It's Church Jim...

I've been wanting to blog about church for the last two weeks but haven't really got my head around what has happened or found the right words to describe how fantastic it has been.

Our inaugural Sunday was great and all I could say to the guys afterwards was that had I been able to plan the meeting in detail it wouldn't have gone as well as it did. Praise God for his infinite grace! However, planning and executing one meeting is easy, doing it week in and week out will be the challenge.

New School Year

The new school year starts today for our boys and they're both looking very grown up in their formal white shirts.

They were both really excited about returning to school and catching up with their friends. Both boys have got great teachers again this year so we're really excited to see how they are going to fly again in the year.

Joel is now in Year 4 which is quite a step up for him. Things become a lot more formal from now which should be good for him. Joel will also join the junior school camp for the first time this year, which will involve three nights away from home. The parents are very excited about this!

Tree Of Life Planted!

What an amazing privilege to be a part of the start of tree of Life church in Macassar this morning!

Thank you Lord!

Tree Of Life Church

Today is a very exciting day as Tree of Life Church meets on a Sunday morning in Macassar for the very first time.

Please join us in praying for God's name to be glorified as his kingdom is extended in Macassar.

Drum Roll Please...

Just 24 hours to go...

So this morning we're out in Macassar inviting people to join us tomorrow.

Our big prayer is that the Holy Spirit would go before us and rock up on Sunday, please join us in prayer for this.

Plant A Tree

This morning was a morning of mixed emotions for the Macassar crowd as it was our final morning as part of Love & Grace Church as we're planting into Macassar from next Sunday.

The mixed emotions are born out of the many friendships we've all built with folk in Mitchell's Plain and the excitement of moving into something new with God. We'll miss our friends at Love & Grace but we know we'll see each other again soon and we'll remain in contact with each other.

Merry Christmas

A very Happy Christmas to you all!

Lots of love

Dean, Paula, Joel & Eli

XXXX

Eli's 6th Birthday

A very happy birthday to our special six year old bundle of endless energy and fun!

It hardly seems possible that it is six years ago today that Paula flew to Bloemfontein and held Eli for the first time as she waited to bring him home.

This little bundle of joy has transformed our family life with his boundless energy and sense of fun and also making us a truly international family.

We're so grateful to God for the miracle that is Eli and especially grateful that he blessed our lives!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELI!

♫♪♫School's Out For Summer♪♫♪

Many of you who heard us speak on our last mission education visits or came along to one of our Facing The Mountain Roadshows will remember our two biggest prayer requests. Firstly we asked you to pray that we might be able to go church planting again, although we had no idea how this would be possible at the time. Secondly we asked that you join us in praying for our boys coming year at school but especially for Joel as we had some reservations about his year ahead.

Thankfully we serve an amazing God who answers our prayers.

WHCYIAMWOTGOC

On the BBC News website there is an article entitled "What would Jesus do?: The rise of a slogan"

It makes for an interesting read but I find myself disliking this logo quite intensely. I've always felt that it's a bit of a silly question for two reasons. Firstly, as the article points out, we don't really get much of a clue as to how Jesus conducted himself away from the limelight and so we can't really answer the question.

On The Stoep

As summer finally heats up we're able to spend more and more time out on the stoep in the early evening and it makes such a refreshing change from wasting time in front of the telly.

It's a real privilege on the evenings when the southeaster isn't blowing to sip a chilled glass of vino and enjoy dinner alfresco, especially when the Hotties mountains are illuminated so beautifully by the sunset.

It's a great way to relax after a busy day!

Eli's Birthday Party

Once again we celebrated Eli's birthday just before the end of the school year so that as many of his friends were able to come as possible.

Much fun was had as 13 of his friends ran riot around the garden, climbing on the tree house, playing on the jungle gym, bouncing on the trampoline and getting dirty in the sand pit.

In fact so much fun was had we only had time for one organised game. Pass the Parcel went down a storm as ever and we even got away without having the inevitably distraught kid that can't accept they didn't win. Phew!

Another Year Gone

Not too sure what happened to the school year that was 2011 but it seems to have whizzed by. There is one week left but let's be honest, very little gets done in the last week. that will make up for the busyness of this week with awards ceremonies and school concerts, but it's been really good fun.

It's been a great year for the boys, not least for Eli who can now read and write. we're very proud of him for this achievement!

Girls Will Be Girls!

I had a very eagerly anticipated "girly" coffee morning with 4 special ladies at my house today - it was time to get my wonderful HOPE home based carers out of their community for a few hours to just spend time chatting, laughing, eating and reviewing the past year! Each lady is a special nugget of gold, they will definitely be taking their places at God's top table one day!! It was so good to enjoy some lovely food and to potter around the garden chatting about patients and friends and our lives.

World Aids Day

The world seems to have gotten a bit complacent about AIDS and the devastating effect it has so it takes a bit of shock tactics to get the world to sit up and listen.
Hopefully Willy the Tourist might help to do this.

Encouraging Evening

Our life group in Macassar last night was such an encouraging and humbling time.

It was a real privilege to hear testimony after testimony of how God has moved mightily through the year to bring folk to the point of being excited about planting a new church into Macassar early next year. For some of the guys there last night this has been a torrid year, starting with the collapse of the church and the hassles resulting from it. Some have then lost jobs, had to move house a number of times, had family members die, one of our number has lost two brothers this year! Others have had to look after extended family to help out financially in tough times and one family have had a terrible time with drug dealers and all sorts of related nonsense.

Weekend Stuff

Summer seems to be toying with us at present as the weather has generally been pretty good during the week and then pretty horrid at weekends. Winter is definitely hanging on to the bitter end!

This last week and the weekends either side of it has been a good time for us as we've managed to sort out and rise above a bit of rubbish that was thrown our way and as a consequence find ourselves in a stronger position than before.

Praise God for friends who believe in the best of you!

Encouragement Through Perseverance

I've been really encouraged of late by John Wesley and more particularly by an excerpt from his diary. John Wesley (with his brother Charles) is one of the biggest names in 18th century British history, though his impact goes way beyond Britain's borders.

So here's the excerpt from his diary:

A Tale Of Two Guys

Here's a tale of two guys I care for very much and have a huge amount of respect for and two guys who are struggling through very different but equally tough times.

As I said a few posts below Ernest has just suffered a massive stroke. Thankfully he has an amazing family around him who are taking excellent care of him. As an outsider looking in it's a real privilege to see just how well loved Ernest is. My family circle consists of Paula, my fantastic sons and my brother. Ernest had 40, yes 40 members of family by his bed the afternoon after his stroke!

A Little Bit Of Admin

Hopefully many of you will have received our November update by email. If you haven't had it and would like to receive our monthly updates and quarterly prayerletters let us know and we'll add you to the list.

Now that we're (almost) no longer Crosslinks mission partners we're taking control of our monthly updates and prayerletters and we want to distribute these by email as much as possible. In fact we will no longer be sending the monthly updates by snail mail, apologies if this impacts you. If you have been receiving our news via snail mail but you have an email address please let us know as it's so much easier (and cheaper) to email them. If you're old fashioned like me and want a piece of paper in your hand then it's easy to print.

Occupy St Paul's!

I've been watching with interest over the last week or so the debacle surrounding St. Paul's and the ridiculous way in which things are being managed.

I feel I should make some things clear at the outset. Firstly, I support the Occupy London protest and think it has a very simple and valid message that the City and govt need to listen to.