Warmbaths

We spent Saturday at the Warmbaths Resort in Bela-Bela. It used to be a favorite place for a getaway when we lived in Kempton Park although we usually came for an overnight since it is a couple hours from Kempton. But day visitors (like us on this occasion) use the picnic grounds around this large hot springs pool. In the center (up the stairs you see and across a bridge) is a pool with mild jets, but we enjoy the force of those large jets coming out on the left for a good back massage.

The tent under the tree reminds me of the day-camping we encountered in Korea, where people set up a tent in a park as a base for the day where the baby can nap or whatever. 

Even when we left South Africa in 2008, Warmbaths was pretty white. But there is a rising African middle class and we saw lots of extended family groups, both African and Indian. Indian women wear bathing suits that cover most of their bodies. Many of the African young women did not and seemed to take delight in taking photos that mimicked swimsuit models regardless of their body type.

We had eaten a large breakfast at the hotel so we indulged in chocolate milk shakes at Spur and called it lunch. 

I went down all four water slides. The one in the foreground is VERY fast, and I found myself airborne more than once before plunging into the hot pool at the bottom. The lazy river (out of sight) kept getting held up in pools, and you had to wait for someone else to come down and dislodge you over the edge to the next descent. I like the twisty ones in the middle best.

We left about 2:30 and headed back to Kempton Park and our friends, the Burnetts with TWR. We have known them since our ‘90s days at Grace Baptist Church and seen each others kids grow up. Their son, Matthew (in conservation in KZN Province) married a girl from Appleton, Wisconsin, so they are familiar with our part of the US, having been there for the wedding.

This morning we went to our old church, Grace Baptist, where Steve preached. Obviously, there has been a turn over of people in the 12 years we have been gone solots of new faces. And some who are still there were away for one reason or another. Craig Botha, one of the teens from our girls’ era, is running the Comrades, a 90-km footrace--more than a double marathon--from Pietermaritzburg to Durban today along with about 24,000 other people. His folks have gone to watch. Other friends have moved away or changed churches. It was fun to see my old friends Brenda and Pindi. Both had little kids who have grown into lovely young adults. Brenda's husband Solly had cancer when we were here, and he has since passed. I recognized Pindi's daughter Tina immediately because she looks exactly like her mother. Her "little brother" Lebo is now well over 6 feet tall. They were the models Kathy Haasdyk used to illustrate a children's book about a gogo (granny) taking care of her orphaned grandchildren. Pindi's mom, who posed as the granny, is still living in Zimbabwe and will turn 90 soon. 

The church has always had tea after the service for socializing, but today there was also a lunch to say farewell to Lynn and James who are moving to Port Elizabeth this week. When they invited us, they thought they were moving next month, but things moved faster than they had expected. But lunch meant there was plenty of time to visit. They have packing pretty well in hand. As I write, they are finishing up the garage.

Tomorrow we will get out of their way and head for Pretoria.

Bela-Bela, Limpopo

Thursday night we stayed with the DeVries family in Pretoria. Brian DeVries is the director of the Mukanya Seminary. Steve met with their chairman of the board Thursday evening and then the leadership team Friday morning.

The DeVries family has four lively homeschooled kids, an eight-year-old girl and three younger boys.  they were eager to know my favorite game among their cupboardful and we played a couple. Friday morning I stayed in my room and did some work on a short story while they did school. Then they went out to a book group and I took a walk around the neighborhood.

Some of the homes, like that of the DeVrieses, are relatively modest. Others? Looked to me like boutique hotels, but there was no sign out front. I was tempted to take pictures, but I didn't think their security people would appreciate that. I did take this one of bougainvillea along a fence at the end of the developed area. I thought it kind of symbolized modern South Africa--beauty surrounded by the security of razor wire. Sad, but reality even more so than when we lived here 2005-2008.

Steve and Brian got back about 3 and we took off for Bela-Bela--"hot hot!" the new name for Warmbaths, a town of hot springs. We enjoyed the resort there and wanted to come back, but they only take weekend reservations for two nights, so Steve found another place on-line that was billed as Bela-Bela. I guess it is Bela-Bela county, but it turns out to be 45 minutes from the town.

Ah well. It IS beautiful, a golf course situated in a small game reserve.

Steve found a nice spot this morning to buzz his lip outside out cottage. He has a concert a couple days after we get home and can't afford to be out of shape.

These droppings (obviously not made by someone's dog) made us hope for something interesting outside our window this morning, but we were doomed to "disappointment." Only blue sky and sunshine.

