The three hour drive was actually only just two
and half hours. A lovely guy called Dion
drove us in Annalise’s SpirtWord minivan.
She was unable to come after all due to some speaking commitments. He was a really good driver and I felt very
safe in his hands. The scenery in
Stilfontain is very flat with scrub and only a few trees and a lot of dust but
as we got closer to Brits we passed through rich green farm farmland and the
hills in the distance got closer and closer.
Dion said we were heading up into the hills as Brits is surrounded by
hills. At one point as we passed a farm
a whirling funnel air containing grass and plant debris came out of the field
and intersected with the car clattering against the windows. It was a dust devil I guess. It wasn’t big
enough or powerful enough to be a tornado by any means but it was probably a
similar phenomenon, but don’t quote me I’m no meteorologist!
We arrived in Hartbeesport Dam, at the most secure
looking gated community I’ve ever seen, around lunch time. The walls are high and are topped with
outward leaning electric fence wires.
The entrance has car-park style barriers for the day time with a guard
hut between the exit and entrance lanes manned by armed guards in
pseudo-military uniforms. At night
there’s a solid metal gate that rolls out of the wall to block the way. We followed the path round to a house owned
by a lady called Chereen who was out at work but her father, Gordon, was there
to greet us. There was a spare room in
the house and a separate basement room with its own entrance at the side. Godfrey took the one inside and went down
below. The room was quite cool being
partially underground and had a large firm double bed in the centre and a small
shower stall, toilet and sink area at the entrance behind a sliding door.
Gordon took us to the clubhouse on the estate,
which is home to a nine-hole golf course, with a terrific view looking over the
reservoir and parts of the golf course. The greens were all dry and dead as someone
had made a mistake fertilizing it earlier in the year and killed the grass on
the greens so they all had to be dug up and re-turfed at the cost of many
thousands of Rand. I had chicken
schnitzel with chips and Godfrey ordered a chicken and prawn curry without the
chicken accompanied by rice.
Unfortunately the chef messed up Godfrey’s meal and put chicken in it
too, so when the waiter pointed this out it had to be re-cooked so Godfrey got
his meal a good few minutes after us.
A lady called Stella picked us up around four pm
and we headed to the Church in the City via the dam and a tunnel under one of
the hills. It was about a half hour
drive into Brits itself. The church
meets in a shopping mall. It’s mostly empty
of shops as a smart new mall opened up a little further away and the shops
moved there. The church has a café and
coffee shop out front and a meeting room at the back which I guess could seat
two hundred or so.
There was a really nice acoustic six-piece drum
kit to use and it wasn’t behind the usually ubiquitous Perspex screen! The PA guys were really helpful getting
monitors for us and sorting out the cabling.
The room was almost full by the time the meeting started at seven
o’clock.
The local worship team wanted to do three songs at
the beginning, so Godfrey decided to speak first before doing any of his songs
as their style was completely different and the two sounds wouldn’t really
complement each other at all. He did a
great job of bringing his usual message and the people including the pastor,
Wally Scholtz, loved it. People were
very moved by his testimony and story of playing in secure mental health units
back home in the UK. We then did our
songs and the crowd seemed to love them.
Afterwards we had a meal in the café of roasted
veg, creamed spinach and a most delicious fish called Snoek. The flesh was firm and meaty and was almost
the texture of chicken but tasted like fish. It had clearly had spices cooked
into it and it was the best fish dish I’ve ever had, by miles. I had a very interesting conversation with
the guy opposite me and was able to encourage him with the good news of his
inclusion and perfect standing with God.
He asked loads of questions, most of which I hope I answered reasonably
well. I also had a good conversation
with a young lad who plays keyboards and had been given a prophetic word about
writing and releasing an album of worship songs and he said he didn’t know how
to start. I explained that it was good
to hold such words lightly and not to struggle to fulfil it himself, but to
just work on his skills as a musician and song-writer and shared with him the
excellent advice I’ve heard Godfrey give about owning the songs you write. To never say ‘the Lord gave me this song’ as
then you put yourself in an unteachable place, how can you receive constructive
criticism if the song is God’s, but to say you wrote this and acknowledge that
God inspired you, prompted you etc but you wrote it. That way you can develop as a songwriter. He seemed happy with this.
We were back at the house around eleven o’clock
and I crashed out straight to sleep.
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