The last few weeks have been rough. During these times you learn if you really believe God is your refuge or not.
Please continue to pray for Mitch Hildebrant, our Children’s Cup Swaziland director, as tomorrow makes 7 weeks since he first entered a hospital. He is currently in ICU and scheduled for another surgery (think this makes 4) tomorrow. His wife Char is by his side and his mother, Bobbi, has come to visit him. We believe this is the beginning of the turnaround point to a steady and full recovery. We miss him tremendously!!!! But we also trust our Lord that He sees what we cannot. And has Mitch in the palm of His hand!
For those who might not have seen the posts on FaceBook, my ex-husband, Keith Chesterman was killed in a head-on car crash on May 1st. We were married 23 years and raised two remarkable sons. (We have been divorced for 7 years and he was remarried to a sweet lady, Debra.) It was hard not to be able to make arrangements and be there for the funeral. I heard my boys did an amazing job speaking about their dad. I have always been proud of them but it was uplifting to hear other commend them. Keep praying for the Chestermans. This is a difficult time for them all, especially his parents and his current wife. We always think a child will outlive their parents and when that is not the case, the pain is great.
On top of all that is going on, my truck seems to have issues lately. I am tired of seeing the mechanic for even small things. It is difficult to want to handle the problems that arise when you heart is hurting so much for close friends and family who have much more complex issues they are having to deal with. It will all sort though. I even got the added joy today of the mechanic locking my keys in the truck. At least it wasn’t me that did it and they were amazingly good at breaking into my truck.
So, while the road has been rough, the Lord has been gracious that my job allows me a season of taking pictures of all our Mission of Mercy sponsored children! Over 2,500 in just two months! We have gotten half of them completed (9 CarePoints) and so I would like to share some fun shots from this half of the adventure! We all need to take time to smile! In Mission of Mercy’s theme of “Health and Wellness” we could have done pictures of the children eating the nutritious Feed My Starving Children rice or visiting with the nurses during medical clinic but we wanted some fun shots! We felt the sponsors would enjoy some fun pictures also! So, each child gets to choose which activity they want their picture taken doing. We have the swing (very popular), teeter totter, slide, skipping rope, netball (similar to basketball) and of course soccer (also quite popular)! We even have some handicapped children; Tengetile “Tayne-gay-tee-lay” (her left leg is amputated below the knee) loves to skip rope and Mcondisi “Em-(click)own-dee-see” (has a cerebral palsy type disease and is in a wheelchair) loves to go down the slide! (Theirs are the first 3 pictures.)
I hope this glimpse at these fun shots of kids being kids sustains you like they have me. God has made each of us special! He loves and cares for each of us more than we will ever comprehend! (Even when we do not understand the whys!)
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| Tengetile |
As the storms come, He is our refuge! He is our strength! He is our hope!!! Hope’s name is Jesus!
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| Mcondisi (note wheelchair) |
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| Mcondisi (He loves to slide! |
2 comments:
those pics are great. I always gave Isaac a hard time for the pics we have of out kids in XaiXai b/c they looked so horrified of the camera. It is so much better to see happy smiling faces!!
Actually they usually are. Taken a lot of practice and a lot of pictures to get them smiling. Also, African culture never lets you smile for pictures for documents and their tendency is to give you a stone face look. Also, some of these pictures were taken by Lungelo who is as silly as me so it many times they can't help but laugh!
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