Some more holiday pics

Last night and all of today we had an immense amount of rain. This gave me some nice photo opportunities .

;o)

We are here!!

My inlaws gave us a quick midweek break and so we are having a bit of a break at a place called Kiara Lodge , close to Clarens and Golden Gate.

Absolutely wonderful place , with beautiful mountains, a dam , swimming pool, etc.

We will be back at home on Friday afternoon.

;o)

What an awesome God we have !!

This is a copy of the post on my business blog.

I love taking photos of lightning.

I love to just sit and watch and marvel in the awesome power of the God who created something as awesome as lightning:

Jucky day

Today I am feeling jucky. I am feeling unapreciated, unimportant and taken for granted.

And because of this i am grumpy!

I need/want to be the most important person in my wife's life. Unfortunately i feel like i end up a very poor last after the church, it's politics and all the other struggling people in it.

Make no mistake, it is not that i want to add to my wife's troubles and pressures. I want to share and help carry them. I want to be her best friend with whom she can laugh and cry about everything.

The problem is that her work is such a noble thing. She lives to serve God. All that she does is for the betterment of God's kingdom. Now who am i to be jealous of that? How can i (how dare i) compete with God ?

It's a pity that this blog is not anonemous,because i know that my wife for one will read this. And that reading this will add to her pressure.

So do i publish this? I don't know. But looking at her and some of the other blogs where people are honest about themselves i think i owe it to myself to go ahead and publish this.

I need to also start to be honest on my blog.

So here goes.

PS: i dearly love my wife. And i respect her Godly work ethic. I love to hear her laugh and see her smile. I can not (i do not want to) imagine my life without her.

Pray for me. And my wife. And pray for my business.

;-)

I am back

I have been back from the hike for a week , but with a huge backlog of work I only now get a chance to show my face.

Since we last saw each other I have shot a wedding for Pieter and Anneke.

Then I went on the hike. Came back, met a couple of people for business, Shot something for Old mutual and O - magazine and tried to catch up with all the editing of photos that waited for me.

I am nearly back on track.

Anyway , back to the hike.

There is only one way to describe it: AWESOME !!!!!! Absolutely fantastic.

Here is one or two pics for you to look at.

Oh , and I have done my first nude photo shoot for a friend. There is probably lots of ethical questions around a Christian doing something like that.

I will simply say this: I have had the privilege to see a lady feel really sexy and proud of her body. I have had the honour of boosting her self confidence and making her feel good about herself. And with that I am happy. All was done very tastefully and professionally, and I have a clear conscience.

any way here are the pics:

Of this and that

Will you believe it, I am still around.

Thank you to the faithfull few who still popped around to see if i have posted any thing new.

I am having a difficult month. With the fact that we are going on a hike in the tsitsikamma mountains my month is about 10 days shorter. That gives me ten days less in which to earn my income.

Make no mistake, I can not wait to go on the hike, but it does make my life a little difficult.

And then , my little dog is sick. Had her to the VET this morning, but he wasn't sure what the problem was. It seems I will have to take her back there tomorrow. I really hope that he will be able to sort her out.

I am shooting a matric farewell on wednesday , a job for Nedbank on Friday, A wedding on Saturday , and then I leave for the hike on monday morning. Gonna be a wild week.

God bless

;o)

Hospitals

I have never been very fond of hospitals.

And right now I find myself sitting in one, waiting for my wife to return from an op that they need to do on her.

I brought my laptop along as I knew that I will have to sit here and wait for her to come back from the op and I knew that it will give me something to do.

I must be honest. I do not like it one bit. Having to sit here and wait. Waiting....
Having to trust that the doctors will not screw up. Waiting ....

Hoping that the doctors will be able to sort out what is wrong with her.

Have I said that I do not like doctors ? I think most of them are only in it for the money.

And so I sit here and I wait.

And while I wait I realize how much I love my wife. And I realise how lonely and pathetic my life would have been without her. And I pray that she will be safe. I can not begin to think of my life without her.

I thank God for being blessed with the most incredible girl in my life.



Lief jou meisiekind.

;o)

This weekend

Ok, I know that the order for these two posts are the wrong way around.

