock, hence the good angle. I then stitched the photos together manually. Pretty cool, eh?

Church was first on the list today. This time, I wasn’t fresh off the mountain, smelling like a bonfire, so I could put on my shirt, shave, and smell nice. Twas good.

The main focus from today’s service was the vision of the church. There was a presentation, with a detailed explanation of each part. It was good, and also kind of showed me why the split isn’t such a bad thing; the two churches have two very different aims, and modus operandi.

The worship was good today, with a song from the News Boys, the one that goes “And all God’s people sing, Glory, glory! Halleluyah, He Reigns!”. The Spirit was there.

Afterwards, with the tea and coffee, I got talking to Pat, who helps out in Mokgolokoeng each weekend. It turned out that her kids are always messy, and that it drives her up the walls, so I came to her house in order to do washing up and ironing. Sadly, when I got there it turned out that her son had done it all (maybe not sadly, that’s actually a good thing), so I just hung out with Grant for a short while.

I gave him a copy of my cd, and we put it on loud. It sounds good on a stereo, even if the bass was way too high.

He then mentioned how he loves going to the Strurkfontein dam (literally “strong fountain”), to go swimming and jumping in off cliffs. I was intrigued, and a few phonecalls (and the inevitable “I’ll be there now…” wait), we were on our way.

In the back of the car we had a CD player with Aqua’s album blaring out loud. We had coke, sprite, nik naks, peanuts, and splenty of sun tan lotion. We nearly all had dark glasses. It was very Californian.

When we got there, it was ridiculously beautiful. Think fifty times larger than Ladybower. Probably more like hundred – its fourteen kilometres wide at points, and nearly a km deep in the middle. And warm, on top, anyway. Full of huge fish. With cliffs of various heights, from half a storey, upto three. We all chickened out of the three-storey one, but did the one and a half one several times.

After several happy hours, the time came to go home again. Now 37 was blaring on the stereo, really odd to hear music from 2003, what the radio was playing in Year 12. The soundtrack to today, sung with passion by us all as we passes through amazing vistas, and wide, sweeping views, was “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got, til its gone”

That’s basically it, except for dinner I had 5 pancakes. Yum.

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:48

After a day like today, of such perfection, seeing God’s world, even if it was through a manmade dam, I think God’s perfection is clear. Ours, lol, is a little lacking.

Love you,

x

Look at that ball, in mid air. Very proud of myself!

Hey there lovelyface.

Today was kicked off with a lie in until 8, then work at 9 until 1. Never a fun thing to do on a Saturday, but at least it meant there is less to do on Monday. We spoke on the phone for a bit, which was nice, and I read you some of my proposal. Your talk sounds good too. Interesting how a talk on being veggie linked into my day… Anyway.

On the way back from the office, I popped to Franna’s house – you remember him, he’s the guy with the Afrikaans worship cd I like, the one who has always very supportive of my Christian punkness. Well, sadly, he was out. In fact, they are moving 400km on Monday, so I’m going to pop in then. I left his wife a copy of our new EP. What do you think of the name “End This World EP”.

Anyway, it was back to mine and preparing for the Braai! Celebrating my birthday in a true South African way, was nice, and it was great to see so many people turn up. I have some real friends here, and its nice to be with them.

It started at 2, and my main job was to cook a huge vat of maize meal to go with the meat. I also played some cricket (badly), and supervised swimming in the pool. This was fine until I ripped my swimming shorts (I don’t know how) and had to leave for the sake of a) my modest, and b) the innocence of the 5 year old girls in the pool.

I also cooked my meat, and ate it. By the end I was sick of it, and didn’t want any ever again; hence this linking in the talk earlier. Mohau eventually arrived 6 and a half hours late, just before the fire had completely gone out.

I ended the evening chatting with Hloni about the Anglican church until past midnight, sitting on a chair in the dark, after everyone had gone home. I think, all in all, the Church of England does more damage than it does good. There is no solution, aside from disbanding the church entirely, and that’s not feasible. However it was a good chat, and you know how I like to argue stuff objectively for hours.

“Can a man be profitable to God?”
Job 22:2

Short but sweet. And deep.

I love you,
C

Today was an annoying day, because I didn’t really achieve very much. There was a lot of stuff going on in the office, but none of it very productive. At least the Tshwaranang website basically got finished, but aside from that it was pretty dull.
Hence not a lot to talk about today.

However, I did want to talk about my ideas of us moving here. I want to buy a big piece of land, and adopt loads of kids. How would you feel about that? I really wish you were here, I want you to be experiencing what I am.

Thought you might not be impressed…

Anyway, bible verse time:

I find this oddly powerful – its so lifelike – I could totally see someone saying, “Hey guys, let’s make a record of all this, I think that would be good!”

Love you,
x

It’s funny watching me kind of disappear out of the right hand side of the screen – that thing kicked like a horse!