The next morning we drove slowly out past the game and then headed back to Bela-Bela town.

King William's Town

It turned cold and rainy the morning we left Cape Town--more the weather we had been expecting than the wonderful weather we had. We flew to East London, east along the south coast--ahead of the cold front, into nice weather again. Reuben and Patricia drove down from King William's Town. I thinking Patricia should not have come. She has been in the hospital with pneumonia and is not fully recovered. I'm afraid she has gotten worse while we were here despite napping most of yesterday afternoon.

The parsonage 

After years in Africa, I always find the poinsettias Americans use for decoration at Christmas to be pathetically small.

Steve went back into East London with Reuben yesterday morning for a business meeting. He read a book in the back and simply enjoyed conversation in the car (45 minutes each way.) Patricia and I had an adventure when the wind, which had been whipping around enough to dry our clothes on the line with no need for ironing, blew the veranda awning into the pool along with one of the plastic chairs. It took three of us to get it out again and collapse it so it wouldn't blow back.

We came for the sake of visiting old friends so it didn't matter that Patricia wasn't up to going out and doing tourist stuff. Fun to catch up with their kids and meet some of their church friends who came for Bible study last evening. Steve led on Ephesians 1.

View from across the road, over the playing fields of a private school

The cold front has reached here, so I guess it is time to move on. We drove back to East London this morning to take a flight back to Johannesburg, rent a car and drive north of Pretoria to our hosts for the conference. According to the weather apps, it should be nice and warm.

Cape Town Day 4

Steve started his morning with an interview of Mark Dickson, the director at George Whitfield College. 

Sea behind me and mountais to the left, a gorgeous setting

I went along to Muizenberg for the ride and spent the hour and a half hiking the streets and the beach trail. 

Crime is a problem in South Africa. When I first got to the St. James walk, it looked pretty deserted, so I turned around and walked by the shops. I was hoping for an art gallery, but those seem to be farther up the road a couple towns.

I enjoyed the beach views.

stopped here to sip tea from my travel mug

When I returned to the St. James walk, there were people coming and going on it, so I walked along the RR tracks.

At the far end the rocks are covered with mussels and the pools filled with (drum roll) STARFISH!

The water was so clear that I stepped in it a couple times. I simply couldn’t see that it was there.

Met Steve and John back in front of the college, and John took us back to Sigfried’s where we are staying. Barbara McDonald showed up before we actually got into the house. She had e-mailed me this morning with a change of plan, but I was in too much of a hurry to get out the door to check e-mail. It worked out fine. She had only been there a couple minutes (waiting in the parking of the gas station next door).

Barbara and Andrew were TWR in Kempton Park and we have known them since we came to South Africa in 1993. Andrew passed away in 2007 while we were living in Joburg. Barbara now lives in a retirement village in Durbanville, the other side of CT, but was coming through to her son’s where she used to live in Scarborough. (Mom, you have been there with us.) David has recently taken the position of Southern Africa Regional Director for SIM, and Barbara was anxious for Steve and him to meet. They hit is off immediately and talked non-stop. His wife Ann served us a lovely lunch of homemade broccoli soup and toasted seed bread (something else on our eat-it-while-you’re-in-South-Africa list).

 

Then David and Ann drove us back into Tokai to the SIM office. Steve had appointments with a couple different people and then a Zoom conference call with people from western Canada, Singapore, UK, and I don't remember where all else. The Internet service is much better at the office than in the house. I spent the time emptying my in-box of backlogged reading. Yay me!!!

This evening had dinner at Spur (another to-do item ticked off our list) with Siegried and Phil and Diane Marshall, SIM bigwigs and old friends from Australia. Diane used to be my boss when I was involved with HIV/AIDS stuff in Kempton Park.

Tomorrow will be a travel day. We are off first thing to King Williamstown to see Reuben and Patricia Ilhenfeld, our pastor and wife and former prayer partners from Kempton Park days. Patricia is the head of the Baptist women's work. (I don't expect to post tomorrow.)

Cape Town Day 3

This morning John Berry picked us up for church at King of Kings. Fun contemporary worship. The sermon was very traditional. The guest preacher was an older man with white hair, but he invited us to open our Bibles or our devices, so he's not entirely back in the 20th c. I opened my device and actually took notes on his points on how the ascension is essential to the gospel on this Ascension Sunday--things like Jesus sending the Holy Spirit and preparing a place for us and the fact that the incarnation would be incomplete without Christ's return to heaven.