I have been to Dewetsdorp over the weekend to take some photos of th 2007 Osram Rally.

you can view some of the photos on my website here.

;o)

Elandi

My best friend and his wife went in to hospital today. And so at 14:35 little Elandi was born by C-section.

And so I want to thank God for the new little life that He has blessed us with.

And I pray for her parents that they will continue to be the wonderful people that they are. I pray that they will have the knowledge, grace, love and patience to raise this little girl in the image of themselves but ultimately the image of God.

I pray for her safety. I pray that she will be a blessing to her parents and all that meet her. I pray that our heavenly Father will bless her.

And I pray for all the little children who do not have such loving parents.

Elandi , little girl, ,may you grow to be strong. May you grow to be proud. May you grow to be a shining light in the image of your Heavenly Father. May God bless you and keep you. May He makes his face to shine upon you and give you peace.

Amen.

Just curious

Is anybody actually reading this blog ???

Feels like I am farting in the wind.

Which begs a question : If a fart rings out in the forrest and there is no one to hear it , Is it still fart ?

Does it still smell ?

;o)

At least one has spoken up

Protest March to Deliver Zimbabwe Human Rights Petition to President Mbeki

SA church shelters Zimbabweans

For the past few days I have heard a familiar name pop up in the local media. Bishop Paul Verryn has been making waves with his sheltering of Zimbabwean refugees.

Now I am personally not a great fan of Bishop Verryn, although I have not had the honor of meeting him personally and my opinion is based on hearsay.

But what gladdens my heart about this man is the fact that he is willing to speak up against the silence of the SA government when it comes to. Mugabe and Zimbabwe.

Now I do not want to discuss bishop Verryn. Or what he is doing.

What I do want to discuss is the silence of our Methodist Presiding Bishop and the other high profile Methodist leaders. As chair of the church leaders forum and as far as I know chair of the SACC (SA Council of Churches) Bishop Ivan Abrahams is in a very good position to speak up against the atrocities in Zimbabwe.

Why is our Methodist leadership so quiet? And if we query them about it we are told that the media is not interested in what the church says. I Think Paul Verryn proved that to be wrong.

Maybe the Presiding Bishops office are not screaming loud enough.
Maybe they are scared of rocking the boat.

Thank you Bishop Verryn for going over the Presiding Bishop's head and making your voice heard. May God bless you in the work that you do.

Sydwell

I have just met the most amazing young man. His name is Sydwell and he is in a wheel chair.
But wait , let me backtrack slightly and start the story from the beginning.

My mother is the deputy principal at a school called Martie du Plessis in Bloemfontein. Now Martie du Plessis is a school for children with cerebral palsy and other physical handicaps.

A while back my mother told me of this young man in her school. As I said , he is in a wheel chair and only has very limited use of his left hand and his right foot.

He types all his homework on a computer loaned to him by the school, using his right foot and a trackball mouse. Sydwell is in Matric this year and will finish his highschool with an above average mark. But sadly this is where the problems will start.

When Sydwell finishes his Matric this year he will no longer be able to stay in the hostel. He will lose the use of the PC at the school. As bright as he is, it will be financially and physically impossible for him to further his studies.

And this is a very worrying thing to Sydwell. He does not want to go and sit in a shack and be a burden on society. He wants to be able to share his life story. To encourage and motivate other people with disabilities.

And to this end we need to work. With the internet being what it is I believe that there is scope for Sydwell to share his story on the net. I will help him to set up a blog. I am sure that we will be able to find him a PC and a cellphone with internet capability.

Our biggest challenge will be to find some form of accomodation that is wheelchair friendly.
And then if we can find an organization that will support Sydwell and help to give him the opportunity to reach out to other people with disabilities.

Pray for Sydwell. Pray that him and us will find him something to do that will be able to support him and give him a sense of accomplishment.

Pray that God will open doors and use Sydwell in his service.

Some holiday pics

So here we go. Just three pics to show I am on holiday.


The view from the beach house this morning





The waves breaking over the rocks late yesterday afternoon.






Obviously that lifeguard is off duty.

We are on holiday!!

