Photos: holiday et al

Our holiday at Nature’s, Christmas day, playing at home, DIY with Dad, etc... :)

Home for Christmas

We are home, sweet home. :)

We had a lovely holiday (I’ll post some photos soon), despite the rainy weather. Just being at Nature’s is an incomparable soul balm. We got to spend quality time with my folks, the de Koks, the Prozeskys, the Groblers, the Paynes, the forest, the fynbos, the river, the beach... Awesome. And Cam, as always, absolutely loved every moment, swimming until he was blue and shivering, and building sand ‘Christmas trees’. He didn’t mind one bit the howling wind or the drizzle (or the fact that he had tonsillitis)! :) He also discovered a baboon in the house one morning. I’d made coffee for us and brought it back to bed, leaving the kitchen door open for Lola. Cam wandered through to the dining room and we heard what we thought was Sue making coffee... and dropping a few things...? Cam returned to our room and calmly informed us that ‘there was a black dog playing on the table’...! Fortunately we believed him, realised it must be a baboon, and hurtled through the house to chase out the hairy, biscuit-thieving intruder. (We don’t always believe him. Like this morning, he told me, ‘Peacocks are scared of tumble driers’...?)

Scott is not quite at beach holiday appreciation age, but he had a happy time nonetheless. He is so responsive now, and his face lights up adorably when one of us comes into a room or talks to him. He was three months old on the 20th December and he is growing like a mushroom! I just can’t get enough of his enormous blue eyes and his chubby little tightly grasping hands. Such a glorious thing, to hold and love a baby.

And now it’s Christmas! There’s nothing about Christmas that I don’t love – from Bony M to mince pies. But most of all I love that Christmas brings hope. Here’s an acronym I made up a few weeks ago for a cell group Christmas study that we did:

C – Christ incarnate; comfort
H – hope; heaven a reality
R – renewal; refreshing; restoration; rejuvenation; rejoicing
I – inspiration (to be all we were created to be); inner change and healing; intimate relationship with Him
S – salvation; sealed in the Spirit; sanctification
T – Trinity made tangible
M – motivation (to live God-honouring, abundant lives); ‘magic’ in the pure, glittering, tinselly sense of the word...; magnanimity of God in sending His own Son (I wouldn’t be able to...)
A – amazing freedom; adoration of God on high who came to dwell among the humble (shepherds!); adoption; armour of God
S – serenity (peace on earth and goodwill to all men)

And some awesome Christmas links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-1OTVpOtyc (John Piper on ‘Why Christmas?)

http://www.thomaskinkade.com/magi/servlet/com.asucon.ebiz.search.web.tk.SearchServlet

http://www.stalbanscollege.com/africanchristmas/

May this Christmas, and 2011, be a time of renewal and refreshing (2 Corinthians 4:16) as you hope in Him, the source of abundant life, peace and lasting joy.

Beautiful new spaces

On Saturday 4th December we celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary, amidst the happy hassle and chaos of packing to move. We managed to squeeze in breakfast at Karoo Café, Mamma Mia at Monte Casino (such fun!), and a carol service, amongst other things.

Murray’s folks quoted this Celtic prayer in their anniversary card to us:

‘Most loving God, give them steadfast hearts, which no unworthy thoughts can drag downwards; unconquered hearts, which no hardships can wear out; upright hearts, which no worthless purpose can ensnare. Give them also understanding to know you, diligence to seek you and faithfulness that will finally embrace you.’

Then on Monday 6th December we said goodbye to 71 Maldon Road and two and a half very happy years of living on the St Alban’s College campus. Looking back, we can see God’s gracious wisdom in placing us there when he did. We moved onto campus just three days prior to finding out about Cam’s eyes, and what followed was the darkest season of our lives. God saw it coming and knew we’d need an awesome community of people to carry us through that time. How I will miss the stinkwoods in the garden, the open spaces, Lola running along the spruit, the neighbours popping in because they’ve run out of eggs or feel like a cup of tea... It’s been an unforgettable, privileged, healing season.

At the same time, we are so excited to be moving onto new things. We are now blissfully installed back at 233 Cliffendale Drive, and we pray that God will use our home as ‘a city set on a hill’. It feels wonderful and restful and thrilling and blessed to be in our own fresh, familiar space again. There is something delightful about having a tiny patch of God’s green earth to call your own.

Over the weekend my mom and dad were helping us fix up a few things in the house, and Cammy discovered the paved area below the wooden deck that extends from the back kitchen door. He ran into the house with shining eyes to tell Granny that he had found ‘a shadow house!’ He dragged us all down there to ‘have tea’... So typical of him to turn something mundane into something magical. He has been excited about the new house, his new room that he is sharing with his brother, the jungle gym, etc. but we’ve noticed some reactionary behaviour again – the move has jolted his little world somewhat. And so we’re piling on the affirmation and unsolicited attention. :)

Scott hasn’t missed a beat. He has smiled and cooed all week, peacefully watching boxes being shifted and unpacked. He is so much more responsive now to our voices, and he’s a strong, cuddly little chap, starting to roll and kick and the like.

The boxes are all unpacked, the boys are asleep, the Christmas tree is sparkling like something from a Thomas Kinkade painting, and we’re off to Nature’s Valley tomorrow.

We serve such a good, good God.

