Well, after nearly 6 hours of driving I arrived in Grahamstown. The first leg of the trip was a complete haze, I couldn't see more than 30ft (9.144m) at any time, with cows running around in some places in traffic jams in small towns National highways go right through towns here, no bypassing. But we got through that first leg, and things were ok. The sun came out, we had gotten through most of the towns. God provided a lit path. The picture to the right was taken at around 6.30pm on Friday.The next day was a little surreal, I woke up to the sounds of the monks doing vespers at 6am on Saturday. I took Mkusele, the leader of the iTipini choir among other things, into Grahamstown for some music session, then I went and hung out on the street with hobos who I got to play guitar with. I asked if I could play ones guitar and he let me, and there was sat, jammin' out (he did most of the music playing, relief there). A lot of folks looked at us funny, but it was pretty cool. After this I went to a coffee shop where I ended up talking to the owner of the place about Biblical and theological issues over coffee on the house. We disagreed about quite a bit, especially over issues of homosexuality and women in the priesthood, as well as a few others, but Tinnis said that "it was still good because it was so congenial and God centered." Then I saw Rob, a fellow Yascer, for a little while. It was good to see someone doing something similar to me.
Once Sunday rolled around I got to head back to Mthatha after church was finished at the monastery, and that little place was packed. They said good-bye to one of the other YASC volunteers here, and it was rather touching. At one point, Brother Timothy of the Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery said that "you don't need to like doing the work of God, you just have to do it." That struck me as true, as every once and a while things get a bit stressful here. But you do it, it gets done, and hopefully things will be better because of it.
I got home Sunday at around 1pm and things have gone back to normal.
Blessings to all.
