Matty's Adventures

A Lapse

2010-09-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry chaps.

I haven't blogged for a while, i'm not sure anyone will hear this even...

So, the reason is this... Having had my life changed by South Africa I want to carry on the spirit i was doing things there, in England, but it's not as easy (it's harder to see the need that people have...)

But... I have been given a one off, donation of 100 pounds! to use! how should I best use it in England to touch and teach???!!!

A Stolen Idea...

2010-04-14T01:12:00.000-07:00

Morning all, yesterday was a bit of a restful day, A beautiful lie in and then just hoovering out the cars because they were a bit of a state.

I also managed to fit in a trip to the woodcutters (the pub!) with Phil which is always rather nice.

On Monday we had study group and a few simple questions were posed which someone else had posted on their blog... I thought I'd see if any of you oaks could come up with some good answers to the question!

Simple Question, Profound answer... (quotes please)

Why did Jesus have to die? Does that limit God's power?

X

Easter Feast

2010-04-03T23:54:00.000-07:00

It's Easter Sunday in the morning, Mary and the other ladies will have already found the empty tomb!

The privelege is mine this morning to lead the bread and wine service at Mariannhill this morning, I woke up early to read through some passages, I think I'm just about ready, God really answers your call for help if you trust in him, he will have something wonderful to say through me today i'm sure.

Yesterday was a lovely day, sharing a Braii with my Brothers and Sisters at Mariannhill, in a place called Shongweni, half an hour from the M-Hill... We would love to start a Good News Centre there, and interest was shown from a number of people when we invited them to our Braii and chatted with them, praised with them and prayed with them.

It's great to have a couple more people here with us at for the week, Simon and Anna James arrived yesterday and we all enjoyed a meal at Moyo's restaurant by the Beach in Durban Centre. Lovely. We then shared the days God moments on the beach :D

X

Saffer-phile

2010-03-23T03:42:00.000-07:00

It seems British Airways will finally let me fly today... So after an emotional roller-coaster of enjoyment back in the UK, great to see family and friends, I'm back off to the second hemisphere to begin all over again. A P2P week starts on friday, they're usually fantastic so ace man.

I'll get back to blogging when I'm there. I didn't think you'd want to hear about what I was doing in England (today I visited my mate, we had a beer... etc.) but as it happened it was really quite fun so maybe I should have done :D

Thinking, Waiting, Drinking, Stateing

2010-03-11T22:20:00.000-08:00

This blog is brought to you by my dear friend coffee. Just woken up for the first (and last for the moment) day in Durban, and found we now have Internet what a lovely system. smooth, fast, uninterrupted and two metres from where I sleep and where I brew my coffee. In 8 hours time, I'll be hopping on the plane to London baby, It will take a while. I have grown an "Africa beard" so that I surprise my family and make them think I've turned into a wild animal whilst I've been over here. It is actually partly true.

Bye Bye Jo Bo

2010-03-11T00:23:00.000-08:00

10.20 Thursday morning, I've just packed ready to head back to Durban... then tomorrow I'll catch a flight back to England :D Excitement!

My time in Johannesburg has been fantastic as always, for me the stand out moment was finishing painting a Mural on the new community centre at Thembisa, it's a sort of symmetrical design of pairs of animals, all rather abstract, but meant in some way to represent God's Ark that Noah built. Phil designed the template and we all set to painting, we worked well as a team, the paint was the perfect ammount, the day was awesomely hot for the paint to dry, and the time we had to complete it was exactly the right time, so I have a feeling we were helped to finish it!

See you soon England.

What are we promoting? Fun!

2010-03-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

We’ve had a great time in Johannesburg so far, yesterday we did the third installment of “street fun” in Esselen Park, it mainly involves organised chaos! With about 60 children turning up, we played football, sack races, singing and water balloon competitions!

It’s really a great thing to be able to liven up the days of these poor kids, we give them sweets and apples, so they receive a bit more nourishment than normal, and they sing praises to God too.

A little saying I heard today that I thought was fun “if the weather man says there is a 60% chance of rain, what he really means is that there’s a 40% chance of sun!”

Anyway, I am really excited to be coming back to England, even if it’s only for a week, it’s still going to be great to see family and friends, and to finally try my own home made beer out at last!

By the way if anyone has been trying to call or text then it hasn’t worked because my phone got stolen… If you want my new number then email me and I’ll reply, don’t really want to put it on the net…

God Bless x

Catch, step back, throw, repeat.

What you looking at?

