A Meaningful Update - At Last!

We apologise that it has been an age since our last blog update but life has been hectic, hectic!! We eventually moved house on Monday 21 February - typically it was the day of the first torrential rain of the year and we all sorts of furniture to move! Thankfully we managed to dodge the downpours and everything is now in situ. We have also had nearly 3 weeks of huge power cuts right across the Western Cape which has impacted everything from not being able to sterilise bottles, make a cup of tea, sew up curtains, cook dinner, wash clothes.

Family Photo

Steve & Anne Murphy from St. Christopher's in Pott Shrigley were on holiday in Cape Town recently and we caught up after church. We had an excellent time together and whilst they were with us they took the family photo below which we just received in our email.

Thanks Guys!

Adoption Update

The 60 day consent period has now ended which means that the birth mother can no longer change her mind and request her child back. This is great for us but must be awful for her. Please pray for her as she seeks to rebuild her life, also, give thanks as she is a Christian and knows Jesus as her saviour!.

The social worker was in court this morning and we're waiting to hear what the next step is. As you could imagine we're really excited to know that Eli is now ours pending the technical formalities of the legal process.

Please keep praying that all would go smoothly and quickly!

We're Back Online!

We've had an eventful few days moving house, as ever with such ventures, whatever can go wrong does go wrong, so our washing machine decided that it didn't like the new house and gave up on us, but not before it flooded the kitchen! Dean fell through the stairs on his way down, one step completely collapsed, but thankfully gravity was stronger than velocity so other than a gashed leg there was no real damage. In the midst of packing and moving we enjoyed a series of prolonged power cuts, generally losing the electricity for 7+ hours at a time which had a really negative impact on the jobs we needed to get done before and during the move. The cuts have finished for now but are due again in the next few months as the nuclear generators are repaired. Our phone eventually started working today only 10 days after it was supposed to!

That's A Good One!

Eskom (South Africa's monopoly electricity provider) has just blamed a massive 12 hour blackout across the Western Cape on the recent fires and the mist which covered Cape Town this morning! Incredible!

We always thought that British Rail was pushing it when they blamed delays on 'leaves' or the 'wrong kind of snow' but Eskom really has BR licked when it comes to pathetic excuses!

Yes we're cross that we couldn't have a cup of tea when we got up this morning! At least church was interesting and our guest preacher (Adrian Holloway) coped admirably and lead 6 people Christ. Praise God!!!!!!

Another Taster

Here's a couple more photos to give you another taster of the photos we've just posted at Finnie's in Focus.

We hope you enjoy them

A Passage I Love

JN 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

I love this passage simply because Jesus let's his followers know that troubles are guaranteed (not promised) for no particular reason (not for character building or testing etc) other than we are of this world and have to live in it. So being robbed or living through Hurricane Katrina are not judgement by some vindictive deity but rather just part and parcel of life on this planet.

Photo Update

Here are a few 'taster' photographs, you can see more on our Photoblog 'Finnie's in Focus'.

We'll post some more over the next few days too.

Catch Up

We've finally managed to get back onto Blogger after 3 days, apparently our monopoly phone company messed up and barred access to the service which is about what you'd expect from a monolithic uncompetitive monopoly. Gripe over and on with the posting...

Quite a lot has happened and we'll try and give a brief update on each thing...

Can't Access Blogger

We're emailing this post through in the hope that it will be posted automatically.

We haven't been able to log onto Blogger for over 24 hours despite trying several different computers.

Hopefully all will be back to normal soon, but if you happen to know why Blogger is down, please email us.

Action in CNP

Dean has just been to an excellent meeting at the municipality with Dina & Mama Jane regarding the vegetable garden in CNP and the proposed netball court for the community. Amazingly, the parks dept have agreed to give the community R1000 towards the vegetable garden for seeds, fertiliser etc so after almost 2 years the garden will now be utilised properly. The parks department have also agreed to fund the construction of the netball court and to supply the basic equipment such as hoops and balls. Needless to say Dina & Mama Jane were delighted and the community will be thrilled when they hear about this.