Just one of those weeks

 

This was one of those weeks. My computer is broken making work difficult. The letter “T” has completely come off, the letter “N” doesn’t work and the space bar gives me two spaces each time. Ian came to my rescue, as always, and loaned me a keyboard to use, which was great, until the space bar stopped working completely. Is it possible that I am THAT hard on a keyboard?

 

Ian had his own challenges this week, including the guard at the baby home closing the electric gate by accident as he drove through, smashing the door beyond repair. `That gate is only closed after the kids are all in bed and this was the middle of the day. He was not happy.

 

 

After 16 days of the bridge to town being impassable due to heavy rains, Arlyn and Sibusiso were able to get the JCB to the river (3 miles) and then spent FOUR hours clearing large trees, bush and debris that had been stuck on the bridge then making it passable. We are so thankful to our friends who came many years ago and said, “You guys need a back hoe!” and then they shipped us a brand new JCB back hoe from the U.S. 

 

 

That piece of equipment has been a life-saver!! We expect heavy rains and flooding again this weekend, but at least we all got to town and were able to grocery shop again.

 

Our farm team had their own challenges. The ground is SO saturated with water from the rains that it made bailing a huge challenge with the tractors, trailers and even the backhoe getting stuck in the fields. YES we are grateful for the rains and are always thankful for water, but sheesh, we have a LOT of water!

 

While it’s been a challenging week, we also have had a great week!  We are harvesting tilapia again and the kids will have fish and chips for lunch on Sunday! We harvested 19 crates of dragon fruit. Ian and I got to see the new library at the primary school, which is ready for school to commence!! 

 

We have a container shipping from the U.S. this month and ALL 200 pairs of rain boots and ponchos have been purchased from our amazon shopping list as well as some ping pong tables, swimming pools and foosball tables!  Ian has ordered me a new laptop, with a fully functioning keyboard and we our volunteers have been able to purchase goodies to also come in the container to help with a few comforts from home since our borders are still closed to travel.

 

All in all, it has been one of those weeks, with highs that are high and lows that are lows. But we give thanks for the encouragement that James gives us during our times of trouble when he says, “My brothers and sisters, you will face all kinds of trouble. When you do, think of it as pure joy. Your faith will be tested. You know that when this happens it will produce in you the strength to continue. And you must allow this strength to finish its work. Then you will be all you should be. You will have everything you need.”  James 1:2-4

 

Lastly, I want to leave you with something that was a “fun find” for us during our trip to town. While it is impossible to buy fresh fish or seafood here, there is a frozen seafood store that we stopped by to pick up some salmon. While there we saw something that we had never seen before. Mozambican lobster! WHAT??  They had never had it there before, but they had 3 of them in stock so we bought one to enjoy tomorrow on Valentine’s day.  

 

Lock down/lock in can be hard, but we are trying our best to find fun and joy in our daily lives. I hope that you can do that too.

 

Happy Valentine’s Day! 

 

Live from Eswatini ... staying inside the ark today.

 

Janine