In the days following I made endless trips to town by bus. When we packed our bags, we tried to add a few necessary items we may need in the kitchen. Moving in, I realised that apart from the bed linen, we needed several kitchen utensils. The shipment with our household items would only arrive in six weeks time. I remember in the supermarket, loading the trolley with only the most basic items we needed. As I walked toward the cashier, a sudden realization struck me that I had no way of getting all the goods home on the bus. There was no way I could carry these heavy items in some flimsy shopping bags on the bus, so I had to pack them all back where I found them and instead purchase a foldable shopping cart. I was very impressed by this shopping cart as I could pack in all the stuff I could not carry, and wheel it with me on the bus back home. I only learned later that these carts were used mostly by elderly people.

 

Hendrik had his moments of frustration having to catch the bus to work every day. He found it annoying to hear the women approaching him from behind, walking to or from the bus stop. He told me how fast they walk and how he would try to walk as fast as them. He said he would hear the clack clack clack clack high hill shoes in the distance. The closer the woman got to him the louder the ‘clack clack’ until she passed him. Then the ‘clack clack clack’ would fade into the distance. He later discovered that if he rolled his feet and lifting the heels of his feet when he walked, he could walk faster. We both had to laugh at ourselves as we were trying to fit in with the culture around us.

 

There were so many practical things like bank accounts, buying phones and getting on the voters roll to mention just a few. If you do not have a credit history, nobody trusts you. As Hendrik was now working, his company helped us with opening a Bank Account. The guy in the store who sold us the phones took matters into his own hands. He completed the forms for us and told us to sign on the dotted line. Heaven alone knows what we signed for, but it all worked out fine in the end.

 

We needed a car, but because we did not have a credit history, we couldn’t make a higher purchase. And we did not have enough cash to buy a car. But once again, the Lord knew what we needed, and we received a wonderful, much-needed gift of £5,000 from Derek and Anita in the post. We found a little red Yaris for £6,000, and because we could give them a large deposit of £4,000 they gave us a higher purchase for the balance. That way we managed to get a credit history, get on the Voters roll and get our much-needed National Insurance number. We were now officially alive and living in England. God was with us throughout our journey, guiding us to take the correct steps for legal integration into the community.

 

Before we left South Africa, I looked at where all the Vineyard Churches were in the greater London area. I noticed that there was one in Teddington, and they met on Sundays in a school in Whitton. This was the area nearest to Hendrik’s work close to Heathrow Airport, but I had no idea where it was relative to our home in Hounslow. I bought a map of the area, and we found the school, exactly a mile from our home and within walking distance!

 

Rick and Lulu Williams were the Senior Pastors at Riverside Vineyard and Richard and Diana Bramall the Associate Pastors. They made us feel so welcome and we immediately settled down and became part of the church. We found a home group and loved meeting up with John & Jo Antrobus during the week. As I am writing this, I realised that we were the perfect Newcomers. No one had to try and sell us the values and the vision and try to convince us that it is important to join a small group. We shared with Richard and others why we came to England, but we did not put any pressure on anyone on when and how it would take place. We knew it was in God’s hands.

After six months Richard came to us and said: “Okay, that’s enough now. It’s time we put you to work” and soon he enrolled us into Homegroup Training. We still find it very hard to pinpoint the number of times we did the course since we joined the Vineyard, but nothing is ever wasted, especially this one because it was in a different culture altogether. For us, it was also another opportunity to meet more people in the church.

 

The house we moved into in London was not in a good state, but the best we could afford. We managed to buy a little portable TV, and that was all I did. I watched daytime telly while waiting for our furniture and stuff from South Africa. There was a dilapidated table and chairs in the dining room, and I remember sitting with my head on my arms crying and moaning to the Lord about the state of the house. “Lord, how can anyone paint their walls a sickly insipid green with pink carpets and mustard-yellow sofas?” I cried. I started watching all these one-day or one-week house makeovers on tele and started dreaming, and soon I grabbed my shopping trolley and went shopping for paint. This was the beginning of greater things we did later to make more money, to help us to resettle in Yeovil.

 

The kitchen had a horrible false polystyrene ceiling trying to hide all the plumbing of the bathroom upstairs. But some tiles were missing, and some were half broken and it was falling apart, and so were the kitchen units. Soon we had our first visitor. Hendrik’s dad came to see where we live and what England is like. He didn’t say much. He kept himself busy during the day, screwing all our cupboards together again, so we can use them. God bless him.

 

We were ecstatic when our stuff finally arrived, but then we realised that furniture makers in South Africa designed pieces for big houses with no stairs. We couldn’t get the base of our bed upstairs, so we had to adapt it to fit in with UK standards. We cut it in two with a saw. We had to remove the big sliding door in our dining room to get our table inside. After six months in our rented house, we received notice that the owners wanted to move back into their own home, and we had to find another house. This time in Twickenham, London and although a bit more expensive, it was much better quality.

 

Our new home in Twickenham was also ready to receive our first home group in England. Soon we had a small group of people, willing to accept us as homegroup leaders. The only problem was that 90% were South Africans. I cried out to the Lord and told Him that it wasn’t why I moved to England. My heart was for English people and not South Africans. The Lord gave me this encouragement, “I will first give you the ‘familiar’ in the ‘unfamiliar’ before I give you the ‘unfamiliar’ in the ‘familiar.’” I understood what He meant, and we got on with the job.