Trip to the Eastern Cape: Day 6

Port Elizabeth is know as the "windy city" and boy did it live up to its name today! We had hardly started our presentation when we heard this howling sound...everyone else seemed quite unperturbed, so we raise our voices and carried on.

It was a wonderful and encouraging meeting - in fact the most engaging meeting we have had thus far. Everyone was engaged...asking questions, making statements, discussing ideas, dates and venues...it was so exciting that Louise and I completely forgot to take any photographs...not one...sigh...

From Port Elizabeth we headed on up north towards our next destination...Port Alfred. This became a destination because of an enquiry I had made about my great-grandfather who had served as Rector and Principal of the church school in nearby Southwell. Pen is a priest in the area and I got her name and email address from the church website. (see here: http://www.albanyanglicans.org/stjames/) But, as always with a great God like ours, this seemingly casual encounter turned out to be a divine appointment for us and we spend a wonderful, God-filled, Spirit-led evening with her, encouraging her and praying with and for her. She is a brave woman with an indomitable spirit and someone we have come to admire and respect over a very short period of time.

But prior to our arrival in Port Alfred, we made the long awaited detour to St James, Southwell, to see this tiny church in the middle of what would have been nowhere at the time when my great-grandfather and his brave wife and children laboured for the Lord out of love for the people who lived here.

It was here, at Southwell that my grandfather, John Lomax, was born and raised for the first seven years of his life.

John Lomax.

The Altar area. 

The baptismal font in which my grandfather was baptised.

Inside St James, Southwell.

The old Rectory and school.

The Mission Church.

The kitchen...I wonder how many meals Mary Ellen cooked here!

The list of Rectors...Arthur Lomax is 4th from the bottom.

Arthur's signature is on the top right.

It has been a long day and tomorrow we are off to Grahamstown for more meetings...who knows what the Holy Spirit has in store for us!