Lunka Camp 2008

For a first-time trial the Lunka Lodge site ended up as a really good choice. Our fears of trying to trump up meals from the outdoor cooking area whilst pouring with rain were not realised as the rain seemed to avoid us at the crucial times.
New to camp too were a group of lovely ladies from Fenella and Polytech who proved to be very quick at settling into UCSF life, so much so that Sandra received the prize for being best camper!
A big well-done to Simba Manyureni for running camp this semester - not a small challenge in the current economic climate.
A big thank you too to Craig Jones (TCZ) for being our guest speaker and delivering a most interesting series on the Names of God. Did you know that one of the OT names for God is "The God of the Long Nose"? Do you want to know about it? You REALLY should have been on camp!

I think the highlight of the camp was the witnessing of two crocodiles making a meal of a poor dog at the other end of the dam. The event prompted a re-enactment drama and even a song over the bonfire. Did it manage to deter people from putting their feet into the water - well, only some.....

Bush Dance 2008

The Stamboli's are a brave family! Once again they graciously hosted our annual Australian bush dance and did a fantastic job.

Lennon was under much pressure to increase the UCSF girl numbers (from his dismal performance at the welcome event), but faithful Shumbeyi (Alumnus) came to his aid by recruiting seven lovely girls from Fenella, who were silently whisked away for their 9pm curfew, leaving glass slippers behind.

Overall attendance was really good and better than expected which was a great contributor to the success of the event. Dancing, music, juice, green lawn, sandwiches, good company - what a combination!

Fortunately for John's voicebox, he was not this time preaching the next day .....

only leading the singing!

Newsflash

Hey folks, despite NUST still looking like a ghost town, our calendar is still running.

We kicked off with our introduction to the book of 1 Peter last Friday and it was well attended by local NUST students, Polytech students and two faithful alumni.

This Friday is the bush dance at the Stambolies' so make sure you get there. And follow our events on the calendar link.

Committee Retreat 2008

Despite the chaos at NUST, we were still able to get most of our committee together for our annual retreat. This time we decided to check out Lunka Lodge with the hopes that maybe we can use it as an alternative camp venue.

Well, apart from the fact that the lodge is just fabulous and only 20km from town, we had a great time just being together, studying God's word, praying and planning ahead. I think we each came away feeling deeply privileged to be a part of a really sound and committed team.

Unfortunately Simba, Wadzanai and Lizzy were not able make it for the retreat - we look forward to catching up with you guys soon ......

and having a big indaba!

Orientation 2008

For those not quite up to date with the latest news, NUST managed to register and orientate the first years but only to tell them on the following Monday that lectures will only start at a date to be advised.

Well, the Lord is certainly not tied to the politics of our nation - we can be most grateful for that! We had incredible opportunity to reach the first years wtih the gospel throughout orientation week, even though it was fairly chaotic and unpredictable. Many thanks to the team that gathered for the two weeks prior in order to plan and prepare.

Herewith an extract from our last prayer diary entry which you may find most encouraging:

"Well Monday was very interesting. We all arrived at the lecture theatre/hall at 08:30 with a number of first year students. By 09:30 there were about 120 first years loitering outside waiting for something to happen. Eventually Gift (students worker) took the initiative to seek out the registrar and ask her if they were actually coming to do anything. He was then asked if there were any students out there! When he explained the situation and that he was also waiting to present after the faculty, the registrar very casually said that if he wanted to talk to the students then that was fine! Well, after much deliberation we rounded up the Christian group leaders and proposed the plan – we would simply just tell all the students to take a seat and hear what we have to say and explain that whether the faculty pitched or not was up to them. With unanimous agreement we duly told about 3 students to make their way inside and all the rest just followed. The plan then proceeded like clockwork with the gospel presentation followed by the group presentations and then the speaker simply dismissed the students! The faculty came about 30mins later and rounded up the students again.
The rest of the week proceeded with all the faculty meetings starting on time and as planned, and we managed to present the gospel at the end of each one, such that we can say that every first-year has heard – quite amazing. Do continue to pray with us that the seeds sown will grow."

