h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The forms from Pickfords arrived yesterday in my post box. I will have to complete them and take them to Pickfords tomorrow by car, because they are due tomorrow... also I need to take them in person because they want my passport and I'm not about to entrust my passport to the South African postal service.

Bad news from overseas... my friend L. has decided to separate from her husband.

My cold is progressing: it has reached my voice now and I am speaking in a very deep voice - basso profundo. It is a productive cold and I am getting through tissues like nobody's business.

Sandile came by this morning and we went to the Tourist Information Bureau where he has the use of the computers. We had some internet work to do.

I went to the Mexican Kitchen yesterday. It was OK, but they didn't provide nearly enough round flat tortillas to wrap the fajitas in. In the end I was eating the fajita mix out of the pan. Neither was it as chilli hot as I had been led to believe.

I have to go to church this evening. I am going to make an announcement about the new house church group that I am starting. I still can't really believe that they have got it right. I find it difficult to accept that I am being given responsibility like this. After all, they hardly know me. I am afraid that they have made some dreadful mistake and they will say "Sorry but we got it wrong, we don't really want you to form a cell group." That is from my conditioning as a child - never expect that good things will happen to you, and always expect to be not wanted. Twisted, eh?

Marie is only going back to Pretoria on Tuesday so has declared herself willing to help me buy a stove on Monday. But Monday will be a busy day as I get the forms done and the affidavit signed by the lawyers and the passport taken with forms and inventory of goods to Epping in Cape Town. I hope Marie will be able to come with me through to Cape Town. It is much nicer doing things in company than alone.

Gosh I am fed up with this blasted cold. I am taking Vitamin C, Corenza C, and a multivitamin - mineral pill every morning now. Also eating fresh oranges.

Anyway, if I manage to gather a small group of people around me for house church next week, I will start off by reading the Fourth Servant Song - Isaiah 52:12(?) to 53. A lovely piece of poetry painting a portrait of the "suffering servant" whom Christians identify with Christ. I did an exegesis of this for my degree and so have read the passage closely. Hopefully I will be able to teach it.

Oh I almost forgot - I have fixed up Xhosa lessons with a lovely young Xhosa woman called Wele. She is coming round to my place every Monday, Weds and Fri at 5pm. (Or did i include this information in my last entry?)

Hi there Richard! I'd like to encourage you to "go for it" at church, and see if you can get enough young/ish people together to form a cell-group. It could be that you'll be pleasantly surprised ~ and so will they, of course!

Please don't worry about being new to the church or the area ~ or indeed the country. Maybe they NEED someone new! I hope you'll let us know how it went, and if you don't get a big response this week ~ say that you'll ask again next week.

But you don't need more than a few people to get started, and the passage from Isaiah sounds wonderful.

'Bye for now,
~~Misty~~