And so eventually we are on holiday.
My wife is still not feeling well after the spider bite , but at least by the grace (and help) of God we are her.

Someone gave us the use of his holiday house in Hibberdene on the South Coast and another friend of mine kindly gave us money for petrol and food.

and so we are here. Thank you Heavenly Father. And thanks to the people who helped us get here.

The weather is nice. The house is lovely.

My son was even in the water today ( in the middle of winter, can you believe it).

Life is Good. And God is great!!

I am still here

Yep, Monday night. 22:48. And I am still here . In Bloem. I just do not have , and didn't manage to earn any money to take my wife on holiday.

So we are still here. At least I did a small studio job over the weekend that should pay tomorrow. That will at least give me money to travel to Sasolburg to fetch my son from his grandparents. And then we will spend a day or to there and come back.

But as things stand now I will have to phone the gentleman who gave us the beach house and tell him that we will not be coming. As it stands we already phoned him yesterday to postpone our arrival till Wednesday.

I feel bad about it as he could have rented it out to someone else over this time.

I so believed that we will be able to go on holiday........

Ah well , I guess money is like sex. it ain't important until you are not getting any.



maybe I should rename this blog to: the always cynical opinions of .......

i should probably just stop typing now , as I am just hurting myself more and more. So cheers for now.

Tomorrow I will probably feel better again.

;-( :.

So today I am cynical

I have been busting my butt these last few days, even weeks in working to get a website , a blog, a chat forum, an online calendar and a newsletter subscription page setup for our church.

After advertising the web address in the church news bulletin for the last two weeks, my net meter tells me that the only people who visited any of these sites were me and my wife.

Now I know, It is true and I knew from the beginning that we are in a small church community. A lot of the people are elderly and not web savvy. But not one ?? out of 300 members ?

Why am I doing this ?
Because I do believe that there are people out there who needs a place to discuss and grow their theology. That there are people who need to be able to ask questions and discuss problems whilst still having a little bit of anonymity .

Just needed vent my frustration.

It is not as if this blog has a lot of readers either.

I am confused

So what do I make of the following :

For my wife and I our last real holiday was 8 years ago. That was also our honeymoon. Since then we have had the odd getaway weekend or so but never a nice long holiday.

Part of the problem was that we relocated every two years when her job had us move to a new congregation. Now because she was essentially employed by the same employer (the church) she had alway had annual leave due to her. For me on the other hand it was a different story. I had to quit my job and start a new one in a new town every time we moved.

Ok Ok , whoa now. Before you think it : I never resented, my wife , or the Church or God for the fact that we moved so frequently. I knew what we were getting into when she entered the ministry and that was, and is , fine by me.

Any way. On monday for the first time , we will be able to go on holiday . And God graciously supplied us a beach house to use for free. Knowing that my wife (and I) desperately need a holiday I prayed about it and God gave us the house through one of his faithful servants.

The problem is that I do not have money for food or petrol. nada, niks. I paid my last bill and paid over my tithe this morning and now there is nothing left in my account.

Apart from that we have a mountain of medical bills to pay. ( Our medical aid has reached it's limit for the year. It is not a very good fund to begin with!)

And so here is my confusion:

I really belive that god supplied us with this beach house and opportunity. But I have been seriously praying for just one more job , or something so I at least will have money to take my wife on holiday. Up to now I have had no answer, and I am slowly starting to despair.

Did I misunderstand God ? Was the beach house not from Him ? Must I phone the owner of the beach house and at least let him know in advance that we are not going anymore ?

I just don't know!! I know that God can supply my needs. In fact I have lots of story's to tell of where He has done that. I am trying so hard not to doubt, but man is it hard.

anyway .....

In the Image of God

For the past couple of days if not weeks I have constantly come across the term “image of God”. If not in the movies ,then in a sermon or a book that I am reading. So I decided to explore this term a little closer.

What does it mean ?

Let us look at the first time this term is used :

Gen 1:26 God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, And, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth."

Gen 9:6 Whoever sheds human blood, by humans let his blood be shed, Because God made humans in his image reflecting God's very nature.

