It is definitely winter here and she loves her fleece!
This one is my favorite.
I think she looks like a little doll.
So much personality already!! Love the sassy bow.
June 14, 2008
Miesha is 6 months old
A really wise friend of mine told me that the hours go by slowly, but the days go by fast when you have a baby. So true! Can't believe Miesha is already 6 months old. Even when she is an insomniac, she is my favorite baby in the whole world.
Maria is my new best friend
Today, looking around my home I had a funny feeling. An unfamiliar feeling. I have had this feeling before, but not in a long, long time. I felt serene and peaceful.
All my dishes and my laundry are finished at the same time! I look around at the rooms in my house and don't see a speck of dirt. It truly is a miracle!
It isn't like we are slobs, but Dan has been building an orphanage this week, then doing sound for a conference at our church this weekend and has been working 11 and 12 hour days. I have been prioritizing the planning for the upcoming short term teams every second that Miesha is napping. Our precious daughter has become a bit of an insomniac (stayed up till 12:30 last night, up at 1:30, 4:30, and again at 6am this morning!) Man am I tired!! Besides, spending time with our daughter is just WAY more fun than housework!
There was no way I was going to be able to get my house clean to my standards before 2 gals come to live with us for 3 weeks, so I called in reinforcements.
Yes, I had help. My birthday is Monday and as a gift to myself I hired Maria to come and clean today. She was here for most of the day and my house is now sparkling, my stress is GREATLY reduced, and I actually like where I live again!
Best of all, it only cost me the equavilant of $14 and Maria supports 10 family members. That is the best $14 I have spent in a long time. Warm fuzzies everywhere!!!
All my dishes and my laundry are finished at the same time! I look around at the rooms in my house and don't see a speck of dirt. It truly is a miracle!
It isn't like we are slobs, but Dan has been building an orphanage this week, then doing sound for a conference at our church this weekend and has been working 11 and 12 hour days. I have been prioritizing the planning for the upcoming short term teams every second that Miesha is napping. Our precious daughter has become a bit of an insomniac (stayed up till 12:30 last night, up at 1:30, 4:30, and again at 6am this morning!) Man am I tired!! Besides, spending time with our daughter is just WAY more fun than housework!
There was no way I was going to be able to get my house clean to my standards before 2 gals come to live with us for 3 weeks, so I called in reinforcements.
Yes, I had help. My birthday is Monday and as a gift to myself I hired Maria to come and clean today. She was here for most of the day and my house is now sparkling, my stress is GREATLY reduced, and I actually like where I live again!
Best of all, it only cost me the equavilant of $14 and Maria supports 10 family members. That is the best $14 I have spent in a long time. Warm fuzzies everywhere!!!
June 11, 2008
5 days till our short term team arrives!
Thanks to all of you who prayed for us this last week! It was an emotionally full week, but the Lord is sustaining us. This last Thursday we drove up to Vaalwater to see the ministry there for ourselves and to finalize the ministry details for that area. I thought that we were pretty “in touch” with the poverty and sickness here in South Africa, but rural poverty is so much more devastating than urban poverty. I have always wondered why people would choose to live in a squatter camp with all the issues there and the reality is that “home” in the rural area isn’t any better and you have a higher chance of getting a job in the city. In the Vaalwater township, they have very few subsidies and there are so many issues. (they get running water for one hour every couple days, 35% AIDS infection rate, unemployment, orphans, child led homes, teenage pregnancy, abuse, poverty, no sewer system, and more) The events and ministry we hope to do in their community will be like a drop in the ocean compared to the vast needs they have, but hopefully they will remember that they were loved and as we pray for them and encourage them they will know God loves them as well. I don’t even know how to begin to describe what we saw, but hopefully some pictures can help us share stories with you in the next couple weeks. We will be working in the Vaalwater and Lesiding communities with Hamish and Terri Rodgers and are looking forward with expectation to what the Lord will have for us there.
This is our final week of preparation before our first team of ladies arrives on June 16. Things are coming together smoothly!
About three weeks ago Dan was asked to be the project manager to frame an orphanage building this week. He has a background in framing and there isn’t any local expertise in this area since all the building structures are made of bricks here. The Americans who are building this orphanage are shipping all the lumber over in a container! The orphanage will be in Pretoria so he will have a substantial commute and be working long hours this week. Please pray with us that things will go smoothly and that he part of the project will be completed on time.
