Eli

We took this photo of Eli this morning as he was showing off with his standing. He's been standing freely for a while now, but yesterday he took his first step and took another this morning. Having has a child who didn't move for 18 months it's quite scarey having a monster who's been moving since he was 4½ months old! Eli is a week short of being 11 months.

Chris Nissen

I had an interesting morning in CNP today. His first task was to deliver a load of toys and two cupboards to the newly established créche in the community. This créche is a bit of a mixed blessing for us, it's great that at last there is something for the kids and their parents, it means that I can no longer use the containers for my bible study on Thursday mornings.

There's Mischief In Them Thar' Hills

Joel seemed to spend the whole of Sunday getting into mischief one way or another. Here's a sample of some of his antics plus a couple of cute shots of Eli to counter balance it all. Check out Joel's novel use of peas over on Finnie's In Focus

P. W. Botha

I wasn't planning to comment on the death of P.W. Botha, most realise that he was an anachronism from another time. An ugly reminder of the dark days of the apartheid regime of the 1980's. However, two things have come out of his death that warrant comment. The first thing is 'historical revisionism' and the second is 'forgiveness'. Clearly the second is by far the most important so I'll concentrate more on that one once I've dealt with the first.

Update On Our Week

The week in summary... It started last Saturday when Dean & Joel went to our 'Launchpad' camp near Grabouw. Dean was the official photographer and Joel was the able assistant! Look out on our PhotoBlog early next week for more photos of that. On Thursday, Dean was again the 'official' photographer, this time for Choices, our pregnancy crisis counseling centre. Dean has done a few bits for them and really enjoys serving this BRILLIANT ministry.

Health & Study

The good news is that Dean doesn't have TB! Praise God!! The bad news is that he's going to have to see the Dr. and try to sort out his cough and wheeziness as it's been going on for quite a while now. Dean is really frustrated as he can't shake off the cough but really doesn't want to take any more antibiotics. Probably the biggest frustration is not being able to go cycling, he's missed two rides this week and one last week, so he's trying to sort out a ride for tomorrow.

Firefox 2.0 - Rediscover The Web

In case you're not aware, Firefox version 2 has just been released and can be downloaded from their website. I fully recommend it!

Ditch Internet Explorer today!

Sunday Afternoon

The weekend was quite manic with a lot of runnig around, with not much family time to be had, so yesterday afternoon we had another picnic tea in the Nature Reserve. The boys love being there and it really is a lovely place. The only shame is that it still closes at 5.30. Thankfully in Nov' they extend it to 7.30 which will be much better. As we were leaving we were treated to a rare sighting of a Bontebok calf, we were all pleased with that! Normally the mothers keep them hidden for quite a while but this one was only a few days old and proudly parading around with the herd.

Sickness & Stuff

Please pray for Dean as he's struggling with his third bronchial infection in a short space of time. Dina and others in Chris Nissen have nagged him to have a TB test so he'll go and get that done on Monday. Dean's sure he hasn't got TB especially having read up on the symptoms. However, it is possible that he keeps getting ill from his incredibly regular contact with TB sufferers in CNP. After his last illness Dean had barely recovered when he took a few TB patients to the clinic in his car. Such close proximity when your immunity is low is not great! Please pray for a sustained period of good health for him.

Rainbow

late this week a 'black' southeaster was blowing which brought a bit of rain too, but the best bit was the rainbows we kept seeing. This one was just peeping over the Schapenberg and is seen from our bathroom window.

Bakkie In Action

In our recent post: 'Nothing Of Note' we mentioned the fact that we had changed Dean's car for a 'bakkie' (pickup in English) to assist us in our work in Chris Nissen. Here at last are some photos of the bakkie doing exactly what we wanted it for.

Concepts Of Eternity

Not very sound theologically, but quite entertaining.

Lazy Weekend - Part 3

After the Nature Reserve we finished off our lazy weekend with some lounging around in the garden before sunset and bathtime.


Joel on his bike, he really enjoys charging up and down the drive on this

Lazy Weekend - Part 2

After church on Sunday we had a really lazy afternoon in the Nature Reserve with Deb's & Rach' (both of whom Joel adores). We took a picnic tea and simply sat and chatted and played with the boys, brilliant!



Debs with Eli

Lazy Weekend - Part 1

One of our best weekends in a while, we pretty much just lounged around from Saturday afternoon (after Dean had been to the party in CNP) through to Sunday evening and took some lovely photos of a chilled out family.

Birthday Party

Mama Jane asked a while ago if Dean would take some photographs of the twins Birthday party on Saturday. Sisi & Booty were 5 and had a great afternoon. Their friends were particularly plaesed with the party packs that Mama Jane and Aletta had put together. Once again Mama Jane models something really positive in the community!

Ohh The Shame!!

A very dear friend emailed us recently and was commenting on a something we had said about Joel enjoying stickers and described how one of her sons is also into sticky things.

David (not real name) heavily into stickers at the moment! So much so that he found 6 pantyliners, stuck them on a bit of paper, drew on them, and then insisted on showing them to the Betterware lady when she came to collect her catalogue. Ohh the shame!!

That made us laugh, hope you enjoyed it too.

PS. Apologies to the original author of the above quote as it was used completely without permission!

Fun With My Boys

I looked after the boys this morning whilst Paula went to the rescue of a dear friend who had a serious dilemma. The friend needs to buy some new pyjamas for her forthcoming hospital admission, so Paula went along as fashion consultant - oh dear!

Meanwhile, back on the ranch... we were having lots of fun, playing silly games, watching Tom & Jerry and playing on the swings.

Julia

Julia visited this evening, she's currently in Cape Town on research business so we were able to catch up again after a year (they seem to go by so quickly!!). It was lovely to chat and catch up especially with someone who understands the missionary lifestyle and the trials that go with it.

Men's Bible Study

As ever, the highlight of my week is my Men's Bible Study. This morning (and next week) I got the men to share a favourite passage from scripture and explain why the passage speaks to them and why it's a favourite. Two of the men have spoken to me privately to say they can't do it but the rest are all having a go. This is great as after two years they really should be able to take some responsibility for the group and what we study. Hopefully we can build on this exercise and start to develop their Bible reading skills and encourage them to be more active in sharing their faith. Please pray for this!

Mrs Robinson

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson,
Jesus loves you more than you will know.
God bless you, please Mrs. Robinson.
Heaven holds a place for those who pray,
Hey, hey, hey