Now according to the strongs dictionary the word image is translated from the Hebrew ‘tselem’. tseh'-lem

From an unused root meaning to shade; a phantom, that is, (figuratively) illusion, resemblance; hence a representative figure

The part that catches my eye is : representative figure .

The other part I want to look at is the fact that we were created to reflect God’s nature. Now , God’s very nature is that He is a God of love. This means that we were created to reflect God’s love on this earth. Human beings are the only beings capable of loving.

So, God created human beings to be his reps on earth. We were created to reflect God’s love on earth. Why were we given this amazing gift of love ? I believe it is because God created us with a primary function to love Him. All other things are of secondary importance.

Here lies a problem though. For love to be what it is and for love to have its value it needs to be free choice. I am not going to go into this , but if you think about it you will see that love without free will has no value.

Let us get back to our creation story . It is interesting to note that up to tbefoe humands were created God said: ”Let there be …..”. But when it came to creating humans God said :” Let us make…”

Now I wonder about this ‘us’. Who is this us that God talks about? God and the angels? Might be. But I think that God is talking to Himself as the Trinity.

Let us backtrack quickly. I believe that Jesus is God’s word. Why ?

Joh 1:1-4 GW In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) He was already with God in the beginning. (3) Everything came into existence through him. Not one thing that exists was made without him. (4) He was the source of life, and that life was the light for humanity.

And then in Genesis :

Gen 1:1-3 GW In the beginning God created heaven and earth. (2) The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. The Spirit of God was hovering over the water. (3) Then God said, "Let there be light!" So there was light.

So I believe that at the beginning of time at creation God the Father, Jesus the Word, and The Holy Spirit were all present. And everything was created by God through Jesus. And then comes human beings and now we have the Trinity who does the creation. And God as the Trinity creates human beings in His image with the capability to reflect His love.

And so I believe that God created every human being with the capability to love. And that love manifests itself when we love others and when we love God. With that capability to love however also came a choice. There had to. And so all human beings have the choice whether they are going to love others and God or not.

Sadly Adam and Eve made a choice that impacted on all generations since then. Mislead by Satan they chose against God and God , being the gracious loving God that He is , allowed them their choice. He had to. For His love to be real He had to allow us the freedom to reject Him. But make no mistake since that day He calls us to come back. Every single moment He longs for us to accept His love and come back to Him.

I see that this post is going to become a long one. As I think this thru I will post my thoughts here.

My new book

My wife has bought me a new book to read today.

I have been looking to buy this and read it for some time now and so I am real happy about my new gift.

I will report back on it once I have read it.

Computers and Websites

The past two weeks was spent setting up both the new Wesley Methodist church website as well as refining the blog.

The Blog is running ok now, but I still have a lot of work to do on the website.

I believe that the web presence that these two sites provide will and can be a ministry in their own right. By setting up these sites I believe that we can give people inside and outside our church community the opportunity to share and learn about God.

I am still around

I have been very busy these last few days.

My PC crashed on friday. Completely. It took me till Sunday afternoon with very little sleep in between to get her going again. Luckily I was able to recover most of my data.

I am also very busy with things for the church. Amongst others I have set up and am now maintaining this blog for the church as well. I am also busy trying to figure out how to set up a subscription mailing list for the church , as well as how to do bulk SMS's so that we can forward info and prayer requests to our members.

We have a gentleman at our church in the evenings and he is doing talks on communion with God.

Most of it centers around prayer. I find it really applicable in my life at the moment as prayer is the one thing that i struggle with and that I would like to develop more in my spirituality.

I posted a whole section on Trevor's session last night on the Wesley blog. Go take a look.

Nothing and Everything

I am busy reading a book called 'The Ragamuffin Gospel' and this together with some other happenings and readings made me realize something over the past few days. Now bear with me please and read through the whole post, because if you quit halfway you are going to miss my point. OK ?

Here goes...

I realized that to God I am absolutely nothing. Nothing I say , nothing I do, Nothing I ever did , means anything to Him. This God whom I serve is all powerful, all mighty, and just freaking awesome. He is greater than any thought I or the greatest theologian ever had of Him. He created the world , the galaxy , the known universe (we don't know it all , I promise you) just by saying the words. He measures the universe in the palm of His hand.

