The Father's House - aka 'The Good Life'

29/10/22

We are two weeks into our time at the Father’s House in Robertson and we are acclimatising rather well to ‘the good life’ - no phone signal or Wi-Fi, solar electricity, early bed times and hand washing our clothes!

Robertson is in the Western Cape, about 1 ½ hours from Cape Town and is home to many vineyards and farms. The Father’s House school is run by Johan and Marié, who are Afrikaans, and as great at hospitality as they are in stature!

We are 7 students in total and 2 staff, from all over the globe ranging from California to Glasgow, and London to Lausanne. It’s been great fun learning about everyone’s cultures and taking on each other’s accents and sayings! ‘Hectic’ and ‘lekker’ are fast becoming part of the every day vernacular, as well as “oo loh loh” (with a French accent) and “does anyone want a cuppa?” – always a sure way to make friends as a Brit abroad! We are drinking our body weight in Rooibos and slowly turning into rusks and biltong as we fully embrace the South African way of life.

Our daily schedule is purposeful but not busy. Breakfast is at 7am, followed by worship and teaching from 8am-1pm. Our teachers are Johan and Marie, however we are learning quickly that everyone has something of value to share – experiences, wisdom and understanding – we each interchange daily between the roles of ‘teacher’ and ‘pupil’.

After lunch, there is an obligatory quiet time for 2 hours. At first, this sounded like heaven – 2 hours of uninterrupted time with God to read the bible, chew the cud and pray. I quite quickly realised that after a morning of lecture, a delicious carby lunch and a warm afternoon, quiet time easily became very quiet indeed as a nap was often inevitable!

Thankfully, God knows our form and it’s actually becoming a favourite part of my day as we learn to lean into God for ourselves and develop habits that we can take into the future.

Afternoons are sometimes spent on outreach to the local ‘Kloof’, home to approx. 170 ‘Cape Coloureds’, among whom are some of the most gorgeous children you will ever meet. We have done games, crafts and Bible stories with the younger ones and Ben has quickly become a hit with the older boys who seemed to be quite impressed with his rugby skills. I have been chatting with the older girls and realise that whilst boys have their sport, there’s not much that some chocolate and nail polish can’t do to break down barriers!

This weekend, we have been away as a group to a beachside town called Witsand (literally meaning white sand) which is stunning and a much needed reprieve from the confines of the farm. We are feeling very blessed to be in such a beautiful place, surrounded by some wonderful people who are quickly becoming precious friends. Not only that, we are loving having the opportunity to experience something so different and out of the ordinary together, as well as meet with God in fresh and restorative ways.

As they say in Afrikaans, "fluit fluit, my storie is uit" (whistle, whistle, my story is done!).