Another Official Newsletter
14 years ago
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
23, Table Mtn, and the Eye of an Elephant
Hello everyone!
Well, since you last heard from me, we have moved into our new and permanent home, climbed Table Mountain and celebrated my 23rd birthday. It's been a very busy but very good couple of weeks!
Last Monday, February 1st, we moved from the Team House to our new home on the new Living Way campus, the former False Bay College campus. It's been something of an adjustment "settling in" to our new home. There was much work to do before we moved in to make this former office building into volunteer housing, and there was still plenty to do once we moved in. Gordon and Frans and Jade, the plumber, worked very hard for a full week building and installing 2 new showers into the house. All new furniture was moved in and the entire place was painted. It really has come a long way and has transformed into a pretty nice place! Jeremy and I are sharing a room, with Danielle down the hall, and our newest volunteer, Chris (from the UK), also down the hall. I'll be adding pictures soon for you to see the house and property and some of the progress that's been made.
Last weekend, Jeremy and I joined Kate (another US volunteer) and her mom, who was visiting, on a hike up Platteklip Gorge, one of the trails that goes up Table Mountain. It was one of the best and one of the hardest hikes I've done in a while! It's straight uphill for 1 1/2 hours, but is well worth the work once you get to the top. We started our hike in the morning, hoping it would be cooler in the morning, but by the time we were halfway up, it was plenty hot. We spent some time at the top of Table Mountain and then headed back down. Kate and her mom, the smart ones, took the cable car back down the mountain, while Jeremy and I decided to hike back down. The first 15 minutes of our mountain descent weren't too bad, but before too long our knees and legs decided that they had had enough and didn't want to work as well anymore. It only took us 50 minutes to get down, but it was some of the most physically exhausting 50 minutes either of us had experienced in a while. We were quite glad to be done once we got down, and spent the rest of the day doing as little as possible. It was a great time though!
A few days ago, Jeremy, Chris and I took another hike to Elephant's Eye, a huge cave at the top of the mountain range behind Table Mountain. What an amazing hike! The view from the cave is pretty amazing and the cave itself is pretty awesome. There are so many places like these to explore, and unfortunately we won't have time to see them all, but I'm glad we're able to take advantage of some of them.
Last Tuesday was my 23rd birthday. It was rather weird celebrating my birthday during the summer, when usually its right in the middle of winter. As you can imagine, I actually kept forgetting it was really my birthday, being in the summer heat and on a different continent. To celebrate, I went with about 13 of my friends here to dinner at a very cool restaurant downtown Cape Town. It is the restaurant in the Fire and Ice hotel, which is this really cool hotel. Basically the menu is every kind of burger you can imagine: beef, chicken, ostrich, lamb, seafood, etc. And they are big and really good. They also have a huge milkshake menu with about every kind of milkshake you can imagine...from oreo or kit-kat to pumpkin and marshmallow or avocado and green apple. The avo and apple one sounds disgusting, but I ordered it (I mean, I had to try it!) and it was really good! . They also have really cool bathrooms; 6 different ones (all one person bathrooms). Each of the bathrooms is themed and decorated differently. For example: one is setup so that the toilet is on this little black stage and the wallpaper is people sitting in an audience and pointing and laughing at you as you sit there...its very weird. Another has rolls or toilet paper covering an entire wall..so you go in and there is like 100 different rolls of toilet paper to choose from. Another is done like an outhouse, with aluminum sides and everything. It was quite interesting, but very cool. I'll also be adding some pictures soon of the restaurant for you to see for yourself. If you're ever in Cape Town, I recommend the Fire and Ice hotel restaurant!
Everything else is going very well. The Music Academy has started back up and is going very well. We are 2 weeks into the new curriculum and it seems to be working quite well. Last week I was able to purchase a keyboard for the academy with money that was raised for my trip for such expenses. So, thank you very much to all those who helped support me and the ministries here financially, prayerfully and through your encouragement and love!
Things in Red Hill are also going well. Unfortunately, I've had to cut back my time there, so now am only in Red Hill on Monday and Tuesday afternoons rather than Monday through Thursday, due to MMA expansion and the having started youth praise team practice for Capricorn church during the week. Working with the kids in Capricorn on the praise team has been so much fun and such a blessing. It's amazing how involved the youth of Capricorn are in that church. What a very cool thing.