And if I were to stand before this amazingly awesome God , I would be nothing more than a mere speck of dust. Nothing I say or do makes a difference to Him. I can do nothing for Him in order to bribe Him or make Him like me. Like the lowliest of slaves before the mightiest of Kings I have no clout or stature before Him.

But....

I also realized that I am everything to Him. He loves me. He thinks me important enough to love me. HE thinks me important enough to take an interest in my life. In fact , He thought me important enough , and He loves me enough to allow His Son , Jesus Christ , to die for my sins.

He created me and he knows me better than I know myself. He knows me with all my flaws and mistakes. He knows my human fraylty and imperfection. He knows it all. And still He loves me. How liberating to know that I can stop wearing masks in front of God.

How much better the world would be if we all treated each other with that same loving grace as He treats us.

The reaping

On Tuesday my wife and I went to see 'The reaping'. Now this is not the type of movie that I would normally see but, because we realize that other Christians and non-Christians would see this movie and then probably start asking questions, we go see it in order to be able to at least comment from a first hand experience.

So what did I think of the movie ?

My first reaction was : What a completely senseless waste of my time !
Let me explain. Normally when I see a movie I try to figure out what the writer/director wants to tell me. The closest I could get an answer for this question was that he wanted to show me the cool special effects he can do. And even that wasn't all that fantastic. I mean , it might have been a bit of a feat to color a whole river red. The maggots and flies happened on a fairly small scale. Apart from the one raging bull (did he have mad cow disease) all the other animals died from the plague very quietly. Oh yes the first dead frog to hit the water at least made you jump of fright. Also only because the soundtrack had a gunshot in it.

Now where were we ? The head lice weren't done to badly. O yes, the boils seemed to affect only the mayor and his assistants. The only effects that are really worth mentioning is the Locust Swarm and the Fire from the sky.

So what did the director try to tell me ? Did he try to disprove the 10 plagues in Moses' time ? Did he try to show my God as a wrathful and violent God ?

Actually I am not at all sure what he tried to do.

Hopefully next week I will get to see 'Amazing Grace'. At least that looks promising.

Grace

I love my wife. I absolutely love her.

She is the most amazing person I know. And she is so amazingly full of grace. She treats me with such love and grace. Even if I do not sometimes deserve it.

I love her.

and.......

She loves me !!!!!!!! She does !! I Know. Unreal heh ?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heavenly Father,

I thank you for such a wonderful person as my wife in my life.
Bless her in what she does. Bless her life.

Father I thank you for our Marriage.
Bless it and make it stronger every day.

Make me a better Husband to my wife , every day.
Help me and guide me to be the kind of Husband you want me to be.

Amen.

Jesus meets a Gay man

I found and followed this link from Greg Andrews's blog,

I wanted to copy it here , but that will be plagiarism. Please go and take a look at this here.

Advice to young brides

Although the following was tagged by www.snopes.com as a hoax or urban legend I thought it very funny :

This is a reprint of an article in The Madison Institute Newsletter, Fall Issue, 1894:

Instruction and advice
for the young bride

On the Conduct and Procedure
Of the Intimate and Personal Relationships
Of the Marriage State
For the Greater Spiritual Sanctity
Of this Blessed Sacrament
And the Glory of God

by Ruth Smythers
Beloved wife of The Reverend L.D. Smythers,
Pastor of the Arcadian Methodist Church
of the Eastern Regional Conference
Published in the year of our Lord 1894
Spiritual Guidance Press, New York City

Instruction and advice for the young bride

o the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her life. On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex.

t this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth.Some young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with curiosity and pleasure! Beware such an attitude! A selfish and sensual husband can easily take advantage of such a bride. One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM, AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.

n the other hand, the bride's terror need not be extreme. While sex is at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be endured, and has been by women since the beginning of time, and is compensated for by the monogamous home and by the children produced through it. It is useless, in most cases, for the bride to prevail upon the groom to forego the sexual initiation. While the ideal husband would be one who would approach his bride only at her request and only for the purpose of begetting offspring, such nobility and unselfishness cannot be expected from the average man.

