By Bishop Peter Lee Wednesday 21 May 2008. We wake at 05:00 as usual because Gill has to get on the highway before 06:00 if she is to reach school in time to teach. People do not always understand that Johannesburg is a busy place. The province of Gauteng which is geographically the smallest of South Africa’s nine new provinces, is also the most densely populated with about a quarter of South Africa’s population and large numbers of immigrants from other places crowding it. This province contains 2 of South Africa 4 major cities – Johannesburg and Pretoria – and generates no less than 30% of the Gross Domestic Product not of South Africa – but of the entire African continent! It is a rich city which of course attracts large numbers of the poor. It is big, busy, aggressive, dynamic and stimulating unless you get tired. The needs for ministry are enormous and new housing areas have burgeoned all around these cities in the past twenty years creating massive demands for employment, housing, health services, schools, water and drainage especially in a city which sits at 6 thousand feet and therefore has to pump most of its water back up the hill from which it has drained away when it rains.
