Well, I humbly admit that I have been down in the dumps for awhile now - hence the lack of posts here.
It is hard to feel like writing and even harder to write something worth reading when you feel miserable.
I'm happy to say I feel a bit better at present and so I thought I'd snatch the chance to write before the kids all get home from school.
So my little Alexander has not come to TLC as yet, the mommy appears to be having second thoughts and so we wait at the ready in case for some reason she cannot cope. Ofcourse if she can then that will be wonderful for the baby and we will support her where we can.
It was Mighty's birthday on the 15th so he had the usual breakfast in bed treat but in keeping with his sweet and generous nature it had to be enjoyed alongside a friend, in this case little Ruthie :-)
The news on the New Farm is that, as of yesterday we are now legally the owners :-)
A thrilling bit of sunlight in an otherwise pretty bleak time. I took Matthew, Ben, James and Mighty around for a few minutes yesterday and while I chatted with the neighbour about possibly moving in December, the boys ran around taking it all in - it is so exciting, a real adventure and already they are discussing plans for swimming in the reservoir, building a tree house and setting up a "secret den" :-) Oh to be a child again :-)
On the 1st of September TLC was joined by Natsai Shoko, a wonderful and enthusiastic young lady helping me in the position of Personal Assistant. It is such a wonderful blessing and whilst I am still learning to make the best use of her it is such a relief to have someone help shoulder the load.
On the weekend on the 16th to 18th September we had a "baby away" weekend which allowed me to give the volunteers some individual time. We played a games and spent the whole of the Saturday in the Pilansberg National Park looking for wild animals :-) It was a long day but everyone had a good time. The babies all got thoroughly spoiled and it was good to have a change of routine after such a long time of working so hard.
The volunteers are truly the HEROES of TLC and our babies are so blessed through their willing and tender hands :-)
We have said good bye to many babies over the last little while and have 3 more going in the next few weeks. This should take our numbers down to close on the 30 that we need to be in order to survive. Every baby that goes now makes me a little sad because I know that there are so many families waiting for babies and so many babies waiting for families but we are having to narrow the channel which means ultimately the formation of these precious, wonderful and amazing families slows down. ~ Sigh~ I promised I wouldn't be too blue, so enough of that.
We are working on several funding proposals and trying hard to be everything people want us to be, the department is now in possession of all the required documents for us to be registered under the new Children's act.
We tried to raise the profile of TLC this year by making a big deal of our 18th Birthday this Heritage day. We had newspaper coverage, sent invitations to over 600 people and set up jumping castles and stalls where we sold various craft things, some TLC branded bottles and various other things. Unfortunately we did not have the expected turnout because the weather turned out to be pretty horrible most of the day but we continue to get phonecalls from people interested in helping in some small way.
The kids had a fabulous time and thanks to the generosity of Mr Mike Forsythe we were able to enjoy the jumping castles right through to Sunday and he even fixed our sound system in the Barn so now we can watch movies "for real" as Christian says :-)
Those of you with networks of friends, please see who you can motivate to club together to help sponsor a child for school in 2012. We have had the most success in getting these important needs sponsored when people team together as book clubs, office groups, friends and families.
Right, this was a long one but I know you don't mind :-)
God Bless you all
Pippa