There haven’t been any new reports of attacks against foreigners in Johannesburg this past week – praise God! The city certainly has their hands full with figuring out what to do with 30,000 homeless people, but we have seen the church stepping up to support and encourage which has been a blessing. Please pray God continues to bring His peace and for wisdom for the leadership to know how to respond.
Thank you for your support of us!
This is our final week of preparation before our first team of ladies arrives on June 16. Things are coming together smoothly!
About three weeks ago Dan was asked to be the project manager to frame an orphanage building this week. He has a background in framing and there isn’t any local expertise in this area since all the building structures are made of bricks here. The Americans who are building this orphanage are shipping all the lumber over in a container! The orphanage will be in Pretoria so he will have a substantial commute and be working long hours this week. Please pray with us that things will go smoothly and that he part of the project will be completed on time.
There haven’t been any new reports of attacks against foreigners in Johannesburg this past week – praise God! The city certainly has their hands full with figuring out what to do with 30,000 homeless people, but we have seen the church stepping up to support and encourage which has been a blessing. Please pray God continues to bring His peace and for wisdom for the leadership to know how to respond.
Thank you for your support of us!
the rollercoaster
(written one week ago!)
You know the feeling you get when you are riding a rollercoaster and you are making the long climb to the top just before you begin the fast decent into the loops and turns? That is pretty close to how Dan and I are feeling lately! The next couple months are shaping up to be very busy and although we are excited for all the loops and turns ahead of us, we still have some hard work to do before we are completely ready.
Local news: In the last three weeks, there have been attacks on foreigners and the shack burnings and business looting have left 35,000 people homeless in South Africa. 25,000 of those are in our city - Johannesburg.
Here is a blurb from a news article:
More Deaths as South Africa Xenophobic Attacks Escalate.
Tues, 20 May 2008 - News From Africa
Attacks on African migrants in and around the city of Johannesburg, escalated Monday with increased incidences of mob beatings, lootings, rapes and arson attacks. Local police, who have declared the attacks criminal, battled the mobs with rubber bullets in the affected townships. President Thabo Mbeki, ruling party leader Jacob Zuma, former President Nelson Mandela and Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu have condemned the attacks, which have mostly been targeted at Zimbabweans and Mozambicans, who are the largest non-South African Black groups accused by locals of taking their jobs and fuelling crime.
The short version is that South Africa used to be the land of refuge, the land of opportunity and a place of promise for struggling Africans to come to. Johannesburg in particular was a place where if you were a hard worker, you could find a job or start a business and support your family back wherever you came from. There is no way to know exactly how many illegal immigrants have jumped the borders (they don’t exactly line up to be counted in the census!) but tons more Zimbabweans have come south since the most recent presidential election stalemate up there two months ago. The cost of gas is increasing (equivalent of $4.50 per gallon) electricity (53% cost increase this year, while at the same time they are regularly cutting our power for hours at a time) and even basic things like bread have had a significant hike in price in the last month so people with limited resources are starting to get desperate. Crime has increased and the foreigners (specifically Zimbabweans and those from Mozambique) are blamed for many of the issues. People are being chased out of their shacks or their small businesses and their possessions are stolen. Thousands of people are fleeing back to their home countries scared that the mobs will hurt them. It breaks our hearts!
If you are interested in reading more detailed information, the internet has some well written articles. Go to http://www.yahoo.com/, then click the link for “world” news, then “Africa”.
Although this is horrible news; as foreigners ourselves, we have been careful and are not afraid. THEY ARE NOT TARGETING WESTERNERS. However, we’d certainly appreciate your prayers for our safety in the coming weeks!
Here is a run down of what our schedule will be like in the coming months:
This coming week we are finalizing some team plans in Limpopo province Thursday and Friday, and in town we are putting a plan in place for Soweto since we are unavailable to regularly visit in the next months.
June 9-14 - Dan is going to use his construction background as the foreman for a team who is framing a house to be used for an orphanage.
June 16-July 6 – our first short term team is here doing ministry in Johannesburg and in Vaalwater with us. (More details to come in next week’s email)
July 18-Aug 1 – second team doing ministry in Motjane, Swaziland
Aug 8-22 – third short term team made of South Africans traveling to Zambia
Aug 25-Sept 16 – Janell’s parents visit!
