Number 37

My husband Paul is my 37th roommate in life, and the very first male.  With no disrespect to Bert (Roberta), Marie, Nancy, Puppy, or any of the earlier ones, he's my favourite.

We are on a trip to Mokopane, South Africa, and even though we will have been married 21 years as of this Thursday, I still admire him and can be surprised by his focused drive to get people saved. 

We were invited to Mokopane by our friend Koos Basson, a missionary who starts schools, trains pastors, and whatever else his hand finds to do.  He's also an admirable guy, but not as admired by me as my own Paul.

                Yesterday after church and a wonderful lunch, with the Pastor and his family,      
                         and Joe, Paul's friend and translator with the bright red tie.

So here we are in Mokopane, and Koos had a nice schedule arranged with Paul preaching every day, but Paul didn't feel he was reaching enough so he got on the phone to arrange more meetings.  That wasn't working, so he tried something else.  He typed in "schools" in the GPS and just started driving to them one at a time. 

My darling is 65 years old.  No one expects him to preach a certain number of times each day, or yells at him if he doesn't. He can see people who need to hear the gospel and that's his life mission.  I just can't imagine walking up to a strange school, hunting up the principal, and asking if I can preach to the students, but he has done it.  He has done it enough to have scheduled 10 more schools.  Ten schools!  That is thousands of kids that will now see a big drawing of a Biblical lesson and have the chance to be introduced to God their Creator! 

I love being married to a real go-getter.  I love that he's focused, driven, and loves and fears and the Lord his God with all his heart.  I love that he loves me and is such a caring guy.  He even mopped the floor last Saturday! 

He's a great father to our kids, spending time reading to them every day when he's home too.  He is also an admirable eater, much better than me at eating healthily and with self control. 

All in all, I'm so glad I married the guy!  I'd love to write more, but Timothy has to have help with his geometry.  He's a great 1 Corinthians 13 kind of guy, and I thank God for him.

Life under an avo tree--watch your head!

Under the spreading avocado tree,

The village smithy stands....

Wait a minute, something's wrong with that poem.  We are the ones under the avocado trees right now.  We have left dear old Cape Town for a few weeks, and drove north for two days to Mokopane, in the Limpopo province where we are based for now. 

 The yard in the mission house where we're staying is big and beautiful, with lots of room for chasing each other, throwing things at each other, and....

 stopping to smell the flowers.  As we drove north, the road passed through the immense Karoo, the semi-desert section of South Africa.  It always looks like New Mexico to me. 

 Evangel snapped some pictures of The Three Sisters rock formations or mountains that we pass along the way.  They're really not going to fall off the world to the right.

                                                                                                                                                  straight. 

 Before we left Cape Town, we had one brief day with some family friends out on the farm.  The girls all went flower picking.

 The boys played golf, of all things, and the sun came out just before we had to come home.

 Evangel loves giving cooking lessons to Jessie and Holly, our little neighbours and Daniel's good buddies.

 They came along to the farm with us too.  I'm so thankful we don't stay in the city all the time.  I love Cape Town, but sure do want our kids to see the country side of life too. 

 During all the busy-ness here, the fun, the work, and life in general in Africa, my thoughts keep going back to the family at home, with Dad still not feeling well. He'll be 88 on the 25th, and has suffered a  lot since the 3rd of July.

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in thee."