More Shilling Pictures from South Africa!

Stan, Christina and Angela at a Girl Scout Daddy/Daughter Dance with a cowboy theme. Stan won the best father's hat contest. His hat had blinking lights on it.

Angela having a Tea party outside next to our pond. Angela calls it the Secret Garden.

Angela made fairy cakes for her tea party.

Christina and Angela having a picnic with the next door neighbors in the park across the street from our house.

Christina and her South African Ice Skating coach, Miss Debbie.

Angela at an ice cream social at her new school with her friends.

Angela enjoying her ice cream. She wore the perfect outfit.

"God the Weaver"

The Southern Masked Weaver is a facinating bird to me. I can see these birds making their nests outside our kitchen window here in Johannesburg, South Africa.

After doing some research, I learned that, the Southern Masked Weaver is resident throughout southern Africa and across a wide band just below the Sahara. It’s found in a wide range of habitats, including shrubland, savanna, grassland, open woodland, inland wetlands and semi-desert areas. It also occurs in suburban gardens and parks.

If you’ve ever heard a weaver ’sing’ you’ll know that the verb ’sing’ hardly describes the fizzes, squawks, and harsh swizzling notes these things make for hours on end.

Weavers typically nest in colonies, mainly from September to January, and males have several female partners. Remarkably they build a succession of nests, typically 25 each season, woven from reed strips, palm or grass - a massively time-consuming effort, but females are very picky about which nest they’ll lay in and the male needs to get it right!

Thoughts from Paulette

As I watched these birds outside our kitchen window, I thought about God and how he is the Weaver. As I continued to ponder on these thoughts, I found this recently on the internet written by Heike Werder called, "God the Weaver"

Psalm 139 speaks of God as the Weaver of life. We are God’s creation, God’s handiwork. And as the Weaver, God knows us, truly knows us – our moves, motives, thoughts, and processes. God is not repulsed by the knowing but seeks us out and finds us so that we will not be lost. God’s providential care surrounds us – guiding, protecting, instructing, encouraging. God’s creative power forms and re-forms us, from womb to tomb. Its force enables us to become what God desires us to be: whole, loving, gracious, and just.

By God’s power we are able to affirm ourselves as more than the sum total of our limits and failures. Instead we see the possibility and the hope that is present in each of us. We can claim the awesomeness and wonder of who we are – not out of conceit or grossly inflated self- egos, but in praise of God’s handiwork, which we surely are. As we submit to God’s perusal, we come to see ourselves more clearly and in doing so, to see ourselves and others as fearfully and wonderfully made. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for…" us to comprehend.

God is the Weaver of our lives. Yet as far as God is concerned, we are God’s handiwork in progress. We human beings are not yet finished. We are really "human becoming". Every day God tries to make us into the kind of people God would have us to be. Each day brings a new possibility of being able to add something to our already existing tapestry that will bring us closer to being completed persons.

At times we wonder where this tapestry of life takes us. There may be times when things are not happening. Especially when something in our lives happens that is distressing to us, we wonder, "How can this be part of our tapestry?" There are times when we say, "I don’t like my tapestry." or "I don’t like that piece that is in there," and we ask "why?" We might not like the color, the texture, or the shape. We might not like the disappointments, the pain, the losses that come with life. What then? It is at that very point that we need to remember Psalm 139 to realize that God is the weaver of our tapestry, working in and through every experience of our lives.

We don’t know what our final product will be; in fact, most of us are not even sure what tomorrow holds for us, but God knows. God is not obligated to share that information with us. It seems that it is our responsibility in this weaving together of our life’s tapestry that we are open to God’s plan and God’s will for us.

Jesus was acutely aware of God’s plan and will for him. As he entered Jerusalem on a donkey, he knew it would be his last journey to the holy city. On that day, the day of Palms, he was welcomed by the people like a king. A few days later he died in that city like a common criminal. Jesus knew what God’s plan was for him. Jesus’ tapestry was woven already from the very beginning. Different fabrics - of compassion and passion, wisdom and encouragement, empowerment and transformation, laughter and weeping, healing and wholeness, death and resurrection – were woven into his tapestry by God. There were moments Jesus could have said, "I am not the one, the Messiah. You are all mistaken!" and gone back to his father’s carpentry business. He could have turned away from the challenges and the pain that lay before him. But he did not. He became the person God meant him to be. In a way, his tapestry got almost finished. As we know it received its finished touch three days after his death with his resurrection.

What does this all mean for us, today? God is not finished with all of us. The weaving of our lives and faith goes on. New experiences will come our way that are greater and more challenging than most have so far experienced. If we want our faith to go with us and help us deal with those challenges, we have got to keep at it. Living in and keeping our faith is a lifelong mission that will need our attention always.

