finding my bearings?

Saturday 7^th November entry

Guest is house is great. Bessie and Helgaard are very warm and welcoming and the breakfast is terrific, so what more do you need? It’s halfway up Table Mountain with some great views from their garden. Meeting Lucas today – the local Baptist I’ve been able to link up with, which I’m looking forward to.

Well, if you have a camera and you make an observation like the one above, my advice is take the photo whilst you’ve got the chance – it’s been pouring for much of the day – 20mm apparently – so far!

Had a great time with Lucas – he’s planting in Samora Machel, which is a township outside of Cape Town. After 10 years there’s a membership of around 70 plus other adherents. Quite a number more have been baptised but gone in search of other churches. Lucas and his wife and baby live in one room, which is typical of the shacks (my word which seems to be the most accurate one to me) in Samora Machel. Could he have planted without doing this I asked? You’ve guessed the answer – not that he could probably afford to do anything other financially. Since starting he’s completed a diploma at the Capt Town Baptist seminary and is now on his second year of a Masters and then plans on a Phd, so he’s no mug intellectually by any account.

Another highlight was meeting Leon who started a project working with HIV aids sufferers. He and his wife both left their jobs and now feed 100 people per day, plus run workshops and all manner of other things – two more people who have followed God’s call at some personal cost.

The legacy of apartheid is still around and the guys I met today reckon it’ll take a generation at least. They’re bothered about a militant Islam who want to rule SA, they don’t have the financial means to support themselves, they work with meagre resources, but their faith is real and really quite humbling. Walked around the Waterfront in Cape Town later and struggled to comprehend how these guys feel looking in the windows of Gucci and co.

A white guy un-nerved me today when he told me to keep walking and not look at my map in public as it would mark me out as someone who didn’t know where they were – ‘don’t trust anyone he said.’ Before that I’d felt fine!

Had a chat with a car security man. What that means is they help you find a space, direct you in and look after your car whilst you eat. It was absolutely throwing it down and he must have soaked. He’d made 650 rand (about £5) that day and was supporting his wife and two children. There are loads of these guys around, but all I hear in the UK is how the blacks have taken the jobs – some job!

Should have brought a card reader for photos! Will add to my travellist.