Change of Plans

I may be in Cape Town longer than expected. Thuli phoned yesterday to let me know she is still having difficulty finding a place for me to stay. Due to a large number of Zimbabwe refugees coming to the area and people giving up their homes to displace them it is a challenge to find safe housing for me. I'll know more later this week.

Ursula has been generous and offered to house me for as long as I like and I believe she wants me to stay here :). The District Superintendent (Patrick) of the area for Nazarenes has also opened his home to me (where I am now) for a few days and would be willing to keep me longer if I needed.

I am excited for the opportunity to stay longer in CT as I have gotten plugged in here and also have a number of young people that I can connect with and some projects to work on.

Saturday I went on the Cape of Good Hope tour all the way down to the Southern most tip of Africa. It was a great tour and we saw great views, seals, whales, monkeys, ostriches, penguins and more. We stopped at a number of places to view animals and the area. I saw where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean at the bottom of SA.

My favorite stop though was the baboons. We turned around in the bus to see a rather large baboon sitting in a car looking at a man outside the car. As best we can figure he opened the passenger seat and the man got out. Twice he got out and the man tried to come around to close the door, but both times the monkey ran back into the car. Finally it decided to see what the man was hiding and ran around the car and grabbed his backpack. That failed so the monkey showed his teeth then ran away. It was pretty funny though it could have been ugly!

I switched homes on Sunday while Ursula is on her week long tour. I'm staying with Patrick's family. I went to church on Sunday also and enjoyed it once again. Monday night I went to the youth service. They have asked me to speak next week (if I'm here) as they are interested in doing community outreach and want to hear more about what I've done in the US. I also played Fifa with one of Patrick's sons into the night.

Tomorrow I'm going with Patrick's wife to her place of work at St. Joseph's for the whole day (8-3). It is a Catholic church, hospital and school in one. She is a Sped teacher there and I'll spend the day with kids. So many sad stories there of desertion, AIDS and lack of finances. Many very bright students from there can go no where after finishing high school because they can't afford to go to college. Patrick's wife started a scholarship funded by teachers to help some of the students. She's hoping to do more and I hope that maybe JMU could help take some bright students in.

Also tomorrow evening Patrick and I are going to visit the priest from my mom's home town in Ireland (he's doing work in CT) and then to see a speaker at the University talking about economics. Should be interesting!

If I want to come back in 2010 for the WC I have been assured a place and a ticket to a game.

Love and miss you!