Updates

Hey all I just wanted to send out a flurry of updates. I am sorry I haven't been able to respond to emails/facebook pics up/ blog etc for a while, but I promise it was for good cause!

I had an excellent time at the TLC Christmas party and met some great people. The smiles on some of these kids faces can't be removed from my mind. You must see pictures of this, though it says far too little! Oh man what a great time that was. Thank you again to Dwight Wyse for his family's generous donation.

I have also started the soccer program and connected with several kids of various ages in the neighborhood. I'm really enjoying that and have talked to some about drug use. There is someone else in the neighborhood that used to do it and Ursula would like to look at starting some sort of rehab in the area. We'll see what happens with this.

This week a young man named Themagosa (tim-ah-goose) that comes by Ursula's house and washes her car or does random projects with came to church with us. He only speaks Afrikaans, understands some English, I've been working on teaching him to read English, but it is an uphill battle. We also feed him when he comes.

We had started to get to know him better and invited him to church. He accepted the Lord on Sunday at church and we spend the day with him. We went from church to visit a sick man and pray for him, he may be in his last days. Themagosa broke down in tears and shared later that his mother passed away in Sept. He doesn't know his father and his brother left him alone to go live with his girlfriend. So this 16 year old is left at the house to take care of himself. We came to visit his place with him and it was spotless. Doubtless he tried to keep it as his mother had. We went home and Byron, my friend wanted to watch Passion of the Christ with Themagosa.

The Church's Pastor pulled me aside this week after service and wanted to talk to me. He wants to talk to the church board and get me more involved officially in the church. He had heard about the soccer program and the connections within the youth that I had made and wanted to see both of those grow next year. He said community outreach and youth are his two main focuses for 2009, I just grinned :)....we'll see what happens

Fishing, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations

It was quite a special week for me. I got to fish in the sea in quite an old school way. It was quite an experience right from the start. We met at 3:15am and drove down the coast. We got on the boat in darkness and headed out to sea. With dolphins, seals and a whale swimming right next to the boat almost with in reach at times it was quite an eye opening start to the day. I don't think I've ever seen such beauty. The sea with the first sparks of sunlight coming on it, if I didn't see it and photograph it myself I wouldn't believe it was real. As the sun rose we picked a few spots to start fishing.

There were about 15 of us in the boat. We cut our own bait even caught some of my own bait; we fished with just a line and a hook. I caught 12 fish which I thought was rather funny, I used two for bait so I ended up taking 10 home.

I celebrated thanksgiving on accident. We were going out to dinner and happened to come to a place that was only serving American style Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, ham veges and even pumpkin pie! It was great. I am so grateful to be here and experience so many new things and be involved in so many great projects.

Ursula, Byron and I had a Bible study this week which was nice and hopefully we'll keep up with it. Byron is excited to get involved with helping other youth recover from drug addiction and wants to get moving on that soon. Perhaps our soccer project can coincide with this. I want to get that moving soon.

The youth leader, 20 years old, has decided to study to become a pastor. He'll be studying at the University for the next two years, so he's not sure how much he'll be able to be involved with the youth. While it is sad to see him leave the group, we're excited for what the future has for him.

I watched the movie The Second Chance this week, twice. It is quite powerful and I strongly suggest any and all to watch it and the special features as well!

I got some excellent gifts from my sister Ann's friend that was in Cape Town this week for a wedding. Thank you for the early Christmas, I love it!

Tonight I'm heading to celebrate TLC's Christmas party which was sponsored by Dwight Wyse (thanks again!). It should be fun, Colleen is quite excited about it. I went to her earlier this week and saw her new office. It is located on a police stations campus. This has been tremendous for her because she's been able to minister to the youth, the police and also restore youth trust and comfort with the policemen that come and play with this kids. All of this has been great and the added security doesn't hurt either. I may help her with her project if I end up staying in CT next year.

Happy belated Thanksgiving and happy early Christmas!