May Update

Dear friends and family,

Hope you all are doing well! It’s almost summer in the US, but here, the weather is getting colder – it’s almost time for me to pull out my space heater! The leaves are falling rapidly - the colors are much more muted here than back in Ohio, but they still make that satisfying crunch underfoot. It’s a good thing I enjoy the sound, because I can’t seem to keep my patio clear of them!

We are at full capacity right now at the baby home. Babybear is still here – he celebrated his third birthday this year. 

Sweetpea and Daisy are 11 months old. They are very active and into EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME. 

Daisy is small, wiry, and basically the Energizer Bunny. 

Sweetpea is so chubby she is actually several kilograms off the weight-for-height chart – thankfully I have a strong back!

She loves her food!

Both girls are just full of giggles and love to play with each other – especially when they are supposed to be napping!

“Mahlo” (Sepedi for “eyes” – he has big ones and likes to look everywhere!) joined us this March, at four months old. He is six months old now and just started baby food, which he absolutely loves. 

We had a newborn baby girl for a few weeks, but she went home and five-day-old “Handsome” took her place just a few days later. As with most newborns, his favorite activities are eating, sleeping, and crying, although not necessarily in that order.

Our homeschooling efforts have expanded, as M (our house mom) has also begun to teach the 9 and 11 year old sons of one of my coworkers, in addition to the children who live on property. Most weekday mornings, I help teach the kids. Babybear, at age 3, wants to do everything the big kids do. He does so well at sitting and listening, as well as participating in the activities. He has memorized most of Psalm 1 along with the rest of us. Most people might not be able to understand what he’s saying, but he definitely knows it and is proud to be able to recite! I am really enjoying doing Bible time with the children. I have a lot of opportunities to share the Gospel with them and the four older ones (11, 9, 5, and 4 year olds) ask so many good questions. “How can someone be born again?” “Is the final battle real?” “We are REALLY going to die?” “God was really a HUMAN?” “When Jesus comes back is God gonna come down out of the clouds and touch the ground and stop being invisible?” They make me think about how to simply and clearly present the truth. Also, they make me laugh when they thank God for things like feet and trash cans and shoelaces and bellies, or in B’s case, pray the alphabet… “Dear Heavenly Father, A for Apple, B for Beads…” Please pray for them that they will truly come to understand the Gospel and that God will save them at a young age. It’s encouraging to see them show interest and I so enjoy our times sitting in a circle in the sunshine, having real, serious, interesting discussions with all ages involved. 

We are doing a lot of fun crafts! Here we are painting with ice for our letter I activity. (The little girl is M's niece, who has moved in along with M's mom and sister.)

Other highlights of the school year have been some fun trips. We went to a children's science museum.

 We have also started going to the library every second week. We enjoy lots of time spent reading aloud!

School is going well – I’ve finally started to get some grades and feedback after several years of work (they were rather behind) and was relieved to find that I am not at all flunking. I’m enjoying it and learning a lot – this semester is about counseling specific issues such as depression, addiction, etc. It’s really interesting and I’m almost done with my projects, then I will enjoy a much-needed break! I don’t know that I will ever go into counseling as a career, but I believe that all Christians should be informally counseling each other on a day-to-day basis, and I hope this course will help prepare me to be a better friend.

Corona update: We are back down to level 1 lockdown (phew!) This allows us to live more of a normal life, albeit while wearing a mask in public. The vaccine rollout is going very slowly, and probably won’t finish until sometime next year, so it may be a very long time before the last restrictions are lifted.

This month, I submitted my application for visa renewal. It has been a very nerve-wracking process, and I appreciate all of your prayers. Now, I just need to hurry up and wait. The official wait time is 8-10 weeks, but I know people who have been waiting for their visas since last year! Please pray that it goes smoothly and quickly, and that I will keep trusting God who rules over the nations, including the Department of Home Affairs in South Africa.

I would like to come back to the States to visit during September/October, but I would rather not do so until I have a valid, current visa in my passport, so unfortunately it might be longer. I love my life here and am not homesick, but I do miss friends and family and haven’t been back stateside in almost three years, so I really hope that I get a chance soon. I would love to come during the fall and see the leaves change – I don’t miss snow at all! Although, coming at Christmas wouldn’t be too bad!

Hope you all are doing well! I love to hear from everyone and appreciate that so many people are still thinking of me and praying for me even though I am so far away.