Birthday

Just a few pictures from my birthday last week...

Birthday cake with friends in Soshanguve on Monday

Balloons at community breakfast on Tuesday
(I ate the chocolate pancakes before I thought to take a picture)

One of two free passes from Tony, my next door neighbor, who sees all women's activities (and most card games) as conspiracies against him.

Care package from Heather, which arrived ON the birthday (not sure if this has ever happened before in South African history)

Flowers from my parents

Dinner with the staff women at Cafe 41 (31 at 41 on the 31st...)

Swinging

On Monday afternoon, when I arrived at Emily's house with Sarah and Doris, we were greeted by Emily's daughter Lungile. She was hanging out in the front of the house, just playing on a swing with a friend... in the back of her dad's bakkie (truck). I love it.

Housekeeping

Just wanted to point out a few updates to the blog. I've updated the links, specifically the ones to community blogs. In the "2009 community" section, you'll now find links to blogs from several of the 2009 apprentices & staff.

I've also added this year's reading list to the sidebar, if you're interested in checking out some of what we're reading and discussing together as a community. We're reading some amazing books this year, and I'm not just saying that because I'm coordinating the reading for the year! Actually, I think the books I'm most excited about are the ones I've already read for previous NC years.

Right now, we're most of the way through Henri Nouwen's book, Spiritual Direction. So far during the Listening posture, this book has dovetailed almost uncannily with each week's curriculum and other experiences. Nouwen has a ton of good stuff to say about how we hear God and are formed spiritually. Feel free to email me for our weekly discussion questions. =)

Kitten...

Our cat Jasper ran away from home about a month ago--the day before Sarah and I moved house. He hasn't come back and after a month, it seems he's not going to. We've been talking about getting another cat, but haven't quite had the heart to do so just yet. But, on Thursday I got a phone call from Doug, who was out in Soshanguve with Granny's family. Their cat had a litter of three kittens about a month ago, and they wanted to know if we wanted one. Doug was willing to bring one back for us that night. We ended up saying yes. And so, by way of introduction, here is our new kitten, Lucy:




Apparently, she's interested in reading N.T. Wright. She's gonna fit right in...

Cultural History Museum

I first visited the National Cultural History Museum in Pretoria at the beginning of my apprenticeship year. Last week, I got to take this year's apprentices to check out the museum. I was disappointed that the exhibit I'd enjoyed the most when I'd visited before was no longer there. It was sad, since at least for me, that exhibit was the main reason to go to the museum in the first place! We did have fun checking out the exhibits of local art, and taking some fun pictures... until my camera batteries died. Below is the sum total of the pictures I took that day.