Cassie the Wonder Dog

I see that news of my princess has made it to the following blog.

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Glen's Article

ciao

A trip to Johburg

Now for some recent news. I actually just got back from a trip to Johburg. I left Grahamstown for a few days to visit family and do a bit of thinking.

As some of you know I decided to try my hand at business this year. Basically I needed something to keep me in Grahamstown where skilled jobs are very hard to find. My reason for wanting to stay in Grahamstown was simply because just over a year ago God told me that I had to be here during 2004 to disciple guys. It was shortly after that, that I was asked to lead a cell group. I then also started meeting one-on-one with different guys in the church that God had laid on my heart.

I can easily say that 2004 has been the most exciting year of my life. The first half of the year I had no salary. How did I survive? Easy... I knew God wanted me in Grahamstown and so I concluded that he would provide for me as long as I am in His will. I just made sure that I kept on giving away the little bit of money I had to other people who needed money. And once again true to his word God met all my needs in various ways.

Back to the busines. The idea was to start an IT training centre. Basically at the begining of August I was ready to launch, but just didn't feel peaceful about it. After a little prayer I had a handful of reasons not start the business. So subsequently since then I have been using my equipment to run an Internet Café and am now looking for a Job. In the midst of all of this I decided to do a little programming again (which is what I studied). My passion for programming has overwhelmingly hit me in the eyes again. Ideally I would actually like to start a Software Development Company in the Eastern Cape. Thing is that I just don’t have the necessary experience. I also feel that I have achieved everything that God needed me to do this year. Discipleship has always been close to my heart, and the amount of equipping I have experienced this year is priceless.

So now I am contemplating (seeing as though God is not speaking to me very clearly about next year), whether I should go get some industry experience in Johburg for a few years and then start my own company. So I went to Johburg to seek God a bit and check out the Every Nation church on the RAU campus.

I am now fasting this week and waiting to hear from God.

Below is a picture of my Mom and Dad that I took while I was there.

Cocktail Party

Agh... finally. This brings us now to September. On the 1st of September we celebrated Spring by having a cocktail party at my digs. Below is a picture of myself and Ryan.

Thank God for Med Lemon

I was blessed with opportunity to water baptise 2 of my cell members. It was really a beautiful moment. Apart from the fact that I had the flu at the time and that the water is only slightly above 0 degrees Celsius. It was really great for Debbie and Kirsty because they are best friends and Kirsty was going to permanently leave Grahamstown 3 days later.



For me baptism is always a powerful reminder of how much God has done in my life the last 4 years. It symbolises the dying of the old and the rebirth of the new. It reminds me that I am a new creation Christ. It reminds me that I am Gods son and that I have his favour over my life. It reminds me of the commitment I made to God to be a Christian 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, indoors, outdoors, at home, with friends or at the work place. And while I still have my failing moments in this endeavour I am always reminded of what God the Father said to Jesus when he was baptised. “This is my son in whom I am well pleased”, a statement that was made before Jesus had even begun his ministry. This reminds me that my identity and security in who I am is not determined by what I do or achieve but is determined by the fact that I am firstly a child of the only living God. This is what keeps me perpetually in a joyful state, regardless of what my circumstances are.

Every Nation Cultural Evening

These photos are from a Cultural evening we hosted at my Church. Basically we were celebrating the diversity of creativity and culture that God has created. Everyone came representing different nations from around the world. We also had people pray in different languages. Man… I had no idea how many nations are represented in our congregation. Some languages I have no idea how to pronounce or even spell. So I won’t even try. I just came all dressed in black. I was representing the island that I will one day own called studville. Not really… I have much better things to do with my money than build a monument to myself.


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Part of the evening was spent eating an increadible assortment of food from different countries. WOW… man… was the food good. There were a few of us who ventured into some very new territory by eating chicken feet. I was one of them. Check my pic below. It is part of traditional Xhosa food. I imagine that most South African tribes eat it as well. Apart from freaky part of having the claws staring at you while you eat it, the chicken feet were great. Tasted just like Chicken. I would probably eat them again.

Serving the Community

A major part of being a Christian is understanding that when your life belongs to God, then your life is a life of service. Here are a few of us washing peoples cars for free and inviting them to Church. We washed +-60 cars on this day.

