Do I always just complain ?

It feels as if I only want to blog when things are going bad and when I am down. Looking back through the posts I realize that this is not quite the case , but that I do have a tendency to complain on the blog more than I would in real life.

But first .... about the bird.

The picture above is of a brownhooded kingfisher. (or so says my bird book). I have seen this guy sitting on the same branch every evening at sunset a few times before. So last night my son rushes into the house to tell us that we should come and take a look at the 'most beautiful bird he has ever seen'. I went to fetch my camera and came back to find mr. and mrs. kingfisher sitting int the tree. They allowed me quite close and I got a few nice pics.

Die burger is running a wildlife photography competition that I hope to enter. We will have to wait and see how that goes.

I wanted to complain again on the blog now , but I just realized that it would be a waste of time. It is not as if anyone reading this would be able to do anything about my complaints. So I will not.

I will ask this though of any who read this. Please pray for me. And my family. Pray that I will be blessed in the new cameraschool venture that I am undertaking. Pray that it will allow me the financial income I so desperately need while still being able to be my wife's helper in her ministry. I believe that I have a role to play in my wife's ministry , even if it is only to try and keep the house clean and look after our son.

And pray for me that I will get to know God better. That I will deepen in spiritual life and understanding and that I will find my place in His kingdom where I can serve Him.

In general , please pray for me and my wife and my son.

And speaking of prayer :pray for my prayer life. Maybe this is why I am asking all of you to pray for me. Because I really battle to pray to God at the moment. I am trying..... but the ceiling is hard.

MAy God bless all of you who read this.

Cameraschool

I have updated my Cameraschool webpage and I hope to get the whole cameraschool going as soon as possible.

In fact I already have 2 weekly students with 2 more on the way shortly. I am just waiting for the Schools to open and then I will try to get cameraschool classes in some of the schools in Uitanhege as well

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 ?