Thursday, June 23, 2011

A Weekend with Astella, Anica & Baby Joshua

Marius and Astrella have now sadly immigrated to Australia but a few weekends before they left Astrella and the kids spent a weekend with me. We stayed at Liz's house who was sadly away for the weekend and missed out on all the fun!!!

We had more than enough space and really had a very special time together!
Little Anica had great fun helping us make a pizza. Ofcourse, she had to taste and see if some of the ingredients were suitable for the pizza!









Anica also really enjoyed sitting on the physio ball!









Later in the afternoon, Astrella and myself baked a cake and found a collection of some very exciting cake decorations which auntie Liz had in the pantry. So Anica had such fun decorating the pink cake with all sorts of shapes and colours. "It just so happened" that the next day, the 6th of June was her 2nd birthday!






I bought Ancia her first set of paints and printed a few colouring in pictures of her favourite "Barney" character. She really seemed to enjoy herself, although she was quite confused between the brush, water, paper and the paint. She found great fun in mixing the paint in the water and often forgetting to paint the picture:)





Our weekend ended with a wicked spoil of strawberries, whipped cream and special coffee while the two little ones had a Sunday afternoon sleep! Sadly, we did not get any photo's of little Joshua has he is just such a quiet, good little baby! All he does is eat, chat a little a go back to sleep.

Now the Vogels are busy settling down in Australia,am missing them already!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Finally Meeting Baby Joshua

What a joy it was for me when Marius and Astrella popped in a few weeks ago to introduce me to little Joshua!

What a strong little boy! Not at all like his petite little sister, already looks like he is built to play rugby, like his dad.

His Hand of Protection

Since the beginning of winter, this is what my desk has been looking like after most high school breaktimes!

The school has introduced blazers for the high school kids (we have 2000 kids in the high school)! The procedure is as follows: The child has to come and fit, once I have the size, the child pays, I issue an invoice with his name, student no. etc. then I have to enter the same info on a Excel spreadsheet for when I place the orders. So for each child, a double transaction is done, their break is only 20min and so I don't have time to pack away the money between transactions!


Thankfully the rush seems to have died down now and it is not so hectic!


I praise God for His continuous Protection over this office!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

An Amazing Holiday doing LOTS of Nothing

I was very privileged to be invited to spend Easter with Liz and her family up in Mborne, a beautiful place which her parents had bought in the 80's down in the Natal Midlands.

Liz's dad kindly called us the morning we were supposed to leave and informed us of the hectic Easter traffic through Johannesburg. The tollgate at Kranskop was backed up for 20km. He advised us to take another route, through the province of Mphumalang!

The route through Mphumalanga was very scenic
We had left that morning at 6 expecting the journey to take us only 9 hours! However, at 4pm we came across this unbelievably long traffic jam just before New Castle!
We sat in this jam for well over a hour! It turned out to be a stop/go backup as they were doing roadworks up ahead! This is when our journey took a turn... We kept getting stuck in stop/go's continuously and as darkness fell, we got lost over and over!

Eventually we stopped at an Engen Service Station were Liz put her head back and slept for a couple of hours and we were back on the road again, getting lost every now and then and patiently waiting at countless stop/go's!

Towards what we thought was the end of our journey at 2am the next morning, we found ourselves lost on a quiet, single lane road. Here, much to our horror, we hit a pothole and had a puncture. Poor Liz insisted that I remain in the car and try keep watch while she changed the tyre! Liz did a brilliant job of changing the tire though just as she was tightening the last screw, the car battery died as we had kept the car running for light!

I have to admit that as two ladies sitting, lost in the dark was quite an airy experience!

But God! We by God's grace had come to a holt at the top of a slope and we were able to free wheel down the hill and get the car started! MANY prayers of thanks went up to our precious heavenly Father!

We found our way back onto the highway. Liz took a detour and found the route that she was familiar with. We finally reached our destination at 5am. The 23 hour journey was truly an adventure but we really thank the Lord for His amazing protection!Psalm 19:1-6

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Needless to say that we slept the whole first day of our holiday and this was just the beginning of an incredibly restful week.

