Well March started off slowly with regards to morning prayer and counseling. However after an evening meeting held for completely other reasons, God opened an opportunity for Daz and I to share our heart with the community and since then we have had a number of people, men and women (however still predominantly women) coming for coffee and a chance to pray and chat. It feels wonderful to slowly get accepted as part of the community and realize that with God’s help we can really have influence in some of these people’s lives.
March has also seen the end of the ‘body parts’ series, where I am very happy to announce all the children have learnt there appropriate body parts and are slowly learning to manipulate them appropriately for there age. (Teachers will be continuing with techniques learnt).
However, we have now begun a series on learning ‘colours’ and let’s just say I will need every bit of Godly patience to complete this task. These poor little mites have obviously had very little input from home and even my 5 year old has very poor knowledge of his colours. In fact I am so concerned that I may need to have some tested for colour-blindness. But we will persevere and I am confident that eventually I will be able to report some success in this challenge.
Homework Club
Another benefit of the meeting Daz and I were able to have with the parents, was to encourage them to ‘parent’ their children and to encourage them to use the resources available to them, predominantly the homework club. We will be collecting reports now that the children are completing their first quarter and will hopefully be able to put a programme together with some assistance of the parents and will hopefully be able to begin to combat some of the specific areas of concern for the children.
Friday Night Youth
Friday nights have still remained the highlight of the teenagers week. Marius the Youth Leader has a wonderful heart for God & praise & worship has been awesome. The kids are still getting used to the environment but when I drive up in Marius’ bakkie (pick-up) they are eagerly standing on the side of the road waiting for a joy-ride to the venue. All the kids are praying that one day we will own our own bakkie as they are battling to fit in our ‘Fordrarri’. The record so far is 10 kids in a 5 seater
Cricket World Cup…at this point I really don’t want to chat about the disappointment we feel on this side of the world but as usual it didn’t affect our community kids at all. Nice to learn something from them for a change…life goes on & there are far more important things at stake.
They are still cricket mad & we have been coaching cricket as well as rugby. One of the Dutch Students is currently putting a programme together which will help us identify problems through how the children move, tackle problems etc. She visited us for an afternoon, took some video footage of our session in order to assist where she can. So we will see where that leads.
Girl’s Mentorship Club
This month we have focused on self-control and have been given an opportunity to talk rather frankly with the girls about controlling their impulses, specifically their tongues and their bodies. We have two unwed teenage mom’s in our group and without placing judgment upon them, they were able to share with the other girls how difficult it can be to raise a child with no money, no education and no help.
May God remind them of the frank discussions we have had when they are in the decision of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’!
Home Visits
Daz and I have decided to put Seth into crèche an extra morning a week, especially now that the nausea is over. That way we can concentrate a full morning to going to meet the families and building relationships. We are realizing that it is only through relationship that we are going to be able to share Jesus’ love with more effect and know home visits are a great opportunity to build these relationships. Please pray for continuous opportunities to do this.
Adult Fitness
Well, after a little bit of time off to recover from the severe nausea, adult aerobics will beginning again on a Thursday evening. Please pray that this will continue to be a good opportunity for us to build relationships with the community, and that through it people will start to regain a little self-respect.
Community
Unfortunately one of the young girls we have been working with decided to run away this month. Left her baby at the drug-addicted father and disappeared. Thankfully after much prayer we were able to locate her on a nearby farm and after a week she came back home. Please can we request that you pray for this young girl. She is a 17yr old mother, who herself was abandoned as a child. She is currently using ‘Tik’ a local highly addictive form of Methamphetamine. She currently feels completely inadequate to mother her child and has stated that she just wants to run away. We have gotten her into some counseling and are currently waiting to see if she will be accepted into a drug-rehabilitation programme in the near vicinity. She has also requested that her adopted mother foster her child until such time as she feels able to regain the role of mother.
She is such a special girl and holds a very special place in our hearts, please pray that God will show her that she is valued and has great purpose in Him.
Our News
We are very happy to announce that the first trimester is now officially over and thankfully so is the majority of the nausea.. :0) ‘Bean’ Muir the 2nd is growing strong and so is mom. Seth is slowly getting used to the idea of being a big brother, the other day he was found playing alone for ages at a Cell group picnic with a baby doll, dragging it around telling everyone it was his baby sister. When I cuddled him and told him, “man I love you”, he said “and I love my baby sister”. He is going to make an amazing big brother…if he doesn’t drag her around.
March also was a month of great blessing for us as a family. We were blessed with a week away to ‘Avalon Springs’ by a lovely English couple whose daughter volunteers at The VoH. It was absolutely wonderful and a real bit of luxury. Seth swam nearly all day in the warm pools and as it was during the World Cricket Cup, Daz got to enjoy quiet a few uninterrupted hours of cheering the Proteas on… we don’t need to go into what happened in the quarters ;0)
May God keep and bless you all always
Love the Muirs
