Beautiful Friends and Family!
Nothing says Happy Easter like
pickled fish and marshmallows…right?! Apparently not alike anything else
downtown Cape town…surprisingly tangy and strangely delicious! So Happy Easter,
The Lord Has Risen Indeed…just for your Grandma!
Hope everyone is finding
themselves amongst at least one friend or family member this jolly celebration
in the springtime?! Speak for yourselves
in regards to the approaching balmy weather, seriously, my new house maybe the
one and only building in all of Muizenberg with tacky plastic on my windows and
hay bales snuggled up around the outside walls as I’m terrified about what
winter is rumoured to be like in these coastal parts! Its finally going to feel like Christmas but
in July.
When I say new house, I mean I
just moved into a smaller house with only two roommates as of yesterday! Its still beautifully old, with wood floors,
high ceilings and a bay window I think I shall officially perch on every
morning with my Earl Grey, bible, and slippers in the sunshine! There is also a
weather rooster outside my mountain facing bedroom window that makes me feel
like im in the countryside, that I miss more than I realized, whenever I see
it.
Speaking of which, Ha I had my
first official camping weekend away in the end of march with my church family!
When I told a Capetown local where I was off to they commented, “really, no one
ever goes camping in Swellendam…!” We did and it was fabulous! My favourite
part of it was it really was out in the boondocks! We passed endless cornfields, a Case International dealership, a few beef
herds, lines of crooked fence posts and stacks round hay bales. Ahhhhaaaa…… I found
myself breathing in and out so freely in that fresh open air, only then
realizing how much I had missed the peacefully quiet space of country living!
The campsite was situated alongside a lush river in which we used the “Tarzan
rope” to swing up and over and drop into the water below! I also got to take a
canoe out and whilst gaily paddling down the river got a huge wake up call when
my partner said I didn’t need to worry, she didn’t think there were crocodiles
down this far! Ha, somehow I had subconsciously thought I was gliding down the
harmless St. Malo Lake, when her comment jolted me back to reality that I was
on Zebra -being –mauled- by- awaiting- crocodile- just-like-in-the-movies
sense! Lets just say I wasn’t willing to risk dangling a toe out into the water
just to be sure!
Alas we regretfully had to head
back home and to work, but my friends, there are such good things coming
together for our organization! Our first house-mother is being hired, meaning
my crazy day and night shifts wont be so crazy! We are praying for at least
three house mothers in total. Infact, my beautiful church family in Grunthal
has offered to bless us with some funds to go towards a house mother salary at
just the right time! We stepped out in faith in taking applicants, knowing at
the time we do not have full payment secured, and the next week one of the
wonderful men at my church asked how they could further bless me and the
safehouse, amazing to be able to call this my family, it makes me proud!
Continue to pray for more of these “from the heart” blessings to find their way
to us! We also really could use a car…just saying?!!
As well, we have made some
amazing connections with similar ministries, who have agreed to partner with us
in a mentorship type relationship for the next couple years as we get ourselves
established, which will benefit us in endless ways. We don’t want to re-invent the wheels but
instead use the resources and brilliant experience of the pioneers that have
gone ahead of us in the work to their fullest potential. The broader this web
of accountable connections grows, the stronger our foundations are being laid.
Along a similar note, Ive also been asking my Father for an
older, faith filled women to take me on in mentorship type personally and low
and behold… this last week was approached by the most beautiful lady whom
hardly knows me, yet felt God has something to pass on to me in this kind of
relationship! He hears even the quietest, seemingly “just if you have time”
prayers.
Being in the line of “work” I find
myself in this holiday, it really feels like I need Easter to be far more than
egg hunts and potlucks, but truly about the living, breathing being of Jesus,
my only source of Hope, here and now with us. It is in this truth, I can run barefoot in the
throne room of the God of all strength and contentment, home sweet home. The
story of God, relating to his children like no other God, as one of us, dying
in our filthy place in order to tear down the veils of sin that keep His love
from making its home us, couldn’t be better! Rejoice! He has made us extraordinary, people
to belong in his courts! And he really
is as good as He says he is, his dreams for me and for you and for these
beautiful girls way bigger than we can dream! Hallelujah!
