09 March 2010 – Tuesday

It was a lovely, warm day in Richards Bay and we took advantage of it to go out and make visits in Enseleni. I called Khulekani to find out if he was available to go out with us and visit some of the members and he was happy to do so.

Since he was able to get a copy of his receipt for his police clearance, the first thing we did was to review Khulekani’s mission application. Mary went through it carefully to find out what was still needed and where it needed to be signed.

We found out that he needed more passport pictures so he had to change from his everyday clothes to a white shirt and tie. He also needed to have a lot of his papers duplicated and certified so we decided to this first. One nice thing about South Africa is that you can go to the police station and have almost anything certified for free.

After the police station we went to the have some lunch at McDonalds before going to the mall for pictures. While he was getting his picture taken I did some other errands like getting airtime and some cash so I could then go to the hospital and pay a bill.

Having got all the errands done we went back to Enseleni where we visited Mama Zulu and Thandi  Mkhwanazi. When we got to the Mkhwanazi home, we found her mother sitting on a mat in the shade at the side of the house. So we joined her – I forgot to get a picture – there and had a nice meeting with her and Thandi. Thandi’s mother has not joined the church mainly because she does not know English well enough to participate. This is of course the problem for all but the youngest generations of black African women. Many of them never went to school or only went for a few years so they never learned English very well.

Thandi has been trying to get into Zululand University but has had some problems because they want up front fees that they just do not have. Sister B talked to me about this last week and I promised to follow up. So we made arrangement to go with Thandi to the university and to see if I can convince them to let her in to their program and pay the fees after she gets her PEF loan.

Our last stop in Enseleni was at President Vilanes where, after have a short visit with the president, we dropped off Khulekani so he could have his mission interview. Next week he can be interviewed by President Mann and then he can turn in his papers. We are hoping that he goes before we leave so we can be at his farewell. He is going to be a great missionary and I would love to be able to see him in 20 years. Who knows maybe I can.

As we were driving out of Enseleni school was just letting out. When we came around a corner the whole world seemed to be alive with students in their colorful school uniforms. They not only covered the sides of the road but the road itself so we had to carefully crawl through them so they could part long enough for us to get through. Mary took a couple of pictures but they just could capture the scene as it was before us.

We drove back to our boarding where I dropped off Mary and went took the car to the car wash. I was lucky because there were no other cars being washed so instead of taking the usual 45 minutes to an hour, I was out in 30 minutes.

In the evening I went over to the Richards Bay Chapel where I met with Calwyn Baldwin to work on the audit. While I finished up 3 of the branch reports – I left the hardest ones for next time – he made lots of copies of branch lists for me. Because Calwyn has everything so well organized, doing the audit is not hard but it is time consuming. However I can understand need for a closer look at the way the Lord’s money is handled but I am glad I will not be here for the next one.

Back at our boarding we watched an episode of Numb3ers and Mary started another puzzle. While she was doing that I looked at Facebook and was surprised to get a chat message from brother Hafen. He said that a woman they know told her that her parents who are in the MTC and was called to go to the Joburg mission was called out of class and asked to change to the Durban mission. If this is true, then they will be here next week. My guess is that since the re-alignment of the two missions the area asked for the re-assignment. I plan to call President Mann tomorrow morning to find out if he has heard anything about it. It would be great if it is true because there might then be enough couples that one could be sent here to Richards Bay.

We had a good day. Mary held up well but was happy to be able to spend the evening relaxing. Hopefully this will just keep improving so we can finish our last months of our mission doing what we can to build up the Kingdom here.

08 March 2010 – Monday

We had planned to go to St Lucia and take the hippo boat ride but I just was not in the mood so instead we finished the puzzle and then headed out to do some errands and some exploring. We went to Meer en See where we took some of my clothes to the cleaners and got money from the ATM. A quick stop at the Rhino Club to see how we could get into the bird watching area was nonproductive because the young man who was there was new and did not even know where the gate was. So we crossed that off our agenda for the day. We then went to our post office box where we managed to find 4 bills and a couple of drawings from Olivia and Charlotte to add to our fridge.

We then drove out to see where the road through Mzingazi went. We followed the paved road until it became dirt and then continued through a thick forest until we came out onto another paved road that was not on the map or in the GPS. It was strange to emerge from the jungle to this paved road that was really in better shape than the regular one that ran past Richards Bay Minerals huge plant.

We followed the road for just a few Ks until it dead ended at a large turn-around that over looked what appeared to be an old slurry pool and in the distance the ocean. After taking a couple of pictures we headed back the way we came and then went to see where the road went the other way. We found it ended very soon at looked like RBM’s dump for old liquid tanks and other equipment.

All in all it was an interesting experience and we wondered why there was such a good asphalt road that basically went from a dump site to a cul-de-sac. Especially since the only way to get to is seemed to be on a dirt road through the coastal jungle. Maybe at one time there was a working mining operation and it was used to move the slurry to a railroad spur that then went to the main plant is the only thing I could come up with.

We drove back through the jungle to the main road to Meer en See and then onto the mall where we had lunch, paid some of the bills we picked up earlier, and did some shopping. Mary needed to go to the pharmacy for her monthly re-fill of her prescriptions before we returned to our boarding.

The rest of the day was spent doing laundry, reading, and for me catching up on the blog. Pictures are much more time consuming than they should be but once they are on the blog I feel good.

Although we were away from the house for 4 hours or so, Mary was not overly tired when we got home and that is a good sign. It means we will soon be able to go out and spend a full day of service – the first time in almost 2 months.