Two more "Newbies" or "Warning: The Surgeon General....."

It seems forever since I broke my arm patting myself on the back.  (Isn't THAT a shameless attempt to get our readership numbers up?)  It has now been clinically proven that having us as visitors in your home is hazardous to your health!  This past Tuesday (after visiting with us on Saturday), Vincent Walters was admitted to the hospital with a kidney stone.  He had it removed earlier this morning.  The South African equivalent of the Surgeon General has given us cards we are required to hand out to all of our hosts: "WARNING:  Jim and Irene Gordon have been determined to be hazardous to your health."  Think about it - I'll bet almost everyone of YOU has been sick in one way or another since you saw us last.  I know I get sick every time I look in the mirror and Irene is sick of listening to me.  HUH! Maybe it's just ME and not Irene.  Or maybe she is the social equivalent of Typhoid Mary. Hmmmm.  Well, on with our post.  Vinnie, here's your card!  Get well and we are praying for you.

Sunday we spent the day in Hopefield.  It's about 110 kilometers NNW (66 miles from Cape Town). The church there started about 30 years ago.  It was the first time that we had been there for services although 3 years ago we did stop to see the little building they have there.  Here's a picture of the building the church worships in:

Notice the main door is recessed and the window on each side of the front of the building.  The bathrooms are outside the main building - one on the right and one on the left - immediately BEFORE you walk into the building.

I taught a class in the morning on "Living By the Spirit."  My sermon in the morning was on "Keeping in Step with the Spirit."  My class in the afternoon (at 2:00 PM) was on "What does 'Grieving the Spirit' (Eph 4:30) mean."  (Notice any kind of "theme" to the day there?).  Irene's afternoon class was the lesson she has on "God's Anger Management Course."  At lunch we had some wonderful food provided by the members of the church there.  It was all soooo good.  There were 7 men and about 14 women there.

Then, this past Tuesday night we went to Piketberg.  It's about 1 1/2 hours from Cape Town on the road to Namibia.  Its a congregation that began about 13 years ago.  I actually spoke there about 10 or so years ago.  At the time they met in a local community building for services.  Now they have a small building they've built.  We went and there were about 15 of us.  It was a cold, miserable, rainy evening.  So the building was cold but that didn't stop these brothers and sisters in Christ from coming for this time of study, singing and fellowship.  Here's a short video of us all singing a song:

My lesson that evening was on "Our Covenant with God."  I spoke about 1 1/2 hours and compared God's covenant with Noah; God's Covenant with Israel and God's Covenant with us in Christ.  We spoke about the Parties of the Covenants; Terms of the Covenants and Blessings/Curses of the Covenants.  It was a wonderful group to study with.  Some of it Rohan had to translate into Afrikaans as we went along because "technical stuff" isn't easy to follow in what amounts to the 2nd language for almost everyone that was in the class.

Wednesday evening I spoke at the church in Gugulethu.  The church meets in one of the members homes.  I spoke about the 10th plague God brought against Egypt (the death of all firstborn of both man and beast) but "passed over" the Israelites in Goshen.  I also touched upon the "Law of the First Born" and redeeming the first born required under the Law of Moses and finished with the New Testament's teaching that JESUS is our "passover Lamb" that was slain and whose blood redeems us.  Also, in all this I touched upon the passover's requirement for unleavened bread (bread without yeast) and the requirement that the Jews remove the "Old Leaven" which included scrubbing down the walls to assure there was none left.  Then went to 1 Cor 5 and our necessity to get the "old leaven" out of our life - ungodliness, etc.

Here's a video of the group that was with us there that night:

Today it was Irene's turn to swing for the fences.  She taught the Ladies class from Bonteheuwel (although this week they met at Sandra Jones' house not at the Bonteheuwel building).  There were about 12 ladies there Irene told me.  She taught a lesson on the "Wife of Manoah" (that would mean she was the mother of Samson).  I haven't been able to get her PowerPoint lesson to load as a movie yet.

This afternoon we went to Sister Lauers home across the street from the Manuel's for lunch after Irene got back from her class.  Also invited were Cathleen and Rosanna vanReenen (who is our excellent cook while we are at the Manuel's home) and Roslyn and Phillip Hendricks.  Phillip is one of the evangelists at Athlone along with Peter Manuel and Rohan Jones.

Tomorrow we are going to go to a penguin colony along the coast (DUH!) down toward Cape Point.  Irene is really excited about it.  She's never seen penguins in the wild.  After going with Mary and Kazumi to the Antarctic marathon in 2008  I am like "YAWN, I'm so 'been there and done that' " (about six different penguin species too).  However, Irene underlines to me that this is a different species than any in Antarctica so I'm obligated to be excited tomorrow too.  So I will be.  I'm sure.