God is in control. We don’t like to be not in control – of our life , our destiny, our future. We don’t like the word. We might feel better thinking that we have the key to our destinies in our pockets. Yet life rarely turns out the way we plan it. And when things really go wrong we are devastated, and we wonder if God is really there, watching over us and protecting us.

God has a plan for our lives – living our lives in wholeness and sacredness. In order to figure out what that looks like, we have to be open to God. To be open to God means staying in touch with God through prayer, a community of faith, and activities that connects our hearts and minds to God. And, we have to trust that God will do what God promised to do – to care for and to love us unconditionally. That kind of trust is called faith. Our lives are an example of the living God in Christ.

Through all his teachings Jesus taught us the most important lesson: if we want to follow him, we cannot remain neutral. We cannot sit on the fence and do or say nothing when we see a person being discriminated against or disvalued, or when creation is abused, when our Christian faith is questioned or ridiculed. We cannot, carrying the name of Christ in our heart, remain neutral.
God is the Weaver, and we are God’s handiwork. We are God’s work in progress. And so is everybody else around us. Let us be careful not to refuse the many opportunities our God offers us so to grow and change.

A poem by Alfred Wooler, called “Life’s Weaving”:

My life is but a weaving

Between my God and me;

I may choose the colors,

He knows what they should be;


For He can view the pattern

Upon the upper side,

While I can see it only

On this the underside.


Sometimes He weaveth sorrow,

Which seemeth strange to me;

But I will trust His judgment,

And work on faithfully.

‘Tis He who fills the shuttle,

He knows just what is best,

So I shall weave in earnest

And leave with Him the rest.

At last, when life is ended,

With Him I shall abide,

Then I may view the pattern

Upon the upper side.

Then I shall know the reason

Why pain, with joy entwined,

Was woven in the fabric

Of life, that God designed.

Updates from The South African Shillings

STAN

Stan has been working hard on the project to build one of the biggest coal powered plant in the world, working for Black & Veatch and Eskom (South Africa's local utility). In his free time he has fixed the pond that came with our house as well as added fish. He is currently looking at purchasing/building another pond with a water fall to go in the area at the end of the pool against a wall. We would be able to see and hear it from our main living area.

He loves to plan our vacations, as well as help the kids with their school projects, and play in the pool with the family. He is enjoying using our new outdoor built-in barbecue as well as occasionally entertaining in our backyard. Right now, Stan is planning a vacation to a game reserve for the end of this month, so we can all be together for his 54th birthday. In June, we plan to visit with my Dad and Judy at their villa in Italy (Prov. of Cantanzaro). In December, my Mom and Auntie Jean will be visiting and Stan is making all of those arrangements. We also plan on seeing Victoria Falls, as well as Cape Town and the Durban area (beaches). We would also like to visit Mozambique. We would like to travel as much as we can now that we have the opportunity.

PAULETTE

I am getting to know my way around and will even set out on my own without turning on the Garmin. I have become quite an aggressive driver and am staying far away from those crazy taxi drivers that seem to have their own rules of the road. I continue to work on a queen sized quilt and am thankful that I get to quilt again after 11 years.

I shop at the grocery stores quite often since the food here does not contain any preservatives and spoils quickly. There does not seem to be any processed foods here which is a blessing.

Services are a lot less expensive here. Ice Skating is about 1/3 of the price as in the U.S. as well as horseback riding, piano lessons, quilting classes, etc. Domestic help costs about $10.00 a day. I did not realize what life could be like without having to do the laundry. Our domestic worker washes and irons everything, even our PJs, socks, etc. Everything is folded neatly on our shelves (no dressers). I am so thankful for this and realize that it is only for a short time until we return to the U.S. Also, our domestic worker used to work at our home for another family and had not worked since last December. Her and her husband live in a one room shack and they cannot even afford for their two kids to live with them. Their kids live with their grandmother in Malawi. We try to help Maggie as much as we can. At first I did not want someone in our home 3 days a week, but was told by many, that employing her would be a blessing to her and her family and without her job at our home, she would have no income.

I finally have the time to start taking better care of myself and have started seeing a Physiotherapist up the street from where I live. She is really helping my lower back pain and will be giving many exercises to strengthen my core. I also walk 3 mornings a week and plan to increase that to every day. There is a walking group in my community that walks every MWF at 8am.

I also attend ladies bible studies at Rosebank Union Church.