Calendar 2008 - 2009

If anyone has any suggestions that they would like to contribute toward the formation of next semester's calendar, here is a good opportunity to put them forward for our consideration.

Use the comments link below.

First Semester

October

Friday 10th - Welcome Event

Saturday 11th - Sunday 12th
Committee retreat

Friday 17th - Introduction to 1 Peter studies

Friday 24th - Australian Bush Dance

Friday 31st - Bible study, 1 Peter 1:3-12
Half night prayer

November

Friday 7th - Bible study, 1 Peter 1:13-21

Saturday 8th - Ladies Tea

Friday 14th - Sunday 16th - Camp at Willow Park
"The names of God" - Craig Jones

Friday 21st - Business by the Book
Peter Cunningham, Family Impact/Ostrindo

Friday 28th - Saturday 29th - Sleepover

December

Friday 5th - Bible study, 1 Peter 1:22-23

Sunday 7th - UCSF takes Presby service
1 Peter 2:4-10

Friday 12th - Bible study, 1 Peter 2:11-17

Saturday 13th - Khayelihle by Candlelight
City Presby 6:00pm

Friday 19th - Bible study, 1 Peter 2:18-25

Leavers Dinner 2008

A heart-rending farewell to a huge bunch of leavers this year. The send-off took the format of a Mongolian braai at the Stambolie's and atmospherically flavoured with some live country music entertainment (do you know the chap that plays on 8th street just after Fife?)

The formal proceedings (for which Tinochisa was MC) began with a brief exhortation by Lance from Heb 13:7-9; 20-21 for the leavers to remember the examples in UCSF that have been set before them, to not be easily carried about with strange doctrines, and looking to Christ to make us complete in every good work. This was followed by two brief speeches from Martha and Wadza on behalf of the leavers, and then an open time for other contributors.

Once Lance and Willard had finished navigating through the entire Western suburbs trying to take the musician back to his house, it was a very late night homecoming for most.

May our leavers know the Lord's favour upon them, and may He keep them firm and steadfast to the very end.

Khayelihle April 08

A big day for some little children! For those unaware, Khayelihle is a childrens' orphanage 20km outside of Bulawayo with which UCSF has been fostering a relationship over the past few years. Once per semester we have the privalege of interracting with the children and hopefully giving them a treat of a day with fun, food, love and spiritual input.

The UCSF students arranged to have the children bussed into town this time and what a treat they had! The day began with a tour of the museum with one or two student guides per small group. A light picnic snack outside (see photo) for some exhausted kids was then followed by a lunch at the Presby church. If the animals at the museum had not been enough, the next treat was a showing of the DVD "Madagascar" with popcorn (of course). After a short talk by Blessing (Alumni), it was juice and biscuits and then off home at 16h00.

The children seem to have had a fantastic day and the students a highly exhausting but richly rewarding time. The amount of preparation for this event has been enormous, especially the whole fund-raising aspect which comprised selling of sweets, a cake sale and canvassing donations from local companies. We would like to extend our grattitude to our Alumni and the numerous companies that contributed financially to this event.

Sleepover April 08

As so often before, sleepover proved to be a great time of getting to know each other better and a good opportunity to thrash out a subject. Due to NUST bringing the exams forward a week, we had a slight calendar shuffle and Willard rose to the occasion with having to bring his talk on Spiritual Warfare into being at late notice. Contributions to the discussion were most forthcoming and had to be stopped for dinner.

A new introduction was a game of boasting how great God was. Apologies for the blurred photo but it does capture some expressions! Wadzanai Mtandwa did a fantastic job of a talk show on marriage issues, and then an early night for some who had watched "Transformations" before, but for others this was followed by a time of prayer and volleyball/trampoline/swimming etc. (hence the name "sleepover").

Shalom Camp 2008

A camp with a difference in a number of ways: On arrival we discovered a number of changes to the actual camp site - the dining hall wall facing the dormitories is now open arched, we nearly drove into a wall which now stops cars parking in front of the kitchen, they have full time site managers, and they have a fantastic dam which stretches 5km back to the old canoeing launch area. Another big change was that Barbra ran camp this year (and did a great job).

