Yep winter is winter where ever you are. Africa is NOT the hottest place in the world (at least in my experience) some places here get even below zero C. You might think that this is warmer than winter in Europe but back in Russia we have heating facilities in houses and warm clothes. Here we have purchased a gas heater and now we refill tank every month to get ourselves warm. Sometimes I look at the fish in aquarium and think how lucky they are to have always +24. You know what to do when you are freezing? you need to take hot bath or shower and jump right into bed. However, outside seems to be warmer than inside.

Hello everyone! thank you my friends for your prayers, we are doing great and hope to servive winter here. Yes, this is Africa but winter here simes to be cooler than back in Russia. I'm freezing in my office and sometimes looks like warmer to be outside on the street than inside in the office. Well, Irina is back managing the kitchen but not cooking. I'm still in IT department, looking after computers and internet.

Yesterday we witnessed the one-time-in-the-life selebration: the Olympic torch was carred through the Cape Town and we were there! We seen the olympic torch with our own eyes! Well, we made a little video about this happening and a few still pictures during this selebration. One of these pictures is here. There were lots of famous South African people carrying the torch and thousands of Cape Townians gathered alone the way of runners. Really, this type of selebration can be seeng only once in a life time.

Thank you all who were praying for our students hert in the robery. They are fine now. Your prayers were heard.

After long thinking and different considerations we decided to cancel our medical insurance and right after we did so, our financial situation improved. The insurance system in South Africa is more about collecting money from clients than real coverage aid. The policies of the insurance tend to change and become worth and worth on client. After we called the last time questening insurance agent on some of the specifics of the coverage, we realized that we will actually have to pay ourselves for our needs and then, after some time insurance company will see if the procedure that I payed for was really nessesary or I could servive without it? If I could servive without some procedures, these procedures will not be covered. After these explanations the only right desision was to cansel the insurance.

Yesterday night at about 11pm two of the students, who came to our base for the outreach were stabed right in front of our base building by two uknown robers who's got a cellphone of the girl - one of the stabbed students. The guys from our base started to chase robbers but lost them in the darkness. Police has arrived 40 minutes later, so no one was arrested so far. Both of our students are okay now - the Korean boy was stabbed in the left shoulder and released from the hospital after a few hors, the girl from South Africa was stabbed in the neck and lost some blood but she is in stable condition still in the hospital. Entrance of our base building was covered with the drops and blood was even of the wall. It's washed by now but how can we wash the violence from the hearts of the people who did such thing. Our boy and girl were standing one meter away from the building filled with other people, speaking on the cellphone (the object of robery) and suddenly, without any warning, they both were stabbed by the strangers, who just wanted to get a cellphone... The cost of life here indeed can be measured by a few tens of rands.

Just when I was thinking I'm free, I realised how deep was my mistake. Two servers on our base that I'm responsible for probably heard my thoughts that I'm finally free from all work, and decided to make me busy at one day. Well, these monsters just decided to stop working. I sorted out the one of them with the thought in mind that I have to do something with the network card in it, but the other one is just do not do it's work. I did all possible things but it still didn't work. Finally I just restored the system to early point and it started to work. However, I'm quite sure now that I have to format the drive there and reinstall everything since the are too much garbage on that machine. I was extreamly busy with these machines last two days.

Another news: It's more surprise than a news. Recently I was interested in the number of credits that I received during my studies in different schools of YWAM and now I know for sure - I have 77 registered credits towards my degree.

Pheeew, that was a hard week. Actually I would say "weeks", since there were two weeks in a row when I had to work longer and harder because of the problems with the hoster of two of my friends. Basically I had to write a LOT of emails to support desks of three different companies and to my friends as well. I had to quickly think and change settings of domain names, as well as I had to argue the qwnership of one of the domain names. Praise The Lord, everything is done and working now. I can rest, but not too much there is another site that requires my attention, but I leave this till next week.

Today was absolutely the same day as usually but we had very good speech about our finances during staff meeting on the base. Apparantly I realised that I don't really believe in God Who's able to give me ANY money I need. I have to repent because I didn't write to you my friends for a long time and probably some of you even forgot that there is Yury somewhere in Africa doing the work or just getting good rest. Sorry for this. I want to change it and this site is the part of change.

There is guestbook now on the site, you are welcome to live your message there. Today is the warm day as it's going to rain soon. There are a few problems with one of the servers that I was fixing recently, so, I was fixing it again.
Today is the "movie day" the movie ticket cost half price by Tuesdays and all YWAMers are often go to the movies in this day. I'm not sure though if we going to go there today.