Some Hi's, Lows and Highs!

Hello Friends!

It has been so very long since I have felt able to write anything substantial on this Blog. As many of you know I have been slowly healing after an episode of burnout and depression that consumed me at the end of 2012. Thankfully between you and my family, I have a terrific support structure and I was so grateful to feel safe enough to use it all of last year.

Kieran's death in October set me back a bit as it did all of us, it truly threatened to sink many of us here at TLC but God is constantly reminding us of His love and His faithfulness through all our hurt. We all still grieve in waves that come and go with old memories and new ones that cannot include him.

At the Funeral



In his favourite jacket

The end of the year was dominated by the sense of loss and of how "wrong" everything felt without him. We did our best to continue with the usual Christmas festivities but it was really difficult and the Mainhouse children battled terribly with the idea of being festive at all. We did our usual distribution of toys and sweets to the children in the local informal settlements and then we had a Christmas lunch for the families and volunteers together in the Mainhouse, which turned out to be a lovely, low key event and just what everyone needed.

One of the highlights from Christmas was the donation of the Berg Go-Karts courtesy of the TLC Germany families. The kids just love these and they are so versatile and hardy that everyone gets to enjoy them.

The school year only began in mid January but I was quite glad because it takes a heap of work to get all the children the right sized uniforms, shoes, socks etc and then each school has its own stationery requirements so there are lists and piles of stationery lying everywhere for a week or so. Then this year one of the schools changed their curriculum at the last minute and to this day I am still waiting for some of the textbooks to be available for purchase! Anyway that is all part of the start of school fun :-)

Jerome and Sibu started 1st Grade this year

The undoubted highlight of our first quarter was the marriage of Faith to her Prince Charming, Lionel Abrahams. What a magical day we had! Words cannot do justice to the millions of magical moments during the day so here are some pictures Joanna took throughout the event. Enjoy :-)

 

The Blushing Groom

The Blushing Bride
 (to her delight, our dad made a special trip out from the UK to walk her down the aisle)

The Wedding Mass was held at Our Lady of Ceder's, Mulbarton Maronite Church.

The Jarvis and Abrahams families unite



Lionel has one sister, Renee and his parents are Carien and Dane.

They chose a Red Velvet Wedding Cake with Creamed Cheese
dressing and a Mixed Berry topping!
 It was Delicious!

 

My Little Beth also thought the cake was DELICIOUS and hijacked a piece of cake too :-)

 



 We had a beautiful reception at Misty River, the B&B near to TLC and the weather was so perfect everyone commented because it was preceded by two full weeks of unusually heavy rainfall!

We partied hard :-) These two crashed right under the sound system speaker they were so pooped!
Luckily we weren't far from home so getting everyone to bed did not take too long :-)

As we speak the happy couple are Honeymooning along the South African coastline. We all wish them every blessing and can't wait to have them back home.

I'm going to end this installment here but I have a lot more to say so I will continue with a fresh one soon. The farm has had many developments and there are, as always, lots of other things going on around here like a VERY full nursery, Zoe back at Varsity and Viv in a new office! I promise I will fill you in soon.

I love you all
Pippa