Hi folks, you never know what the day holds when you get up in a morning do you? Except that is that God's mercies are new every morning and that the unexpected may call you to depend on him more than you naturally would.
Surprise no 1 of today... the electrics went off. Given we have been working for just 10 minutes this was a blow literally... all the areas' electrics were off, so we got to work on getting the generator going. Soon when we found a key for" the genny" that sort of fitted (nothing like the one we were trying to find) we were back up and running. In God's providence that today proved more successful than our two previous days even including a sustained power cut.
Surprise no 2... Pieter cooked us a BBQ for a late lunch knowing how we were hammering the work tring to make up for lost time after the power cut. Amazing mouth drooling marinated meat cooked over an open fire, accompanied by several salads and potato dishes, it all made our uk lunches (a soggy ham salad sandwich) look a bit sad.
Surprise no 3... Our massive lunch was cut short because the delivery man arrived with 175 osb boards and 7 bathroom suites (sinks, toilets, water boilers etc).
Surprise no 4...We discover that said truck full needs to be put through a downstairs basement window. So we got cracking....
The window...
The truck after we'd got rid of half of it... it still felt like we'd only just begun...
1 by 1 we tried to get the 175 boards through the window.
We kept going till the Ukrainian gentleman delivery driver got very animated... we realised it was all about us taking delivery and maybe not paying yet. But he was paid in full and looked very happy about it. I was too... because I was very aware that it is your generosity in sharing what God has given you that made this delivery so wonderful... and give Pieter one of his amazing smiles.... There are 3 words which come from Pieter on such an occasion "Da (good) Slava Borg (praise God)" (repeat).
Surprise 5, our new boss and team member. A little friend from church who enjoyed the day with us.
Surprise 6. We were able to give some small gifts to our wonderful friends at church.
Thank you for those who sent gifts, they were amazingly well received...
Things that went down particularly well were the 3d puzzles of Big Ben, Tower bridge and Eiffel tower.
And who thought "snap" and "pairs" would be such a hit ?
Surprise 7... The faimily "skinnypig" was brought out to see us...
Surprise 8. When you ask folks if there is anything you could pray for... and you got much more than you expected. Please pray for our friends over the next 48 hours especially. These are challenging times. Unconditional love is not a cost-less business or without its practical challenges. I know some of you will be faithful in prayer without knowing the details at this juncture (thank you!).
Surprise 9. We have managed to a acquire a little festive gift for Transition House, which we were able to establish in its new home before bedtime.
Surprise 10 ... who would've thought Mark Swindley and Darren Coffin were in touch with their feminine side and had such a way with home decoration.
What will I remember from the day...? too many times in which I discovered that God is keeping his people going in amazing ways. AS for me now... I am mainly dreaming about the feeling of the empty van and the nice Ukrainian gentleman going away from me for some time. Now all we have to do is fit the boards and bathrooms... ay ay ay ski ... that is for another morning.... now where was i ....ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
