Blogging From A To Z Challenge - L

L is for Local Church

This is one of my biggest passions, probably my biggest after my family.

I truly believe that the local church is the hope of the nations as without the local church the awesome news of Jesus will not be taken to the far corners of the globe.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - K

K is for Kids, more specifically, my kids!

I love my kids, they truly are my pride and joy!

I'm blessed to have two great boys and even more blessed to have two boys who are so very very different. I believe the fact that they are so different is what makes them such good brothers and friends. They rarely compete with each other, they know what they're each good at and really support each other. They truly are a pleasure to be around.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - J

J is for Juggling

One of my favourite things!
Juggling is great because it's really easy to learn and looks very cool, especially once you learn a few simple tricks.

I love to juggle with fire because people are easily impressed by this and I also love the diablo as again the basics are very easy and even the simplest tricks can wow an audience.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - I

I is for Indecision

I simply can't decide what to post for I so I'll go away and think about it some more and hope that J might come along to rescue me.

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This post is part of a series in the Blogging From A To Z Challenge, April 2012

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - H

H is for Hokkie

Here we are in 21st Century and still millions of South Africans live in hokkies or shacks. The root of Hokkie comes from the Afrikaans word hokkie which means kennel. So what we're saying here is that millions of South Africans live in what is often just a kennel and to be honest when I look at my dog's kennel I'm reminded that millions of South Africans live in a far worse off manner than she does.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - G

Whilst blogging about my passions I seem to have had a few rants so here is a post dedicated to something I despise with a passion. I promise to be more positive for H!

Guinea fowl are the spawn of satan!

If you're one of those weird nut jobs that likes them I pity you.

My loathing of these hideous creatures stems from our time in Zimbabwe. Harry our landlord kept guinea fowl along with chickens and turkeys, each of which had the ability to be annoying. However, the guinea fowl took the prize for winding me up.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - F

Family is one of my biggest passions!

There is nothing I wouldn't do for my family, I'd walk a million miles to help them out and protect them.

One of my frustrations with family is the perception that you cannot be a family until you have children. The church is particularly bad for this. We struggled with childlessness for 11½ years and so often in that time we were made to feel like we weren't a family simply because we didn't have children.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - E

One of my passions is eating out which thankfully is shared by my amazing wife. We especially enjoy eating at a decent restaurant and our favourite local is Taste run by good friends Anton and ED, if you're in the area you must go!

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - D

As you may have noticed I'm using the Blogging From A To Z Challenge to blog about the things that I am passionate about.

One of my biggest passions is discipleship in the local church. In a secular sense we're talking about mentoring which basically means getting alongside folk and helping them to make positive choices in their lives and walking the walk with them through those choices. In the local church context it means doing just this but also helping them to know Jesus better by helping them grow in their faith and getting to know and understand the bible. 

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - C

C has to be for Crystal Palace!

My beloved football team.

One of the things I love when the England football team play is that for a while every English football fan gets to understand something of what it's like to be a Palace fan. The England team is full of potential and is not short on talent, they are capable of winning every game they play and yet they so often fail leaving the fans disappointed yet again.

Blogging From A To Z Challenge - B

B is for Bikes.

My bikes are important to me as I'm passionate about cycling and I'm really proud to have passed on a love of cycling to my boys.

I have to admit to not being sure how this happened but between the three of us we have six bikes, a trail-a-bike, a few frames and a mountain of spare parts lying around the place. I guess we ought to think about sorting it out and getting rid of a few bits but if truth be told we won't and the collection will just increase.

Blogging From A to Z Challenge, April 2012

To start at the beginning is always a good thing and so here we are on April the first blogging the letter 'A'.

A is for A to Z Challenge.

For a bit more info on what this is about check out the website or go to the Facebook page.

I've decided to blog about the things that are dear to me so most of my friends will know what the letter C will be about, the rest of you will have to wait until the 3rd.

Down On The Farm

We've just been really blessed with 3 days away on Farmer Koos's farm in Montagu with Grandad and Lesley.

