The Joburg/Pretoria Trip

Traveling in winter in South Africa has its own specialties.  There are some gorgeous birds and flowers around.  The cold in Johannesburg is serious!  It has dipped down as low as 3 degrees Celsius, which is in the 30's in Fahrenheit.  Most days would warm up nicely as the sun did its thing. Does that sound like we're wimpy?  Just please realize, indoor temps are about the same as outdoor!  Most indoors are not heated and brick buildings can be colder inside than outside.   

The realities of doing laundry on the road.  It's not glamorous, but I actually enjoy figuring it out.  On this trip, I'd stick our cooler into the bathtub and hand wash in there.  I found a place to hang it outside as nothing would dry in the chilly bathroom.   

Our first school!  It was a big one, with a very active, enthusiastic feel to the audience.  This picture shows maybe one fourth of the students and less then one fourth of Small Paul.  
It was a sweet success after two days of visiting many schools, and hearing, "We'll call you back." to finally have a friendly principal say, "Let's do this today!"

School number two, the morning was so dark, Paul could use the blacklight to highlight his picture, even though we were outdoors.  Paul and Tim shared the lesson, and I took pictures in the back, and fumed at the guy who started a generator right nearby, while Paul was speaking.  Not nice.  I also 
high-fived about 100 kids at the end.  

Written soon after the last school of the trip, on the 15th:

My head was spinning from the fast-paced, tense, hectic morning we had! The plan was to have an 8:00 school appointment, followed by one at 8:30, and a third at 9:00, at 3 different schools, all in Soweto. What can go wrong with that? We have 2 speakers, so one person can do the 8 and 9, while the other does the 8:30. Ahh, the best made plans of mice and men... 

The tension started soon! We left our room at 6:35 AM, and got out onto the R21, heading southwest toward Soweto. But early in the commute, the traffic clogged, and then stopped, and then we began to creep along. For 30 minutes we hardly went two kilometers! (This wasn't the fast-paced part.) Paul and Tim ate their sandwiches I had made them for breakfast, egg salad and peanut butter, respectively. We finished family Bible reading and prayer with an emphasis on us getting there on time. I was driving, and I eventually started in on a sandwich too. Finally we came to the spot where an accident had happened. Four lanes of drivers were being condensed into one until they cleaned up the mess, but it didn't look like anyone had been seriously hurt. From there we whizzed toward Soweto with hardly a slow down. We wove through the streets, dodging many, many pedestrians and pausing for the trash truck coming at us one the wrong side of the street. 

 We dropped Tim at the first school a little before 8:00, (no spare time to set up, but at least he was there) and then we headed toward a really big school where Paul was to speak. Appointments for the four schools had been made in the last two weeks. Paul's school was only 2 kilometers away, as the crow flies, but I'm not a crow. I had to face the traffic, the billions of taxis, and every man doing that which is right in his own eyes. It requires 100% attention, and even then, I made Paul gasp a few times. We did get safely to his school in about 15 minutes, and after getting all his equipment out, I went back to get Tim to take him to the 9:00 appointment. I got back to him around 8:30, and his school wasn't going well. In fact, it wasn't going at all. He had been stuck in the teachers' staff room, and was visiting with some teachers, but the promised assembly wasn't coming together. The principal forgot he had scheduled us then. So we gathered equipment and scurried off to the 9:00 school This one was ready for him, so I dropped him and headed back to Paul. Paul was all set up on stage, with about half the students, but no one giving the go-ahead. He sent me back for Tim because we also had an 11:00 school across town.  Tim was finishing when I finally got there again, feeling thankful for safety. 

The streets are wild! Tim and I went back to Paul, and he was just finishing up, so we three worked together and got him and the equipment loaded and we headed for school #4, exchanging notes along the way. Tim's school had been welcoming and appreciative, and Paul's had gotten started almost an hour late. In fact he had to start it himself, since no one ever came to get it started or to introduce him, but the students listened and responded well. (So in the course of driving to the three schools, I made 7 stops, having been to 2 of them twice, one of them 3 times!  My nerves!)

 The last school, the 11:00 school, was one of the 12 who we had gone to the first day, one who had said they would call back, and they really did! Paul had preached there before, 10 years ago, so a few of the teachers did remember him. They were SO appreciative, many coming up individually to express their thanks. They were an Afrikaans school, which was especially good in that our English tracts were about finished at this stage of the trip, but we still had Afrikaans left, so those kids received Afrikaans. 

So we finished! No more schools until after the winter break. We plan to start back to Cape Town on Sunday after church and should arrive home on Monday evening. This trip will be remembered as a very united family effort, with Paul, son Tim and me all working together on scheduling schools, and then reaching them afterward. It was also very united in that we all slept in one room. Fun, fun, fun! I think we'll all be glad to get home, but we must plan for extra adventures on the way home.  Cape Town is having flooding and mud slides.  the huge Huguenot Tunnel that we came through, is closed so we may have to find another way home, unless they sort it out before Monday.  

 

Gorgeous winter flowers.  

The kids began to gather in the cold at another school.  

Paul in shirt sleeves, all warmed up with preaching while the rest of us are still bundled up.  

This schools was one of the original 12 that only scheduled later.  That first day was discouraging for scheduling, but at least all the people Paul dealt with were kind, it was just a bad time of year because of working around their exam schedules.  

Someone sent me this picture and the one before and after which was so nice as I was out in the wings somewhere, not getting very inspiring pictures.  That lady was the one who got us into this school, and we're thankful for her.  

Tim in action! 

This particular school had us nervous.  The day we visited it to schedule it, the kids were dancing wildly in the streets, blocking traffic.  It looked like a very undisciplined school, so we prayed extra.  The Lord worked and the meeting was peaceful and the students paid good attention and many made decisions at the end!  (Turns out the next school was a really rough one and we should have paid extra for that one!)

Yes, that is an odd combination of cow hoof, balloons, and tower.

We met with Joe and Blessing, who drove all the way down from Limpopo to have lunch with us.  

More of that odd "statue".  It was like a huge cow statue was buried with just the four legs and the milk bag sticking up.  Strange, but not the worst statue I've ever seen.   

The last school!  In some ways, the best!  The teachers were so appreciative of Paul's ministry.  Before Paul spoke, they brought out two framed pictures Paul had drawn there before, at least 10 years ago!