He's so tall

Durban - Johannesburg - and Snoek

2010-03-02T12:58:00.000-08:00

Doosh... A follow up on last times blog, we didn't go to the rugby, instead we had a great evening with the teenagers of Mariannhill, discussing Genesis, and then having a dance party and singing session! They are a lovely bunch, Mlu really seems to be coming along and participating more frequently :) whoever he is you ask...

On Sunday Phil Ashcroft gave the exhortation, he gave a really clear talk on the sabbath- coining the phrase Kingdom Day, which in essence is what the sabbath was meant to be about (follow up references and hopefully you'll find the same thing!)

Then Phil, Naomi Midgely, Laura, Christy and Myself travelled to Johannesburg (Kempton Park to be exact) to meet with the wonderful Scheepers family (my family from abroad!) where we are concentrating our efforts on helping prepare a new good news centre in a township called Tembisa, it's looking fantastic.

We've had two days of creche help (cuddle project - helping poor creches with new paint, shelves, plaster the walls etc) and we've just ended today with a relaxing Braai, where a Snoek fish was Barbequed! tasted delicious, it's a very meaty fish typical of the Cape region (Jo-berg is far away from that in Gauteng) Where Hendri is from, so he was tonights chef! We also had a laugh with some sparklers and my camera, so I'll post some of those pictures up for you now.

Tommorow is really more of the same, with an emphasis on trying to finish the renovations at one creche in particular (Kalina's if you must know) I'll try and remember to get some pictures of that as well, but that's for tommorow.

Great news to hear that the James's have had their Jabs and can join us soon! There's plenty of work to do, also Simon, be prepared to do a talk at the drop of a hat :D

Love, Hugs and mushy Kisses. Matthew

Llewelyn and Christy play with fire...

Laura, Liezl and Hendri Try their hand.

Johan sorts the Braai out for us.

We are in Africa after all...

Rugby?

2010-02-18T22:41:00.000-08:00

Sawbona!

The weather has righted itself, and we're back to singeingly hot, we're also back to friday which means its concert day! at the BEC in Durban we have a singing session to draw in the crowds at 11 every friday, calling it a concert is a bit steep but... we aim high... The Zulu songs are the biggest 'crowd' pleasers. It gets results as well, last week 3 people signed up for bible courses on friday, compared to 6 or 7 on a normal day. We also got a standing ovation from some nearby hairdressers :) good times, God works some wonders through us sometimes.

After that at 4.00 we start a new youth program at Mariannhill, an hour study then fun and games after, pool, table tennis etc, and snacks galore... I hope...

If it finishes up in time, and we somehow manage to be back in durban for 6.00 then i really want to go watch the sharks play the cheetahs at kings park (rugby) the super 14 rugby series, RSA, OZ and NZ is awesome! really fast and frantic, better attacking play than in England but worse defence, so it's really entertaining.... But that looks a bit unlikely at the moment!

Thanks for Birthday messages. The meal at 'nourish' did not dissapoint, the food is awesome, the steak is tender, the beer is cold, enough said.

Boldly striding into 24

2010-02-16T23:51:00.000-08:00

In keeping with my new resolution, i'm writing more :D

Today is a day of renovation, we are going to mason lincoln (happys) school, to continue refurbishing their bathrooms, because they are disgusting... new paint, new tiles, new taps and new windows, it's not much but it's making a difference.

It's a bizarrely cold (20ish) and wet day today after yesterday which was incredibly baking all day and then at 6.00 it clouded over and we had the most incredible display of God's power, huge lightning storm and flashfloods which flooded the road in front of westville hall, which i was then able to swim down!!! EESH!

I've just finished my coffee, and if I don't leave now i'll hold up the others, so have a good day, God Bless...

Quite glad it's not my birthday anymore, one day is just about the right length for it!

xxx

African Birthdays

2010-02-16T00:37:00.000-08:00

A nice tree in Westville

Durban gets busy man! This is near enough the city centre

Another Durban centre shot Mcd's have made it here (obviously)

Today is my first birthday out of England, It's rather strange to be sat in an air conditioned cafe with sweat pouring off me from the walk here on the 16th February...

The other volunteers got me some awesome presents this morning the best was a street surfer, a cross between a skateboard, snowboard, surfboard thing that goes along hard surfaces rather well! It is tres bien.

God willing at twelve today (in an hours time) I'm visiting a brother Marcus (member of marrianhill) who is in hospital in Durban for bone cancer, he keeps miraculously staying alive! So wer'e popping in to visit, sing him some songs, read him a bit of the bible, and just generally entertain him!

