Reflections

I can’t believe it!
My mother is now retired.
She's worked most of her life and today is the first day of her retirement. I don’t actually feel old enough to have my mum as retired, but there it is. Having spoken to her today, she told me some of the things she's planning to do with her time. I’m so pleased that God has blessed her with all she needs to now start living some of her dreams. Who knows, maybe she will start her own blog? It would be great to read about some of the places she’s visited and so on. There is a lot going on in the lives of my family at the moment. Trev and Clare have just brought their new home. It’s their first so they're both very excited. I’m so pleased for them both. It seems like everyone is moving on in life eh?
Louise and I have been here in South Africa for well over a year now. Its strange because I don’t feel like I’m living in a foreign land anymore, its like I’ve been here for so long that it feels normal. When I first got here it was like being on an extended working holiday but that feeling has really gone.
Two friends of ours are heading to the UK for a two week holiday today. Irene is from Aberdeen and Stuart is from South London (Don’t hold it against him, he's a Crystal Palace fan). It’s Stuart’s first visit to the UK in eleven years; wow how he will notice a change. We met up with them last weekend for a braai (yes Englishmen can braai!) and we talked about going to the UK, I’m going with Louise in December. I have to say that I’m looking forward to our visit for a number of reasons. I can’t wait to see family and friends of cause but I also want to see how I’m going to feel about the country.
Will I get their and then start realising what I miss about the place and question why I ever left or will I feel like South Africa really is the place for me?
I know one thing; South African weather really is for me. Wow it’s another beautiful day in the bay.
Louise and I are going to the UK in December as I said; we'll be leaving what is mid-summer for us to go to what could be a very cold England! I don’t think we'll mind returning to our glorious weather!

Louise and I are hosting our bible study tonight and with a sad-heart we will miss two of our friends who have had to go of to Cape Town. Sadly Jacques mum has died and they're going there to meet up with more of the family. Please pray for Jacques, Lynda, Michael and Monique. This is such a hard thing for them and life hasn’t been easy for them of late. As a family, they have become very special to both Louise and I and we feel so gutted for them. Jacques mum has been suffering for some time now. Thankfully she is no longer in pain but when you loose someone so dear to you that kind of truth is so hard to except. They really will benefit from all of our prayers.
So our small group will be missing two very important members, may they return soon.

This weekend sees Jeffrey’s Bay hosting the world famous ‘shell festival!' (What do you mean; you’ve never heard off it?) Last year I was at the 'South African Baptist Assembly' and missed it. It’s a big festival that the town and the surrounding areas get involved in and promises to be a great time. Their will be stalls selling all kinds of things together with various different activities. The place will be packed as people come from all over to join in the festival.
So the weekend is looking exciting and what’s more, it’s a holiday weekend as well, no work on Monday, three whole days off, YAY.

I think I will close on that high note, I was going to talk about the collapse of England in both the rugby and the twenty 20 cricket, but we won’t talk about that eh?
God bless you all.

Question: Should England give up playing internationals?

Well for an Englishmen living in South Africa its been a depressing weekend. First we were beaten badly on Friday in the rugby, then today we've lost the cricket.

Man, I was frustrated with the cricket, are there any English batsmen with a backbone!

But, to save my weekend I've just checked my beloved AFC Wimbledon, and yes, we won.
No in fact we didn't win, we hammered Cray Wanderers 6-2.
Come on you Don's.
If your struggling to work out who Cray Wanderers are, join the club, I've never heard of them.
It was a nice win for Wimbledon though, it was a F A Cup match and now gives us the opportunity to progress further in the cup.
Could AFC Wimbledon make it to Wembly?
Who knows!!
Thank you AFC Wimbledon for picking up my weekend.
We love you Wombles, we do. We love you wombles, we do.
We love you Wombles, we do. Oh, Wombles we love you!!

(Photo from http://www.afcwimbledon.co.uk/)

J'bay has an Indian takeaway!

Well it's Friday which means its shopping night. On our way home we picked up a curry from our new little takeaway. It’s very different to what I'm used too, but hey, it's nice to get a curry man!
God has clearly heard my prayers or should I say His heard me complain about not being able to get a curry in J'bay!

South Africa are hosting the twenty 20 cricket world cup, I've never really been much of a cricket fan, I just think that cricket tends to be too long. Still that said, I've been enjoying this world cup. Some of the cricket has been very exciting. It makes me think about my mate Nick from the UK who I'm sure will be watching as much as he can. England sadly lost to Australia today, but I think the Aussie's were particularly on fire. This format of cricket is going to pick up a lot of new fans like me.
It's a busy time for sports fans in South Africa, most people here are mad about rugby and the world cup is on in France. England have to play South Africa tonight, I'm pretty sure that most people are expecting England to lose. I guess I'll be keeping my accent low key for the weekend!

