Broken Bones, Birthday Parties and Diggers.
What a crazy time we seem to be living in?! Nothing is certain anymore and you don’t quite know what the next day will bring! At least we know that we serve a God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow! (Hebrews 13:8) But amidst the craziness of life we are still quietly working away at preparing ourselves, our kids and our house for our next phase of leaving Waikanae to work full time with MMM.
This last month started with an unplanned hospital stay and operation for Gabrielle after she missed the 3rd monkey bar when jumping straight for it at school. She had been getting more and more confident on the bars, learning lots of new tricks before saying to an older girl, “look what I can do!” and then proceeding to fall and do a decent job of breaking her elbow. She was very brave, barely making a peep right up until getting the IV line put in her hand for surgery… then she let a whole lot of feelings out and everyone knew about it. Unfortunately she gets to do this part of the experience again in another month or two (although who really knows when anymore?!) when she has to have another general anaesthetic to get the wires they put in back out. She has found living with a broken bone a pretty tough time, there is so much she is missing out on!
When waiting to have the operation, a friend sent a message to say when praying for Gabby that morning she’d had a picture of a local statue - a tiny baby in a big hand. She had a sense of that being our big God cradling Gabby throughout the surgery. We had to go have a photo of the baby covered in Gabby’s very special Blanky.
On March 1st Caleb turned 4. Though if you ask him, Caleb is his old name and he is actually Kelepi (what he is called when we go to Fiji). All 3 kids were very excited about this and barely slept a couple of nights before. LEGO is very popular in our house at the moment and he was very excited to buy new LEGO with some birthday money. Kelepi is a big fan of numbers and had to have a “number 4 from numberblocks” as a birthday cake. He is very extroverted and loves a bit of attention, so loved every minute of having a party just for him.
Josh has really been getting into sports in the last year, particularly individual sports he can train for. He recently came second in the Year 5 boys backstroke. Now he gets to represent the school in the Inter-school competition which he is excited about.
We have been getting lots of jobs done on our house to get it ready to rent. Last weekend we had a working bee and hired a digger to put in a soak hole and better drainage. With the age of the house, the downpipes and drainage weren’t working as they should (if at all) and it was causing problems. Now we just need a big rainfall to test it all out! There is now a sparkly new extractor fan above our oven, the kitchen floor is booked to be done as well as a few other bits and pieces that we have been working on around the house.
We have been keeping busy talking to different churches (there are 3 in our parish alone), as well as other partners and potential supporters to help raise the financial assistance we are needing. We are continually encouraged and humbled by the generosity and support of so many people, so thank you all very much. We still have more to raise before we can start full time, but feel like we are getting there and all the different aspects are starting to fall in place… though the thought of committing to tenants or a start day for correspondence school for the kids still feels a bit unreal!
We thank you all for your continued encouragement, prayers and support it really is so much appreciated.
Roy, Rachael, Josh, Gabrielle and Caleb/Kelepi
This last month started with an unplanned hospital stay and operation for Gabrielle after she missed the 3rd monkey bar when jumping straight for it at school. She had been getting more and more confident on the bars, learning lots of new tricks before saying to an older girl, “look what I can do!” and then proceeding to fall and do a decent job of breaking her elbow. She was very brave, barely making a peep right up until getting the IV line put in her hand for surgery… then she let a whole lot of feelings out and everyone knew about it. Unfortunately she gets to do this part of the experience again in another month or two (although who really knows when anymore?!) when she has to have another general anaesthetic to get the wires they put in back out. She has found living with a broken bone a pretty tough time, there is so much she is missing out on!
When waiting to have the operation, a friend sent a message to say when praying for Gabby that morning she’d had a picture of a local statue - a tiny baby in a big hand. She had a sense of that being our big God cradling Gabby throughout the surgery. We had to go have a photo of the baby covered in Gabby’s very special Blanky.
On March 1st Caleb turned 4. Though if you ask him, Caleb is his old name and he is actually Kelepi (what he is called when we go to Fiji). All 3 kids were very excited about this and barely slept a couple of nights before. LEGO is very popular in our house at the moment and he was very excited to buy new LEGO with some birthday money. Kelepi is a big fan of numbers and had to have a “number 4 from numberblocks” as a birthday cake. He is very extroverted and loves a bit of attention, so loved every minute of having a party just for him.
Josh has really been getting into sports in the last year, particularly individual sports he can train for. He recently came second in the Year 5 boys backstroke. Now he gets to represent the school in the Inter-school competition which he is excited about.
We have been getting lots of jobs done on our house to get it ready to rent. Last weekend we had a working bee and hired a digger to put in a soak hole and better drainage. With the age of the house, the downpipes and drainage weren’t working as they should (if at all) and it was causing problems. Now we just need a big rainfall to test it all out! There is now a sparkly new extractor fan above our oven, the kitchen floor is booked to be done as well as a few other bits and pieces that we have been working on around the house.
We have been keeping busy talking to different churches (there are 3 in our parish alone), as well as other partners and potential supporters to help raise the financial assistance we are needing. We are continually encouraged and humbled by the generosity and support of so many people, so thank you all very much. We still have more to raise before we can start full time, but feel like we are getting there and all the different aspects are starting to fall in place… though the thought of committing to tenants or a start day for correspondence school for the kids still feels a bit unreal!
We thank you all for your continued encouragement, prayers and support it really is so much appreciated.
Roy, Rachael, Josh, Gabrielle and Caleb/Kelepi
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