Web

I was with Michael this morning and as we were talking in his hokkie at the back of his house I noticed this spider's web glistening in the sun as it shone through a gap in the roof.

I love the way the sunlight just illuminates art of the web.

Michael didn't really get what I was going on about, I think he's had his suspicion that I'm a bit bonkers confirmed.

Amazing Weeks

Ever since we responded to a specific prophetic word given to the church 3 weeks ago it seems that God is really blessing us with a fresh anointing in ways that we haven't seen for years. It really is so exciting to see God at work.

Here is Paula's testimony of the last 3 weeks... Since my incredible encounter with God that Sunday morning God is giving me a new boldness and I am seeing breakthroughs. During the HIV course our trainer was unable to speak one morning (a bit of a blow for us all!). I decided to ask if I could pray for her. She readily accepted and I prayed in front of the whole class. Immediately, God restored her voice and she continued as if nothing had been wrong - wow! As a result of seeing this, one of the delegates approached me at break time and asked me to pray for a very specific medical condition she had. As I prayed with another of the ladies from church we sensed a heat building up from our hands into her body. She felt as if the area that had grown hot was 'unplugged' and we are now waiting on God for her total miraculous healing - thank you Lord!

Permanency!

This morning at the stroke of a pen or rather the stamping of a passport everything changed, nothing changed and yet everything did change. We're now permanent residents of South Africa.

This is a huge blessing and a massive answer to prayer! No more queueing every few years filing out endless forms for visas and dishing out ridiculous sums of money for the privilege. We feel this is also confirmation from God that we're in the right place.

Home Affairs & Visas

Off to Home Affairs this morning to follow-up on our application for permanency and to renew our relational visas. Prayers for ease of dealing with bureaucracy appreciated. We also need our permanent residency to come through. We were told it would take two years when we applied two years ago!

Weekend

We've had quite a busy weekend which has been a lot of fun. On Friday Dean joined our youth group again as he's wanting to get to know the younger guys in church and maybe get involved with the youth. He's really impressed by our youth and the leaders who serve so diligently.

On Saturday we went to the Helderberg Nature Reserve (again). This particular visit marked a change in what we do there as the boys really wanted to 'walk up the mountain'. We managed a 40 minute walk with them but it was a really good walk and the boys were very tired afterwards. Hooray!

In the evening we joined Daniel for his 40th birthday party which was a great evening. We really enjoyed catching up with some good friends who we haven't seen for quite a while.

Chris Nissen

I had a great afternoon in Chris Nissen chatting with Michael whilst we laid a drainage pipe alongside his house and hokkie (see pic on Facebook). It's been a while since we've spoken about some of the issues we went into today and it's really encouraging to hear how God is working in his life and to see how he's growing in faith and maturity. How I wish others in the community would stop gossiping about Michael and others like him and start following his example instead. One can dream!

Daredevil

Eli talks us through his planned daredevil act on the jungle gym. Thankfully mummy wasn't around to stop him!

Down To Earth With A Bump

By the time this blog entry is completed 15 people will become infected with HIV in South Africa. 1 out of every 5 people are believed to be HIV+ One thousand people die every day of AIDS. It is projected that there will be 18 million AIDS orphans in SA by 2010. Sobering statistics or what! This is one of the main reasons why we know God is calling us to be here in SA. Never mind swine flu! - we are living with a pandemic and it is true to say that if you aren't infected with HIV, then you will certainly be affected by it. Not only do we need to get real about our response as individuals, but also as a church. For this reason Paula and a couple of other women from the church are attending a Counselling in HIV/AIDS course all of this week. This is a big commitment in terms of work, time and finance, but we believe as a church that, like Jesus, we must care for the kind of people many would consider 'outcasts'.

Brrrrr!!!!

Now it's official. 

The weather is freezing! 

Joel & Eli were delighted to see the snow, just a shame for them that it's right up in the mountains as there won't be any snowmen or snowball fights. Not that Mum & Dad are complaining.

Family Bits

The rain cleared this afternoon so we made the most of the opportunity and went to the Nature Reserve, amazingly the boys don't complain about how often we go there! We remembered to take their welly boots this time so they were delighted to be able to wade in the streams and dangle their feet in the duck pond.

We're all well and seem to be missing the worst of the inter illnesses. Apparently Somerset West is South Africa's hotspot for swine flu, no crackling on the line here yet. Joel & Eli are thriving, as are we. Church life is good and we're really excited about what God is doing and how we're being used.

This blog has taken a bit of a back seat to Facebook, so to those of you not on Facebook we can only apologise and suggest you get yourselves over there for shorter but more regular updates.

Roundup

We're in the midst of winter here and yet our weather seems to be as good as the British summer. Our mornings and evenings are very cold but during the day we're enjoying temperatures up in the high 20's. It all makes for some fantastic cycling weather so Dean has been doing his best to make the most of it. Today he squeezed in a lunchtime ride with his friend Rod (see the pic).