Prayer Requests My sister Melinda has had a setback in her fight with cancer and has had to go back on regular chemotherapy. Our hope is in the Lord!

The Global School of Theology (the South African branch of Global University) has to be, and is, registered with the government to operate legally (Cape Theological Seminary is the main academic campus for Global School of Theology). Continued registration is dependent on renewal of accreditation with the Council for Higher Education here. We have a site visit for re-accreditation coming up in less than two weeks. Since I've only been here two months, you can imagine how ready I feel for my part in this! Please pray that God will give us favor.

Because several students have not been able to pay their full fees, the school is in a cash flow crunch. Please pray that the students would find the money and that we as a school would make it through.

Thanks for standing with us in prayer!

Camp Something that took us completely by surprise when we got to Cape Theological Seminary was almost a full week of Camp built into the second semester schedule. The week of August 24 we had two days of regular classes, then from that evening through the rest of the week, the normal schedule was replaced with one word: Camp. What could this mean, we wondered?

It turns out that camp is a spiritual emphasis/retreat involving all students and faculty. We drove up into higher altitudes where it was truly cold at night and we could see snow on distant mountaintops. We had reservations at a private game farm where we communed with grazing Thompson's Gazelle and blesbok during morning devotions, ate a hearty breakfast together, then had two sessions of morning worship and Bible study with a tea break in the middle. Afterward there was lunch, then free time until supper, then an evening worship service after supper. All this was in a setting with minimal stress and little to distract us from enjoying God and each other.

Free time in the afternoons was full of games and fellowship. I especially enjoyed a human fooseball setup, where people were harnessed to a pipe that moved back and forth along a steel cable. The restricted movement slowed us all down was the only way I could play soccer on the same field with the students and younger faculty.

Our special speaker for camp was Rev. William Tate, who did a tremendous job. We were personally challenged and expect to see lasting fruit in the lives of students as a result of this time.

It was an ideal time to get to know everyone at school, since we are new here and had really only learned the names of the students we had in our own classes.

Dear Website, How have I neglected thee? Let me count the ways...

I put thee on my to-do list so I wouldn't have to carry the weight of nagging thoughts of thee in the back of my mind, but then thou languished upon page 5 of a 7-page list, a page which was hid from view for many a day.

When finally I thought again of thy need, I did'st make notes on paper of things I could write about, but alas, only when I was nowhere near a computer.

I vouchsafed all the software needed to update thy countenance on a USB drive, and fettered it to my keychain so as to be able to address thy concerns from any computer. And yet, betimes, on that same device, I hid a statistics project for my Area Director. How I have spent my hours on that project! How I have thought of it when noticing the items on my keychain! And yet, not one minute, or even hardly one thought, for thee!

Pages and pages I have written, of stuff for work, stuff for projects, and even stuff in correspondence with family, but not one sentence for my deprived website.

Oh Website, can'st thou find it in thine HTML to forgive me?

Beautiful view. We found the public beach access that is closest to our house, and while we were there I got a picture of Jackie with Table Mountain in the background.



That's right. She's mine.

First day of class and my students are an impressive group. I hope they enjoyed the first day as much as I did. They seemed bright, attentive, and interested. It would be a crime to make the Bible sound boring to this group.

My first official act as Director of the Centre for Postgraduate Studies at CTS was to send an email today to all the mentors who help teach the various courses offered in block sessions twice per year. Unfortunately, I had to include in that email the possibility that the 2010 schedule will be clobbered by the World Cup coming to Cape Town the same time as we had the June/July block scheduled. This will impact every aspect of life in Cape Town for those weeks, including costs and availability of air tickets to Cape Town for students and mentors alike.

We remembered to bring the camera to school today and got a shot as we were walking from the car to the front door. The architecture reminds me of a Swiss resort or something.

Mission Accomplished I did not take sleeping pills last night. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, but that's o.k., because I wanted to pray, and read, and have breakfast, and still be the first person in line at the vehicle registration office.

I got the Roadworthy certificate (inspection sticker) yesterday and scoped out the location of the registration office. I got there half an hour before it opened this a.m., was one of the first in line (yes, there were a handful of others ahead of me!), and got right up to the window. I was promptly sent down the road to buy passport size photos, but before I left I made arrangements to come back to the same person without waiting in line again and left my paperwork with her. Got the photos, came back, made it back up to the window without any impoliteness from those waiting in line, paid the tax, and got the whole thing taken care of in time to drive to CTS for chapel.