Liz little Noah and myself went for a 6km walk to the dam and back, with Noah's dad Mike kindly helping with the pushing of the wheelchair.
Once again, we enjoyed the most amazing scenery on our walk The mind boggles at God's amazing creation We made it to the dam and this is where Liz came for a swim early one morning. She said that she really enjoyed it though it was very cold.
Easter Sunday, though very significant for us Christians, was an exciting day for the children. Bridget, Noah's mum had brought a stencil of a bunnies paw, auntie Liz brought baby powder and covered the lawn with rabbit spore. The adults had great fun hiding dozens of Easter eggs all over the garden. The kids had great fun following the spore and finding eggs, not to mention the fun all the adults had going around with the kiddies! Even little Myla Moo 'found' herself an egg Mike had the brilliant idea of discreetly collecting the found eggs and re hiding them in the lounge. I think the adults had more fun watching the kids than what the kids had hunting for them. Auntie Liz was "the best" when she brought out these huge chocolate bunnies for them. Their parents were just a little concerned about the sugar overload but as you can see, Kenzie and Noah were more than happy to have their bunnies.
When we first arrive Myla had a runny nose. Ang, Myla's mum was sorry that she had left the children's nebulizer at home.

When Liz and I went into Pietermaritzburg to get a new tyre, I decided to buy a nebulizer with the intention of letting the children use it while we were on holiday. I often need to be nebulized during the winter due to my weak chest and it has always been a mission to get hold of one so I thought it was a good idea to finally get one.

Well, it was not even 2 days after that purchase when I became really ill with the flu and needed to use it myself, talk about God's Providence.

The good Dr Liz was very firm with me and had me stay in bed as soon as the flu started. As a result I only ended up needing to spend one day in bed.

A very valuable lesson FINALLY learnt: "get into bed as soon as a cold makes its nasty presence known".

The rest of our holiday was spent relaxing and spending time getting to know some awesome people! Auntie Debs had some special times with the little Myla Moo
Smiley Myley
Laughing with Myla Auntie Debs and Myla having great fun

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A Wonderful Opportunity

I was invited to be guest speaker at a ladies monthly breakfast at Central Baptist Church in Pretoria on Saturday the 17th of April. Was really blessed to stumble upon a very personal little bus service which commutes between Polokwane and Pretoria every weekend. It was so nice to have the bus leave and arrive on time!

Leandra had invited me to speak at one of the churches monthy Saturday breakfasts. It was such a joy to be able to spend the weekend with this precious family and especially to get to know little Levi!

Leandra stole this photo of myself preparing the night before the speech! Was a bit nervous as the week before had been really emotinally draining, busy and there had been very little time for preparation! Due to the craziness of the previous week, I woke that Saturday morning with mouth ulcers. I was empty, had none of my own strength to put into the priviledge which lay before me that morning. We earnstly prayed that the Lord would step in and take over completely.


The breakfast tables had been so beautifully decorated!




After Leandra's very kind introduction, I spoke for 5 minutes and then showed a 20 minute Powerpoint Presentation, showing different stages of my life and how God had and still is smashing down what to us seems to be rock solid walls and opening doors to what many call "the impossible".


The presentation did not run all the way through smoothly, even through this we were humbly reminded by the fact that the event was not all about technology but the focus was on Christ.
After the presentation, I told the ladies that the day before, on the bus to Pretoria, I had sat next to a man who also had Cerebral Palsy but his spasms were about a 100 times worse than mine, though I could see that there was nothing intellectually wrong with him! There is always someone in a situation worse off than what we find ourselves in!


I ended by encouraging the ladies that each set of trials faced by each individual is unique to God! No trial is too small in His sight. Though my challenges are very pronounced and different, they are not more important than anyone elses set of trials. So if the Lord can bless me the way He has, He will do it for anyone who puts their trust in Him.



A Special Surprise Reunion!

Over the weekend that I visited Pretoria, I stayed with Quintin and Leandra! Unkown to me, they had arranged for Gerhard and Christelle to come through from Johannesburg for the afternoon and I got to meet little Liraan!




Levi & Liraan are the best of friends!




Auntie Debbie had a wonderful time with these two little people





Quintin, Leandra & Levi





Gerhard, Christelle & Liraan






Very hard to believe that Gerhard and Quintin were my adopted students while they attanded Christ Seminary a few years ago. Now they both have two active little boys and Christelle is pregnant with number two!

Bonus snaps of little Levi




We Welcome Little Baby Joshua

Not even a week before Marius and Astrella's second little one made his entry into the world, Marius' mum organized a small baby shower for Astrella!




Was a wonderful privilege spending time with Astrella and precious little Anica



Even though we had a very small shower, we still enjoyed quite a spread!


Baby Joshua was born on the 18th of Mar 2011. I really look forward to meeting him, hopefully soon!