Later on today we're going to a restraunt called Nourish in Westville which I have heard very good things about from a number of people. And just hopefully we'll have a nice birthday meal.

In Durban, life's a beach :D

Just outside westville mall, didn't get my sunglasses on in time for the self timer shot... This is so fresh it's almost like looking at a webcam.

Sunday 2:31 and baking like an oven

2010-02-14T04:33:00.000-08:00

Heyall,

Happy Valentines everyone!

Just got a few spare minutes round the Bealers home, thought I'd let you know what I'd been up to today and at the same time break a record and blog two days in a row...

Today has been awesome, for me it started at 5.30 when i got up to play tennis with some guys at westville tennis club (zazz Mahen and Ronnie) They were all very good especially in the serve area, and i was quite rusty having not played since august! but i got a bit looser after a couple of drubbings, and started to play a few shots... Next week will be a different story!

We went to westville meeting today for the service and it was two awesome talks by craig Blewett and Tim Genders, both really about taking Jesus into your life in a real way, not just in a technical or legalistic way or theoretical but really living a life of Jesus in you. It was reinforced by some cool visual aids (weetabix and violins!) and also by a baptism! Togo was baptised and it was really moving and special occasion :)

Then Katie and Me whizzed over to Durban hall to give a sunday school class, heavily based on netball and comparisions with life!! Honestly there were some really cool lessons in it. Next we played it with chalk home circles on the floor... and ate spaghetti bolognaise which was delicious.

Were about to go back to westville hall (Bethel) for a slide show on the Kili trip that mark, cam, zazz and me are hosting... Should be fantastic.

All for now, Much Love every one Mathevus x

Klimbing Kili For Kids

2010-02-13T00:51:00.000-08:00

Well Well Well....

God gets me to do the most amazing things...

Firstly sorry that it's been ages since i Blogged.

About 3 weeks ago I found out that I was going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro! and I only had a week to prepare, so I spent some frantic time trying to prepare myself and get the right gear and then it was off to Tanzania to climb the giant of Africa!!

Mount Kili From the Plane.

I was part of a team of 6 and the reason for going was to raise awareness that the COPT (community outreach program trust) is running low on funds and needs to gain more donations to keep running, especially to help Kids in really really poor impoverished areas to get free food and free pre school education. It's really important and 100% of donations go to the children because everyone who works for the COPT (including me) is a volunteer.

So... we spent 5 days climbing and 1.5 coming down. It was a climb that involved everything, all emotions from joy and extreme happiness to stress, pain and giving up, I gave up 3 times on the climb, and each time God made things happen to get me back going and to climb the mountain.

I started suffering altitude sickness from day two, mainly in the form of mind numbing headaches throbbing away and pounding from the inside of my skull...

The mountain is beautiful though and sunrise over kili makes it all worth the pain, the rainforest is also such an incredible sight, the many shades of green, the intricate vine workings holding everything together and the diversity of tree specie, shape and form. It was a real blessing to be able to go, because it was a climb full of personal lessons, mainly that I cannot do anything from my own strength, but I need to rely on others, especially on God. This was shown mostly when I Gave up climbing 100 metres away from the top of the Mountain... I had thrown up, I had a headache, I was dizzy, I couldn't concentrate on one thought, and I just had a lot of pain, I sat down and every part of me said go down the mountain, I pleaded with the guide to let me retreat and get to lower altitude, but the guide grabbed one arm and my teammate grabbed the other and they hauled me up the last bit so that I made it to the crater rim of the mountain! I was dazed and unaware, but at least I was there!

Me shattered at the top (trying to smile!)

I quickly raced/tumbled down the mountain and soon got better when there was a better amount of Oxygen in my lungs at the lower altitude. It was a lesson in suffering as well, but for me it finished after a few days, for the kids in south africa it lasts a lifetime... so..... to help out you can donate money and make there lives a bit less full of suffering. any amount is appreciated

www.coptrust.org.za/getinvolved.aspx

This is the sight to donate at.

http://www.klimbingkiliforkids.blogspot.com/

This is the blog that was updated as we went along.

The View from the top of the crater.

A huge Mountain (from halfway up!)

Safari and Dad comes to stay

2009-12-17T11:23:00.000-08:00

So it has been a while... I'm now in the comfort of tim and ilse Gender's house whilst they are on holiday, they have a lovely swimming pool and a quite incredible back garden with their own river and waterfall feature. The weather has also decided to be awesome so thats rather nice, I hear that you are enjoying snow in England, that made me a bit homesick for a few seconds as i sipped on my icy water.

