Packing..

I have a love/ hate relationship with packing.
I love it since it implies I'm going somewhere. I hate it since it can be such a schlepp!
At first I'm overwhelmed by the task and PROCRASTINATE!
Anything is more important than packing!
Then my realistic side kicks in and I make a half-hearted attempt to start.
Then the task doesn't seem that bad except... I have way too much - I need to cut back.
PROCRASTINATION time until it becomes PANIC time.
Now, all of a sudden all the rules and original order are tossed out and I finally finish packing.
I'll only know when I get there what I've missed in the frenzy...

                                                     My friend knows how to pack!

Catching up..

It has been a while.. In the mean time my lovely dog, Bella, passed away. Her brother, now alone, is showing signs of accepting the once ousted cat. Life is different but it isn't bad.

I recently went to Russia and one of the times I will never forget is when we went hunting for a decent cup of coffee. This shouldn't be that difficult since St. Petersburg is full of them. I suppose the language and the extreme cold affected us. Eventually we were DESPERATE and we saw this elegant, beautiful place. To our surprise Nathan offered to pay if it was really expensive. We were pretty sure it was going to be so we went in.

It was a stylish place with loads of coffee paraphernalia but not really any tables so we thought they might be upstairs.. No upstairs was definitely some kind of sales area. Down went again feeling rather disappointed.
Heidi was visibly uncomfortable but we were desperate! Eventually we saw an area with some chairs which looked quite promising. We asked in very broken Russian whether we could have a cup of coffee. They asked which flavour we would like and promptly went work. They served it in small espresso cups with a little biscuit. It was delicious! When Nathan wanted to pay all she said was "It is taste-station". At that point we all felt uncomfortable. To minimize the discomfort Nathan and I traipsed off to buy a bit of their great coffee. Not a bad outcome at all!

Into the unknown...

This coming Thursday brings the start of another adventure in Christ for my friends Nathan and Heidi and me.
We fly to St.Petersburg where we 'hope' to be of encouragement and help to a church there.It is going to be an amazing time - I just know it!!

If God is for us who can be against us!? May He go with us and be in our central focus on this trip!

Relief

What a relief it was walking out of the vet's the morning knowing my greying boxers are in great shape. Strong hearts, no tumors, claws clipped (Bella didn't seem to enjoy the manicure, though). They went to have their booster shots. The vet was well impressed when he saw he needed to begin new vaccination cards.They had out-lived theirs.

A sweet little blonde boy ,around 4yrs old,admired Bella. He couldn't stop telling me how "oulik" (cute) she was.
He was clutching his little doberman proudly.

So, who says it needs to be traumatic visiting the vet?!

Long live our "puppies!"

Look to Jesus and not to the natural!!

Recently I had to write on "The current global economic crisis". Well, if you ever want to be depressed - read up on it.. It was dreadful.


Just as I was despairing.. our church had a 3 day fast. My body felt awful but something happened.


Within a week I received not 1 but 2 offers to go abroad!!!!


First an outreach to St. Petersburg, Russia for 10 days
then at a later stage 
a trip to Switzerland to visit family and hopefully some churches there.


How GOOD is our God!!!

Joy in God!

When life passes by and not much is achieved it can be difficult to experience the joy  God gives.
The trick, according to John Piper, is not to aim at joy in general but at joy in God.
This will never disappoint!

Small miracles

Today I sent off a test text for a short book. 
I hope I did okay.
It would really be awesome to earn almost a month's salary on one project.


I so enjoy it though. Who would have thought it would give me such a buzz...!