Only a few days left...

This last few days in Clarens have been very strange - people are beginning to talk about Christmas (especially those of us who are going to home to various places over the next couple of weeks) but the weather is very, very, very hot and sticky! My english brain can't cope. So I'm sitting here typing in my shorts and t-shirt with the fan on and have just got in from doing a bit of Christmas shopping.

Last week the school had their nativity play and prize giving which I went along to as a number of our Mapheo kids are at the school. The nativity was very sweet. There was an unfortunate incident of diarrhea where a little girl on the stage had an accident but then as she walked off the stage and through the church she left a trail behind her. That was bad enough, but it got worse when a little baby decided to make mud pies with it! So one of the teachers quickly covered all the piles with earth from a nearby plant pot and we all carried on as if nothing had happened!

On Thursday morning I helped a friend who is the deputy head at the school with her class trip. It was fun - we packed the kids into various cars and I drove a bakkie and we went out to a local farm. We walked them down to the river and there they paddled and built rafts (none of which floated successfully!) The really funny thing was seeing what they ate for lunch. These are 7 and 8 year olds and many of them had the biggest bags of crisps, or about 6 slices of bread each. I'll try and get hold of a photo to put on here for you to see.

This is my last week in Clarens - on Friday I leave for Zim and then I go straight home to the UK after that. So I'm away for 6 weeks. It seems like a long time but in reality there's nothing happening here after this week so it would be quite hard to be here for the extra 2 weeks before I fly. Clarens is so small and quiet that a couple of weeks with no work would be very boring! So I'm taking the opportunity to spend some time up in Harare. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm excited to see what's happening in the Newfrontiers churches there and how things have changed since I visited in 2007.

I can't quite believe that I'm at the end of my first year here - it seems to have snuck up on me! It's hard to process everything that's happened. It's been so challenging at times and I know God must have grown me but sometimes that's hard to see in yourself. It's also been a lot of fun and a great adventure. At some point I'll try and blog a round up of the year, but right now I have a whole lot of jobs to get done before I leave on Friday morning!

Cherry season

Need I say more? Yum yum.

PS I'm feeling amazingly so so much better!

Another trip to the doctor

This morning I took my second trip to the local doctor. For the last week I've been fighting a very nasty coldy thing as a result of the tick bite fever. I've had a sore throat, lost my voice and a chesty cough. Lovely. So today the doctor looked at me, listened to my chest, looked down my throat and prescribed me some more double strength antibiotics to give me a 'fighting chance' against a nasty chest infection and some medicine for a throat infection. Joy. I actually don't feel anywhere near as ill as when I had the tbf, but I'm very fed up of not feeling myself and having no energy. I'm praying that this lot of medicine really hits the nail on the head.

A fairly average week

This week has felt pretty normal in lots of ways. On Monday I spent my day off visiting people, having a very exciting phonecall from Dan & Mary to share the news of their engagement, and braiing the biggest steak I've ever seen in the evening (it was a delicious fillet!)

Tuesday was spent learning to use a commercial speed sewing machine at Silver Hope. We're branching out to selling bags, so I was asked to try and sew up linings. Pretty funny since in England I'm not exactly known for my sewing skills! But I managed to master the crazy machine without losing any fingers so it's all good.

On Wednesday at Mapheo we did cooking with the kids. They were in groups of varied ages, and then could choose 5 out of 9 possible ingredients to make something with. I was picked to be one of the tasters at the end which I was dreading but in actual fact the kids had done a great job and it was tough to choose a winner.

The rest of the week carried on as normal, then on Friday me & Nicci (the wife of the couple who lead our Impact year) took the 2 girls who are left out for a milkshake to celebrate the end of the year. As you probably know I've been really involved in looking after the girls on Impact and I can't believe their year is over already! Over the year there's been 5 different girls come and go, and it's been fun and challenging to be involved in their discipleship.

On Tuesday a cyclone off the coast of Madagascar caused our weather to go a little crazy. We went from about 27 degrees on Monday to around 10 on Tuesday! You can imagine the shock to our poor bodies. So out came all the winter clothes again. This miserable weather carried on right through til today when it's back up to 25 degrees overnight.

To make matters worse I've been battling the after effects of the tick bite fever (it leaves you 'immuno-compromised') which this week resulted in an incredibly sore throat, chesty cough and the loss of my voice. I think I'll be off to the doctor again tomorrow if I'm not feeling better.

