This morning I decided to head to the church in The Community – an English service translated into Xhosa - with Samuel – the crazy leader of our DTS. He was like “Have you got a flannel you can bring?” I thought he was joking but he genuinely brought one along – apparently it’s to wipe the sweat away from all the dancing! Was really interesting – there were no words during the worship but, as he said, people were in the aisles and up the front rocking out their African moves. Surprisingly I made the decision to rock out my moves from where I was standing – most definitely for the best of everyone concerned. We got an hour and a half in before a man came up to preach – they appreciate their long services here! The sermon was good but I felt sorry for the poor Xhosa translator – about twenty minutes into the talk, with the Xhosa guy having clicked and nwayed his heart out, the preacher stopped and asked if anyone in the house didn’t understand English. No one put the hand up (even after the translation!) so the Xhosa guy was just told to sit down! Poor chap. At least I appreciated his clicking. The response time after the service was crazy – people screaming and shaking and falling over – they were very much open to the Holy Spirit and God was really at work. I thought I had escaped being embarrassed as the Pastor brought the service to a close but no – right at the very end he asked who was here for the first time! Who does that at the end of a service?! I put my hand up anyway – I can cope with that. But then he asked us to stand up – was that really necessary?! And THEN he asked the three of us newbies to come out the front. Oh come on – why?! I had already decided before that that I probably wasn’t going to come back – I preferred worshipping in the more familiar styled church just down the road – but this move by the Pastor sealed the deal! I went up anyhow and he told us to say who we were, where we came from, and - if you wanted to hear the congregation cheer – that you would be returning next week! Ha – I was left with a dilemma in that I didn’t want to lie but I didn’t want to upset all the people either! I decided to complement all their dancing, softening them up, before sheepishly saying that I’m sure I will see them all again – good diplomacy under pressure? Potench. Either way, was an interesting service but not really my sort of thing.
We’ve all been given a book to read - “Is That Really You God?” by Loren Cunningham, the man who established YWAM. All about listening and deciphering the voice of God; I recommend it to all of you – fantastic book. God is shown time and again speaking to Loren, just an ordinary guy. One of my favourite stories was when he went to a town to find an old friend he needed to speak to urgently but he had no idea where she lived so he just prayed God would guide him towards her. He drove past one junction and then felt he should have taken that turning so he turned round, went down the road and felt the Holy Spirit saying “Stop here” so he got out of the car and approached the house he had stopped outside of. He went up to the front door, knocked and low-and-behold the girl he was looking for answered the door! Wow. And this guy’s no liar – I 100% believe this really happened. Awesome. For more stories of how God’s spoken to him, read the book – it’s really rather good.
Lectures (I hate using that word – makes them sound so boring but I do genuinely look forward to them!) this week have been brilliant – going through the Bible and looking at how to get the most out of it. Really good teaching – we spent quite a while looking at Philemon, all 25 verses of it. There’s loads in there though, we looked at the background and context of everything, the way it was written etc – really interesting. It’s all about doing bible study time properly though – if I had just read it through once by myself I don’t think I would have got anything from it.
What else has been happening? The street kids have been doing well – four of them came along to church two weeks ago (see photo) and one of them has since committed his life to God – awesome stuff. I helped out at Kidzclub on Wednesday as well too – we went into The Community (very poor society that we live on the edge of) and walked around shouting “K-K-K-K-IDZZZZZCLUB!” and just watched as the kids ran out of their houses and down the street to join us! By the time we had got back to base we must have had more than thirty excited kids with us. We sat and watched the most cringe-worthy animation of Jesus I’ve ever seen but still – it was good. I have to admit though, that I was in fact rather tired – I tried my best to stay awake but it wasn’t to be. Wary of not being a bad example for the kids, I put on my sunglasses (despite being in a dimly-lit room) to disguise my slumber but the very fact my head was lolling around on my lap probably gave the game away. Was so lovely seeing all the kids so engaged though – some of the guys really didn’t want to go back home afterwards!
I still haven’t hit the waves yet! I can’t believe it – haven’t even been for a swim. We did go over to see the ‘supertubes’ the other day though, where they hold the Surfing World Championships in July, just along the beach and the waves were savagely high but I think if I do try to learn I may start off with some slightly smaller tubulars. Spent this afternoon lying on the beach with my book – was so lovely. The weather’s been variable since we’ve arrived (I’m bracing myself for another winter; feels like I’m in Narnia – I’m going to go twenty months without a proper summer!) although having said that this weekend’s been at exactly the right temperature for outside book reading and walks along the beach.
I’m sharing a building with ten other Africans, four of whom are in my dorm. It’s quite an experience – I’m embracing other cultures big time! I get called “The White Man of God” which is a title I’m certainly not used to! They were shocked when I laid down to pray the other day too – apparently it’s disrespectful. It’s cool though – we’re all learning to adapt and live with each other.
South Africans don’t know how to cook Chinese. End of.
One of the girls here was like, “I’m all about the abbrevs back home” (okay maybe she didn’t use those exact words) – apparently she always shortens everything though. I was like, “You serious?!” – was classic – had a good conversation about our favourite abbrevs.
Recently the rubbish collectors have been striking in town which is interesting – it causes a huge polava with people lining the streets and chanting. Apparently here when the rubbish collectors strike they not only don’t collect the rubbish, they also pick up the bins and chuck the contents all over the street! Crazy stuff. And then if their demands are met they have to go and pick up all the mess that they’ve just created! Nice.
Finally, apologies if anyone has grimaced their way through my rendition of “A Whole New World” that has somehow been uploaded onto Facebook – it wasn’t supposed to make it that far!
Okay, I think that’s enough for now. Hope you’re all well and licking the lid of life.
