How Mike & I Met…and a visit to Pastor John

2-17pm

One of the things that I think is really important to keep your marriage alive and in focus is to reflect upon the heady, pheromone laden days of your early relationship! This is a story I have told multiple times. It won’t all be told today. But I will tell the rest of the story before too long.

How Mike & I met goes back to an unexpected Friday evening in about August of 1983. I was only 18 and I was staying at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital Nurses’ Home.  One evening, I was called to the phone booth to take a call. That was how it was done in those days. No cell phones, no phones in the rooms. Calls came through the tickey box! How Philip got my number, I’m not sure, but he did and when I said ‘hello’, he explained who he was. Philip from church. Immediately, I wondered why he was calling, because, in actual fact, apart from being ‘Philip from church’, he was ‘Philip from church dating Jane’! Jane was my friend, so I didn’t want to go behind her back in fraternising with this guy.  Philip went on to invite me to go to the Baxter Theatre to see the Pirates of Penzance. Oh my word!! What you have to understand is that when I was 18, I was so insecure; I had such a low self-esteem; I had such a poor self-image. For a guy to phone me up and invite me out…it just never happened. How could I say yes, when Philip was going out with Jane? How could I say no, when this may never happen again? Surely, I surmised, there must be a very good reason for him asking me and not Jane.  Maybe Jane was busy.  I couldn’t resist the offer, so I said yes.

On that Friday evening, Philip picked me up and off we went. Philip was tall, dark and very popular. He was English and had come to South Africa to work. He carried himself with an air of confidence and authority. Women found it a very attractive trait and flocked to him in droves! Well, that’s what it seemed through my 18 year old eyes.  He was about 22 or 23! We made small talk on the short drive from one side of Rondebosch to the other – he parked and into the Baxter we went. The foyer was alive with well-healed Capetonians, looking forward to an evening at the theatre. As we squeezed our way through the milling crowds, Philip was clearly looking for someone. There was silence between us, so to put an end to that, I chipped in, “Who are you looking for…a tall guy with blonde hair and a moustache?”  Philip looked down at me curiously. “Yes,” he replied. “How did you know?” “Oh, just guessing, ” I said. On not finding his friend, we moved into the theatre and found our seats.  A couple of people were seated next to us – Philip’s friends.  Philip greeted them and then said these memorable words, “Mike, this is Helga. Helga, this is Mike.” Little did I know that the tall guy with blond (ish) hair and moustache, who was sitting with another girl in the Baxter Theatre that night, would end up being the man of my dreams! It was not going to happen overnight though. But that was how it began. Mike ran the YMCA on Queen Victoria Street in Cape Town City Centre. It occupied the now vacant land next to the current Centre for the Book. Philip was staying at the “Y” and that was how he and Mike knew each other. That night, I hardly cast a second glance at Mike. My focus was on Philip, wondering why he had invited me and what his intentions were! After a wonderful production of Pirates of Penzance, we went out for coffee and he told me that he & Jane had broken up. He needed a date and I was it. I wasn’t sure if he would invite me out again. I can’t remember being very interested in him, but I was flattered that he asked me on the date and not someone else.  That wasn’t going to be the last time I saw Philip. A short while later, we were ‘going out.’ Had Facebook been around at that time, I would have changed my FB status. In fact, I fell in love with him!

More about that tomorrow!

Back to today. I visited Granny and found the occupational therapist having fun with the ladies… here’s Granny throwing the ball to her…

Then I went to see Pastor John. Pastor John Thomas is not only the senior Pastor of King of Kings Baptist Church, but he is also the Chairman of the CCFm Trust. On Thursday last week he had massive surgery and for 72 hours after the operation, his condition was unstable and very worrying. You have a clue the surgery is serious when the surgeon says to you prior to the operation, ‘have you got a will!’  Thousands of people have been praying for Pastor John and I was so happy to visit him on the day when he really seems to be ‘on the mend’.  You can tell… you can’t keep a good man down… (no cell phones are allowed in ICU!)

Avril has rode a roller coaster ride over the last weekend. She was so happy to see his improvement…

In his  hand, he has his ‘pain’ control device. One click and, John says,  you are pretty much ‘high’ for a moment and then the pain is gone. As you can imagine, he is using it sparingly! He moves out of ICU this afternoon! 😀 Please continue to pray for John and Avril.

Psalm 27:1 The LORD is my light and my salvation– whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life– of whom shall I be afraid?

God bless you loads!

You are in His Grip,

Helga xx 🙂