GET REAL WOMEN'S CONFERENCE 2007

I'm not going to write much now, as it's getting late.

The reason I came back to Joburg when I did was to attend the Rhema Church 'Get Real' Women's Conference, and it's been a truly awesome experience so far. I say 'so far' because there's still one more day to go. But already God has moved in such an incredible way.

I think it's the 2nd year this conference has run. Registrations were up 3000% this year and more people attend than to the normal church conference. Possibly because although this is a women's conference, men can also register! Only in Africa I guess. There are quite a few hopping around, but as the daily attendance is around 5000 people, you don't really notice them.

I'm going to save the 'what's happened to me' section for another post after the end of the time together. There have been some anointed speakers though - Sarah Omakwu from Nigeria, Christine Caine from Hillsongs Australia, Margaret Stunt from Hillsongs London, Zelda McCauley from Rhema Church, Rochelle Niemans from El Paso, Texas and Darlene Zschech from Hillsongs, Australia. If you know any of these women, you'll know how amazing they are, if you don't know about them and you are a woman of God, then you should.

My favourite bit so far was when Darlene Zschech was due to speak this morning and just decided to speak for 5 minutes and then do a worship session instead. It was so powerful, the Holy Spirit was working and many many women were set free from grief and loss in that time. Words can't truly express of convey the atmosphere in that auditorium when arguably the world's best worship team are leading us in giving praise and adoration to our heavenly Father. Tonight, 7000 people jumping and singing along to 'How great is our God' is a memory I will take with me to heaven one day (and probably repeat there too!). God is great, He's the greatest.

Tomorrow, after some more great teaching, a small group of us are visiting an outreach project and orphanage just outside the city. Should be interesting and challenging, and for me a good way to get ideas! And then in the evening there's the official Hillsongs Worship evening (tonight was merely a kind of warm up!)

Sunday sees me back in KZN, and launching into the next phase of my life in Africa, well prepared from this week of teaching and refreshing to do what the Lord wants me to do there. There are some big plans coming my way, I can sense it. And it's going to be an incredibly exciting year with God in control!

The journey South

Greetings from South Africa!
I'm currently in Johannesburg. More about that in next entry.

I landed on African soil on Tuesday afternoon after what was a rather long way round of getting here. But the sun was out and I was happy to be back.

Monday had seen me heading down to Heathrow, avoiding the closed-off M40 due to that crazed biker murder. It struck me that the 2 main news headlines were about the M40 and the arriving protesters at Heathrow. Good day to travel then...

I've never been to Terminal 3 at H'row. It's a bit horrible. I think I was there on a quiet day too.
On arrival, and having negotiated that most of it is being refurbished and therefore is closed off, I was greeted by an Emirates representative who told me I'd have to wait another 2 hours before I could check in. Why do they insist you get there early, only to send you to the restaurants? Is is a ploy to get you to spend more money??? She wasn't even interested that I'd already checking in online and just needed to drop my bags. I fought my way over to the lift to be faced by another heathrow attendant who tried to tell me I couldn't take my trolley upstairs. I tried to explain to him that I didn't want to take it up either... but the 'nice' lady at Emirates wouldn't let me through... He started swearing, not really at me, but it's still irritating.. so I ignored him and got into the lift only to get out and be greeted by a whole rack of trolleys... So I have no idea what jobsworth downstairs was going on about...

In any case, I decided to attempt check-in again earlier than I was supposed to. The best thing about online check-in is that I didn't have to queue. Unfortunately, I did have to pay excess baggage, although only about half of what I should have paid, cos I argued I'm taking stuff for an orphanage...

Next stop was duty free. Now this is where Terminal 3 became more interesting... I did have to purchase a pashmina as I realised the moment I walked near to Emirates area that most of the women were completely robed in black and my strappy top possibly might cause offense in the extremely Arab state of Dubai... I did wear it all around Dubai airport, unfortunately I could only afford a woollen one from tie-rack and that was rather warm for me in the already sweltering 35 degree heat of 8am in Dubai!!! You live and learn, eh.

Flight from London to Dubai. Mediocre. Food was thrown at us at various intervals. I refused it as it was possibly about 1.30am by the time they got to us. We'd taken off at 10pm. Having forced us not to carry any water, they didn't bring any round until half way through the flight. So considerate of the needs of passengers!?! Great video console in the seat in front of me though. Didn't sleep much.

