In the greater scheme of things

I have been wondering :

In the greater scheme of things of God's majesty and might , what does my little insignificant life with my insignificant problems matter to God.

How can I, in this time of Easter, pray for my little problems or for things that influence my happiness if their are such greater and worthier things to pray for. What is my happiness or my life worth compared to the salvation of the world. Why should God care about my puny (maybe selfish) problems?

Clearing the Temple

I realize that I actually need to post one extra post about what happened to us in the last two months and how God led us to be where we are now.It is a rather long and remarkable story. Let me just however say at the moment that my wife got the Job as Youth Pastor( Does that make me Mev jeug pastoor now?) and that we are settled in in Uitenhage,.

Last night( as every Sunday night) we had a youth evening service. At this service we have about 100 young people between 13 and 25 who come to worship. Well that is the problem . About 50 of them are there to worship. The other 50 sit around, listen (or try to because the music is loud) to their Ipods , or talk (scream) to each other while the worship team is trying to lead the rest in worship.

And I for one find it extremely annoying and distracting. Last night , as with the previous Sunday, I had to really bite my tongue and stop myself from not chasing and dragging those kids out of the church.

This morning in my quiet time I read amongst other things , how Jesus cleared them temple and said :"It is written in the Scriptures that God said, 'My Temple will be called a house of prayer.' But you are making it a hideout for thieves!" (Matt 21:13 GNB)

And this is essentially what these kids are doing. They are robbing other people , and themselves, of an opportunity to draw near to God. They are acting like they are more important than the other people who want to worship. They are acting like they are more important than God.

And so , maybe I should chase them out next Sunday. Problem is , it is not my job to do so . And making a scene would probably not help either.

But , this needs to stop. They are spoiling what could be a very meaningful experience for a lot of people by their arrogant and selfish behavior.

WOW !!

Last night we had some spectacular thunderstorms in the area. Here are a couple of pics.

Goetertjie

Since we moved into our new house in Uitenhage about a month ago we have been sharing our home with these little guys. We seem to have at least one of them in every room. I have gotten so used to them that I invariably look up at the ceiling when I enter a room to see where they are.

My wife and I have started to call them "goetertjies" which translated to English would probably be translated as " thingy" .

This afternoon my wife rescued one in her office from the dog who wanted to play with it , and after some trouble i got this one to pose for a couple of photos.

so here you go :

Weekend away

I spent a part of this weekend with my brother who is a ranger at Shamwari Game Reserve near Alicedale in the Eastern Cape.

Here are some of the pics I took this morning.

update

I have not blogged in a while. sorry.... Well actually I have , but in my other blog.

Anyway after driving all the way to Cape Town and failing to get to talk to anybody (except Pete who helped in a different way) who could help, we left one car in Cape town and drove all the way to Uitenhage for my wife to have an interview. The interview went ok, but since the panel could not give us an answer because they still have one more inteview to do, we were left hanging with no real place to go.

Cape Town is flippen far to drive to , only to come back in a weeks time. Apart from that we had nowhere to go really and so we rented a flat until the end of the month.

And so this morning my son went to school for his first day in grade 1, even though we are not sure if we are going to stay. The thing is that we all just needed some stability and a place to come home to at night.

And so now we wait on God. We wait for Him to show us where to go. We wait for him to open the door. We wait and pray and wonder at will happen to us next week.

And so continue to pray for us please.

Pray that God's will be done and that my wife will find a job in the ministry. Pray that I will find work to do soon. Pray for our finances - The end of the month is looming and I have a heck of a lot of bills to pay with no money in my account (thus the need for work).

And thank God for keeping us safe thus far. Thank Him for supplying in our needs.

;o)

Dis nag

When I look at all that needs to happen in what I am guessing to be the next week I feel totally overwhelmed.

Here is what I see when I look at what needs to happen.

My wife is basically unemployed. This means that she will not receive any salary at the end of January. I do not have any money available with very little (about R1000) coming to me by end of January. We are both committed to paying our usual monthly bills.

We need to find a house/townhouse to rent before the 16th. We need to pay a deposit for the house/townhouse as well as the first month's rent. At the moment , looking at prices on the net , it seems that we will need to pay about R4500/pm for housing. This means that on top of it all we need to earn R4500 per month more than we did up to now.

All of this comes down to one thing. We on our own will not be able to make it. I can not see a way out. And so , if God does not pull a very, very big rabbit out of a very small hat , we are screwed !!!

;o|

of blogs and names

Because my wife has lost her title as minister I now have a problem. because that means that I am officially no longer mev. dominee.

The question now is, do I change the name of this blog to something else, or do i keep the name in the faith that my wife will one day be able to resume her calling as minister ?

My little faith

O well, as you may have guessed from the fairly incoherent post this afternoon , my wife's appeal against her discontinuation was unsuccessful. One point of light is that she would be allowed to re candidate immediately and that after the two year candidature period , in which she will be able to finish her studies, she will hopefully be allowed to re-enter the ministry where she was now forced to leave off.

I have no doubt in my mind that my wife needs to be in ministry. The problem now is to find her a job where she can be in ministry and be able to finish her studies.

A photographer friend of mine in Capetown has asked me to come and work for/with him as an assistant photographer in his business. He's business has grown to the point where he can not cope with the work load and I am sure that I will be able to help him grow the business further.

But here come the problems.

1. we need to find a job for my wife in cape town area where she can be in ministry.
2. We need to find a place to stay. Up to this point we have stayed in a manse supplied by the church. This now falls away, unless by a miracle from God the new job includes housing.
3. We need to find a school for my son who needs to start school on the 16th if we move to the cape, or the 9th if we stay here.
4. We need to pack our belongings and move within the next week.
5. We need to arrange the move.
6. We need money.. my wife will not receive any income at the end of this month. I will not earn much either with packing and moving etc. We need to pay school fees for my son. We need to pay a months lease as well as a deposit on a place to stay. Wen eed fuel to get ourselves and our cars to capetown. We need to pay the normal bills and buy food and other essentials.

In short .. we need a long list of miracles to happen in a fairly short space of time. And all I can do is look to God and pray. because the way I see it all of this is hopeless. But I want to believe that with God all things are possible. And I want to believe that He can still bring some good out of all the pain and chaos.

So pray for us. we sure need all the prayer and support we can get.

God help me to focus on you. Help me to know that with you all things are possible. You know that if I look at all that needs to happen and if I look at all the uncertainties than I feel totally overwhelmed. Please Father, look after us and keep us in your will. Keep us safe an guide us out of this. Please don't kill my last small bit of faith. I am hanging on , but only just.

...?

:o|

and now....?

I believed. i really did. I was convinced in my heart that God would hear our prayers and that the presiding bishop would grant my wife's appeal.

I believed that God would show us a way out of this.

and now ?