I'm preaching Sunday night on Galatians 6.11-18. I've done a complete series of sermons on Galatians. It's been a good learning curve for me as I've never preached a whole series before. I've found that because theirs been a number of breaks in my regular every second week preaching slot, that it's meant the flow has been lost to some extent. I think in future I will do one off sermons or a series that doesn't rely on keeping the flow. Maybe I'll preach a series on men in the bible or something?
I have enjoyed preaching from Galatians and do feel that I've learnt along the way. People tell me that my preaching is getting better and I want to give God the glory for that.
The closing paragraph in Galatians sees the Apostle Paul dealing with what's behind the Judaizers false teaching. They fear persecution and really have their focus completely wrong. They boast in leading the Gentile Christians to follow the ways of Judaism. Paul says he boasts in the cross of Jesus. I'm asking people where there focus is for there salvation. Is it in what we can do for ourselves or is it in the saving work of Jesus? Today we aren't lead to add things like circumcision to our salvation but do we add our own expectations to people who are getting saved. Things like, 'you need to be Baptists or to be able to pray in tongues etc'.
Do you try to add anything to your salvation?
Remember, we are saved by Jesus alone.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
(Galatians 2.20, NIV)

God bless all my readers.

Power cut!

What do you do if you're in J'bay and the power goes off?
Hit the beach man!
The beach was amazing, and I saw a whale again. The tide was coming in and it looked like it was feeding.
I'm pleased to say that the bug I had over the weekend has passed. It was a bit unfortunate to be sick with Rev. John McGregor here. I was able to hear him Thursday and Sunday evening but missed most of the weekend. The feedback from those who heard more from him was very positive.

Our little cinema in J'bay is showing 'Die hard 4' on their R15. night. So a number of us from Church went to see it.

Switch off any sense of belief, sit back and enjoy a great film.

I've seen all the 'Die hard' films and was very disappointed with the third film but this is detective John McClain back to his best. The action is often very far fetched and is from start to finish, and I loved it!
The plot was very clever and in a world so dependent on computers, I would say, not to much of a stretch of the imagination to wonder if such a thing could ever happen. Real computer hackers would probably laugh at me in saying such a thing but hey, who knows!

If you like pure unbelievable action and can deal with some rather blue language you're going to love this one.
Bruce Willis is still pulling it out of the bag. He is getting older though and I do hope that he will leave it now with this great closer to the 'Die hard' story.

Have you seen it?
What did you think?

Thanks for reading.

Rev. John McGregor

I've just come back from Church where Rev. John McGregor preached as part of the Churches 10th anniversary. The theme of the weekend is personal revival and his first message was about the place where our desire for personal revival begins, at the foot of Jesus.
He preached about prayer from Matthew 6.5-15 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206.5-15&version=31.
John highlighted the truth that prayer involves relationship. I came home tonight and looked at my blog and found that someone responded to an earlier entry I made today with a poem about turning to God through prayer.

My prayers tend to be for other people largely which isn't a bad thing, but they do tend to be prayers for help and God's intervention in peoples lives. My prayer life needs to be more then that. It needs to be a place where I spend time with my Father God who wants to be in relationship with me. This spending time with God shouldn't just be in those moments of need. God is challenging me to walk with Him through out the day, I want to rise to the challenge.

I nearly didn't go tonight because I'm still feeling pretty sick. I'm glade I did, I met with a friend who hasn't been coming to Church for very long and has been away for a couple of weeks. He responded to my invitation to come along tonight. His going through some battles at the moment and needs friends, I'm meeting with him for coffee tomorrow. God clearly wanted me at Church tonight, I thank Him that He had His way.

God makes a habit of such things don't you think?

Please share any stories you may have on the subject.



Lata's

Church anniversary

Our Church has been going for ten years now and we're marking the anniversary by having a revival weekend. We have a guy called Rev. John McGregor coming to speak at what looks like a very full weekend program.

I'm feeling a bit 'tom dick' today sadly. I'm really hoping that it won't spoil the weekend.
Our small group will be meeting at Church tonight to hear Rev. John McGregor, Louise and I have volunteered to serve as councillors along with a number of other folk from the Church. I might have to stand back from that for now as I don't want to pass on this nasty bug.
So, if your reading this blog and you happen to be in Jeffrey's Bay over the weekend, why not visit Jeffrey's Bay Baptist Church and join in with our anniversary weekend (Stay away from me though, I have a bug, you've been warned!!)

God bless all my readers.

Spring.. Yay

This last weekend Louise and I hosted a young family, Donovan, Caryn and Kylie. They came to meet the Church where we are considering calling Don to be our Associate Pastor. They are a very nice family and both Louise and I are very excited and hopeful that God will call them to our Church. At this time they are living in East London, Don clearly has a passion for theology and for reaching out to people with the Love of God. He preached at both the morning and evening services and was very warmly received by the Church. Should God call them to our Church, I'm sure I will learn a lot from Don as I continue on with my own studies towards the Pastorate. I would ask you to join us in praying that God will make clear His will to Don, his family and to us the Church.

