How Neo roles

Kinda a big deal

The Queen Mary passanger liner pulled into the newly widdened and
deepend Durban harbor for the first time and only for 9 hours. You
guessed it! Udobong got to see it.

Durban Bunnies

The bunny chow. You haven't really done Durban untill you've had one!

Sharing

One of the things that is central to Navigator "make-up" is that we
get to be invested into by older, wiser Nav peeps whenever they travel
through your town.
Last week saw SA country leader Paul and his deputy Chere come in and
spend a few days with us. The week before was Africa..."oversear"
Bruce & Marg Van Wyk from Colorado. This week is Southern Africa Nav
leader Udobong (never in 8 years have so many Navs visited!)
Udobong is an amazing man. A great heart for people and wisdom gained
through over 20 years with the Navs.

I may have over done it with meetings and apointments with him the
last couple days, but the photos will show that we managed to get a
good glimps of Durban on the way!

A view of Durban from the top of the World cup stadium

Taking Udabung to the world cup stadium

Internet is back

With our internet back I no longer have any excuse to not do my admin and all other things computer related that put me in a foul mood.  So what I will say is that we are without grandparent Carlsons and are now getting ready for Nav country leader Paul to arrive!  After that it will be Nav zonal leader Udobong.  Slip Cape Town visit in-between and then off to Malawi!
Lets add to this a Nav student camp.  Trip to the USA at the end of May and some pretty heavy thinking and praying about life and the future in the next few weeks.
Investing in students.  Trips to PMB to check on and follow up students there.  Graduates being taken care of?  Connect and help the impact of our church Hope.
oops, that admin is still not finished.

Welcome to what's on my mind.

Telkom is here!

One month and one day later Telkom us here trying to fix our line.
The tension, the excitement, the near elation. Can you feel it?

The last lunch, and still no Internet!

Grandbaba and grandma sue depart in 2 hours and we realize that we
have been Internet and phone free for exactly 1 month today!

Wildthings

Hope Church on Sunday experienced 3 wildthings. Myles and best buds
Joe & Jessie came ready to let the wild rumpus start!

A walk

At the waterfall

A family outing with grandbaba and grandma sue to Makaranga lodge
gardens. Too much for Neo.

Guess who's here?

Grandbaba and grandma sue (my/Ben's parents) are here! A 2 1/2 week
visit to meet new grandson Neo!

More on that and life with grandparents in Africa later.

A week before the grandparents arrived we were hit by lightning. In
the middle of skyping the big storm hit.

What has really been frustrating is that since the 22 feb we have been
without phone or Internet. Still gone. Very frustrating. I didn't
realize how much I use and have come to need that frustrating Internet!
So of you have not heard from us in a while, that is why. And Telkom
(Gov run Internet line provider) has no idea when it will be back.

PMB

Last week two students who helped me launch an Investigative Bible Discussion on the Pietermeritzburg (PMB) campus, Hopps and Simphiwe.  We drove an hour.  Gathered in as many students as we could.  Got Lwazi and Melissa (key Nav students at PMB) to join us.  And.... launched into the book of John together!

Hopps and Simphiwe were only there for the afternoon with me but Melissa and Lwazi are living on the PMB campus for the next 6 months and have been meeting with us for the past few years after starting to follow Jesus with us.

The exciting news is this.  After Hopps, Simphiwe and I left for Durban the group that we left got so excited that they abandoned the 1 time a week meeting  and started meeting twice a week because the group was so excited.

yesterday I got a call from Melissa telling me that it is going over so well that more and more students arrive every meeting and that the only problem is that there is too many questions and not enough time!
This is why we do this:)

Standing room only

Two weeks ago myself and 4 Nav students recruited 1st year medical
students to come explore the book of John with us. The night came, I
got sick, the nav guys filled the gap ready to launch the
investigative Bible discusion and... Not a single student pitched.
Fast forward to tonight. All but one of the Nav student leaders had to
miss leaving Huli and I alone to see what this week would bring.
We prayed. We walked in. We nocked on a few doors to remind people
that tonight was the night and.... They came.
We quickly outgrew the venue, had to move outside, then ran out of
chairs. Well over 50 first years explored the first chapter of the
book of John with us! Our invite was for only those not in church,
reading the Bible or religious. We got what we asked for!

This weekend I met with the Suthern African Nav country leaders. One
of the things we prayed and trusted God for was blessing & oportunity
to advance the Gospel beyond what we could handle. It came.