The topic this year was "The Sermon on the Mount", delivered in 4 talks by victor Nakah, Godwin (Part II) and Lennon (Part I). It proved quite a challenging time as we came face-to-face with the very basics of our faith - what God expects every Christian to "look like" through the regenerating work of His Spirit.

Thanks to Barbra, we were introduced to a

catering makeover, especially the all-time breakfast hit of in-season mealies, bananas, cucumber and butternut. Here are some girls packing it away!

Of all the activities, it sounds like the canoeing was the most enjoyed, although I can't believe that anyone was awake to enjoy it, given the amount of sleep experienced!

Guys and Girls events March 08

The guys and girls events this semester took the form of outreach events in which each UCSF person was encouraged to bring a guest along to join in the fun and also to hear a short gospel presentation from one of the students.

The ladies were treated to a tea in the lovely garden of the Roasted Berry and from the sounds of it they had a really great time. Barbra delivered the short gospel presentation and there has been very positive feedback on how it came across.

The guys event was unfortunately not quite as successful, as the planned canoeing day was a bit dampened by the announcement the day before that canoeing is no longer allowed on the Hillside dams. Nonetheless, they still had a fun time playing soccer on the lawns and fishing in the dams for anything desperate enough to eat a worm. Zed delivered the gospel presentation.

Khayelihle Dec 07

The visit to the orphanage turned out to be a fun-filled day of song and games with the kids. We met a lot of wonderful kids who happily and excitedly welcomed us to their home. Our intention had been to teach them new games and new songs but alas, not only did they know most of what we had planned to teach them, they had a couple of new songs to teach us.



Highlights of the day included Musalad, Gody failing to give a speech in Shona. (Chamai chakaramba kubuda). This was before he proceeded to lead us all in a popular slogan which he thoroughly distorted, though he and fellow Masalad would prefer to say he remixed the slogan. Senior Sewage and Plumbing Works Engineer Wadza led the kids in a rather energetic song which the kids (and students) enjoyed. The rains could have dampened our day but the kids uplifted our spirits as they led us in a heart warming praise and worship. This in my opinion more than compansated for the Jabulani concert we had failed to have the previous night. In addition Our Ever Willing Volunteer, Lennon came up with a rather noisy indoor game that had everyone on their toes for a while.

It was not at all a surprising site to see the girls (Barbs, Fay and myself) at home and comfortable amongst the kids. The boys were surprisingly quite good with the kids. Malovas was spotted playing nhodo with some small girls, Lennon was seen kupada nekurakaraka. A little girl called Bongani, clung to Gift’s side all afternoon. Boys will be boys, Masimba, Malovas and some little boys spent a significant chunk of the afternoon playing soccer. In general the boys did quite well with the kids and hope remains that one day some of them will make good fathers under the watchful guidance of a patient and prayerful wife.

The idea to hold a braai for the kids only came up two weeks before the day of the visit. We were unable to raise enough money for the braai but through the aid of many generous souls, we were able to raise enough money to feed the kids lunch. May God bless them abundantly. Lunch went quite well and there was food and drink left over. (Kinda get reminded of the feeding of the five thousand. We started off with nothing two weeks earlier, but ended up with excess). Credit has to be given where it is due; Wadza, John and Blessing with the help of some Khayelihle staff members did a good job of preparing a delicious meal. Who knew those boys could cook, let alone for such a large crowd. Wonders never cease!!!

The visit revealed just how much needs to be done. It is not enough to visit once a semester. The kids need people to show they care. Our mere presence on the day made a world of difference to the kids. One idea for long term involvement that has come up is to start a library for the kids. If in future more time is taken to prepare for the visit, it would make a world of difference.

Bill Cosby always says, “There is a little kid inside all of us, and we sometimes have to let it come out to play.” The little UCSF kids came out to play and played more than the real kids. Chokwadi kutaurirwa hunyimwa sembare dzekumusana. Vaisapo makasaririra.