Christmas season

It's Christmas time! It's scorching hot! We knew, intellectually, that this would be the situation. But it's just pretty weird.

As at home, during this season the traffic is way up, both on the roads and foot traffic in the stores. This has meant busy days at the BEC as well. Since the BEC is fundamentally a Bible book shop, quite a few people have stopped in to do Christmas shopping. This has given us an opportunity to tell a lot of new people about the Bible courses we offer, and the Friday lunchtime class we have. We have had quite a few sign-ups for the beginning Bible course, and promises to join the Friday class.

Just in the nick of time, two big orders of Bibles came in, both on the same day. It was a zoo in the BEC the day they arrived, and the volunteers who were working that morning were selling stock right out of the shipping boxes. Some other things we've been unable to keep in stock: there is a Zulu hymn book that is backordered, and we have sold out of a different Zulu hymn book.

We stock Bibles in English, Zulu, Xhosa, Swahili, and French - although the first two languages account for almost all the sales. Sister Mary, the one full-timer at the shop, speaks all the languages and can talk to everyone who comes in, in their own language. What a huge asset she is! Fortunately, English is the common language that everyone speaks, so we have gotten along fine, although the variety of accents presents a challenge now and then.

One afternoon we had a real character come in. Michael said that he has "an umbilical cord to God", and he is possibly the most passionate individual we've ever run into, anywhere. He has studied the Bible quite a bit, and has concluded that a lot of mainstream church doctrines are not supported by the Bible--a conclusion with which we would agree. However, he is now so convinced that his "umbilical cord" provides him with the truth, that there is really no talking to the man. He is animated, impassioned, and yes loud, but he still needs to read & study some more...his understanding is still far from complete. We talked with him for over an hour, and we heard he came back the next morning for another hour with the folks on duty. Maybe he will give some thought to some of the Biblical points we raised.

Since the Christmas and New Year holidays coincide with the summer school break, most families do some traveling at this time of year, and many companies shut down. (Even those at the lower end of the economic scale, who live in the townships, often visit family or have visitors.) Both the volunteers and the students are traveling and occupied with the holidays, so like many other businesses, the BEC shuts down. We stayed open through last Saturday, but we could already tell on Friday afternoon and Saturday that the traffic was way down. We'll be closed for 3 weeks, reopening the 12th of January. On Saturday afternoon we laid down all the books that were standing up, put dust covers on everything, and put up a sign to tell people when we will reopen.

So, what will Paul & Jane be doing? Actually, we will be pretty busy. We've drawn up a project plan for a study day to be held in Lamontville on 24 Jan, which we are hosting for our BEC students from that township and nearby Umlazi. It will be a fairly big event (by our standards) and there is quite a bit of work to be done to put it on. Plus, we will be hosting a brother and sister from Johannesburg for a few days, and we're lining up work for Bro Norm Fadelle (from back home), who will visit for a week in January. Inbetween, we are hoping to finally get down to the beach, and maybe even get in some diving. Summertime, right on the Indian Ocean, and we haven't had enough free time to get down and put our toes in it. Maybe today!