ost men, if not denied, would demand sex almost every day. The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly during the first months of marriage. As time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency.

eigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among the wife's best friends in this matter. Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering also prove very effective, if used in the late evening about an hour before the husband would normally commence his seduction.

lever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of denying and discouraging the amorous overtures of the husband. A good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a week by the end of the first year of marriage and to once a month by the end of the fifth year of marriage.

y their tenth anniversary many wives have managed to complete their child bearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual contacts with the husband. By this time she can depend upon his love for the children and social pressures to hold the husband in the home. Just as she should be ever alert to keep the quantity of sex as low as possible, the wise bride will pay equal attention to limiting the kind and degree of sexual contacts. Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices. These practices include among others performing the normal act in abnormal positions; mouthing the female body; and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn.

udity, talking about sex, reading stories about sex, viewing photographs and drawings depicting or suggesting sex are the obnoxious habits the male is likely to acquire if permitted.

wise bride will make it the goal never to allow her husband to see her unclothed body, and never allow him to display his unclothed body to her. Sex, when it cannot be prevented, should be practiced only in total darkness. Many women have found it useful to have thick cotton nightgowns for themselves and pajamas for their husbands. These should be donned in separate rooms. They need not be removed during the sex act. Thus, a minimum of flesh is exposed.

nce the bride has donned her gown and turned off all the lights, she should lie quietly upon the bed and await her groom. When he comes groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her direction, lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should let him grope in the dark. There is always the hope that he will stumble and incur some slight injury which she can use as an excuse to deny him sexual access.

hen he finds her, the wife should lie as still as possible. Bodily motion on her part could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband.

f he attempts to kiss her on the lips she should turn her head slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek instead. If he attempts to kiss her hand, she should make a fist. If he lifts her gown and attempts to kiss her anyplace else she should quickly pull the gown back in place, spring from the bed, and announce that nature calls her to the toilet. This will generally dampen his desire to kiss in the forbidden territory.

f the husband attempts to seduce her with lascivious talk, the wise wife will suddenly remember some trivial non-sexual question to ask him. Once he answers she should keep the conversation going, no matter how frivolous it may seem at the time.

ventually, the husband will learn that if he insists on having sexual contact, he must get on with it without amorous embellishment. The wise wife will allow him to pull the gown up no farther than the waist, and only permit him to open the front of his pajamas to thus make connection.

he should be absolutely silent or babble about her housework while he is huffing and puffing away. Above all, she should lie perfectly still and never under any circumstances grunt or groan while the act is in progress. As soon as the husband has completed the act, the wise wife will start nagging him about various minor tasks she wishes him to perform on the morrow. Many men obtain a major portion of their sexual satisfaction from the peaceful exhaustion immediately after the act is over. Thus the wife must insure that there is no peace in this period for him to enjoy. Otherwise, he might be encouraged to soon try for more.

ne heartening factor for which the wife can be grateful is the fact that the husband's home, school, church, and social environment have been working together all through his life to instill in him a deep sense of guilt in regards to his sexual feelings, so that he comes to the marriage couch apologetically and filled with shame, already half cowed and subdued. The wise wife seizes upon this advantage and relentlessly pursues her goal first to limit, later to annihilate completely her husband's desire for sexual expression.

Copyright 1894 The Madison Institute.

I so screwed up

I so screwed up yesterday. I wrote a 5 page word document about sex and the way I think men see and value and experience it. I thought I was very wise and insightful. I thought that what I wrote could be used a lecture at a bible study.

I planned to publish it here. Then I gave it to my wife to read last night. And I really really hurt her.

I feel like a complete ass. This is not what I wanted. But maybe if I thought it through properly I would have realized this.

I really love my wife. And you know what. She loves me. Even though I am a complete Ass.

Oh , and I will not publish my 5 page screwup anymore. You will have to be satisfied with this lame post.

I did find this blog on the net however. BUT do yourself a favor , start at the beginning here.
scroll down right to the bottom at the first post and start reading upward from there. It is a very long read, but I think certainly worth it.

You will find me there , reading some more.

