Friday 12th April - Thursday 18th April 2013

Friday was moving day! We were taken over to meet our host families late morning. Clo and I are staying with the most amazing family! We are living in the flat about their garage, so we get to climb stairs everytime we go to our flat which is so exciting! South African houses are normally one storey, so having stairs (and a shower, and a washine machine and Western food!!) is such a plus. After we met Steph and the family we went to HCC for a meeting, and then stayed for Junior and Senior youth.
Woke up on Saturday morning and the first thing we did was shower! Definitely the small things we take for granted! Steph and the kids took us to Midmar Dam in the afternoon and we spent a lovely few hours geting to know them and enjoying the view, the dam is so beautiful! We had dinner in Pmb as a team with Sarah and Hilary at the yummiest Italian place! Was incredible! We went out to celebrate Hilary's birthday that had been earlier the same week.
We went to HCC on Sunday morning and had a lovely worship session, and the sermon was great. We went to a friends for lunch and had roast dinner! Was so nice, a lovely reminder of home! After lunch we came back to the church early and I skpyed my family and grandparents which was lovely. After Skyping, we headed back upstairs to Church for the evening service.
Clo and I were going to go for a run when we woke up Monday morning, by it was already really warm by 9. Instead we spent the morning planning some more pre-school and worked out the details of our first Women's Night. We walked into Howick (which felt so good as for our safety we weren't allowed to walk around in Mpophomeni). It took us about 45 minutes to walk to the centre of Howick where we met up with some of our team. Clo and I went to use some of our Women's Night budget to buy nail varnishes, removers and such things. We spent ages trying to figure out which colours the Aunties would like the most! After a few hours in Howick, we walked back home and spent time with our family.
Headed to work for 9, on Tuesday morning. Xolani was about to go on school visits to check up on some of our children from the Family Centre. Clo, Esther, Hilary and I went with him. We visited 3 different schools in Mpops, a high school, a higher primary and a lower primary school. We got back to the Family Centre just before lunch and so managed to eat before the younger children got back from school. Philo and Snow came and sat outside with us, and we sat with them as they tried to eat their lunch (being little they get distracted very quickly!). Some of the girls found us and so started to Zulu plait our hair - this has definitely got less painful as time has passed! Got home at 4:30 today as Clo and I were going with our family to Stuart's grade 5 Prep School Orienteering Evening! We had a family picnic on the field and then when it got dark we headed out with a map and torches to find all the clues! It was a really fun evening and we managed to find 37/40 hidden clues.
We were in work early again Wednesday morning, but weren't doing an English lesson until the afternoon as there was an important meeting at the Care Centre first thing. We had a really nice team planning meeting and devotion instead, working out what we were going to do over the next couple of weeks. After the meeting, Clo and I collected some ideas, did some research and got together some images that we wanted to use on the walls of Grace Chapel. After the children had left Grace Chapel we went over to start drawing the animals onto the walls. Some of the children aren't picked up for a few hours after the centre closes and so there was a handful of 2 and 3 years old playing by the side of the road when we arrived. They all came in to watch us draw and to chatter at us in Zulu. They are such sweet and happy babies! When we got back from work we spent early evening playing card games before dinner.
Thursday's and home visits always seem to come round so fast! Potentially because I love them so much.. We were picked up at 9 and drove to a lovely, local cafe where we meet up with all the Howick volunteers. We chat over coffee, catch up on the past week and have a devotion together before heading to Mpophomeni. When we arrived at the Care Centre we needed to split up all the food into the number of houses we would be visiting. It's is so lovely to go and visit the same ladies and families each week. Although there is a huge language barrier I really feel like we are getting to know each other. It's so hard to even try and understand what these women's lives have been like, but it is such a blessing for me to know that although each one is a single mum, HIV positive, completely reliant on charity due to lack of work, that they have given their lives to Jesus, and that they know Him, trust Him and love Him. The girls headed to Howick after home visits to get some juice and snacks for our Women's Night. Women's Night was a huge success! We did a devotion on beauty, and all we wanted to do wad simply remind each one of the Aunties how beautiful they were... They really enjoyed it, and all wrote down Proverbs 31:30 as a reminder! We had watched 3 chickens walk in at the start of the event... Turns out they were dinner!! So we had super fresh chicken and Zulu bread to finish up our lovely evening.