Since I last wrote, Richard and Simon have both flown back to the U.K. which has been rather sad, but at least we got to spend the time with them however short it felt.

The same projects are up and running, Mariannhill, Lamontville, Margate, The BEC, and other random things, but most recently we have just started a joint football and guitar training course for youngsters, which also sneakily tells them about God at the same time! we've been running it the last 2 days and the "pilot" trial comes to an end after todays session but not before hot dogs and certificates!

We've also been on a game drive! It was absolutely stunning, so exciting to be close to these amazing creatures, 10 metres from a cheetah is really quite something, especially hearing it breath, seeing it yawn and being completely ignored by it because we were in the safety of the car, I wanted to reach out and stroke it but was warned against such foolish behaviour. We also saw... Lions, Elephants, Rhinos (both the black variety and the white), Zebras, Giraffes, Impala, Kudu, Eagles and a man named Elson. (he has the best eyes ever. To see with I mean, not to look at)

We had a visitor of note, none other than Daddy C, it was nice to see and hear a familiar (familial) face and voice, we went for a trip up the new 2010 stadium, moses madhiba it was rather stunning, and then witnessed an amazing sunday school play with dynamic dancing then took about 30 kids to the beach and lost them then found them and got sun burnt, a packed few days for dad to witness, but that's the way it is!

It has been and still is a very fun African adventure, I do miss all you lovely people, especially miffed to have missed little Dazza's wedding :( but I've had reports that it all went well, God bless you and Kate together. (second honey moon in Africa?)

I hope you're all okay my lovelies.

Dad enjoying the view across Durban from on top of the stadium

Julie on top of the Moses Madhiba stadium, rain anyone?

Excellent Dancing from the sunday school.

Cheesy Coz with kids in the background, ready for the beach!

Mummy lion with two cubs, one male, one female.

This is one big animal!

Cheetah! Only the fastest land animal there is...

Beautiful striped horse things.

Wheely good

2009-11-25T04:51:00.000-08:00

The next part of the adventure...

My lovely musical friends.
AMAZING singing in the mariannhill choir
Tired after the race, Nozipho and me
Seyanda and his school friends
Dog Shoe
Me trying to look like i'm nice and that i havent seen the camera, in reality it was a set up

Once again we have been very busy, we said goodbye to Richard this morning he has been really great to work with and really inspiring. Thankyou Richard!

We've been to a very remote place called Candu (the c is pronounced like a tutting noise in your mouth) we were there to see the ecclesia there and to help out with manual jobs like fixing the waterbutts up to a hose to water the plants, simon and me also ploughed a field with an old school plough hauled by two bulls! very exciting and scary at the same time. We saw Nelson Mandella's house where he grew up, and also a very nice dog that put a shoe on for our entertainment! There was a dood there called seyanda, he kept us amused. You can find Candu on Google Earth apparantly, if you are bored.

I also ran in a wheel chair race! the special needs school Happy's enters it's kids into the annual KZN (Kwa zulu natal- the area of S.A. that Durban is in) wheelchari race, and one of the pupils asked me to push her! it was fantastic and quite an experience running along this 5k road with cars whizzing by only a metre or two away! we didn't win, but decided that just finishing the race was quite an achievement in itself.

We had an open air concert in Durban centre which by all accounts went down an absolute treat! We were singing christian songs and inviting people to come along to our Bible Education Centre to sort their lives out :)

Last night we had a suprise party for Kim Beeler's 39th it was fantastic, she had no idea it was happening and we'd composed a sort of funny song that was thoroughly enjoyed by the beeler family, which was the main thing. There was lovely food provided by char and jude.

We had nice meal for Richards leaving two days ago (monday) at a place called moyo's which is right on the beach front, all of us volunteers went, and then Christy and David White met us there for the beach after, we had fun making games up in the sand and playing noughts and crosses I think I won over all...

Love to everyone
Kiss to everyone
Hug to everyone
Matthew.

A New Blog Posting For You

2009-11-04T00:28:00.000-08:00

Monkey eats off my hand! Shamo!

Cute kiddy types at Margate, one at the front tried to throttle me!

We are ringing places up getting freebies, We got 400 tires for a crecha playground, lots of shoe boxes and a box of good quality paper for crafts! What a cool blessing! (christie, simon {in a blur}, Julie, LauraG, LauraI

Hello Mes Amis,

We have been busy bunnies, we have had capers this week!

