Simon

I did forget one important thing that did happen since I last wrote and that is that Simon turned one.

Happy birthday, little Simon. You are a true blessing to us- a blessing of joy and peace that we know is a gift from God's Hands. We want to intrust you back to Him. May He carry and keep you.
All our love, dad, mom, Rashelle en Tim

Rugby

We went to watch some rugby on Saturday, no not South Africa against Australia, but our little primary school boys from the school where one of the boys in the home goes.

I was so terribly proud of him, really screaming just as hard as the other moms. OK, maybe sometimes a bit harder, but that was just because..... I don't know.

Everynow and then I think of the fairwell, and my throat closes up, so then I stop thinking about it.

Carl took the older boys with, they ended up playing their own game next to the field with an empty cooldrink bottle. They are all inspired now.

They did loose unfortunately, next time, hey.

Spirit of fear

While we had a great weekend, God was also busy with us. We have been busy organizing our move to Zambia, but somewhere satan came in and he planted a seed of fear in my heart. And it started to grow.

I am very scared of snakes. God has always protected my, and in all our time in Liberia, and dozens of snakes on our property, I was never the one to come upon them. But in the 2-3 weeks before we went away, I twice foudn little snakes right infront of our house. And slowly this fear grew out of proportion. My fear is not so much for myself, but for my children, who may not always realize the danger.

Then we went on this breakaway weekend, and I took my fear with me. I kept checking everywhere if there were no snakes in little cracks or near our 'house'. We went into a national park, and I got out of the car to look from a viewpoint. And yes, you guest it.

And I could feel the fear take over all my logic. For the rest of the day, I kept thinking of the song: God's not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind- based on the verse in 1 Tim 1:7. Yet, still I felt the fear.

 

Later that night we went to walk around the dam above where we lived, me checking the ground. And then God got me to look up, with the MOST beautiful sunset I have seen in a very long time.

 



And in that moment: I felt God ask me, that if He is the God that can create such beauty, such immense miracles daily, can I not trust Him to keep my foot safe where ever I may tread? And trust Him with my children?

And the Peace of God, came down over my heart. He is in control!

Nowhere

We broke away this past weekend and just went to NOWHERE. Seriously it is not even proberly mapped, leaving us unsure of where we were driving. No cellphone coverage. We had a blast. I had trouble picking photo's, so I'm gonna just throw a few out there, but there were so many more.

Yes, nowhere.

 

And I took pictures so you can remember the people that had the blast. Some of us don't change anymore, but some do.

 

 

 

 

Huis Paalman

I see it has been more than two months since I came around to blogging.

The problem is that I want to blog about nice relaxed moments, but it has been a really busy time. For more news on our ministry, you can read our newsletter on www.mercy4africa.com but just give me time, I need to write a newsletter ;)

Someone from out church asked last week, how do you guys do it all? And I said, it is because Carl and me are a team. If he did not allow me to have time, I would not be involved in the ministry at all. But it is because he frees me, that I can go and do. Meanwhile he has been home a lot, turning into a great cook and home manager. Even in raising kids, we are a team: I make sure all the little pieces of their care gets done, and he entertains- and they love it!!

Do you Rashelle take this cute little serious man with the crazy gloves?