The first week.

Mr Lee looking rather dashing on the beach...

Stefanie (left, American) Michal (right, German)

Lauren (left, South African) and Anna-Elisa (right, Finnish)

Ester (left, Dutch) Mar (middle, Spanish) Sarah (right, American)

These pictures show what we do in our free time. The top one is on the beach which is about a two minute walk from our front door; it's beautiful. The rest of the pictures are from a trip to the coffee shop on the beach front with some of our new friends, as you can see we are with many different nationalities! The topic of conversation somehow got to Eurovision in which Anna-Elisa reminded us all about Lordi (Hard Rock Hallelujah?). Takes me back.

This week has been mostly about sharing each others' life stories which has taken quite a long time as there are about 50 of us including staff. It's been a really interesting few days, learning about people and what has happened up to the point where they became Christians. God is good!

Here's Sam:

Hi. It's been a great week of meeting new people, being challenged in our faith and having lots of fun. We start our classes properly tomorrow (so far it's been mostly orientation), but already we've seen God speaking to people and making significant changes in our lives. There's a really good atmosphere of learning and trying new things - it's a place where it's fine to say "I think God might be saying this, but it's more likely that I've just made it up." I've done that a couple of times, and more often than not it's turned out to be something actually quite prophetic. What fun.

Next week we have all of our classes in the centre of Cape Town, and I think there's going to be quite a lot of practical stuff to do - going out into the city and telling people about Jesus - which frightens the life out of me. It'll probably be brilliant, though.

If you're the praying kind, here are some things to direct your prayers:

- Please pray for relationships with other people: As we get to know everybody some beautiful friendships are forming. Pray that our being married wouldn't stop us striking out and both making great friends with the other students and staff.

- Please pray for our outreach: In the next few weeks we'll start to decide where to go for our outreach phase. Please pray that God would speak clearly about where we should go.

- Please pray for us: We have a busy schedule and there's always something going on, but it's important that we get time together too to process what God is doing in our marriage (and to enjoy the beach).

Thanks! We love you all.

Sam and Heather

First Impressions

A 16 hour long journey including three separate flights is not to be underestimated. We arrived in Cape Town at just after 2pm yesterday, exhausted. We were met by the school leader, Paul. We had communicated with him a little bit already over facebook so it was a relief to see a familiar face! I'd love to woo you all with tales of how exotic and sunny Cape Town was when we landed, but alas, we were met with grey skies and rain. We got to the base, made cups of tea and introduced Pass the Pigs to our new friends. We soon drew a crowd in the main room and now I think we're known as the crazy British people. It seemed to go down well. There are 34 students here which is the most they've had for years apparently and there's quite a buzz at the base. Lots of Americans and some Germans, some Dutch, Canadians, Russians, one from Israel and Egypt and one or two from other countries; we're still to talk to each individual but they all seem pretty friendly. In more mundane news, we have our own en suite bedroom which is pretty nice.

Today we had formal introductions and a talk on the foundational beliefs of YWAM. It was a really helpful session that made sure we were all on the same page and knew a little more of what we are to expect in the coming months. In free time this afternoon Sam went to play football with some of the boys and I went down to the beach (see photo above) with a few of the girls to watch the intrepid surfers in the shark infested waters (there are shark spotters on the rocks around the beach who raise a red flag in case they see any looming grey triangles). The weather has got better; the sun is out today it's just a bit windy so you need to wear long sleeves when outside. In other British small talk news, we're managing to fill every gap with a cup of tea each which is amazing.

We want to post more pictures but there aren't many photo opportunities because a lot of time is spent hanging out with people and it would be a bit odd to stick a camera in their face; we might wait till next week for that.

That's all for now.
Heather x