Thursday, June 29, 2006

Twins and road closed

Caleb has raised an interesting question – where did the animals poo in the ark? Perhaps Noah made a little table for each of them, with a hole acting as a drain. And could the birds fly higher than the flood? I explained that the birds would have had nowhere to land, but I couldn’t give much help with the poo question.

Today was another busy one. We had a leisurely breakfast time, as I skipped my walk due to unfavourable weather conditions. I made jungle oats, and the boys and I had grapefruit. Then Nick and I made paper aeroplanes for the boys, and just sat chatting for a while. Oh, the island life is the life for me (sometimes, when I’m not missing shopping malls…) School, some more sewing – got the first blind for Nick’s office done, but it was a bit of a flop and needs revision. I have to make some sort of alternate plan with it because I can’t do the usual arrangement of hooks and cord and stuff, because there is already a pelmet up. Anyway, I didn’t get any further with it. After a very short school lesson, we made paper cutouts again. Thankfully no green toes this time, but please take note of Aaron’s ear which seems to be coming from his neck, as he moved while I was drawing around him. I painted Aaron’s cutout, and Caleb did the whole of his own quite well, despite being blue in the face. We walked to town this morning because the golf was taken away for its MOT, and it didn’t come back to us - it stalled on the inspector! There is a green car in the driveway now.

Now here’s a nice St Helenian story. Side Path, which is one of the only three main roads leading out of Jamestown, has been closed for over a week. There is a building used as a charity school, the wall of which borders the road. The wall is now crumbling and making the road unsafe to use. The proprietor feels that it is the government’s responsibility to fix due to traffic and water leakage causing the crumbling, and the government feels that the proprietor needs to initiate the repairs. Negotiations have taken place and a stalemate has been reached. The road is now indefinitely closed. In the meantime, access to the eastern and northern parts of the island is only via Constitution Hill, which is more of a back road than an actual main road, and was not designed with high traffic and large construction vehicles in mind. It’s causing a lot of problems, but no one is willing to take action.

The Lord has recently been dealing with me on the “I can’t cope” lie which we women tend to believe. In my morning studies in Philippians, I have been reminded that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). I know that God will not give me more than I can manage to handle, so if I tell myself that I’m not coping, I’m doubting God’s care for me. Just the other day the boys were pushing my buttons and I was on the verge of hysterical madness, and almost about to tear my hair out or poke my eyes out, when I remembered that in Christ I CAN cope. My burden was immediately lifted; I had peace and could calmly address the boys and sort things out. I am thankful that I am His and He is mine; without being able to lean on Him and use His strength I wouldn’t make it from day to day.

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