Cats of Claridge: Goldfields, Graduation & German

Good evening!
(It's 20:34 South African time)

We had a lovely and busy week! We went to Goldfields Mission in Virginia and to the Cedar College graduation!

Okay, this is how it all happened :
Renate's parents came all the way from Germany for her graduation! On Tuesday, we went to the main mission and we could have a nice lunch together at the coffeeshop. It was great meeting them, it is their first time in South Africa! They actually understand English well and can speak a bit too. After lunch we took her parents, Uncle Paul and Aunty Jana, to Durban. We wanted to show them a bit of our country and initially Renate was going to come with us but she couldn't get off from work. She is now a lecturer at Cedar College! Anyway, it was interesting and at times funny how we communicated with each other! We used a lot of hand actions but thankfully, they are Russian Germans and Caleb is learning German and I'm learning Russian so, it was a great way to improve our vocabulary! So, we took them to North Beach in Durban, we used to live there about 6 years ago. It was nice to see the beachfront again although they had made many changes!
Afterwards, we picked my grandparents up, they were going to pet-sit for us.

The next day, we left for Virginia, we decided to take the scenic route through the Golden Gate National Park. The scenery is spectacular! Lots of beautiful and really unusual mountains. As we got closer to Virginia, we passed many sunflower farms, it's so pretty! I think they are becoming one of my favorite flowers now, besides roses and hydrangeas of course. The trip from Claridge to Virginia is about 6 hours, not too long. We arrived at Goldfields Mission during the afternoon. We off-loaded, settled in and visited some friends. Then, Eli Celick took us on a tour of the mission. :) Eli is Jessica's older brother, one of 8 Celick's. My parents stayed at his parents house in America. He is also the brother of Dasha, Sam, Art, Max, Galina and Alex. There are a lot of projects going on at the mission! Every time we came to the mission, it was so quick, we only really got a proper tour this time so that was nice.
Later on, Galina invited us over for dinner at their house, she is married to Jakobus de Wet who is Afrikaans. They have 3 kids who speak Russian, Afrikaans and of course English. Kids pick languages up so quickly! The kids names are Nadine, Janet and Josua. Renate's parents were invited to Eli's house for dinner, he is married to Madelein who is Afrikaans and they have 2 kids, Ellie and Jeremy.
The weather was so nice there! The previous times we went, it was really hot....once it was super cold too.....but this time it was perfect! Warm during the day and cool in the afternoon. It reminded me of Claridge's weather.

We left Virginia after breakfast the next day, the whole point of the trip was actually to pick 3 CCE students up. They did their practice teaching there for 3 weeks, one of the girls is from Claridge. Her name is Lungi and is doing her 3rd year at the college, we usually see her during the holidays. The other girl, Bianca, is Afrikaans and the last girl is Myriam, she's from France.
We didn't leave too early but we got back before dark and we invited Renate's parents over for dinner. They're just like her and it feels as if we already know them for a long time!

On Friday, my parents took the students and Renate's parents back to the main mission. They also took my grandparents back to Durban.
Oh, the kids were very well-behaved, that's what we hear! Curly ate all her food and usually she makes me beg her to eat although she's kinda chubby. ;)
My grandparents had to feed Blitzy by hand of course but she coped well too. Joshy is so easy to look after. You just have to feed him and let him in/out whenever.

Yesterday was Graduation Day at Cedar College of Education! We know a lot of the students that graduated this year. The whole ceremony was so special, you can watch it on Livestream. :) It's available for about a week. Time flies!!! We met Renate and Hanna when they had just began their 2nd year at Cedar College and now they have graduated. The Lord is so good.

Yep......that's all I have to say this time!

God bless,
Sele'ha Mikhaila ♡

We made Kozinaki (Козинаки) before we left.