It's Raining!

-
Today is the 5th of September. It is raining for the first time since April! We are so thankful for the rain, but it is strange to be having such cold weather after enjoying summerlike conditions for the past couple weeks. I think today has been colder than any actual winter days.

Our time at Tshepo ya Bana has officially come to an end, but we are still living at Plot 94, now as renters. We have gone to see 4 or 5 houses, but they have all been too small, or too expensive or too far away or a combination of all three. We are still talking to the people who own the “no electricity house”, hoping and praying that there will be a solution. Will you please join us in praying about this? For me, it is hard to put this house out of my mind as it just felt like the place we should be. Even though it needs A LOT of work, it could be a real home for our family.

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for Elaine, Floyd and Floyd Jr. We did hear that Floyd Sr. has been having a few better weeks since his cancer diagnosis. Please continue to pray for this family, that they will come to know the Lord and also for physical healing.

We are still waiting to take possession of the minivan; Waiting for the owner to get back into the country so that we can sort out paperwork. Hard to be patient, but we are learning! God really has been so good to our family and when we look back, we can see he has been leading and directing us every step of the way, so lovingly and faithfully.

My dad is here for a visit and some pastoral training. He has been in Uganda, Kenya, here with us and then heading on to Ethiopia. We love that my dad continues to be healthy enough to travel and stop to spend time with us along the way.

Tyson and Jori are doing well. They are over ½ way finished with the school year now. Hard to believe that next year we’ll have a 7th and 5th grader! They are growing so much and I am trying to enjoy this current stage, even with the onset of puberty, excess hormones, eye rolling, foot stomping and the like. 

We are keeping busy with family life, caring for Amo, and our work with Take Action Ministry. Now that we are no longer with TYB, Amo has become our full responsibility. It has been interesting taking her out to meetings and site visits, but she travels well and I am getting better at having her things packed the night before. We are thankful that her feeding has become easier over the past few months and pray that this continues to be the case! Amo has spent the last 3 weekends with her family, which has been good for all of us. They love spending time with her and we enjoy having a small break, although both Darin and I catch ourselves walking past her cot, smiling down, before realizing she isn’t there J


I started this post this morning and now it is almost 9 at night and it is still raining. There were brief let-ups in the downfall, but for the most part it has been raining for about 24 hours! We are so thankful for this water, which will feed the land, bringing new life to the surface, and seeping into the ground keeping the boreholes from running dry. Thanks be to the Lord!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Connection and Community

-
Image
When we had made the decision to uproot our lives in the US and move to South Africa, I was so hungry for information about what living in South Africa would look like. We had been to South Africa several times as a couple, Darin had come on work trips, and we had spent 10 weeks here with our children. We knew some people, had been into various shops, and had a familiarity with the sounds of English being spoken with a variety of accents. However, there is a big difference between leaving home to visit a place for a few weeks or months and entirely uprooting your life in one place to start over in another. What were the schools like, would I have access to familiar ingredients to cook with, what about healthcare?  I scoured the internet to find stories about living in South Africa and found a few women who were more than happy to answer my questions, however random and weird they were. There was Annie, an American living in Pretoria, whose entire blog I read in one day and when Darin c
Read more

Family Fun Friday

-
Image
We have almost reached the end of the winter holiday. Tyson and Jori go back to school on Wednesday. We have some fun activities planned for the next few days, but we will also be cleaning bedrooms and setting out uniforms and lunch boxes. Let the school fun begin! Overall, it has been a fun holiday. Tyson and Jori have both had school friends over to play, we've made it to church twice, we've been out for pizza, had donuts, did some baking, and more. Friday, however, was probably the highlight of the school holidays for us. The day started with Jori losing her first tooth! Our baby girl is growing up. We had a few errands to run and took the kids with us. While Darin was busy at Cashbuild ordering supplies for an upcoming building project at TYB, Tyson, Jori and I went to Pick N Pay and King Pie for a little treat. We shared with Darin, of course. We spent a few hours at home, then headed out at 3 for our big adventure. We drove slowly and took a mini game drive on
Read more

More thoughts on motivation

-
When I look back at the decision making process that Darin and I went through, the process which has now brought us so close to a departure date, I have little doubt that Darin felt a call and responded to this call. Yet, when I go back over the different thought processes I went through to get us to this point, I realize that it has been all about me, which might explain why I am now suffering from some "buyer's remorse". It's not that my motivations for moving were necessarily wrong in themselves-I hope that Darin and I will be closer as a couple, I hope that our family will be closer and will do more together, I hope that Tyson will thrive in this new environment, I hope that our family will be able to reach out and help those that we come into contact with, I hope that Darin will be home more often and able to be a bigger part of our family life. Yet as we get closer, these hopes seem to be such small reasons to go. It's not like moving to a new country is goi
Read more