CHRISTINA

Christina loves playing soccer after school every Wednesday. She evened scored her first goal since she has been here. She loves horseback riding again and takes a weekly drawing class after school on Tuesdays. She has made many friends and has been enjoying her new cell phone a little too much. It was given to her for security reasons to contact her parents when we are needed. She has been practicing her texting a little too much. They call it SMSing here. Most every adult sends SMS's and I have had to learn how to text in order to keep up with all of the SMS's I receive from the school, doctor's offices, stores, etc. Christina has been teaching me.

Christina takes piano lessons at school and we have recently purchased an upright Casio keyboard with weighted keys that sounds wonderful. Christina has also started ice skating and now has a coach that has won a gold in South Africa and Canada (Miss Debbie). She is excited to start training again. Figure Skating time on the ice is from 6am-9am on Sat. and Sundays. For now, I take her on Sat. mornings and we can get there in 20 minutes without the traffic. We are hoping that she will be in a competition soon in Cape Town. I am back to being an "ice skating mom". Christina also joined the local ice skating club.

Christina also finished a book at school and had to make a board game based on the characters and plot of the book. She had to bring it to school and present it to the class and play the game that she made with another class mate to test it out. It was a fun project for her. She is now starting a writing workshop at school. Writing is her most favorite subject.

ANGELA

Angela is also taking piano lessons at school, and on Wednesdays after school she takes an art class. She loves school and is currently working on a unit called, Simple Machines. She had to make her own simple machine, so she made a fishing type pole with a piece of bamboo and attached a pulley, piece of cork and a screw as well a piece of clothes line. She calls it her Pet Shop fishing pole. Pet Shops have a magnet on them, so she can use it to pick up her Pet Shop toys. She is now working on a poster to present her machine at a "Simple Machine Science Fair" at her school.

Angela continues to love animals and pretends she is a different animal depending on the day of the week. You never know what animal you will see her become. Last night she slept with her jaguar hat and tail on. She came down for breakfast in her PJs and the tail and hat. I had to do a double take. Angela loves to study birds and had a book to help her identify the birds.

More vacation pictures!

Here are more pictures of our vacation. Paulette gets ready to go on the sunset horseback ride. with Christina.
Stan sees them off!

This is one of the chickens at the animal petting area, keeping her eggs warm.

Christina and Angela hanging out with goats and Angela catches another bunny.

Christina ready to ride!

Christina is a natural on a horse!

Christina waits for her horse to be saddled.

Drakensberg Mountain vacation pictures

Christina hikes to waterfalls with her Dad.

Angela and Christina learn the game of Cricket.

From Cricket to the hotel animal petting area.

Many hours sitting on a bench at the hotel animal petting area watching Angela hang out with the animals and chase bunnies. This bunny came right over to me and sniffed my foot. Hmmmm good!!!!


Angela rides a horse for the first time.

No fear! I asked her what her favorite part of the ride was, and she said, "Feeling Tall"!

Angela is hooked on horses now. Maybe more riding lessons are in her future.

Angela finally catches and holds a bunny!

Angela makes friends with a goat.

Christina and Angela on the patio of the Champagne Castle hotel.

Tea time at precisely 10:30am and 3:30pm every day!

This is the baboon that greeted us when we first checked in. He was hanging out near our room.

Christina and Angela having fun at a rest stop along the way. Trampolines are embedded and flush with the ground at most rest stops. Much safer then being elevated on a trampoline.

Some vacation comments:
It was a wonderful vacation. Christina went white water rafting with her Dad while Angela and I relaxed at the hotel. We had many trips to the animal petting area. Christina also went on many hikes with her Dad as well as a 2 hour sunset horse back ride. She got to see many animals, ie zebras, springboks, gazelles. wildebeests, etc. while riding the horse. She said that she could almost touch the animals. Christina and I also had massages at the hotel spa. Now that was relaxing :) :)

Watch out for those baboons!

We will soon be leaving on a vacation to the Drakensberg mountains which is located close to the country of Lesotho which is a country in the middle of South Africa. The Drakensberg mountains are still on the South African side. We are told to watch out for the baboons that seem to roam freely there and can get into plenty of mischief, if a hotel room sliding class door or window is left open, they have been known to come right into the room searching for food. I recently read an article in a magazine that said that a baboon got into her hotel room, found her face cream and smeared it all over his/her furry face. Hopefully we will not have any baboon encounters.

We hope to be staying at a nice hotel (baboon free) and will do some hiking, resting and taking in some spectacular views. The kids will be off from school and Stan will get some much needed rest from working all of the long hours that he has been working. It takes about 4 1/2 hours to drive there, but Stan and I will share the driving. He told me the other day, that I have gone the opposite direction in my driving from being too timid, to being overly aggressive. O.K., now I need to look for the middle ground with my driving, maybe after this trip, I will find it.