Candu

Last week i had the BEST EXPERIENCES EVER in candu! It was so uplifting and awesome to get to know the sisters there. Candu is in a very rural area of xhosa land. Their water supply is rain water and the nearest town is 20 minutes drive in a car of which they have none. There is a christadelphian church here which meal a day sponsors. I have started a new project...

I am making a photography book "Egg boxes are for insulation" In it will give insight into how some of the poorest brothers and sister live in South Africa. Dorothy, the only sister who can speak english assissted me as i visited all the sisters in the village and translated for me. The xhosa culture is beautiful! Their houses are simple yet beautiful and cheerfully painted. We all connected through laughter at the things i was learning and experiencing. I was taught so much, a fantastic 2 days, i cant say any more, all my experiences will be written down in the book which you all should buy when iv finished it....its going to be a good one!

bread head

Sunday schools in Mariannhill are the BEST!!! if you cant guess, this is the bakers dream that joseph interprets.

Colouring in josephs coat

Really carefully...

Then WHAM! ruined, just like that...

Ndwedwe again!

If youve been reading my blog, youll know who vincent and jabu are. if you dont, then read my past blogs. They are a couple we met through the bible education centre in durban in march. Last week they were baptised! They also set up a soup kitchen in the remote and rural place of ndwedwe because they saw that there were many orphans who had grannys looking after them with no money. The church here in westville and durban help with donations of food and we take them up here once a month. Last week we were greeted with a bunch of kids singing for us which then led onto some zulu dancing. The future plans is for the community to build some houses in which we can cook in, feed the children in and store the food. The aim is also to be fully sustainable with regards to food, grown their own mille, bild an oven to bake their own bread, vegetable patch etc... Jabu and Vincent are keen to spread the gospel of the good news here, having now supplied them with bibles they are able to read together and hold discussions. Jabu has got a gospel choir kick started and Vincent a soccer team. They are so keen to interact and work with the community here!

here are a few photos what we experienced..

The lasy who we buy avos off on our trip up to undwedwe...we also drop off some food supplies for her

her home

getting into the dancing

Photography class at happys

Last week i held a photography class at the happys school. I taught them about documentary photography, what it is and how they can achieve it and gave them the task of documenting their daily life. Private photos, photos that others are unable to access, photos that tell the truth. I gave them all a disposable camera and i had them developed yesterday, below are some of the shocking, intimate and beautiful photos. some of them really grasped the concept. I hope to combine them into a book format which will then go on sale to raise money for the projects here in south africa. I would also love to find an exhibition space for them too somewhere here in south africa. we'll see...

Sardine run

2 months a year in durban sardines flock to the shores bringing sharks whales and dolphins with them. Phil and i took 7 kids yesterday to see it. WE ALL HAD THE BEST DAY EVER!!! It was windy and cloudy too so it felt like being back in england.

The kids picked up all the sardines that had managed to escape and were throwing them back into the sea. Then we decided to keep them and cook em back home. We got loads!

It wasnt long before kitty and liberty figured out you could stick your finger through the fishes gill and down the throat and through the mouth. Then They started the squish the eyes out and there was blood all over their little fingers.

THIS IS A SHARK!!!! it was a It was a bronze whaler about 6ft. it was very exciting, one guy caught it on his little fishing line and these two guys just jumped in the sea to try and help bring it in chasing after its tail.

so close...then the line broke :-(

A flipping good day!

a day in the life

Phils cheap beer shop

Lindo at mariannhill. He always hangs around the community centre. I gave him the leftovers of a whole chicken.

This is sis Nokthula. Phil and luke put this new kitchen cupboard in for her

This will form part of a seris of photos i have

lush beach!

Phil and i had a day off last week and found a lush beach! it was full of sand dunes, most of the beaches here have a city backdrop, it was nice to find a normal beach and with no one on it.

sow generously and you shall reap generously!

In our last meeting here (we have one every monday morning) it was requested that each of us write down and email when we have felt God working in our lives, when we have felt his presence. We nickname this "God moments". I think WCF requested it (they provide me with funding). I think they want to put them on their website. Heres mine...

Weekly we go to the hospital to sing and chat to the patients. Last week when we were singing there was one lady who had her eyes closed and was praising god as a result of hearing us sing. Straight away i thought that its amazing how God uses people, here he was using us volunteers as a team and using our voices to sing zulu songs that we had learnt over here and as a result others were praising him, they were spiritually uplifted. But from seeing this i realised that i wasn't feeling spiritually uplifted by what i was doing. Even though i could see God working through us it wasn't through the song i was feeling uplifted. and i wish i could have been. I guess its because we sing these songs so regularly on a day to day basis. But thats awful because we were meant to be singing praises to god!

Straight after the hospital visit we had to drive to the other side of town to mariannhill bible class. After the class in true mariannhill style there was a blasting out of songs. The third or fourth one was "Jerusalem". It goes something like this:

"Jerusalem is the city, the city in the name of the lord

Oh lord i want to be there

i want to be there, i want to be there

to be there for evermore"

Its such a powerful song, we all felt it and we proceeded to walking round the table whilst singing and pointing up into the air "i want to be there". Whilst singing i could see on everybodys face the exprssions of "i want to be there" as they sang it. Everybody sang it with their whole heart. The energy in the room was so great! I did want to be there and i do want to be there, and i want to be there with all the brothers and sisters in mariannhill. That was a kingdom vision. a vision of happiness. 3 years ago there was no such thing as mariannhill ecclesia and for that crowd of people to be meeting up in that room singing that song was so awesome! They have found God.

On the way to bible class i told God that i didn't want to sing to him and me not feel it, i wanted to feel it just like the lady did in the hospital. God answered my prayer in a matter of an hour!

Then when i was lying in bed thinking about what happened the verse "Whoever sows generously shall also reap generously" (2 Cor 9v6) popped into my head. The effect that sowing had in the hospital i also reaped in Mariannhill.

Donations for happys

Thanks to the generous members of Westville who had a clear out of clothes and toys we were able to donate these to the happy's children. A fair few of them were in need of some clothes! We managed it into a jumble sale sort of affair letting a handful of children in at a time. It was quite funny, they ALL wanted a teddy bear. even the boys. One of the older girls i took in who was maybe about 16 wasn't bothered about the clothes, she had seen 2 of the boys with a squeaky dice sort of thing ( a bit like a dogs toy) and she wanted one of those, straight in and straight out and happy with a squeaky dice. It was so good to be able to see the children's ecstatic faces as they were let inside the room and were allowed to pick something for free.

We are told to be like children. We should be so thankful for all our blessings, ALL of them, because some people have nothing that they are so happy when they receive a second hand teddy bear for free!

The queue under shelter as it started raining

Cleremont good news centre

Our good news centre in Cleremont is growing! After having a couple of hard days labour work clearing the grounds of the place of rubbish and levelling out an area at the front we had a bbq for the community as an opening ceremony. The good news centre now offers, sunday school, gogo's coffee morning, after school club, mum's and tots coffee mornings and english classes. Once we establish some relationships we pray that there will be enough interest to start a church.

The bbq was incredible! We had about 50 kids singing songs they had been taught in sunday school to attract attention and we wandered up and down the streets handing out leaflets inviting everyone we met to the bbq. We fed around 300 people! It was so awesome to see everybody working together, brothers and sisters from marianhill, westville and lamontville.