Hope all of you experienced a blessed weekend as we remembered what Christ did for us through His crucifixion and resurrection. (Praying that God will bring a new, deeper meaning to this weekend; praying that God will break through all those religious stuff we have been taught ...... and hoping that this remembrance will be an everyday occurrence; not just this past weekend.)

She is just so stinking cute and we are amazed by the overwhelming love we have for her! We could never imagine that it would be possible to love somebody as much as we love her! We can truly NOT imagine our lives without her! She is growing way too fast and my (Kriek's) heart is hurting that so many of you will only get to meet her when she is 6 months old ...... My heart is also hurting that we don't get to see so many of you on a more regular basis and that you are not part of our daily lives. But we are also thankful for the people God has surrounded us with and is serving with us. We know that Clara is one loved little girl! (And I am sure she knows it too!) She has the most adoring cheeks and smile; sometimes she even has this little mischievous smile! She LOVES eating her cereal; and don't you dare clean her little face before she is done eating! We think she is teething; lots of drooling and chewing going on! Oh, she discovered her feet last week and these days she will often just stare at them in awe as she moves them. She also enjoys her little jumper thing; not sure if we have the height wrong, but in stead of jumping up and down, she keeps kicking with her one leg and then she spins in circles. (But spinning in circles does not bother her at all!) She loves music and she doesn't mind when her mommy sings off key to her! But she also discovered that she has a voice, and she is not scared to use it ..... sometimes a little bit too high pitched for mommy and daddy's taste! She  doesn't mind being handed from one person to the next and hanging out with team members, while being dragged from carepoint to carepoint; or from the one social event or staff event to the next.

In the beginning of March we took a little break and we went to visit dear ministry friends in Jeffreys Bay, SA. We attended part of their training and one evening we got to sit under some prophetic prayers. It was powerful. The guy also prayed over Clara. He prayed that she was going to be a discipler of many; many tribe, tongue and nation! Wow! 'Give us wisdom, Lord, to raise this child in your Word, in your service. '

 

 

Also during our time in Jeffreys God spoke to Jumbo and I about 'repairing our life line'. To us this means: 1) We have to slow down, 2) rest at His feet, 3) create community, 4) stop taking responsibility for things that are out of our hands; this is God's ministry. We have been saying that we need to spend more time with God, but now it is really time to start acting upon it! So one of the things we are doing: a prayer and fellowship night at our house each Tuesday. So a couple of us get together, have dinner, sing a few songs, pray, share, or listen to a message ... whatever we feel the Lord leads us to do. We have really been enjoying this.

Ministry is doing well, we are doing well, and we keep seeing God's faithfulness here in Swaziland. We have already had 2 teams (a slow start to the year), but we are preparing for a busy summer with lots of teams. But we now have more staff and some extra help and we are looking forward to see what God is going to do.