Day 10 - 5th August

Hi everyone- Natalie blogging... a couple of personal things before I begin properly... The highlight for me yesterday was celebrating communion in our partner church – it was such a massive privilege, and they’ve been so welcoming to all of us. Also singing ‘Saviour He can move the mountains, my God is mighty to save.’ Have you seen the mountains hereAnyway, last night we finished off the day with our ‘journey groups’ and spoke together about how this trip will impact our future choices – particularly in terms of our careers and lifestyle more generally. It is a hard thing to try and discern what path God wants us to follow, and we read some bible passages and prayed that most of all we would ‘remain in Him.’ Today we had our first ‘lay in’ (praise the Lord!) and late morning we travelled into an area called Gugulethu where we met an inspirational lady called Mama Noks. She runs various small businesses in the community including making jewellery and catering. She gave us lunch in her home. It was quite cramped and she proudly presented us with two huge plates of chicken feet... I don’t think it would be exaggerating to say that we were repulsed. However, acknowledging the fact that many people in the community don’t always have meat, many of us dutifully picked off the nails and chewed on the tendons. Nice. I don’t think anyone asked for a second one. (I hope you’re not eating whilst reading this!) Then she gave us huge pates of maize which we all felt obliged to wade through – using our fingers as there was no cutlery (but it was yummy, Chris R). In hindsight it is quite funny how much we struggled, but at the time it felt like serious force feeding! After lunch she told us the history of her life and community and her memories of the apartheid days. I still can’t believe how recently these injustices happened... Later some of the group went to climb up Lion’s Head – next to Table Mountain, whilst others had a final trip to the shops. Then we all sat together on Signal Hill to watch the sun go down – it was really special and completely stunning. Much to the surprise of other tourists, we gave God a big round of applause when the sun disappeared!

Tonight we have reflected on how Paul said goodbye to the elders at Ephesus on his third missionary journey and how we can say goodbye ‘well’. Finally we shared the things that have impacted us most about our time together. Despite our love for the people here, a recurring theme was how grateful we are that we are going home to Horsham and not to some of the places we have visited... we have come to really appreciate what we have. We also prayed for those of you who met to pray for us tonight! Not long till we’re back now. We’re missing you all. Many blessings. PS Thank you for all your prayers!