Winding down...

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all well and have had a good summer-it's weird that it's spring here at the moment and that in a month's time I'll be going from spring into autumn! I'm making the most of the weather here for now and the last few weeks have been doubting my decision about returning home on account of the weather, but I realise seeing you all may make up for it (maybe).
I'm just winding down with work at the moment because my Mum and Dad come out next week for a few weeks and then I return home a week after they do at the end of October/beginning of November. I've been getting all the enviromental lessons into a position where people can do it by themselves and then doing little bits and bobs that need doing for people like taking people to clinics and shopping for a holiday club this week.
Mum tells me everyone is wondering what I'll be doing next so I'll tell you so you don't have to ask her anymore. I'm volunteering for Faithworks (part of Oasis) in London from mid-november after a couple of weeks at home. Faithworks is an organisation that works with local churches and empowers them through resources and events to engage with their local communities in a meaningful, sustainable way. I'll be helping in their office with contacting churches and helping organise events, amongst other things. I'll be doing this for them 3 days a week and the plan is to try and get a part time job as well.
Even though I'll be having a part time job it still won't be enough for me to support myself whilst volunteering. Thank you so much to those of you that have supported me for the past year whilst in South Africa. If it's possible that you could continue supporting me from November until July next year that would be great but I do appreciate that people have different causes they would rather support.
My account with Oasis stops existing from the end of October and I will receive money from an organisation called Stewardship with whom I'm currently setting up an account. I'll let you know as soon as I know details.
If you have any questions about any of this please don't hesitate to contact me.
Thank you so much-can't believe I'll be seeing you in just over a month!

Prayers please:
For my last few weeks, that they'll be blessed and I'll make the most of ever day.
For my Mum and Dad-that they enjo their time out here.

What to do if you have a few hundred loaves of bread spare...

I’ll start as usual with the apology for the delay in updating you all-it’s amazing how time goes so fast! Last time I updated you the world cup was fully under way and we were about half way through the four week holiday clubs that we were doing for the kids of Cosmo City to give them something to do during the long holiday. The clubs were really successful and over 350 children attended over the course of the four weeks. We entertained them with games, sport and craft with different themes for each week including world cup countries, the big five and caring for the environment as well as giving them lunch every day (quite a few hundred loaves of bread and a lot of oranges were used!). After a tiring 4 weeks everyone was pleased it was over but it was really fun to help with it and as well as Oasis staff and students getting stuck in a lot of community members came and helped as well.
Personally the world cup was great as I got to see two games; Brazil V Ivory Coast and England V Slovenia (thankfully it was the good England game otherwise it may not have been worth the 24 hour round road trip!). The whole country had such a great atmosphere but it was a bit strange when it was over and all the hype dispersed after such a long period of build up it all ended quite abruptly! But, despite the mixed reaction some had to holding such an expensive event in a country where some don’t have access to basic amenities I think the general consensus among South Africans is that they’re glad the tournament happened here, and I think for the most part I agree.
Since the end of holiday club I’ve been sorting out a few different bits and pieces including arranging more of the environmental lessons for a local school and co-ordinating them with the environment team as well as preparing the resources so the lessons can continue easily once I’ve left SA.
Which leads me smoothly onto when I leave. The plan at the moment is to return to the UK at the beginning of November. I’m just working out at the moment what my next move will be exactly but I’ll let you know as soon as I know stuff for certain-it should be over the next few weeks hopefully. Will keep you posted!
Hope you’re all well.
Prayer points:
That I’ll make the most of my last few months in SA.
That everything for my return to the UK runs smoothly.

That sports tournament...