Mishka 2

Two and a bit years ago I posted a blog about my new cat called Mishka.

Mishka grew up in university hostel environment and despite her owner's best efforts became a very paranoid little kitty , who would skrik and run at the slightest noise. Eventually her owner , Michelle, had no other option but to let her come and reside with us.

And so Mishka started her life with the Prinsloos. At first she was very scared and edgy , but as time progressed and the years moved on she relaxed and became more trusting and friendly.

Today she is a well adapted , friendly and very talkative cat. Whenever you talk to her or mention her name she will respond and miaauw back.

She loves milk , and would walk around the house , following your every move until you give in and pour some in her bowl. She has made great friends with our little dog, Zilla, and they would roll and play till both are tired.

Michelle, if you ever read this. Mishka is a very happy kitty and we love her a lot.

Church games.

Sometimes I stand amazed at the fact that there are still people who go to church.

I think that if they only knew of all the politics , backstabbing, bitching and general un Christ likeness that goes on in the leadership of a church , they would run like mad.

I look at my wife, who after many years of study and training, is a small step away from being ordained as a full minister in our denomination. I see how eager she is to serve our Lord. How passionate to help and counsel broken people. I see and hear how her congregation grows. How people who swore never to set feet in a church again, come back. This is what she is called to do.

And then I see the society stewards. The people who are supposed to support her. And help her. And lead the church. And look after the church's interests. And serve Christ through their stewardship of his church. I see them biting, and bitching, and fighting for power. I see them undermine her. I see them play their games. And it hurts.

I look at the circuit superintendent. And the district Bishop. People and leaders who are supposed to lead her, and the church. To show the way. People who are supposed to show us Christ's vision for our church. And I see how they do their utmost to discredit her. I hear how they slander her name behind her back.

I look at my wife , and I see her take the strain. I hear how she starts to wonder about joining a different denomination. I hear how she questions her understanding of God's will. (not her calling though).

And I think: God, is this your people ? Is this how it is supposed to be ? Lord ?

What is my congregation doing to serve you, Lord ? Do they even know you exist ? Are they serving you?..... or themselves ?

Jesus, how can you stand this? Does it not kill you when you look at this church ?

I look at my church, and I look at the damage it is doing to my wife, and I want to weep.

Winter

As I sit behind my Pc , I listen to my nephews shouting at the TV while they watch the Sharks , Bulls rugby match. My whole house is full of people. Not that I mind. In fact it is nice to have some voices and people around.

The Reason for them all being around is not quite so nice. They are here in Bloem for my (and their) grandmother's funeral.
In the winter of her life, at the age of 93, and after a seeing her change from a lively and energetic lady , to someone who was bed ridden and not always with it anymore, she passed away on Tuesday morning.

If I have to honest , I did not visit her as often as I should have while she was sick. If I had to make an excuse, it would be that I did not cope well with seeing her in such a sad state.

I thank God, for this remarkable lady, who gave her all to help Grandpa and to raise her three children. I feel honored to have known her, and special to know that she was family.

And so while the clouds roll in, the winds howl outside and the autumn leaves are blown around in the streets, I think about people in my life.

I think about my mother, and I am glad that her trials of looking after grandma are now over. And I hope that she will now be able to pick up her life and live it fully again.

I think about my Dad , and I realize how he , in his quiet way , supported and carried my mother in the last four years of Grandma and Grandpa' sickness and in their passing on.

I think about my wife, and I miss her. She is on a camp and will only be back tomorrow.

And I think about life, and I realize how blessed I am.

And I think.... : "Thank you Lord."

My third Blog

This is my third Blog. The other two are both related to my business and I decided that I need a blog where I can sometimes moan and bitch , or sometimes just write what is in my head , without having to worry about how it affects my business image.

So , here you have my latest blog.

I guess a bit about myself is in order. I am married to Alet, a methodist minister in the Methodist church of S.A. In South African culture the (normally) female partner of a minister is called "Mev. Dominee" or in English Mrs. Reverend. Seeing as my wife is the reverend I guess that makes me Mev. Dominee.


And so the name for my new blog was born.

And so , hang on , check back once in a while , and let's see where this one takes us.