South Africa 2012 - Day Thirteen

Day 13 - 21 people, 21 different directions

One of the problems with having so many people in one group is that trying to either arrange for one thing to happen or to break down into different groups can be time consuming. This morning it took about 30 mins to figure out what the options were and then another 30 mins to organize how that would happen. Some people wanted to go to Crystal Pools, a place up in the mountains about 45 minutes away where you can do rock diving and swim under waterfalls. Some people wanted to go to the winery for a tour. Some people wanted to sun bathe and some people wanted to go shopping and spend time on the beach. In the end three cars headed for Crystal Pools and 2 cars

headed for the shops and beach.

On arriving in Gordon’s Bay we pulled in so a few people could “freshen up”. As it happened I parked right in front of a Fish and Chip shop and that was the end of the story. I don’t know if I even turned the car off but just headed straight in to order my first fish and chips in about a year. They were not the best but they were definitely good enough to quell the craving my family had been having ever since arriving in South Africa. Another

interesting experience was seeing the armed guards who had come to pick up money from the local supermarket. I guess being from England the sight of a guard walking around with a fully automatic sub-machine gun ready to be fired was a little off-putting. Living in Texas, my family were not surprised to see a gun. There we are the anomaly because we do not own a gun.

Despite reading up about Crystal Pools online we knew there was a problem when we arrived at the location and the gate was padlocked. Luckily this was at the bottom of the mountain and not at the top after we had walked up. We found out that Crystal

Pools had been closed for the year for “rehabilitation” efforts. The only saving grace was that we were right on the coast and could walk down some rocks to see the waves crashing into the rocks. We also got to watch a pod of dolphins swim by and a seal playing with a fish he had caught.

What this minor problem had caused us was a little more time on our hands. And what better way to spend some free time than to go shopping. I am not sure why but shopping seems to be a focus. For me it is the food but luckily the two seem to go hand in hand. For this shopping extravaganza Barbara, Savannah and I headed to a music store in Cape Town to see if there were any unusual or local guitars we could get. Savannah had been saving up for a while and really wanted something unique. We did see some locally made electric guitars made out of drift wood or oil cans but she really wanted an acoustic. It was then she found a series of baby guitars. Now these are not specific to South Africa but were something Savannah fell in love with immediately and so about an hour later we walked out with a baby guitar.

That evening we had been invited to a BBQ at friends of my father’s. This BBQ was only for the adults in the party and usually that means an interesting time as my brothers and I are all practical jokers (I know this is hard to believe if you know me :-) ). What was different for this meal was that we got into a pretty animated discussion around our faiths and how that affected how we viewed

social issues especially one in particular. As a family we are all at different stages of our Christian walk and we definitely had some diverse opinions but what was comforting was that we all held to the same doctrines. I think for me, because I live in America, the hardest thing to accept was that there are certain so-called Christian pastors who appeal to the itching ears of society but whose teaching is so heretical that we should pay any credence to their words. Rob Bell was one where we definitely did not agree. Some people love him but a couple including me just cannot accept his doctrines which are so anti-biblical it makes me angry. I am sure the evening proved to be very interesting for our hosts and I think they may think twice before inviting us all back.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 - For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.