Wednesday, June 30, 2010

What a man

I'm admiring my husband anew today. Evangel, Tim and I went with him to his 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. preaching appointment. We thought we understood what he was to do. Wrong. He thought he had 2 hours to preach to the whole group, do puppet shows, games, songs etc. Wrong. Instead, he had 5 groups of about 15-20 kids at a time, for about 30 minutes. He had about 22 interruptions from kids and adults poking their heads into the room. The message was totally not important to some little people, and some who should have known better.



I was so frustrated for him! To see adults come into the front of the room, take a few pictures, and then walk back out, giving little waves to some kids--um, hello! am I the only one who realizes that is distracting? and rude!



But there he stood, calm, cheery, and focused on giving God's Word. Those 22 interruptions occurred during the first session. The group of little girls listened pretty well, maybe they're used to such thing?



Now, the reason I was particularly along, was to help with the puppet show. Evangel and Tim were the puppeteers, and I was the mother :-) I do have one role that is superior to my mother role, and that is "Helper to Paul", so I left the kids with the puppets, and moved out in the passageway to be the Guard! I didn't know it was in my job description to be a guard, but there's a lot of fine print under that Helper title.



I had already heard Paul's sermon, so I didn't mind missing that, and it was kind of fun guarding the door from interruptors. I filtered out the kids at least, but one lady interrupted every single one of his 5 talks. Gotta wonder! Maybe she was in some official capacity--she had a clipboard, but I couldn't figure her out.



I met one little cutie who wanted to just open the door to take a gander at what was going on. I said no, so she started asking me for things. Could she have 50 cents, could she have my keychain, could she see my cell phone, and so forth. She was a charmer, and a begger. I was so curious as to how one little girl out of the crowd came to be like that, and tried a little interview, but she was too busy flattering and begging to give much info. It does not bode well for her future if she continues on like that.



Well, our 11-1 appointment kept us til well after 2, and then we were rushing off to a more informal appt. we were late for, but with me full of admiration for a man that handles stuff like this day in and day out.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Dumpster Diving Delights

I was just looking at my World Cup entry, and realize what a flop that must be to anyone seeking real news on the World Cup. They want action shots, scores, and details, and I give them...car mirror socks. :-) That's funny.

Today's Friday, trash day. Here on Windermere Road, we put out big rolling bins of rubbish, and then trash pickers flood down our street, looking for goodies in the bins. They will completely empty out the bins, down to the gook at the bottom, in their quest for goodies. It's pretty gross sometimes, but also a nice way to recycle stuff. I can throw anything away, and know that it will never make it to the dump if there's any goodness left in it at all.

I should be appalled by this, but I've done my share of dump picking in life. Yesterday we found a prize! We stopped at the dump yesterday with my friend. Someone had dumped a surf-board/boat thing called a Macski. We paid the dump guy a little bit of Josh's birthday money, and he's the thrilled owner of his own little floating thing. It dumps Timmy and I, so I think we should name it The Dumpster Diver or something. Josh doesn't agree. He was going to call it The Alpha or something like that. Sounds a little sacrilegious.

Dumpster diving is like Treasure Hunting, only messier.

By the way, the first game is over, score was 1 to 1, Mexico against South Africa. South Africans were pretty sad.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

World Cup

We Youngs are getting into the World Cup act. We got mirror socks for our car! Aren't they cool? I never heard of them before, but they're all over the place here now. That's the South African flag, for anyone who doesn't know.

Paul is having openings to preach in funny places for this special month in South Africa. He even got invited to preach to Ratanga Junction which is the closest thing to Disney World in Africa.
There are no school meetings for about a month, so holiday clubs and street meetings are possiblities.

This unique podium made me smile, and reminds me that unique is a good place to speak from, because we're all unique, talking to unique people about our unique GOD and His unique plan to save us from a grim destiny.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Happy Birthday Mom!

June 2 was my mom's birthday. She came to visit us in Cape Town in January, and brought Ariel with her.
In spite of car troubles, we got to do some touristy things with her.
And, of course, shopping! My mom's a diligent, Proverbs 31 woman, and she enjoys sprucing us all up when she can so the whole batch of us got new shoes. Ariel is the one with the wild shoes. Those white, flowery ones are me! They're not so white now, six months later, but they have a lot of kilos on them. (By that, I mean they have gone far, NOT that I weigh a lot of kilos. That might also be true, but I'm not admitting it here. :-)



And she loves "coffee breaks" when we're shopping. I wish I could be as patient with my kids, as my mom has been with me. God bless her.




Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The Robbery

Tonight, while we were all eating supper in our room of a B & B in Swellendam, someone stole a laptop out of the kids' room next door. Paul and Timothy went to make a statement to the police. The computer is an Everex, sort of an unusual brand here, so I suppose there's a chance we'll get it back. I know God can do it. He brought back our car when it was stolen in 2006.

I didn't like what it did to the kids. They are nervous now about sleeping in that room, and one of them had a quivery lip. Come to think of it, I don't like what it does to me! I listen for noises after things like this, and am too jittery.

We had family Bible reading late today, so it was after the robbery. I read Psalm 119:61 with feeling, "The bands of the wicked have robbed me: but I have not forgotten thy law." We all laughed, but it's comforting to remember these things happen to other Christians, but God's law is still there through the ages. His Law of sowing and reaping, and justice and all of them.

I'm clinging to one of my favorite promises again, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind."