Poor ol' Clyde has been had it tough the last few weeks. Every now and then he gets a little limp, but is better in a few days. This time round however, the injury seemed to be a lot worse, and he simply couldn't walk on his back leg. After taking him to the vet we discovered that he had torn a ligament in his knee, and so needed it to be replaced, as mending it is just impossible. They did this replacement from some 'white sinue' stuff from his leg. Apparently he will only start using his leg fully in about 3 months.

Poor Bonnie was so very worried about him, this was a sad doggie day!

Since these photos, Clyde's stiches have come out, the bandage is off and everything is looking good. So Martin family, no need to worry about your precious darlyings!

Once again blogging has not been on my list of priorities, but I must tell you that between the last post and this one God has done one miracle after the next in our little family. If you have followed my blog closely you would know that I have had a few early miscarriages over the past year - 4 to be exact...well to cut a long story short, God used all of this to bring Glen and I to a point of considering, once again, adoption. We were watching a testimony by Steven Curtis Chapman, about when he adopted his first little girl and God just used it to move us strongly to relook at this whole issue again. Anyway, we found ourselves in the social worker's office on Monday morning the 7th of Feb, and the next Tuesday, the 15th, we were told about a little girl who had been abandoned in a park. Our hearts just grew for her as we kept her in our prayers, and asked God to really lead us in this whole process. On Wednesday morning we were in the hospital waiting to meet 'Unknown' - her 'name' in the hospital. Well...when we saw her, both of us just knew that this was our daughter - given to us by our loving heavenly Father. God opened the way for us to be able to bring her home with us on Friday...so I present to you our new little baby girl...Eden Brenna Thompson...

This is Leah Grobler. Her parents were both baptised a little while back in our church and she has also made a serious commitment to the Lord and was waiting for her grandparents to come over from England to witness her baptism. We rejoice in seeing children giving their lives to Jesus, and becoming members of our local church. As Baptists we don't believe in adult baptism but rather in believers baptism, and so even though she is only 6 years old, she has a credible profession of faith, and so who can forbid her from being baptised?

We rejoice with her family as a church in seeing this outward profession of faith and look forward to seeing her grow in grace as she is taught all that Jesus has commanded us and as she continues to follow her Shepherd.

The cool things that are available these days just amaze me! This is one of them. Amanda got this beauty science experiment kit for her birthday from Yanina. The goal of this one is to learn how to measure certain ingredients, and add them together to make a beauty product. There were two different kinds of face masks. They tried the one on themselves and the other one on me.

Did the experiments work?...Yes! Did we become more beautiful? Haha, that's another question!

What's the difference between a frog and a toad anyway? I think I'll have to research that one and get back to you...I have heard that the one has teeth and the other doesn't, don't know how true that is yet. Anyway, whatever they are, there are a lot of them in our garden at the moment, and Rachel is having a ball catching them, keeping them for a little bit and then letting them go...

I don't really mind, as long as they are kept outside, and doesn't throw one at me!

What a wonderful way to begin the year! We were priviledged once again to attend this conference for pastors and their wives, which was once again held at Valley Lodge in Magaliesburg. Our speakers this year were Philip Ryken, who is currently the President of Wheaton College in Illinois, USA. He was a real blessing to listen to as he shared three sessions with us on 'What every minister needs'.


Three years ago we were blessed to hear Conrad Mbewe speak at this same conference, and once again it was a joy to hear him speak, this time on the topic of 'Worship'. He gave us a lot to think about, and his messages were used by God to help me get back to the heart of true worship again.



Following are just a few pics of other couples and people who we enjoyed some fellowship with on the conference...

Andrew and Sharon George...


Tim Cantrell...


Leigh and Irene Robinson, on the right, and JC in the middle...

Angus and Sue McKee..

Michael and Natalie Rogers...

Mike Marsland (left) and our third speaker, who was a local - Dr. P.J. (Flip) Buys, who spoke on Demonology and the Sovereignty of God...

and Tyrell and Ainsley Haag.

All in all it was a very uplifting conference, filled once again with good fellowship and good food, both physically and spiritually.

Once again I was rapped over the knuckles for not blogging enough and so I thought I had better get a move on...and so here is another quick catch up post for those of you who have wondered what we have been up to. These pics are not extensive, but simply cover the events that I had captured on camera, and sorry to say, but there really isn't much here at all...I haven't even taken a picture this whole year!!

Anyway, I'll start off with this get youth get together at Jacque, Claire and Douglas's home (a new family in our church). Why were we invited you might ask, we simply because we're cool :-)

The girls enjoyed dressing up, and so here, Goldilocks and...I don't know...who is that???

Then, just a quick pic of Sugar sleeping on the couch...please notice his feet hanging off the edge...completely in his element!

We did our first official 'Jesse' tree, which we have renamed the 'Redeemer Tree' or 'Tree of Life'. Even though it was a bit of a last minute thing, we enjoyed making the little symbol ornaments from 'Bendaroos' which by the way are really cool, and also going through all the Scripture verses in our family worship times. It's just so wonderful to focus on Christ throughout the Bible at this time and to show the children the unity of God's Word.

Here are some of our ornaments - The tree itself symbolising the 'Tree of Life', the angels, obviously picturing the host of angels telling of the birth of Jesus, the Savior of the world, the lights, showing that Jesus is the light of the world, the gold showing the Kingship of Christ, the pinecones, symbolising the seed of Abraham...and then the actual made ornament, the dove, symbolising the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters at Creation, and Creation itself.

The ram, symbolizing Jesus, through the story of Abraham and Isaac, when God provided the ram in Isaac's place - just as Christ was sacrificed in our place and took God's wrath in our place.

Then of course the rainbow, focusing on the flood, where only eight people were saved in the ark - also symbolising Jesus. Whoever is in Jesus will be saved, and then the rainbow pointing us to God's faithfulnes in keeping His promises and also pointing us to a time when God's judgement will fall upon this world again, this time with fire...

We really enjoyed all the symbols we have of Christ in the Scriptures and look forward to many more Christ-focused Christmases in our home. Praise God for the precious gift of His Son to save a wretch like me!

Christmas Eve and Christmas day were spent with Glen's grandparents in Viljoenskroon, in the Orange Free State. It was really hot there, but we had a good time, opening gifts and eating good food...we even had some opportunity to share Christ with some of the family....

All in all a lovely Christmas, and the New Year was spent at church with church family. What a blessing! We sang songs, listened to God's Word being preached and fellowshipped until the strike of midnight. Thankfully it was raining and so the fireworks were very minimal. Not so good for those who were waiting for a spectacular show...but good for Bonnie and Clyde who just hate those frightening sounds.

And so I have come to the end of this year of blogging, and will hopefully be more diligent in this year ahead. I wonder what God has got planned for us this year!