So after the very long and fairly uneventful sail, we finally arrived in Durban the morning of 1 September. It was interesting to come into the harbor as we had to sail up and around (it is shaped a bit like an upside down j) through place where I doubt many passenger ships go -- at least with people on them still.
Once we had docked and the ship had stopped moving back and forth, the moving work began. Each department had packed up all the supplies they would need for living four months off-ship along with the 'supplies' of families and individuals - the academy alone had over 200 items/boxes to be moved. On the 1st we moved business boxes into the cafe area and on the morning of the second, personal boxes. It was a rather large pile to say the least. The amazing part was that within about three hours on Thursday morning, we moved everything from Deck 5 in the cafe to the dock and the moving men had it loaded into two large trucks. There was a snake of people walking through the cafe, grabbing a box, down the gangway, across the dock, in through the aft gangway and up the aft stairs back to the cafe.
After all the boxes and bags had been moved down to the dock and packed away in the trucks, the moving of people began. Some people piled into Land Rovers and the rest of us into two buses for the 2 hour trip to our new home. We dad done what so many people thought was impossible (even I wondered how we would do it) - we had moved several hundred boxes and about 150 people off the ship in one day.
Appelsbosch is a small village between Durban and Pitermertzberg on the R614 in South Africa. There is a very small local hospital started by missionaries years ago which is also where the name comes from. In the 1990's the government built an teacher's college in the village that was only open for about 6 months before it was closed because of changes in government and the ways teachers were educated. It had stood empty for about 11 years with only occasional use until two men decided to lease it from the govenment and hope to turn it into and retreat center. Many things were left as they stood - boxes of papers, closets full of chalk, exam schedules on the walls. It was exactly what we were looking for and more to house Mercy Shippers over the time the Africa Mercy was in dry dock: four dorms for housing, a dining room, gym, snack shop, ampitheathre, administration building, and even a school area. The best part of the story is that no one knows exactly how phone numbers were exchanged to allow us to find out about this place. One of the men who had leased the college got the number for an advance team member somehow and it all went from there. God always has a plan, even if we do not know what it is.
On the first drive up, it was hard to see what we were driving through as it was foggy and rainy. As the clouds cleared over the next few days and we made more trips exploring the countryside, it took my breath away. We are in a slightly mountainous area - lots of rolling hills and valleys. The hills are mostly covered in suagr cane fields which make the hillsides all shades of greens and browns.
I have to say, there have been lots of ups and downs already in our month and a half here. Cleaning out the spiders from the cabins and classrooms was (and continues to be) an adventure. Water has also been a concern, although seems to be getting better, as there was a water shortage in the area and adding 150 people to the water system seems to overload it a bit. Everyone is here is used to living in community, but it is a different community - the hallways are open and echoing, so everyone can hear everything which is not so bad on the ship. The bathrooms are also dorm style with everyone on a floor sharing four toilets, six sinks and a tub. On our floor, there have not been too many problems, but in the cooler weather some days, getting out of the warm bed to go take a two minute shower in a cold cement bathroom makes you think twice about how smelly you really are. I think too, people have become so used to only sharing a bathroom with a few people they know and being able to go in and shut the door behind them, the bathrooms have been a challenge for some. On the up side, the country side is beautiful, we are an hour from the beach, there is a German immigrant town about 30 minutes away that will have a Christmas market nearer to Advent season, the kids have room to play, the Internet is figured out and we can Skype, there is good chocolate in South Africa and Marcel and I have great people living with us on our floor.
Each day is a new adventure, but we are having fun (most days) and God is showing us his blessings still.
(More pics to come once I get them off the camera.)
(If you have seen the movie Faith Like Potatoes, we are about 30 minutes from where that all happened - check it out if you have not seen the movie.)
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