Sunday, February 06, 2005

Induction at Ikageng

Today we held our induction service at the Ikageng Church in Potchefstroom, from left to right: Rev. Sidwell Hadebe (our new superintendent), Bishop Paul Verryn (Bishop of the central district), Me (Rev. Angus Kelly), and Rev. Vuyelwa Cimela.


The Bishop preached an inspiring message on today's text (Matthew 17:1-9) encouraging the church to be a place of tranfiguration, where God's face comes close to the face of humanity and begins a process of transformation.

Friday, February 04, 2005


Most beautiful bride at beautiful wedding - I think I'm in love... which reminds me, leave the computer alone - you have a wife!

Heather and I happy in our neww home, especially when Murray and Gina came to visit!

Potchefstroom, Hier is ons

I have to apologise for not sending for so long... But as the saying goes, 'life happens.' Or something like that, I'm not sure.

Heather and I have been relocated to Potch, we live in a lovely manse that belongs to someone in the church - it’s a townhouse set in a garden of fruit trees... What an awesome place to spend our first year of marriage.

Phase one training takes me to Soweto once a week, which is about 105km away, the group of phase ones spends one night a week in the Jabavu training centre. We're made up of all races and cultures, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, Zulu, English and Afrikaans. Its awesome getting to know everyone.

The part of Soweto that we live in is very quiet, we go on house visits on Monday evenings to the neighbouring people - everyone is extremely hospitable, inviting us in, chatting to us, finding out where we're from etc. and appreciating our prayers and visits... It’s a far cry from grumpy
suburbia. The strange thing is, not seeing one white face wherever we go... Even the Southgate shopping mall is all black. It's a part of South Africa that I hadn't previously had the opportunity to experience.

My responsibility at the Potch church is mostly for the younger people, we have a huge service for the high school kids from the surrounding hostels in the morning - about 400 of them. I'm still getting used to preaching to them, I'm not such a youth guy, but we're getting along. (And I am learning something new.)

Heather got her UNISA books yesterday so she's got something to do at last, she has been busy writing thankyou notes to our wedding guests up until now. (Will post about the wedding too, soon I promise.)

God Bless
Gus