Time flies...

     I have officially been a blogger for 3 months now and this is only my second post!  As you can imagine, this new year has come so fast and seems to be passing me by.  So many things have happened in the last 3 months that it is hard to keep track. 

Celebrating New Year's Eve with some friends!

     School started on 9th of January!  I have 22 children in my class, of which 16 are girls.  This is the complete opposite of my class last year, in which I had 16 boys!  I haven't yet decided which I prefer: the girls are a lot calmer in the mornings, tending to draw or read, whereas the boys tend to be quite noisy, battling each other as superheroes or trying to see how "authentically" (loudly) they can make their trains and cars move.  I prefer the calmness of the girls in the morning, but the drawback is that girls tend to be MUCH more dramatic.  Their feelings are very easily hurt by their friends and their friendships are always changing.  It may be terrible, but when the girls come to me with sad faces, my first question is "Are you bleeding?" or "Is anyone else bleeding?" It sounds terrible, but if I don't ask, then all throughout the day I get sad faced little girls coming to tell me that so and so hurt their feelings because they looked at them funny or because they chose to play with someone else!  It is amazing deeply sensitive 4 year old girls can be!  Even from an early age "Girls will be girls" and Boys will be boys".  

     Ministry at our church is up and running!  Badi and I feel much more "at home" this year as we move into our second year at Christ Church Blairgowrie.  Last year was a year of learning: new relationships, new structures, new expectations (both from others and ourselves), and a whole lot more newness!  In February we began a dicipleship course at our church called "The Course of Your Life".  It is a 10 week study by a man named Tony Payne, who also wrote The Trellis and the Vine. It has been helpful for us as a church to begin to see our lives as not our own, but intended for a much greater purpose or "course".  God has called us to a life of following Him, of connecting deeply with other Christians, and of being salt and light in the different contexts in which He has called us (where we live, where we work, or where we play).  

Three youth and one young adult being confirmed at our church!

     We've also had several close friends have babies this year, which is always fun.  When you live so far from your family, it is your friends who become like brothers and sisters to you (not that they ever replace them) and their children who become like nieces and nephews!  Two of our best friends, Jeff and Kris, had baby Mason in February.  He joined their family of 4, now making them a family of 5!  Their oldest boy Asher, turned two last week and his birthday party was this past Saturday.  I made some mickey mouse cookies, which actually turned out pretty good.  I'll add pictures of them and how I made them to my recipes page!

     These are some of the major events and happenings of the past 3 months!  My hope is to write more often and not allow busyness or in fact, laziness, prevent me from doing this.  I also want to begin adding more pictures from the happenings of our life here in South Africa...goal for 2013! :)

Decisions

I decided at the end of last year that I wanted to begin blogging, and yet the task has been looming now for five whole days.  Badibangasnotyethome has been sitting unattended, and yet thought of daily, on my laptop's browser.  For some reason I feel all of this pressure to write in a certain way about certain things!  The pressure comes from within, it always does.  I feel like the proverbially "they" out there are going to judge my writing or my decisions in life, but when it comes down to it, it's all in my head and I want this just to be fun!

I decided on Not Yet Home... because as an American, living in South Africa, I am reminded daily that I'm not at home and yet when I return to America for visits I also don't quite feel "at home".  Hebrews is one of my favourite books in the Bible and in chapter 11 I see I am in good company feeling "Not Yet Home...".

Hebrews 11:13-16:
¹³ All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. ¹⁴ People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

I decided this morning that I would make a list of all the things I want to include in this blog.  The list includes personal sanctification, marriage, ministry, teaching, my struggle with and delight of food, friends, family, books, movies, music, etc.  I hope you'll enjoy reading these updates as much as I'll enjoy writing them.  I am sure I'll learn a lot about myself in the process and I hope you do too!

Enjoy!