Hi everyone,
Sorry as per usual for the infrequent updates. Since I last updated you all quite a lot has happened-we’ve finished the Grade 3 lessons on recycling meaning that the Grade 3’s in one school in Cosmo are now recycling paper (we hope to roll this out to the rest of the school next term). We’ve also started running holiday clubs over the 4 weeks school holiday-this is the longest and most ambitious holiday club we’ve done, having only done one or two weeks in one venue we’re now doing 4 weeks in 4 different venues! I’ve been helping organise them with a team and two of the weeks have an environmental theme whilst the other two look at different countries for each day. All this has been going on with the background of a small football tournament you may have heard about-it might have been in the press a bit... The atmosphere around the World Cup has been amazing and the whole country (and the world it seems) is really getting involved. Whilst South Africans are proud of their country being the first African country to host the world cup it’s also difficult to justify at times the amount of money spent on the tournament when so many citizens are going without basic needs. But people are pushing that to the back of their minds for the duration and will no doubt wait to ask those questions once the tournament is over and simply enjoy the huge spectacle that is the world cup! I’ve been able to go to couple of great games fortunately and the atmosphere in the stadiums is great-I’m so pleased I could say ‘I was there!’ (damn FIFA marketing slogans!).
I’ll just keep it brief for now and update you in a few weeks more on how the holiday clubs have gone but I also just wanted to tell you all about future plans. I’m really sorry that some of you may have heard things from other people and that I’ve been really bad at keeping you updated but it’s something I’ve been thinking and praying about alot and in that process I’ve been talking to people as well. Because my job is slightly different to how I thought it would be before I came out the time scale for the duration of the job has changed (meaning it finishes earlier than the original two years I had planned) I have decided to come back to England in October this year permanently when the job finishes. I’ve decided this because I feel after praying about it that whilst this time in South Africa has been amazing and I’ve learnt so much there wouldn’t be another position right for me once I’ve finished this one and my time (for the time being at least) would be better spent in England.
I’ll be in touch soon about what this means for giving (obviously you won’t still be giving to me for two years-you can if you like though!) and if you could all pray for future plans that would be great. Thank you so much for your support-if anyone has any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Be in touch much sooner next time! Hope you’re all well,
Steve

Animals are our friends!

Hi everyone, apologies again for taking so long to update you all on what I’ve been up to-I can’t believe March in particular has gone so fast! I said in my last blog that we were about to start the lessons in primary with grade 1 (7 year old) students and they’re now finished after being really successful. Every week had a theme such as respecting animals or caring for trees and the team I work with performed a story about that weeks theme (characters were the themes-for instance a dog and a tree) which was then followed by an activity (a craft or we even planted trees!). The first one was about respecting animals and I think it’s the one the kids remembered best-kids would run around afterwards chanting ‘animals are our friends!’ which at least convinced me they’d got the point. The stuff in schools and preparing the team to go into schools takes up pretty much 3 days a week not including the actual writing of material so my week is pretty jam packed! I’ll be starting the next round of lessons for grade 3’s soon.
I’m also researching possible community projects for the team to initiate once the team have done an audit to see what community members feel they need most. There’s some exciting possibilities at the moment in the world of recycling-you might just think you put stuff in that box that goes out once every two weeks but here it has the potential to change people’s lives!
Next week I’m running an environmental holiday club with the team which is a bit scary but I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in for a whole week with kids. The theme is trees and friendship-it’s quite difficult to link the two, hopefully kids won’t notice how tenuous it is! It’s also been a bit difficult at times managing the environmental team (most of whom are older than me) so hopefully that end of things will run smoothly as well.
Life generally is going well-I’m really loving everyone I’m working with and just life in general in South Africa. Last week I went to a 21st of someone I’d never met before and was the only white person in a room of over 100 people-it was definitely a good experience but you do feel aware of yourself, particularly when, for some reason the cameraman keeps zooming in on your sometimes awkward looking face! I’m really trying to trying to engage with how to engage with the poverty I see around me-it’s easy to give money to feel better but then it’s also easy (at least for me) to come up with excuses like I don’t want to perpetuate the system. If you’ve got any answers please send them on a postcard to Oasis, PO BOX 533, Melville, 2109, South Africa! But I really feel that God’s getting me to think about it and what He wants me to do.
Hope this fills you all in on everything from the last two months-thanks for reading.
For those of you that pray:
For holiday club next week-that kids come and it’s well organised.
That the next round of lessons will come together well.
That I won’t avoid the stuff God wants me to learn about!
Hope you’re all well,
Steve

No, it's not one long holiday...

Hi again everyone, happy belated new year, hope you had a great festive season and enjoyed all the snow (was very envious!).
Apologies for not being in touch sooner-it's been a pretty hectic month or so since I've last been in touch (for the most part at least). Before Christmas there was a lot of things to organise for after christmas (hear more about them later) and just general end of year things such as Oasis end of year function which was a celebration of all that Oasis has done over the past year and looking forward to 2010. This was an amazing opportunity to see the effect Oasis has on the lives of people in Cosmo and the wider community. Over christmas I went away with my friend Jon-we stayed with a lovely family for a week just outside Port Elizabeth and then travelled home up the coast via the Drakensburg mountain range. A great opportunity to see how beautiful South Africa can be!
After christmas I was only in Joburg for a busy 4 days preparing for my next trip before I was whisked away again-this time to Cape Town with a friend who was visiting from the UK for a few days. It was great to see all the tourist stuff of Cape Town and I managed to narrowly miss a shark attack (admittedly by quite a few kms-but it could have happened...). While I was there I also managed to meet someone who is setting up a conservation project in a township just outside Cape Town-interesting to hear what other people are doing and to see how we can work together. One key thing I've learnt is networking is the only way to do anthing!
After this I met the 13 young people we're training (who are the key part of our project) in Durban where they are attending a 4 week long training in Environmental awareness at a game reserve. I was with them for a week and it was great to see them learning and changing-the girls started the week being scared of everything to being interested in a poisnous snake outside their rooms! It's great to see a process begining in them of engaging in their environment and learning about it. After that met with I met Arnie (my boss-Oasis sa country director) in a town called Pietermaritzburg and we met the team from a conservation charity called A Rocha (who work aournd the world and were set up in the UK) about partnering with them in the future. Exciting to see where it goes!