Flight from Dubai to Johannesburg. This was a longer, but day flight. And I'm glad I did this one as otherwise I might have thought emirates was a rubbish airline. The views were good. The movies were excellent. As he's now a friend, I thought it only fair to catch up with Jude's latest offerings of movies and so I watched 'Breaking and Entering' (Anthony Minghella director, interesting and quite perturbing movie), followed by highlights from 'The Holiday' (already seen it) I also caught up with some lost (for me) episodes of FRIENDS and a particularly entertaining Disney film called 'The WILD' (much better than 'Madagascar' in my view - although there were no penguins). This film saw Ryan the lioncub head off to the wild by mistake and his Dad Samson with friends Benny the squirrel, a giraffe and Nigel the Koala (easily the best British koala I've ever seen on the silver screen) to help him out. Lots of fun.

Didn't discover the music or the computer games until just before landing...

The food, though, was really not nice. It reminded me of airline food of long ago.

Long way of getting to South Africa. But it's cheaper. The fuel pump is in the back garden in UAE.

My lovely lovely helpful friend R picked me up from the airport and dropped my at new friend Y's house, after a few hours of Joburg traffic. And that's where I am now. It's Friday night and I need to sleep after 2 days of the most amazing time with God. But there's more about that later...

Ipswich

Am enjoying a relaxing weekend in Ipswich chez my sister and brother-in-law. Great for Wi-Fi connection ;-)

We spent the best part of today on the shingle-covered beach at Felixstowe, making the most of the summer sunshine. Most of the summer sunshine seems to have focussed on my knees, which now look about the same colour as my orange/pink/red sundress I'm planning on wearing tomorrow... despite the suncream...
That is going to hurt tomorrow, especially with the 3 hour drive back to Stratford.

L&R are mad keen on sea-kayaking and spent most of the afternoon exploring the sea. Being now accustomed to warmer waters of the Indian ocean (ahem, I've never swum there either!) , I chose instead to finish several of my books.

I've been reading a book called 'There's always enough' by Heidi and Rolland Baker who run Iris Ministries in Mozambique. Managed to finish it today and have been profoundly challenged and inspired by these people who have given their whole lives to Jesus and travel simply, speaking of him and praying with and for people. The miracles that follow them are incredible. They've worked through some of the worst floods ever to reach the unreachable people in the middle of nowhere, and the Holy Spirit turns up again and again, bringing people back into a living relationship with Jesus, their only hope. It's about laying down our lives and dying to ourselves every day so that He might live and work through us. Not easy, but essential for abundant life.

I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with Jesus in Johannesburg next week. For some reason every time I go to Joburg it's a good time spiritually so I'm praying that the Rhema Women's Conference will be no exception. Good to get all my priorities lined up before I head back to work. Pray for me, that God will move in a big way. He is Lord and He is in control, no matter how big the mountains ahead of me seem to be. He is enough.

Not sure when I'll next blog, it might well be when I'm back in Cato Ridge...

more publicity

There's a good little video clip from Scottish television if you follow the link below.

http://www.stv.tv/content/news/local/north/display.html?id=opencms:/news/north_scotland/Zulus_land_in_Shetland

If you can get video on t'internet, there's also various extracts from shows on Utube, most of which are good but a lot are from the Germany tour last year and not the recent UK tour.

Time Out

It's taken me a week to chill out and recover from being so exhausted. Mad.

I was ok for the first few days. Then I did a talk for my church about my life in Africa etc, which was brilliant as lots of people came and were really supportive and encouraging. Thanks if you came, it was great to see you and I felt so loved as so many turned up on a holiday Wednesday! Even the sun made an appearance...

Unfortunately, the next day I practically lost my voice. It continued to play truant until about Sunday. But that didn't stop me heading South to visit my Grandparents and to meet some of the lovely people who've been praying for me over the past year. To pray for someone you know is one thing, but to commit to praying for an almost complete stranger takes a lot of faith and discipline, but these ladies have been praying for me all year! Thank You! I shared photos and stories with them and the tea-party was a very encouraging time.

Then it was on to Brighton to see the gang down there. Thankfully the weather was amazing so we spent some time near the beach. I say 'near' because it's not so comfortable to sit on all those pebbles, much more comfy on grassy lawns.. (and especially since I'm now used to the sun-drenched sands of the Indian Ocean). However, it was so hot on Sunday we ended up seeking air-conditioning in Caffe Nero.

