A Typical Day that Proves Most Irregular

6:30AM- Wake up
6:45AM- Get up
7:40AM- Having showered, packed my bag, my lunch, had tea or hot chocolate, and tidied my room I head out the door, going through all of the security gates with appropriate remotes and keys.
~7:50AM- Arrive at work, go through more doors/locks/keys/alarms, turn on my heater (unless Mxolisi has turned it on, which is 3 out of 5 mornings dependent upon whether I arrived before he did).

Every day differs at this point. I am almost certain to have hot tea in the morning, afternoon and evening, but that is the end of the certainty.

On Tuesdays I have meetings at 9AM (Pastoral Concerns), 10AM (Supervisor) and Noon (Staff) every week. Most Tuesday evenings is a Presbytery, Session, or Committee Meeting (George, my supervisor is the Moderator of Presbytery). The 11AM hour will be a weekly pastoral visit to my friend Bill, who is an older gentleman and lives near the church. The afternoon may have a meeting about the Sunday service (as this week and next so far), or I may be left to my own devices.

Two separate events happen weekly on either Wednesday or Thursday. At some point on one of these mornings I will lead a 30 minute worship service at a retirement home. I’ve observed these past two weeks and am now on my own, so lets cross out fingers for that. Should I not have a Wednesday morning service I will either be with the Simeons group or a ladies Bible study. The Simeons are retired gentleman who gab about the good old days and exchange war stories for an hour and a half over tea before reading a chapter of the Bible and praying. It’s quite fun, very interesting. I don’t know about the other group as I have yet to attend. Then in the evenings I will attend or lead one of the small group Bible studies. There’s a young adult group I will take over when Melanie has her baby in July, but until then I could find myself in any of four or five Bible studies.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday during the day when I do not have a commitment I can be found in my office preparing a service, sermon, study, blog or email. When I have an evening engagement I will leave a little before the 4:30PM closure of the office to read a little at the house and relax.

Friday features no regular engagements during the day, but I do have Youth beginning at 5:30PM. First we have the youngins from 5:30 to 7PM, and this tends to be fellowship oriented. We have ages 6 to 13. I’ve only attended once and we roasted marshmallows, tonight we go bowling to celebrate the end of the semester, which means Youth will be on hold for a few weeks since they are on holiday – Winter vacation! Then from 7:30 to 9:30 or 10PM we have the older Youth. These are roughly 14 to 18, but there are several who have matriculated our of the equivalent of High School who serve along with several volunteers in their 20s as leaders.

Saturday is another irregular day. Last Saturday I attended an ordination, this Saturday I will be visiting a child-headed household, next Saturday I may have off, the following Saturday I will return with a group to the child-headed household to work on the house.

Sundays I am at church by 8:30AM, the service or concurrent Sunday School begin at 9AM. I’ll spend two more Sundays at some point with the Sunday School, but mostly I’ll be helping out in worship or preaching. After the service I there’s no telling what will happen, other than Confirmation Class will resume with George and I leading in four or five weeks.

Monday is my day off!

Random activities that have fallen on unexpected days thus far: the second Sunday was Derek’s 70th birthday part – tons of fun; an initial wedding consultation that same afternoon; Monday evening the pastors, their families, and I were invited to dinner at the home of new members; celebrating Matthew’s birthday this weekend – he’s Irwin and Cathy’s son-in-law; watching futbol, which they actually call soccer down here. Outside of starting my typical workday at church, there are no rules on how the day finishes… but that’s the fun part!

There will be many more unexpected ventures, but the above accounts for my typical week. In the evenings I’ve been eating with Irwin and Cathy four or five nights a week, and if I don’t have a Bible study of meeting I may read, watch Scrubs (rare), talk with Irwin and/or Cathy about any topic (rainfall, faith, geology, Apartheid, creatures, their courtship, family, driving, friends, food, ‘girls and life’ to name a few that have arisen thus far).
;)