While I was away my friend/housemate Jon returned to the UK after differences with Oasis SA he decided where he was with Oasis in South Africa wasn't the right thing for him. This was obviously sad as we'd been away together and it was good to have someone in the same situation to talk to about things. Beatrice, an italian that works for Oasis (that I went to Mozambique with) also had to leave last week as her Mum as cancer and she decided the best thing for her was to support her family in Italy. This all happened in quite a short space of time so was a bit of a shock! This guys were the people I psent most of my time with so it's going to be a bit difficult to adjust to life without them. But it's a new challenge!
At the moment I'm preparing the primary school lessons for the team to deliver once they're back from their training. I've just started and it's a bit daunting trying to get into the mind of a 7 year old african child and think how they think! But I love a good challenge (as long as it's not too challenging).
Will update you soon-hope it's not been too long! Thanks for reading and all our support. Hope you're all well.
For those who pray:
Please pray that the lesson preparation will go well.
That to adjust to life without Jon and Bea will be smooth.

Steve

Mozambique Pics

Have now figured out how to put pictures in posts! Will do this properly next time.

Mozambique, Mosquitoes and the Mark of Den

Firstly, apologies for the poor (and non-sensical) alliteration. All will be revealed...
Everything here is going great-work is continuing well, I’m still doing the saem stuff as in my first week but getting into more detail and arranging meetings with people to talk about how we can partner-I’ve a meeting with a City of Joburg regional authority representative on Thursday to talk about how we can partner with them in their environmental projects in Cosmo City. It feels weird to have responsibilities like meetings-but I’m really enjoying it too.
Last week after a tough first two weeks I went on holiday to Mozambique (admittedly the first two weeks weren’t quite tough enough to warrant a holiday but still) with Jon and Beatrice who I work with (some of you may know Jon). The journey involved a VW Polo, incredibly pot-holed roads, a flat tyre and sleeping in the car, but the less said about that the better-bear in mind though it turns out you should never trust an African who says he can fix tyres with twigs (email me if you want the full breakdown-or I’ve told Mum and Dad). Once we got there (and it stopped raining-yes, there were points in the holiday when I was just as disbelieving as you are right now) it was really beautiful but as with everywhere in Africa the country is full of so much poverty and people are so desperate. We didn’t really do anything during the week but relax on the beach and get bitten by mosquitoes (ten bites on one foot was not good). Someone we know from the UK who works for Oasis Mozambique also stayed with us for the weekend which was good fun-and nice to get to know someone new! The journey home was a lot less eventful thankfully and this time we decided to stay somewhere other than the car over night.
Just a quick something before I finish-you may have heard about a small shindig happening in Copenhagen starting next week with a few people from around the world. It’s being trumped by some as the ‘last chance’ to save the world from climate change, and I have to say I agree. Working in the project I do, and particularly coming back from Mozambique last week, one of the countries that could be affected hugely by climate change, I’ve come to learn what a big deal these talks are for a huge proportion of the world-the proportion that’s poorest. If no deal is reached then it’s countries like South Africa and Mozambique that will end up paying hardest-economically and socially. I’m not telling you to turn off your standbys and use less stuff (although it’s all good) but if you could take the time to email Gordon Brown here:
http://act.christianaid.org.uk/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=48&ea.campaign.id=4128
or go to The Wave in London on Saturday-because we have to have a partnership of responsibility with government to tackle this huge issue (more info on christian aid website). For more information I recommend the Christian Aid or Tearfund websites.
If you pray please pray for:
Me as I continue work-that I continue to build links and find out what’s right for us here in Cosmo City.
The talks in Copenhagen-that negotiators will come with open minds and that God will be present in the outcome.
Hope you’re all well-will update you all sometime before I go away for Christmas in 2 weeks time!