...and the rain came down in torrents



Hello Friends

 

 

I sometimes think if people wanted a "Reality Show" that blew minds... TLC would be the place to do it!

 

Here is some of what went on here in the last week.

 

September sees us stepping out in faith as we begin taking babies again. We have not brought babies home for 2 months as we created a gap between the cases managed by Impilo and those managed by Wandisa.

These little sisters were removed from a bad situation by the police and after a good bath and some warm food they both fell into a lovely, peaceful sleep on Mommy Thea's bed. We are blessed to be a safe haven for these little mites while their lives get sorted out.

"My Delicious" Mighty turned 9 on Saturday (note the 8 plus 1 cake :-) ) he insisted on! This is a boy that just turns me giddy with joy. He has some such a long way and has travelled such a journey, I only have to look at him and I am filled to overflowing with Awe for a God who can work miracles.

 

Mighty weighed 5kg's when he was 18months old, he came to TLC so we could "keep him comfortable" until the end but God had other plans. He and Faith (pictured below) are close friends as they travelled such a similar path - here she is encouraging him in his Math exercises :-)

 

 

Mighty's beloved "Granny" Irene and her family invited the 2 of us for a Birthday Breakfas! We had a beautiful time and Mighty was thrilled to recieve a brand new bicycle, complete with helmet and pump!

We celebrated with some cake at home and then we all went into the lounge to watch a DVD. We got about half way through when the rain started coming down ...
and boy did it come down!

Our "New" old house is just a glorified sievve it seems! The roof leaks so badly in several places and we had to evacuate the sleeping girls from their room as every bed had a neat little waterfall soaking the occupant!

If you look carefully you can see the falling water!

The girls room is on 2 levels so all the "surplus" water ran down into the bathroom then into the adjoining boys room

We had to put all the girls bedding and everything we could to dry out in the sun, but we lost a load of stuff I was very sad about, particularly some books I had been waiting for shelving to unpack onto!

Jerome sweeping the water from the boys room out to the back door

Not only rain fell but hail too! This photo was taken at 11am the following day and had not yet melted!

I was going to write this blog yesterday but I had to do the Adopt-A-Cot updates and the internet was so slow I ran out of time ... and so this is what happened yesterday ...

Joshua (my volunteer) was away the whole day as he is attending a First Aid course which left him exhausted by the end of the day. The kids were happy enough as they love the now empty and clean "middle room" to run through as it echoes and so they busied themselves while supper was cooked.

After supper, baths and devotions we put the kids to bed and I unpacked washing and cleaned up a bit. Matthew made the new batch of laundry soap and Joshua went to use the internet at TLC to call his dad. Just before I went to bed I thought I'd check my hair for lice (yes .. I know ... EEEuuuuwwww) but it has to be done when you have so many bodies around and so I was checking ... and ofcourse just because the day hadn't quite been long enough I DID find some and so I had to do the first round of treatment before bed.

So I was pretty pooped by the time I went to bed... and then at 2:45AM!!!! The cows start bellowing and bellowing!

At first I thought maybe the one pregnant cow was delivering but their were too many bellows for that so then I thought perhaps prowlers had got in and seperated the herd somehow ... and that made me a little scared so I figured I'd leave them to fend for themselves until morning.

But then I heard a loud "SWISH SWISH" sound from outside my window and when I sneaked a peak the cows were pulling at the big leaves of the tree outside my bedroom so I knew I'd have to get up ... blah ...
anyhow out I go with my hair like a punk rocker because of the lice treatment ... in my "flower power" designed pajamas ... bright blue gumboots and holding onto my torch in one hand and a cattle whip in the other (this is the part I reckon would've made the Reality TV ratings go through the roof!)
It's easy to laugh now but at 2:45AM I was not really feeling it!

So at this point I was still under the impression it was going to be a fairly simply process of herding them back in through the gate they must've somehow unlatched ...
Only to find that the gate was not unlatched it was completely flattened! The heavy rains had softened the soil enough to simply allow the beasts to walk right over the blooming thing!

So there I am in my "costume" lifting a very heavy, filthy and rusted metal gate into a standing postion  and trying to reattach the thing with bits and pieces of scrap metal wire and chains from all over the farm! Which once reattached could not be used to herd the cows back through!!!

I don't know how many of you have herded cows but they are fairly logical creatures and so once I started herding them they naturally all made their way to the place where they had come out of ...
finding this locked they proceeded to scatter in all directions and it took me a good 30 minutes to get them all to realise that they could use the nearby gate that I had OPENED for them!

Ai yai Yai! ... and these are the days of our lives!

We Love You All
Pippa