Ding Dong!

Wow.... the week has flown by, and at the same time been one long dragging time. Being busy usually makes that happen - both not being conscious of the passing of time and feeling like a lot of time has passed. Since it's been nearly a week now, I thought I'd just write something for all you eager people out there! :o)

Yesterday (Saturday) was our Christmas Carol service. You may wonder why, a month before Christmas, we did such a thing, but if you want people to come you've got to do it early here! Students all leave to go home this week, lots of others are going on holiday too. As Christmas is in the summer holidays here things hit a big lull in Dec/Jan, so last night was one of the last chances to do something.

For weeks now I've been chasing, plotting, planning, arranging, etc to try and make the whole thing fit together. Some of the things that made it difficult were:

• Wanting to do a large (1,300) outdoor event in a city where it often and heavily, so always having to have a backup plan.
  
• Arranging participation from several groups, including our guys who came down from Johannesburg.
• Having a myriad of people to speak to before we could confirm anything.
• A myriad of people all wanting to add their own little bits.
• A completely unrealistic budget.
• No opportunity to do a "dress rehersal".

We did switch to Plan B and do it indoors, which reduced space and meant we had to change venue. Good thing we did though because although it was dry during the day it poured in great bursts all through the night!

Apart from it being a huge amount of work, it was a great evening. Colin Vincent, and the guys from Jo'burg, were just excellent. They put together a very tight mix of carols, christmas songs, and general fun. Their musical variety was great, doing We Three Kings (for example) traditional, then rock and roll, the reggae, then opera, then thrash metal! Colin had a different wig each time to be Elvis (King 1), Bob Marley (King 2), Pavarotti (King 3 - actually no wig, but a pillow stuff under his shirt), and then a random Led Zepellin type. The kids who performed in the school choirs loved the whole thing, some of them jumping up and down like they were about to explode! They'd come and done very nice, but very straightlaced carols, and to see Colin and the guys go wild like this, switch quickly into songs in Sotho, Zulu, Afrikaans, and get people dancing, etc was just too much for some of them, I think!

While not everything was according to plan, it ended up really going well and with a number of people introduced to Hope Church, the Glenwood Forum (the neighbourhood group we're working with comprised of schools, churches, businesses, community groups, municipality officials, etc), and most importantly Jesus. After a long evening, it was time to pack up, eat pizza, then sleep!

So this morning I was up early again (after a week of late nights, early mornings, and long days) to play bass in church. I've never been such a fan of playing bass, but it was real good fun this morning actually and I think I might end up being a part-time bassist by the time I come home!

The week included other late nights when on Tuesday myself and Themba spur of the moment decided to go down to the ABSA stadium and watch SA play Canada in international football. Tickets for this international game were a mere R25 (less than £2!) and we had a hoot. Though there were only about 3,000 there, the atmosphere was huge with the Bafana Bafana (SA) supporters going crazy all the way through. SA won 2-0 in a fairly good, pacey game. We were just 4 rows from the front, near the halfway line, which made it great to watch. During the game a guy walked past with a clear plastic bag full of wrappers, and packets, and I put my empty Coke cup in there as well. He swiftly got it out and gave me a dirty look, and got on with selling his crisps and sweets to the crowd! Such a funny moment - I thought he was collecting litter!

Wednesday night was not such a great evening for football though. After our Connect group meal, and watching the amazing lightning storm overhead (Literally the thunder shook the roof! A bolt actually hit a petrol store a few miles away down at the coast and over the next 56 hours or so 7 million litres of petrol burned!), a few of us Brits sat down to watch the England Vs Croatia match. It started at 10pm here, so it was a late night for us. What a bad night to be English! It was terrible! It's got to be one of the worst England performances I've ever seen, and we certainly did not deserve to go through. May it give us a good kick up the behind and make us do something about the last 4 years of miserable play.

Thursday - band practice, followed by a birthday party for Mark, our FYP from Cape Town who's leaving this week. Just another long day!

Friday - Dashing about getting everything ready for the Carol Service. Started at 7:30am and didn't get home until 11:30pm, all to be up again the next morning!

So what's going on now? Sleep? No chance! We're playing football at 4pm today so that we can pick a team for the debut of Hope United - our 5 a side team playing in a league downtown, starting tomorrow at 7pm. I'll let you know how it goes!

Stay in touch, folks! Always nice to hear from you all!