After the service we stayed to chat and met Don Glass, an SAGM MK--that is, a Swaziland missionary kid from the pre-AEF version of our mission when it was South Africa General Mission. His mother actually joined the mission when it was still Cape General Mission, the original mission started by Andrew Murray in the late 19th c. She died one year after the merger with SIM, so she was part of the entire history of AEF. Don said he has prayed for us for years, ever since we went to Mozambique. He didn't anticipate meeting us before heaven!

It was still early for lunch, so we drove up to Simontown and walked in to see the penguins. These are jackass penguins, so called because of the braying sound they make. This is the nesting season.

Beautiful views of False Bay

As we got back to the car, I was amused at this sign. No penguins under our car.

Lunch at the same beautiful spot at Fish Hoek Beach, but we ate inside out of the wind, where we didn't have to worry about a pigeon making a deposit on our plates as one did on Sandy's yesterday.

Spent the afternoon and early evening with Graham and Michelle Naude (formerly Kenya and Namibia), and Alan and Jenni Profit (formerly Kenya). Both have worked at some of the theological schools we have been involved with over the years, and we all get one another's prayer letters. Alan is now involved teaching seminary courses from Bible Institute of South Africa at the prison where Nelson Mandela was held. They have seven 'lifers' who will be graduating in December, and they are trying to get permission for them to actually attend the graduation ceremonies. So many tourists are interested in the prison where Mandela was held that the prison may well consider it good publicity.

The six of us talked non-stop for several hours. It would be nice if we didn't have to wait another ten years to get together.

Cape Town Day 2

After a quiet morning reading, Sandy Wilcox picked us up for lunch on the Fish Hoek Beach. A little chilly eating outside (after all this IS winter), but not bad.

I ate grilled calamari yesterday, so today I had deep fried calamari. (That's squid for those who don't know, a favorite of mine since Mozambique days.)

Sandy served with SIM in Ethiopia for many years (although not when we lived there). Now she trains ESL teachers for using English teaching in ministry. Very stimulating conversation about everything under the sun. After lunch Sandy suggested a walk up the beach.

Should have shaded my lens on this one.

Delightful afternoon. I hope we were an encouragement to Sandy. She certainly was to us.

We came back to our guest house and walked next door for a very slow fast-food chicken sandwich for Steve, chicken-and-mushroom pie for me. The latter is very typical both here and in UK and was on my eat-it-while-you-are-in-South-Africa list.

Cape Town Day 1

It is winter in South Africa, but warmer than we left our belated spring in Wisconsin. Even Cape Town is pleasant rather than the cold and rainy we expected. We lived in South Africa from 1993 to 1996 and again 2005 to 2008, so when Steve was invited to speak at a conference for leadership of 30 Bible colleges, I came along to visit old friends and favorite haunts.

We arrived in Johannesburg Wednesday evening after the long trip via Amsterdam and went straight to bed in a local Kempton Park guesthouse a few blocks from where we used to live. It could have been worse. We were able to upgrade our flights and sleep flat instead of sitting up in a padded kitchen chair, i.e. coach class on the plane. Next day we caught a flight to Cape Town.

Friday Steve visited the Baptist Bible College while I attended the SIM Day of Prayer with members of the office staff and guests. 

I saw a couple people I knew from the old days (Henriette Sandon, formerly from a radio ministry in Mozambique, and Pookatu Paul, the new interim South African director). Also met some young guys who have been working in a soccer ministry in local township and inspiring young men to be more than thugs and drug dealers. They have gotten a very positive response. The young man who sat by me in one of our prayer rotations studied theater and has written some poetry and short stories. I gave me my card and invited him to send me some of his work. If I lived here, I would be asking them where I can fit in with story hours like I did my Johannesburg days.

John Berry who does a lot of the recruitment and mission/church relations took us for a quick falafel lunch on the Miuzenburg beach (packed with surfers despite the chill) and then to meet an elderly lady named Helen who does a missions program on the local Christian station. She wanted to interview us about how we became Christians and how we got into missions and then a separate 10-minute spot on prayer. She seemed genuinely surprised when I said I rotate through praying for specific fruits of the spirit and other qualities God wants to see in my life.

Muizenberg Beach

Friday evening we went out for Indian food with Pookatu, who was a colleague in Johannesburg in 2005-2008. We were just sorry that Molly is in the US with family and couldn't join us. Great to catch up.