November 21st

Wow! It has been three days since my last blog! Yikes and Oops!

Sunday a packed day! We went to the South Cape Town GCI church. Again, we were blessed with fellowship of brethren, as well as spiritual food, praising God in a group, and being physically amongst a part of God's family! It is very good for my soul!!! It also helps to refocus and recenter your thinking! Sermon was given by GCI's South African Regional Pastor. It was great to meet him and his wife. Both congregations here are joyful, and friendly.

After services, we were invited for lunch by the regional pastor, who was then invited to a families home. We were also welcomed. We arrived around noon and found out the three couples are related (physically, not just spiritually). Then we discovered we were in for our first Braai!!!  Yeah! So excited. All of us sat and talked as the meat started to grill. We were served appetizers, because well, dinner (not lunch) was served after five.  As I said there were total of eight, but when the spread of food came out – there was enough food to feed 25 people! It was so good!! There was chicken, sausage, steak, and a cut like brisket – that was the meat. Now the sides: a type of scalloped potatoes, a fried rice-like-briyani, sections of corn on the cob (they call mielie), and a lettuce salad with feta. Lastly, there was a custard type of cake served with 'cream' – was really ice cream, but there was an UNscheduled blackout and it did not get cold enough to set back up! We were all enjoying food and fellowship. The eight of them sometimes slipped into Africans in mid sentence. One would notice and translate for us. It was great!

We were enjoying ourselves so much, we lost track of time and missed a call from my mom (I stepped out and was able to call her back). Also made us late to get home for first part of ZOOM and some fellowship with brethren back home (but able to catch the service and fellowship afterward). We had our scheduled  blackout at the appointed time. Anyway we were able to link up with the rest of our family. Wow! What a great day!

Monday, was a… well, “rainy day and Monday”. We did not get out.  No one, was on the beach, either. The wind was howling in our apartment, which made the rain come down at steep angles at times. The bay was white capping big time and we could not see the Cape of Hope in the distance.  At one point could only see our beach and a much smaller version of the bay! So a really laid back day. We made all our meals, we did not eat much as still kind of full from the Braai yesterday! We did have pasta with the last of our ostrich and lamb sausage for supper and after caught up on some Youtube and watched a movie.

Today, the sun was shining, but still very windy. We did get out to go shopping. As I was going to the car, I was fighting the wind – felt like back home!  🙂  Anyway, we had a couple of things we had ordered, that we picked up first. Jeff needed a new sun hat, and we bought a tote (we left our purple case in Dubai – it was too bulky). Our stuff has been whittled down a bit more, but we needed a bigger carry bag than my brown one. The new tote seems sufficient, we'll see. We also went to the hyper Checkers and bought some food items. 

Arrived back to our apartment, and had some meat pies we had just bought. One was peppered steak and other was chicken mushroom. We enjoyed these better than the ones we had previously (from a meat pie shop!)  Actually, the chicken one reminded me of a frozen chicken pot pie back home (except, no peas and carrots)! 

Then just watched the crazy kite surfers. One of them really did get a bunch of air – like three to four stories of air! the wind is really picking him up and carries him quite a bit at times!! It is thrilling and scary to watch.  I finally did this entry, I really lost track of when I last blogged and the “rainy day, Monday” blues did not help! HA-HA!

Anyway, I hope we get to Stellenbosch again this week and Saturday we have plans. So stay tuned… love ya all!!!