Moving!

We have been released!

We have been wonderfully blessed and will be able to send our furniture and possessions to Twee Riviere.

Much preperation and planning is needed to be ready by Thursday when the move will take place. Our concern is that rain and cold is forecasted for this day - but nothing will stop us from heading off to the promised land!

Our new rented home will be our place of refuge until our house is built - and the owners have been so kind and blessed to us - we rejoice in the way that the Lord touches people's hearts!

Our prayers for the last few months have been that the Lord will enable this move to take place - and now we are at this point - and our flesh responds in fear and anxiety! But we know the Lord has called us to this new chapter in our lives - and we need to trust in him for the fulfilment of the vision and the dream. We are leaving our support base, our friends and even our financial prospects - but either there is a God or we are living in a vacuum. And we KNOW there is a God, an almighty God who makes the impossible possible. We have seen this repeatedly in our lives - we have had miracles of provision when food and electricity and petrol have run out - and suddenly - someone knocks on our door and delivers 20 bags of groceries! Or we are filled with doubt that we will have the finances to move - and the month is coming to an end - and we are given a gift that meets all our needs. Or we are weak - and He makes us strong, we are sick and He heals us. We seek confirmation of his plans and someone phones us with an exact confirmation. We read a verse and pray for confirmation - and someone phones us (who we have met once) and tells us that the Lord has laid a scripture on her heart - and she quotes us exactly the same scripture. We run out of petrol and we receive a gift to fill our tank!

God is good - we just need to open our eyes to see all that He is doing for us each day!

Our timing and God's timing

I often wonder why God created time for us when He often ignores time!

I think that waiting on God must be one of most believer's biggest struggles. We are repeatedly told to "abide" and to "wait on the Lord's timing". We are told His time is not our time - so trying to understand God's timing is futile. Not very helpful when you are feeling frustrated and desperate to move on! Sometimes we burn inside to get to that next step which we feel the Lord has laid on our heart and which we want to follow. But when .... when will we move on?

This is a bit how we feel at the moment! We have finally been released from our lease (the landlord kept our deposit - but of course we love him!) But now we do not have the funds to move... So we are waiting on God - although little bits of work have suddenly started coming in - we are living a daily bread sort of life - and there is no greater way to ensure that one is constantly on your knees praying! I believe God brings us to this place so that we truly learn to trust and have faith that nothing is about us and everything is about Him. It is so hard to truly trust - when you are knee deep in caviar and unlimited credit limits!

"Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them." Mathew 6:26. I cling onto these words of Christ - and we are blessed repeatedly by how the Father constantly feeds and clothes us. But would we really understand these scriptures if we were not looking each day for evidence of God's grace and mercy to us? I would not change our situation for anything at the moment - it is a wonderful school room - and we are learning from our Father.

We are excited at our vision of a place of rest for all who may need it. We feel led that we should offer a place where people can stay and be renewed and healed without needing to pay for this time of healing - and just as we have often benefitted from the compassion of others - so we too feel the need to show compassion and love to all who need it. This will also give us the freedom to minister and share the gospel with our guests - and what we will ask in return, is that people help in the gardens which will be an indispensable part of the vision. We will create a large and fruitful vegetable and herb garden - both to feed ourselves and and to feed others.

It is our goal to find the healing and restorative qualities of herbs and plants - which God created in every living thing - and we will explore traditional and local remedies where possible. This could be a very exciting and fruitful research and we arelooking forward to this exciting journey of discovery.

But in the meantime - we wait.... soon we will be in the Langkloof ... but right now - God wants us to abide in Him - and we do this joyfully!

A time of waiting. Learning to "abide".

A month has gone past since we thought we would have started our new life in Twee Riviere in the Langkloof. It has been a month of waiting and learning to trust God in every aspect of our lives.

We are still struggling to be released from our lease in Fish Hoek - and we feel like the Jews must have felt when Pharaoh would not release them from Egypt! I keep wanting to cry - Pharaoh - let your people go!

We have been waiting for God's provision to make the move - the quotes we received to move us to the Langkloof were ridiculous! So one day we just went out and hired a 3.5m trailer, loaded it with all our boxes and slowly headed to the farm in our 22 year old Land Cruiser!

We are now back in Cape Town - waiting to move the rest of our furniture to the Langkloof. It is a time of prayer and trusting in the Lord to provide in every possible way. We are in his hands and his plans for us our our plans.

During this time we have been reading a lot - and the book L'Abri, by Edith Schaeffer has been a wonderful and anointed inspiration.The writings of Francis Schaeffer are extraordinary - and their work in Switzerland is a wonderful testimony of God at work.

We believe that God is directing us to create a place of rest and restoration for anyone who needs God's love and caring. We would like to build a place where anyone can find healing and recovery, through the outpouring of Christ's love and the power of the Word.

We believe that God is making his purposes known to us -and we are starting to understand why God wants us in the Langkloof. Our only desire being to do His will - and to ensure that His will is also ours.