South Africa makes a Come Back

Here’s just a little post to honour the 'bokke' who are finally starting to play up to scratch again. This picture was taken in August when the 'bokke' beat the 'All Blacks'. mmm... just goes to show you... some people seem to worship sport. At least I know that Brynmor doesn't only throw his arms out during a game of Rugby, and that he has no problem saving his loudest and most extravagant worship for the King of Kings.

Month of Birthdays

August was a month filled with many birthdays. These are the ones that I had my camera with me.

Sizwe's 23 Birthday. For this one I was asked (once again) to be the MC. The evening was great. Brynmor and I were undercover agents for the evening. I had a microphone hidden in my Jacket sleeve. Brynmor and I went around recording individual messages for Sizwe which I later burnt to CD for her. We successfully managed to record messages from almost everyone without Sizwe finding out. She really enjoyed the cd which I gave her 2 weeks later. It is great when a room filled with people only have tons of great inspiring things to say about someone. Anyone who knows Sizwe will agree with me when I say that she is truly an icon and inspiration for what God has planned for Africa. Below is a picture of Sizwe


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Don’t worry I don’t always dress this way. This was for Charmaine’s 21st party. It was a dress up party (obviously) with the theme “Infamous Criminals or anyone who you think should be behind bars”. I decided to go as the Tooth Fairy.


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This is a group photo from Callie’s 21st party. From left: Myself, KC, Cally and Glen.

April

I suppose an important event (although I found it dreadfully boring except for the fact that I got to see friends) was my graduation ceremony where I was awarded my Bachelor of Science in Information Systems Degree. The ceremony was so cramped that I practically dislocated my shoulder. Fortunately Leanne (a friend of mine, who has formally studied something I can't spell or prounounce) was also there and mricaluously massaged (ruthlessy bashed) my shoulder back into good shape. I would recommend everyone with sports injuries to go to her. Below are a few of us at the garden tea party after the ceremony.



The Passion of the Christ was also released during April. If you've seeing it then you will know that there is nothing I can do to give it justice. It was excellent, every single tear of it.



This is my Dog... you have no idea how difficult it was to take this photo. I have been trying for months to sneak up on her. Her name is Cassy and she is my little princess.



My Precious... Although I have had my Yamaha CPX5 Compass Series guitar for quite some time... this was the first photo I took of her. Her name is Ephraim (means double fruitfullness)

March

Below we have Ross (who I miss terribly) and Camilla... who started courting the week before this photo was taken. Incidently it was in the same week that Ross got a job. I was over the moon (about both), I must have been waiting about a year for them to get together. So now we wait in anticipation to see where this budding Romance is going. mmmm actually I would call it a blooming Romance.

I call this item "Lady and the Champ"

February

Well... what would february be without Valentines day. Ok... so there are 7 of us that live together in my digs. 3 guys and 4 girls. Glen thought it would be a nice idea to bless the girls with a breakfast. So we woke up at the crack of dawn to prepare the breakfast for the 4 fair maidens of Durban Street.

It consisted of Fresh Fruit Juice, Strawberries, Blueberry Muffins, Muslie, Low-fat yoghurt and oven hot croisants. I can't quite remember what else there was. Anyway... once we had finished getting it all ready we then went and woke up each of the 4 fair maidens with a rose.





The other thing that comes to mind is the following photo. This is Steve in an apron. HAHA... and he doesn't know that I have this photo... I am sure that he will see it soon enough though.




That's February...

Highlights of this Year

I have decided to give a little update of what I feel have been the higlights of this year. Actually there are lots, these are the ones that I have pictures of. The next three posts (once completed) should summarise Feb, March and April of 2004.

A Little Style of my own...

I have now uploaded my new template for my blog. Half of the design is original to me, the other half is stuff I learnt from looking at other peoples styles. The end result of my 2 day self stufy of Cascading Style Sheets is what you see before you now. Yeah for clever Internet Nerdy Geeks that like to invent great technolgies.

Welcome

Hi there,

If you're wondering where everything went then wonder no longer. I was having some problems with the previous blog (remember the hidious red), I had modified the look of the blog and after that it just did not want to update again properly. Not sure why... but my final resove was to delete the whole blog and create a new one. So here it is... Hope you find my bog interesting.

Gareth