Covenant service

Sunday 28^th January was our Covenant Service. It was a combined service for the whole circuit held at John Wesley Society in Atamelang. All the ministers in the circuit took part and the Superintendent preached. It was a wonderful service. It was due to start at 9am, when we arrived at about 8:30, there was already quite a crowd gathered, mostly of YMG (Young Men’s Guild) members. They were singing and dancing around the church property to call people to the service.

We got started around 9:30 when it was decided that most of the people were there (not too bad, considering people had to travel a very long way to get to the church).

There was lots of singing and dancing (Michael and I did our best to sway in time…) All the ministers sat up front – dressed in the full kit – here is Michael with one of the other Ministers, Thulani.

The church was packed. All the kids sat on the altar rail and cushions, many people stood in the isle and at the back and there was a tent/marquee outside so people could peer through the windows and not have to stand in the very hot North West sun.

The service lasted about 5 hrs and it was quite a thing giving Holy Communion to about 600 people, but there was a real sense of Celebration and a great meal followed…

Atamelang Garden Service

We regularly have herds of cows, goats and sheep wandering past who pause to eat our lawn before moving on to the neighbours. (One neighbour has flowers - a favourite with the goats). Hours of entertainment...

Big Day Out

Last week we went to visit Colin and Claire Moore, friends of ours from PMB who are also doing Phase One and have been stationed in a place called Christiana. They live about 180kms from us, which is quite a drive for a lunch time visit, but it was definitely worth it. It was great to see familiar faces.

Here are Colin, Claire and Michael outside the Moore's house. They are in a very similar set up to us.





Colin clearly needs to get out a bit more...

Sunset Boulevard, North West Province

So it's not all bad out here. We have the most spectacular sunsets each evening. This is from our front gate.

A Spekboom by any other name...

Monday 8^th January was our second wedding anniversary. We started the tradition last year of planting a tree each year on our anniversary. Last year we planted an indigenous tree in our garden in PMB, this year we have planted a spekboom (who we loving refer to as ‘spekboom’) in our garden in Atamelang.
Spekboom is a cutting from a spekboom plant in David and Leesa’s garden, which is originally a cutting from Michael’s mom’s family farm in the Karoo. So we like to think Spekboom is in familiar soil and comfortable under the blazing North West sun, he’s not so sure yet, but we think he’ll come around…

Home Improvements

The next thing on our list of things to do was to create a shower facility. Michael spent the day drilling and managed to put up a spectacular shower.

It is attached to the back wall of our house and uses the hose pipe. It is a cold shower for now (which is fine as it has been so hot) and it has a great view of the stars. ( We only shower after dark so as not to scare our neighbours). The shower is also a little tricky in the wind (another reason for night time showers) but it really is great.