The alarm came early this morning. After a 7:30am breakfast, we headed over to Southpoint. Pam greeted us with hugs and a tour of their Waumba Land and Transit space. Jana and Jamie had come over before, and introduced us to lots of folks. It was so cool to see all of the NP branding and environments working in Cape Town. One thing they are doing differently is combining KidStuf with the worship service. So the first 15 minutes is all about the big idea of 'Easter'. Kathy Gibb did a great job hosting and illustrating the gospel with the same photo developing chemicals Mike Tamborello used at NP two weeks earlier. So, after the KidStuf portion wrapped, the elementary kids and their small group leaders headed back to the UpStreet wing. It made for an unusual start to the worship service, but kudos to John and his team being willing to take risks and try new things. We then moved into worship, followed by John's Easter message and then we closed with communion. It was a beautiful opportunity to celebrate our risen King in a setting both new (Africa!) and familiar (NP environments). The world felt smaller and God felt bigger!
After the service, Derek & Wendy Coleman and their boys Brad & Daniel took us to lunch in Simon's Town. Our table faced the bay with the beach dotted with colorful cottages. So, Easter lunch consisted of fish and chips while watching the waves roll in. Love it! We talked about Derek's role as the layman in charge of community groups for SP. He is clearly a competent and capable leader, and it was great to hear his story and get his perspective on church and social issues in South Africa. Wendy is super-mom and provided the color commentary and translated the South African slang for us. We all smiled as we watched Brad's crush on Quincey develop. By the end of the day, Chris had christened him Anakin :)
It turned rainy, but we still managed to see some penguins at Froggy Point on the way to preview the retreat facilities in Rocklands. (Sidebar: what we call African penguins in the States are called Jackass penguins in Africa :)
We walked around the retreat center and got a feel for how we wanted the retreat to flow. It was a beautiful, albeit rainy, drive all along the coast on the way back to Cape Town. Derek pointed out the headquarters of the royal navy in Simon's Town and the shark spotters at Muizenberg's great surfing beach.
After our jaunt out to Rocklands, we unpacked and then met up for dinner at the Victoria & Alfred waterfront. There is an indoor mall as well as outdoor market stalls, restaurants and the ferris wheel. Due to the rain, we opted for Primi Pizza & Pasta inside the mall. (sidebar: in addition to driving on the left side of the road, general pedestrian traffic flow in SA is to the left side as well. So you have to re-orient your mall window shopping habits, or you're like a salmon swimming upstream.) After dinner we picked up a few souvenirs and headed back for an early bedtime.
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