Saturday 2nd February - Week 2 

Sunday: Today we did our first Sunday School Lesson. It was hot. It was noisy. It was Awesome! We focussed on the Parable of the Sower, acting out the story with lots of audience participation and dramatic dying seed moments. After another amazing brunch from Jean Padbury we had a well needed chill out before we headed back to the church to lead the evening service. We each shared our testimonies and everyone spoke amazingly well. God was definitely with us, as we were all nervous.

Monday: We spent most of the day preparing for the school programmes in the week to come, all working together as a team to come up with activities (not games!) to do with the teenagers including the David Padbury 'Fast Ball' that Natalie, Tim and Jo will be planning and running the whole programme for Waterfall college on Wednesday, with some well needed help from Adam (David's Son-In-Law). After some flip-flop shopping for Tim the whole family settled down for a competitive game of Pictionary (It's more exciting than it sounds!).

Tuesday: We were back on the beach with 40 18yr old boys from Pinetown School. It was raining but that didn't stop us from having some fun and helping the boys develop some team building skills. It was a completely different dynamic to the guys from the school we worked with last week. We had to do a lot of thinking on our feet and directing the boys away from chatting up 'hotties' on the beach! But all great experience for us. After an early start we didn't arrive back until 3pm, where we unpacked the bucky (truck to you and me) and reloaded it again with equipment we needed for the next school programme tomorrow. Then straight into final planning and running our programme by David for any tweaking needed, then off to a church Bible study group and finally bed. Exhausted!

Wednesday: Another early start for Natalie, Tim and Jo as they went off to do the Waterfall college programme working with yr 9-10 on their own. It all ran smoothly with our activities working well and some great support from Adam. Natalie and Jo began to learn the importance of speaking loudly and clearly with everyone's attention when you have a group of teenagers more interested in chatting than listening to you!

Thursday: A slight lay in, much to the enjoyment of Natalie and Jo. Then it was off to help out with Tshinga College, a small school on the property where we are staying for students with Learning Disabilities ranging from ages 13 - 20.  Here we had such fun playing games, teaching the same parable as we did for Sunday school, planting some seeds and doing gym with them. It was great to see the joy on their faces as they tackled a challenge they thought they couldn't do.

Friday: Today was team day - SAQ TEAM ASSEMBLE! We all headed into Durban City in the hopes or fears of jumping off the top of the stadium on the Durban swing. However the swing was shut and so we ended up going to Usaka, a water park and Marine world. This was a great time for getting to know our team better and learning that Jan is a 'beast' when it comes to waterslides. Nothing fazes her! Jo also conquered her fears by doing a gentle waterslide!! We also got to see penguins, seals, big sharks and amazingly colourful fish (God must have had fun creating all the many different types). Natalie, Jo and Tim also got to live out a dream as we all watched a dolphin show.

Saturday: We woke up early to drive to an airfield near Umbumbulu. We spent 6 hours going through drills and learning the techniques to go down on a solo skydive (Static Line- for those in the know!) "ARCH..LOOK..HANDLES..RIGHT..LEFT..ARCH." We learnt all the lingo for any emergency and became more scared than when we started the day.

Tune in next week to find out who survived the jump on Sunday!!!