Sept 21 – 27 - Dan goes to Zimbabwe (depending on how stable things are there)
Oct 6-10 - Team Retreat, ministry planning for 2009
If you are wondering when we are going to rest in the next four months – we are too! It will be busy, but we LOVE this time of year. We promise to take full advantage of the days we have between trips for “down time”. It will definitely be interesting to see how our precious little girl will do with all the travel. So far, she has proven to adapt remarkably well as we have traveled as a family.
Miesha continues to be a great delight to us and to many others. She is 6 months old now and is quick to smile at anyone, but still prefers to be held by her mom and dad!
There are other things that we are facing which we are not at liberty to share about at this time. Please pray for wisdom for us in these new and challenging circumstances. Thank you for your continued prayers for us and for your support. We can’t do it without you!
You know the feeling you get when you are riding a rollercoaster and you are making the long climb to the top just before you begin the fast decent into the loops and turns? That is pretty close to how Dan and I are feeling lately! The next couple months are shaping up to be very busy and although we are excited for all the loops and turns ahead of us, we still have some hard work to do before we are completely ready.
Local news: In the last three weeks, there have been attacks on foreigners and the shack burnings and business looting have left 35,000 people homeless in South Africa. 25,000 of those are in our city - Johannesburg.
Here is a blurb from a news article:
More Deaths as South Africa Xenophobic Attacks Escalate.
Tues, 20 May 2008 - News From Africa
Attacks on African migrants in and around the city of Johannesburg, escalated Monday with increased incidences of mob beatings, lootings, rapes and arson attacks. Local police, who have declared the attacks criminal, battled the mobs with rubber bullets in the affected townships. President Thabo Mbeki, ruling party leader Jacob Zuma, former President Nelson Mandela and Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu have condemned the attacks, which have mostly been targeted at Zimbabweans and Mozambicans, who are the largest non-South African Black groups accused by locals of taking their jobs and fuelling crime.
The short version is that South Africa used to be the land of refuge, the land of opportunity and a place of promise for struggling Africans to come to. Johannesburg in particular was a place where if you were a hard worker, you could find a job or start a business and support your family back wherever you came from. There is no way to know exactly how many illegal immigrants have jumped the borders (they don’t exactly line up to be counted in the census!) but tons more Zimbabweans have come south since the most recent presidential election stalemate up there two months ago. The cost of gas is increasing (equivalent of $4.50 per gallon) electricity (53% cost increase this year, while at the same time they are regularly cutting our power for hours at a time) and even basic things like bread have had a significant hike in price in the last month so people with limited resources are starting to get desperate. Crime has increased and the foreigners (specifically Zimbabweans and those from Mozambique) are blamed for many of the issues. People are being chased out of their shacks or their small businesses and their possessions are stolen. Thousands of people are fleeing back to their home countries scared that the mobs will hurt them. It breaks our hearts!
If you are interested in reading more detailed information, the internet has some well written articles. Go to http://www.yahoo.com/, then click the link for “world” news, then “Africa”.
Although this is horrible news; as foreigners ourselves, we have been careful and are not afraid. THEY ARE NOT TARGETING WESTERNERS. However, we’d certainly appreciate your prayers for our safety in the coming weeks!
Here is a run down of what our schedule will be like in the coming months:
This coming week we are finalizing some team plans in Limpopo province Thursday and Friday, and in town we are putting a plan in place for Soweto since we are unavailable to regularly visit in the next months.
June 9-14 - Dan is going to use his construction background as the foreman for a team who is framing a house to be used for an orphanage.
June 16-July 6 – our first short term team is here doing ministry in Johannesburg and in Vaalwater with us. (More details to come in next week’s email)
July 18-Aug 1 – second team doing ministry in Motjane, Swaziland
Aug 8-22 – third short term team made of South Africans traveling to Zambia
Aug 25-Sept 16 – Janell’s parents visit!
Sept 21 – 27 - Dan goes to Zimbabwe (depending on how stable things are there)
Oct 6-10 - Team Retreat, ministry planning for 2009
If you are wondering when we are going to rest in the next four months – we are too! It will be busy, but we LOVE this time of year. We promise to take full advantage of the days we have between trips for “down time”. It will definitely be interesting to see how our precious little girl will do with all the travel. So far, she has proven to adapt remarkably well as we have traveled as a family.
Miesha continues to be a great delight to us and to many others. She is 6 months old now and is quick to smile at anyone, but still prefers to be held by her mom and dad!
There are other things that we are facing which we are not at liberty to share about at this time. Please pray for wisdom for us in these new and challenging circumstances. Thank you for your continued prayers for us and for your support. We can’t do it without you!
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