That's all for now. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week! God bless!
Well, since you last heard from me, we have moved into our new and permanent home, climbed Table Mountain and celebrated my 23rd birthday. It's been a very busy but very good couple of weeks!
Last Monday, February 1st, we moved from the Team House to our new home on the new Living Way campus, the former False Bay College campus. It's been something of an adjustment "settling in" to our new home. There was much work to do before we moved in to make this former office building into volunteer housing, and there was still plenty to do once we moved in. Gordon and Frans and Jade, the plumber, worked very hard for a full week building and installing 2 new showers into the house. All new furniture was moved in and the entire place was painted. It really has come a long way and has transformed into a pretty nice place! Jeremy and I are sharing a room, with Danielle down the hall, and our newest volunteer, Chris (from the UK), also down the hall. I'll be adding pictures soon for you to see the house and property and some of the progress that's been made.
Last weekend, Jeremy and I joined Kate (another US volunteer) and her mom, who was visiting, on a hike up Platteklip Gorge, one of the trails that goes up Table Mountain. It was one of the best and one of the hardest hikes I've done in a while! It's straight uphill for 1 1/2 hours, but is well worth the work once you get to the top. We started our hike in the morning, hoping it would be cooler in the morning, but by the time we were halfway up, it was plenty hot. We spent some time at the top of Table Mountain and then headed back down. Kate and her mom, the smart ones, took the cable car back down the mountain, while Jeremy and I decided to hike back down. The first 15 minutes of our mountain descent weren't too bad, but before too long our knees and legs decided that they had had enough and didn't want to work as well anymore. It only took us 50 minutes to get down, but it was some of the most physically exhausting 50 minutes either of us had experienced in a while. We were quite glad to be done once we got down, and spent the rest of the day doing as little as possible. It was a great time though!
A few days ago, Jeremy, Chris and I took another hike to Elephant's Eye, a huge cave at the top of the mountain range behind Table Mountain. What an amazing hike! The view from the cave is pretty amazing and the cave itself is pretty awesome. There are so many places like these to explore, and unfortunately we won't have time to see them all, but I'm glad we're able to take advantage of some of them.
Last Tuesday was my 23rd birthday. It was rather weird celebrating my birthday during the summer, when usually its right in the middle of winter. As you can imagine, I actually kept forgetting it was really my birthday, being in the summer heat and on a different continent. To celebrate, I went with about 13 of my friends here to dinner at a very cool restaurant downtown Cape Town. It is the restaurant in the Fire and Ice hotel, which is this really cool hotel. Basically the menu is every kind of burger you can imagine: beef, chicken, ostrich, lamb, seafood, etc. And they are big and really good. They also have a huge milkshake menu with about every kind of milkshake you can imagine...from oreo or kit-kat to pumpkin and marshmallow or avocado and green apple. The avo and apple one sounds disgusting, but I ordered it (I mean, I had to try it!) and it was really good! . They also have really cool bathrooms; 6 different ones (all one person bathrooms). Each of the bathrooms is themed and decorated differently. For example: one is setup so that the toilet is on this little black stage and the wallpaper is people sitting in an audience and pointing and laughing at you as you sit there...its very weird. Another has rolls or toilet paper covering an entire wall..so you go in and there is like 100 different rolls of toilet paper to choose from. Another is done like an outhouse, with aluminum sides and everything. It was quite interesting, but very cool. I'll also be adding some pictures soon of the restaurant for you to see for yourself. If you're ever in Cape Town, I recommend the Fire and Ice hotel restaurant!
Everything else is going very well. The Music Academy has started back up and is going very well. We are 2 weeks into the new curriculum and it seems to be working quite well. Last week I was able to purchase a keyboard for the academy with money that was raised for my trip for such expenses. So, thank you very much to all those who helped support me and the ministries here financially, prayerfully and through your encouragement and love!
Things in Red Hill are also going well. Unfortunately, I've had to cut back my time there, so now am only in Red Hill on Monday and Tuesday afternoons rather than Monday through Thursday, due to MMA expansion and the having started youth praise team practice for Capricorn church during the week. Working with the kids in Capricorn on the praise team has been so much fun and such a blessing. It's amazing how involved the youth of Capricorn are in that church. What a very cool thing.
That's all for now. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week! God bless!
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