Simon peel, Laura Iredale, Jude Norcross, Laura Skinner, Julie Machachek, Christy Beyers, Richard Alleyne and myself, went to a place called Marget this weekend, it is quite a small dusty quiet town and the christadelphian meeting only has about 5 members! So we decided to do something about this, some of us advertised in the mall down the road, some of us went to a local township, and some knocked on doors near the meeting room.

The township is the poorest place that I have ever been to, pieces of cardboard are used as walls, buckets are used as toilets and there are people just hanging about because they have nothing to do, so it was ripe for getting people along to church! On the saturday about 45 people came along and on the sunday service about 60! So everyone was really pleased with what God allowed us to do!

There were also some wickedcool things we got up to, like the waffle house, the monkeys, the beach one evening, food handouts, getting to know each other a bit more and breaking the igniotion on the truck!

I don't think I've mentioned Cam Before, he is an American and a dood! He is also a fully fledged member of the gang! he does a lot of work in Durban centre which is where he lives with this family (Kim, Shiloh, Annalise and Wyatt) He also has a bald head and used to be in the Marines!

Other things that have happened, I gave 2 bible classes, Bunny Chow, Stung by a jellyfish, locked out of home jumped in window set alarm off armed guard came, climbed a tree, had roast chicken.... ooooooooooh, I have remebered something else that I have started, I am going to run the comrades marathon!! eek it is a double marathion in may, Christy Beyers was looking for a running buddy and I decided to venture forth and try it... I'm sure it will be a lot of pain but also a lot of pleasure!

I will attmept to put some pictures on, but the computer isn't liking it at the moment....

Kisses and hugsies to everyone, kisses for the masses

*edit* I Have the pictures! (they all seem to have come out a bit dark, it might be this computer because its fine on the laptops.)

Kids at Happy's disabled school being amused by us! It was too good an opportunity to miss (richard, simon, cam)

Durban Beach, it was a bit cloudy but hot, and good for swimming

Amazing mural that I saw and had to take a photo of!

Internet Caf-AY

2009-10-27T02:06:00.000-07:00

Hello one and all,

I am now a one week veteran, and with it comes such priveleges as being able to have my window slightly undone, recognition of the mobile telephone masts that are dressed as trees and thats about it really, i can't wait for week two.

I have met some lovely people here, not least of all the the other Brits, Simon Peel (whose humor appears somewhat akin to mine much to everyone elses annoyance) And Laura Skinner, I knew the others already! I have also met Christy Beyers who is From Durban, and about our age so she has been chilling round ours quite a bit and she is Well Cool and took us to some rocks in Shongweni Nature Reserve and we jumped in to a lake, it was pretty sweet man and not in the least bit scary... Kind of a perfect sort of activity for me because I like jumping, you might have noticed.

Anyway, less of the messing about, We have also visited a school for handicapped kids called Happy's where we are teaching a basic bible course, and just generally having a right laugh with them. There is one dood there who made up some long name with lots of Zulu "clicks" in it then he made me pronounce it! Japes abound.

Marianhill is a township west of Durban which is a really poor area (though not the worst) and we've been there helping out with turfing some land for kids to play on, and doing there bible class, it was quite difficult to get a response out of them, so we are going to try different approaches! I'm about to photocopy an illustrated timeline of moses life to try tomorow!

I shan't mention the time i lost my wallet and then found it again, or the time i almost broke the car. Happy Days.

I forgot the wire for the camera so i am sorrybut no glorious photos!

Love. Kiss. Hug. Matthew. X

2009-10-20T13:33:00.001-07:00

Wow, so I actually made it into the country, for some reason I found that suprising.

The weather is great here, very sunny and hot! We've been going about to various places around the Durban area Marianhills and Lamontville. I'm finding it quite difficult to say quite what's happened, it's only been two days but it seems like ages! Everything is a bit muddled in my head! I think it's because it's so hectic (a very south african word)

Right i'll put some photos up, that should satiate you.

Lots of lovely love from Matthew. x

Break time and the prayer
A bit gross really very big and hairy
Laura Skinner with "Gregory Manuel"
A Dood and Me.

Dear all

2009-10-07T06:35:00.000-07:00

Seeing as I am going to South Africa for a good number of days, on Christadelphian mission work, I thought I would keep everyone informed, by starting a Blog. Hopefully I will remember the password and also remember to keep this updated, with what I'm getting up to.

I don't often get stressed, but during the visa debacle I did. There is a picture of my passport photos that I thought I needed (I didn't in the end) that proves I got a teeny bit stressed.

I am mainly petrified and excited.

Love. Kiss. Hug. X