Church in Brighton was great too, really refreshing despite me being so tired I could have easily slept through it all and on into the afternoon. Interestingly, the song 'He is the Lord and he reigns on high/ Show your power..' was sung at both the morning service in Brighton and the evening one in Leamington. Great song, good lyrics... Desperately need more spiritual refreshment. Am very much looking forward to Rhema conference in Johannesburg next week where I'll get a good soaking!

Part of my ongoing exhaustion has been due to wacky dreams each night (now up to night 5) meaning I wake up not feeling very rested. Could be due to stupid levels of salt/sugar/processed food still in my system maybe? In any case, they don't seem to make much sense, just a lot of what seems like wierd film plots rolled into one. Friends have gone off to war and been killed, my evil identical twin sister murdered me as I was trying to escape from Shetland, Gordon Brown was refused entry onto a flight because his jacket was stolen... all very interesting, but not when I'm trying to rest... I used to try and analyse dreams, now I can't be bothered. There's enough material this past week to keep a psychoanalyst working for a year!

And today I spent the afternoon looking after my 2 year old niece.
Cute. Very cute.
Until she mistook me for a bear (easy mistake?).
We had some discussion as to who is the owner of Paddington and Donkey (both of which were presents on MY first Birthday) but I decided to let her win... (I know where they live and can regain their affection later).
She's at the stage of rambling on and on, leaving me to decipher what she's trying to say, not quite understanding her completely.
However, old favourite Thomas the Tank Engine helped. The Classic collection DVD kept her entertained for over half an hour. She can name nearly all the engines at a single glance. Impressive. On one side of the room she's shouting out 'Thomas' and 'Toby', and on the other my Dad is providing a running expert critical commentary on how those engines manage to move on various tracks and questioning how Trevor the Traction-engine (it's not just trains, you know) could move from the back of a wagon to the ground so fast and without the assistance of a crane....
Hours of fun.

But now she's gone home and I won't see her until... well frankly, I don't know when. Her brand-new baby brother/sister is making an appearance in several weeks so it will be all change again for her. This is the sad bit about living so far away. I miss seeing the 'next generation Horns' growing up... ;-(

In any case, I did manage to finish Harry Potter.

And he dies.

Or does he???

;-)

a few more photos

Performing on stage at WOMAD

taken from the floor of the trailer, at last the sun is out!

The full extent of the mud. Some people actually enjoy this!?!

The end of the tour

I'm now relaxing at home, recovering from the craziness of touring for a month. It's incredible how tiring the whole travelling thing can be. It's taking me a few days to recover.

The show in London last Wednesday was fantastic, with the YZWs on top form as a group of Zulu girls had come to see them perform, so they added extra touches especially for them! They even had the whole 'groupie' thing to contend with at the stage door afterwards, which wasn't very helpful when we had a strict time limit to load the coach!

The next morning we were off through torrential rain to Leamington Spa and the group performed a great Gospel concert in the evening at St Paul's. A satellite navigational error left HR stuck in traffic, meaning I had to present the evening. But that was quite nice, as after all it is my church. The YZWs were very excited that there was a full drum kit to play on and much of the next morning was spent 'jamming' at the front of church.

Friday night was Banbury, performing Thula Sizwe in a beautiful domed church with great acoustics. There was a great turn-out and good atmosphere. Saturday saw us back in Leamington for the final musical show and that too was very well-attended. It was brilliant to see so many of my friends there and I think a good time was had by all. The shields were auctioned off afterwards and proved very popular.

And then the final day... 'WOMAD' (or should that be woMUD?) near Cirencester. It was our last show and also the last day of a four day festival in a field of mud. We were escorted from the coach in a trailer on the back of a tractor through the sludgy muddy tracks to the stage and then back again afterwards. The crowds loved the YZWs and for some it was the highlight of the festival. At least it was sunny and quite warm. Thankfully one of my favourite Zulu Warriors was gallant enough to lend me his gumboots so I didn't have to walk through the depths of what looked like melted Dairy Milk. I was exhausted and mud was the last thing I wanted to contend with... That one single act of lending me boots has guaranteed a lifetime of trips to SPAR when we get back to SA!

So now they've gone. And I've still got various Zulu anthems going round and round my head at all hours of the day and night. Don't know how long it will take to get them out! For about 3 days last week I was walking round as white as a sheet, with eyes stinging like I was about to burst into tears, my ears affecting my balance and generally suffering with dysglycaemia... not a happy situation. But I'm much better now I'm back with the sunshine out and Harry Potter nearly finished... a few more days of R&R should see me right again!