Celebrating life with the Le Roux's at Letamo

We spent a couple of days on the Letamo game estate (Scotty’s first little holiday) with Marc, Rebecca, Abigail and Josephine and had a fab time. Abi and Cam were thick as thieves – so cute!

When we went to the zoo a while back, we were all quite bleak because Cam couldn’t see much and he kept asking if he could go closer to the animals or touch them. My mom came up with the brilliant idea of using his little TV, connected to a video camera, to show him faraway things. Gavin and my dad set this up for us, and we took the TV and camera along on a game drive in Letamo. Up to now game drives with Cam have just depressed us – there’s been no point; because while he can enjoy the wind in his face and the calls of the wild, the rest is lost on him. With one of us filming, Cam got to see hippos, kudu and birds close up on his little screen. It was a real victory – there’s so much potential with this kind of thing for him to enjoy what fully sighted people can enjoy – and yet paradoxically the whole thing made me quite sad. Abi could just look out the windows...

Also, while he already knows, I think, that he can’t see well, I have had the sense for a while now that the time is drawing near when he will realise that other people can – that he is different. My fervent prayer is that God would prepare his heart for that day, that He would choose the day and hour of that realisation. I pray that He would cushion him with grace – that he wouldn’t be alone on a playground when the understanding comes, or lying awake alone in the dark, but that Murray and I could be there to love him through it and that the realisation would be a cause for him to know the deep peace and everlasting love of God.

We’ve had some good laughs this week, too. Murray took Cam to the loo and congratulated him enthusiastically, ‘Wow, you made such a big wee!’ Cam replied matter-of-factly, ‘No, that was a medium-sized wee.’ :) He is also totally into fantasy play - he is forever lining things up in neat rows, and making imaginary cups of tea for everyone he knows...

Scott has slept through every night this week – yay! He is getting cuter by the second and we are enjoying him so much.

‘O LORD, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name; for You have worked wonders, plans formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.’ – Isaiah 25:1

My cup runneth over

Here’s why:

Scotty is sleeping through every other night! Ironic that our newborn is giving us far fewer night time stirrings than his big brother (who still wakes us once or twice a night...). We went to the clinic this week for Scott’s 8 week weigh and vaccinations. He weighs 5.7 kg and is nearly 60 cm tall.

Cam has officially been wearing undies for a week now! Woo hoo! :)

I’m also celebrating cappuccinos, friends, rain, handwritten postcards in the mail, maternity leave, summer evenings on the stoep, the prospect of our new home, a friend for Lola (Heather’s corgi has come to live with us), dancing with Cammy and Scott in the lounge, and Christmas decorations.

I’ve been conscious again this week of how much poorer our lives would be without my sisters’ kids, the boys’ cousins. What a privilege for them to be growing up in a big, busy, noisy, happy family!

And my cup runneth over because we are free. The sermon this morning at WBC was about real freedom: the freedom we have to live with a clear conscience, to have personal access to God the Father, to have the power to do what’s right, to live with meaning and purpose, and to have no fear of death or dying. We are free indeed!

'Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.' -- Melody Beattie

'In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.' -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

'None is more impoverished than the one who has no gratitude. Gratitude is a currency that we can mint for ourselves, and spend without fear of bankruptcy.' -- Fred De Witt Van Amburgh

'There is a calmness to a life lived in Gratitude, a quiet joy.' -- Ralph H. Blum

Smiling Scott

And this is the way the baby woke:
As when in deepest drops of dew
The shine and shadows sink and soak,
The sweet eyes glimmered through and through;

And eddying and dimples broke
About the lips, and no one knew
Or could divine the words they spoke, -
And this is the way the baby woke.

- James Whitcomb Riley

I will exalt you, my God and King, and praise your name forever and ever. I will praise you every day; yes, I will praise you forever. Great is the LORD! He is most worthy of praise! No one can measure his greatness. Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power. I will meditate on your majestic, glorious splendour and your wonderful miracles.Your awe-inspiring deeds will be on every tongue; I will proclaim your greatness. Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness; they will sing with joy about your righteousness.

- Psalm 145:1-7

Magic amidst the mayhem...

...That’s my definition of having a toddler in the house!

A recent conversation between Cam and his Grandpa-Linds went as follows:

Grandpa: ‘Hey Cam, what are you doing?’
Cam: ‘I’m happening!’

I guess Cam is where it’s at...!? :)

Not only has he been happening, he has been feeding Lola his crayon drawings, getting tomato sauce in his hair, climbing onto the mountain of boxes in our lounge (we move in less than a month), throwing away wads of Scott’s brand new nappies, ‘so that they don’t get full of pooh...’, doing duck and frog impersonations (with fairly realistic sound effects), and playing ‘lens lens’ with Scott (he proudly pretends to put in Scott’s ‘lenses’)... Little boys are completely exhausting and absolutely awesome! :)

Pam and Jack, Murray’s aunt and uncle, prayed over us as a family the other night. They reminded us that the Trinity was in relationship before anything was created – the implication being that a relationship is always more important than doing stuff. What a profound reminder, when I am so often tempted to pack away, rather than to play...

We’ve been aware lately of massive blessings – all we have and hold. And we’ve been conscious too of small mercies and tiny gratitudes (like good food and the wonder of a swim on a scorching day, and Scott’s little smiling murmurs, and a potty training success for Cam – a whole afternoon of dry undies!).

‘He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.’ – Isaiah 40:11