It really does feel like things are wrapping up here. December is the long summer/Christmas holiday so things shut down in December...which means there's only one more week of projects! It's strange because it really doesn't feel Christmassy at all - the weather's hot, there's no twinkly lights, no Christmas music in the shops. When I went to Bethlehem this week they had put some decorations up in the mall but it all looked a bit pathetic and out of place. To me Christmas trees only work in a cold climate, so that you can put fake snow on them, and their lights can twinkle in the 16 hours of darkness a day. I'm glad I'm coming home for Christmas - I don't think I'd cope with a hot one!

The goodness of God

So remember the family that moved away? Well two weeks ago our church started a church plant/adoption in the town that they moved to. There has been an amalgamation of our church plant with an existing church with very exciting results. Because the existing church had no experience of Newfrontiers (the family of churches we're connected with) this week the whole church joined us in Clarens to see how we do church. And guess who was there? Dingani, the older boy who is part of the family who moved away! Already God has knitted him in to this new church community who he and we knew nothing of when they left. It's such an answer to prayer that this family will still be connected with a grace-filled church. God is so good :-)

Storms

So the storm season has arrived and we've had a few amazing storms already. I thought I'd put some pictures up of what happens when a storm arrives at sunset...

Good times

Yesterday was such a lovely day here in Clarens. First of all I slept well for the first time since the tick bite fever saga, then because I'm still quite tired from being ill I'd cancelled my morning stuff and spent it at home reading The Week. A friend bought me a subscription for my birthday but somehow it all got messed up so this was the first edition I actually received. The weather was also beautiful after a couple of stormy and cold days.

At Mapheo we took the kids out to a nearby farm where they have various animals you can look at. It's a bit like a tiny safari. The kids were so excited as it was a suprise trip. We loaded them into the cars (as exciting as ever) and set off. At the farm we walked around the land looking for animals and their footprints. The kids were in teams and had a sheet of paper with different footprints to find and tick off. Suprisingly they all managed to find them all within minutes - a little imagination goes a long way! We also saw some different kinds of bok, black wilderbeest and zebra. It's such a privilege to be part of so many firsts in these children's lives. They were so excited to see the animals as in Clarens we only see cows, sheep and chickens. After we had seen the animals we sat and ate our hotdogs in front of an incredible view across the mountains.





In the evening I got together with some other ladies and watched a period drama which was fun.

And then as the icing on the cake, when I was fast asleep in bed my phone rang. I looked at it and realised it was England calling! My cell group at home had been putting together their christmas shoebox gifts and remembering me doing them last year so decided to call me (before checking the time difference!). They passed the phone around and I got to have a little chat with everyone. A lovely end to a lovely day.

Saturday Evening Blogpost

On the first Saturday of each month Elizabeth Esther (a fellow Christian blogger) opens her blog up for others to link a post of their own blog from the previous month. This is the first time I've taken part, and it was quite hard to choose a post from October as it was in reality a tough month here. So I've picked one, which although sad, really reflects what October was like for me. If you're interested in finding new blogs to read then pop over and check it out. I'm an avid reader of Ali (number 32 on the list). She's a paediatric nurse working onboard the Africa Mercy ship and her stories are always a challenge to me.

Tick bite fever

The blogging's been quiet this week as I've been in bed with tick bite fever, something I wouldn't wish on anyone. It's a fairly common illness here, there are ticks everywhere so you always have to brush yourself down after a walk in the long grass. Obviously I missed this one as it bit me on my bottom, and obviously it was diseased as the bite which would normally be harmless resulted in the worst fever of my life. After a couple of days of feeling like I was fighting the flu I had a night where I sweated buckets - literally - and paracetomol didn't bring the fever down much so I took my first ever visit to the doctor here. She took one look at the bite on my bottom (which I had assumed was a mossy bite) and announced I had the dreaded tick bite fever. So after a week in bed, sweating fairly constantly, joints aching, taking 6 strong antibiotic tablets a day which messed with my digestive system somewhat, I finally emerged for the first time last night. I feel fine now, just very tired and washed out. The good thing is that apparently if you get tick bite fever more than once it gets less and less dramatic each time.

So I've now survived my first 'african illness'!

Honey Nut Shredded Wheat

Well honey nut shredded wheat have arrived in Bethlehem's Pick n Pay (our nearest supermarket 30 mins drive away) and at R89.99 for a small box they're a bargain! That's about £8 on today's rate! Needless to say I'm not eating them :-)