Lakeside

Soph and Rich: Hey there - been in Cape Town for 4 days now. We have been staying with our friends Ant and Annie and their 2 boys in Lakeside for a few days (friends from Peckham) which has been great. We've hired a car and managed to navigate our way around the city successfully - tho the driving here is quite hair-raising at times! The weather has been decidedly English so far, and we have both had to top up on clothes as its been so cold. But today is lovely, so we are hoping it will warm up enough so that we can have our first surf lesson soon - sharks? shmarks!! We've been able to meet up with some of Soph's family and friends too and yesterday we visited the Heaven's Nest Children's home in Ottery which donations had gone to in memory of Soph's Godmother Helen Orr. The children were lovely and very energetic - hungry for affection. It was great to see them being so well looked after and given hope for the future.

We've talked quite a lot about what it would mean to live a lifestyle of radical obedience to Jesus in this culture, and it has been rather a challenging topic!! There is still so much inequality and so much division even 14 years after apartheid (with some parallels to Peckham!). We'll share a few of our observations and reflections: White people live behind high walls (some with electric fences); there is little if any social interaction between colours; different races live in different places; maids and gardeners earn enough to survive but not to save for emergencies (so they come to their employers when there is a problem). We've remembered that Paul wrote in a culture of slavery, and although some were called to overturn it and change it, others had to live in a Godly way within the system, and I guess it is the same here. We have heard a couple of really good examples of this, particularly using employment and the relationships built with maids etc to support their whole families with education, friendship etc, often involving the whole Church. Anyway, we've got to go now, but it is encouraging to see God's people finding ways to transform something that at first seems negative into something that gives hope and a future.