The weekend also saw Louise and I take a trip out in my buggy, we went to the Gamtoos river mouth not far from Jeffreys Bay. It’s a really nice place that has a nature reserve and sand dunes. We saw various birds but the highlight was seeing some whales just off the coast. I think they were right whales. We saw them slapping there tails and having all sorts of fun. Sadly they were just a little too far out for me to get pictures but they are often found in the bay so maybe some other time I’ll be fortunate enough to get some pictures.

The weather on Saturday was great and as the first day of spring, we had to mark it by getting out and doing something nice, we certainly did that.
We both hope to return to the Gamtoos for a camping trip one day, I for one look forward to that.

Wildlife!!

Let me introduce you too Max, my dog, his a little over a year now and is a Boer-bull x Rhodesian ridge back, which makes for a rather large mutt.
He has a very gentle nature but will certainly let people know his around if they try to get to close to our garden and house. Thankfully he doesn’t bark at the slightest thing un-like a lot of dogs around here.
Max can be a handful at times, particularly when he chews the wicker furniture given to us by Louise’s folks, but largely his growing into a lovely dog as he leaves his puppy days and troubles behind him.


Louise has two Siamese cats, one of which I can see in the garden (she’s probably coming back from hunting!).

Their names are Tessa and Pippa. Both come from our local S.P.C.A. which is quite incredible, as I wouldn’t have expected breed cats like these to be in an animal rescue place like that.
They are both very lovely and give Louise incredible joy. Tessa has really taken to me and Max, but Pippa clearly longs for Louise and has to have regular times on her lap.
They both like to hunt in the garden and the plot next door and will often bring home there spoils. The picture here shows one such creature, the funny thing is, when they catch chameleons they never really know what to do with them and I end up having to take the poor things to a local rescue place for chameleons.



So now you’ve met some of the family.


I really hope you're enjoying my blog.

God bless ya.

Went to the movies

Wow, what a great film?

Louise and I went through to PE on Saturday and were griped by the non-stop action of the latest Bourne movie.

If you haven't seen this film yet and you like edge of your seat action then what are you waiting for. I don't want to give any of the plot away but let me say that some of the gaps are filled, you will understand what I mean after watching the film. Matt Damon for me has been great in the three films and has grown as an actor. The fact that he isn't your Bruce Willis or some of the other action hero's from the big screen makes the charter 'Jason Bourne' more real.

If you love non-stop action with some great fight scenes and chase scenes, your going to love this. For me this third installment has been the best.

Anyone who has read the Bourne books by Robert Ludlum will soon see that this film doesn't follow the third book but this isn't a bad thing for me as I like the young Jason Bourne who is very capable of taking care of himself.

The film will take you all over the world in particular, to London which was nice for Louise and I as we got to see some familiar places. I think I even saw a Northern Line Train (I'm so pleased I'm not driving them anymore)!

Is their anything that I didn't enjoy about the movie?

Only that this may well be the last of the Bourne films, but who knows?

Our weekend ended up being a busy one with one thing or another. We are hosting a young couple in our home next weekend who are coming to Jeffrey's Bay with a view of becoming our Churches associate Pastor, so Louise and I have been moving beds and taking time to get ready for there coming.

We are having friends for dinner tonight (i hope they taste good!). Louise has made a very nice looking spag-bol, YUMMY. As is becoming a custom in our house, I'm sure we will introduce some un-suspecting newbies to the delights of our 'wanted game'. Ouch!

Thanks for reading. If any of you get to see, 'The Bourne Ultimatum' please let me know what you thought about it. I hope that you enjoy it as much as Louise and I did.

Lata's

The Bourne Ultimatum

Well at last one of my favorite films has its third episode in 'The Bourne Ultimatum'. I understand that this film isn't following the book but promises to be another exciting film.
Louise and I are going to see it on Saturday when we visit Port Elizabeth. I for one am really looking forward to seeing the film, it's been some years since the last episode (The Bourne supremacy) came out.
I'll update my blog with my thoughts on the film later.
It would be interesting to hear from any of my readers what films they've seen lately and whether they were enjoyed, please include why you did or didn't enjoy them.

Louise and I are really enjoying having a faster internet connection. We've talked about how fast the internet was when we were in the UK. When we first arrived in SA we had to go back to 56k dail up!! But i have to say a credit to SA is that it has seen the need for better internet for the people and have quickly made things better and more affordable. I think this has to be a big thanks to the Government and not Telkom the interesting phone company.

So in closing, the weekend promises to be a good one, I think that Friday we are going to get together with Louise's folks and are going to go out for a 'Spur' dinner.... COOL!

Welcome

This is my very first entry and I just wanted to say hi to everyone who reads it.
I'm new to such things as 'blogs' and will be learning as I go alone.

I'm living in South Africa and hope that this blog will give my friends and family a chance to catch up with what is going on in my life. So watch this space for updates and please feel free to post your comments, it will be great to hear what you have to say.

God bless all my readers.

From

Mark