south of somewhere

Hi, our names are Sarah and Nathan Cooper. We are based in Sheffield in England, but are preparing to move to South Africa in September '06 to join a church planting team in the Western Cape. We hope that this blog will keep you up to date with our progress as we embark on this new adventure. Watch this space... www.thepeopleschurch.info

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Gesende Kersfees (I think that's how they say "Happy Christmas" in Afrikaans!)

We are now the proud owners of our own home! After several weeks the sale has gone through successfully, and we are still amazed at this answer to prayer and not just that, but a house which suits us and our needs so well too.

We are continuing to adjust to life in Africa. We’re getting used to buying seasonal produce – the supermarkets will be full of asparagus one week, so we dig out any recipes we can find using asparagus, go back to the supermarket the next week, and there’s not an asparagus in sight but the place is overflowing with melons! Things are in season for just a couple of weeks at most, and then it’s the next thing. It means you have to cook with whatever is available, but at least we get a varied diet, and ‘expensive’ things like avocado and asparagus are really cheap here when they’re in season.

We’re also still getting used to the plant and animal life. It feels like every day we see a new plant or insect that neither of us has ever seen before. We have butterflies in our garden the size of small birds – you’d pay to see those in England! Like the vegetables, the insects seem to come in waves as well. We had a huge moth outbreak that was pretty disgusting, (if you walked past any bushes they would all fly out in a cloud – horrible!) followed by an outbreak of millipedes (strange!) and then flies. They’ll be everywhere for a week or so, and then seem to disappear again. We also have huge beetles here that seem to like flying round our kitchen in the evenings, although Nathan’s discovered they make a satisfying ‘ping’ if you can hit them with a tennis racket.

We have been doing a lot of employment stuff with the youth this week – helping them to write CV’s, going with them to encourage them as they look for work in the shops, and accompanying them to confront managers who have not paid them their wages (common practice over here).

Happy Christmas to all our family, friends, supporters and devoted fans of the blog! We’ll be posting some pictures of our Christmas celebrations here in the sun...

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Happy Christmas guys and many congrats on the house.

1:39 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's exciting news on the house. I hope it feels like 'home' very soon, perhaps Christmas is a good time for that. You two have been a real inspiration and as we speak I am filling in an application for a job in Sudan, which I would love to do!

We continue to miss you both, especially in small group.

Happy Christmas / Prettige Kerstfeest

Love Sara xx

3:07 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Merry Christmas you two, and I second Pete's congratulations on the house! Slightly concerned by what seems to be a growing insect killing spree on Nathan's part however - first the spider with the shoe now the moths with the tennis racket...what will be next?? Softie if he tries to but a cricket bat please stop him.

All the best guys, here's to a great new year for you both.

Matt M

6:43 pm  
Blogger Emma Andrews said...

Yay congrats on the house! Happy Christmas guys, praying that 2007 is an awesome year! We know what you mean about the seasonal produce! We get the same here! Corn on the cob season for us at the mo! Lots of love, Ems and Dan.xx

7:58 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Happy Christmas Nath and Sarah and all the best for the new year. And, of course, i'll add my congratulations on the house.

Nathan's vicious turn does not surprise me in the least. Don't be fooled by those boyish good looks Sarah. I still have the (physcal AND mental) scars from keeping him and Joel apart many moons ago, and once i saw him tackle somebody at football.

He didn't win the ball and it never happened again, though, so maybe he's not so bad after all.

Nevertheless im glad im not a south african insect/ arachnid at the moment. Aim for the head nath, they never come back from that.

All the best

Dave M

12:30 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi guys! Just worked out how these blog things work, Im not very technical! So glad to see you are now proud house owners and enjoying all that African life offers.
Thanks for the Christmas card and news, lovely to hear about whats going on.
We are looking forward to a break - finish work today yey! Then going to meet up with Hiro and Becks tomorrow in London, feels like they never went!
Thinking of you over Christmas.
Loads of love
Hazel

2:32 pm  

Post a Comment

<< Home