It was great to have some time out away from the usual stresses and strains of daily life and just chill in the middle of nowhere free from the shackles of modern technology.

The best bit of all though is seeing the boys roaming freely and safely on the farm, often accompanied by a pack of dogs and getting up to all kinds of mischief. It really is pure pleasure to watch them chill!

Off To Camp

The next growing up phase in Joel's life started today as he very reluctantly went off on his school camp!  Every year the Years 4, 5 and 6 go to camp for 2 nights and it is apparently often supposed to be the 'making of them'! Joel has not been keen at all and we have had quite a few tears and do I really have to go type comments right up to this morning! So, we both survived the drop off this morning and Mum especially was pleased to see this photo taken of Joel with his mates just before climbing on the bus - even a hint of a smile - so hopefully all will be well!

For My Next Trick...

Having done the Cape Epic in 2009 and achieved a few other goals on my bikes I feel it's time for another challenge.

So here it is, my Nimbus 36" unicycle. The plan is to get fit enough to ride it in the Cape Argus next year 2013 to raise money for Miles 4 Smiles, a charity supported by my boys' school.

I've got a mountain to climb in terms of getting uni' fit, I need to fully master getting on it, especially in front of a crowd and I need to develop my core and thigh muscles to take the strain.

So far the furthest I've ridden on my 36er is a few laps around the school car park which is a million miles from riding the thing up Chapman's Peak or Suikerbossie.

Regardless of how tough it is I'm going to have a lot of fun along the way!

Happy 9th Birthday!

Our amazing miracle celebrated his 9th birthday today and what made the day even cooler than normal was the fact that Grandad had come out with Lesley to help celebrate. What a happy memory that he'll never forget!

We've had a lot of fun which sadly was interrupted by school, though Joel did enjoy seeing his friends and being the centre of attention for a bit.

The day was made even better by getting the things he had asked for, including an mp3 player and even more Starwars Lego and a celebratory meal at Taste restaurant.

All in all a perfect day to be 9.

Birthday Party

Joel had his birthday party a week early to accommodate a top secret event happening this Friday, stay tuned!

What a joy it was as he invited his four best friends from school to join him for a meal at a local restaurant followed by a movie at home and a sleep-over.

After dinner Transformers was the movie of choice with lashings of popcorn (we're still finding it down the back of the sofa - nice!). It was quite amusing watching it with five experts on the subject of Transformers.

Amazing Evening

Wow, what a night at home group!

We had planned to follow on from Sunday and give space for testimonies and to pray for folk. We had a great time and then at the end a visitor gave her life to Jesus. Fantastic!

Please pray for Bonita in the coming days and weeks as she begins a new life in Christ, pray too that she'll come along to Tree Of Life on Sundays and will be made to feel accepted and welcome.

Thank you Lord for a truly awesome evening!

Book Week

In conjunction with World Book Day on the 1st of March the boys' school held Book Week to celebrate reading and the wealth of knowledge available in books.

All kinds of fun activities were held including DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) when the bell rang at spontaneous times each child had to stop what they were doing and read. There were competitions and dressing up as well as storytime each day. Eli guessed the quote for The Very Hungry Caterpillar correctly on Tuesday and Joel got the quote right on Wednesday which was from Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows.

Perfect Day

It all started with a great 90 kilometre ride with my regular crowd and included a fast climb of Helshoogte which was a lot of fun! I'm really enjoying my riding again and it feels good to have lost 8kgs and be strong on the hills again. Hopefully I'll be on top form for the Cape Argus on the 11th of March. I'm really looking forward to it now.

This afternoon I was delighted to be able to watch the Palace game live on local TV and it turned out to be a very good game in which we made the Hammers look distinctly average. I guess it wasn't quite a perfect day though as we only managed a draw.

Testimony Sunday

"They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" - Rev 12:1

This morning our gathering was given over to sharing testimonies of what God is doing amongst us and what an amazing morning we had!

As the weeks have gone by we have watched God at work in people's lives but to actually hear some of the accounts this morning was a privilege and truly humbling.