We've just come back from a wonderful four days in Volmoed, in Hermanus (where we've been before a few times). We caught up on sleep (David has only struggled with sleep for one night out of the last two weeks!), had good time with God, praying and reading Tested by Fire by John Piper (available online as The Hidden Smile of God), which gave us fresh encouragement about God's sovereign purpose... cried, played with James and Charis, made spiders, went for walks, went for a family picnic at a beautiful waterfall, collected fir cones, made a braai and some roaring fires to keep us warm in the evenings, watched movies, looked at the stars (and Venus and Jupiter) and felt very very grateful! We've uploaded some photos of the holiday.

At the start of our adventure walk to the waterfall

Peeking through the giraffe tree

Content
(more photos here...)

On the way we were listening to a recording of the story of David and Goliath, which asked the question "David didn't want any armour to protect him. What was David trusting to protect him?" Charis answered "God", and then a few seconds later, "And maybe his monster suit". Both James and Charis have a wonderful sense of humour which really makes us laugh! (Although I think she was serious this time!) When we asked them what they enjoyed most about the holiday, James said "Playing with Charis" and Charis said "The tablecloth"...

James was nervous again going back to school, so we are trying to help him with this...

And we have even more to look forward to because this coming week Joy (Danielle's sister) is coming to visit, which is so exciting!

With all his treatment, James has gotten interested in the different blood cells and how they work. His favourites are the macrophages which are white blood cells that do a cunning trick of growing arms to swallow bacteria etc (see an amazing animation and a time-lapse video).

The other week, he was sleep-talking and was obviously dreaming - he said "My brain can control the macrophage" - and went straight back to sleep

Then on Monday I was reading a book from the library about the Body (again fascinating to him) and there was a section explaining how in the Spleen, macrophages take apart old red blood cells so there parts can be recycled.

We finished reading and he said to me, "Daddy, I'm a macrophage and you're a red blood cell. When you're old and can't work any more, I'm going to tear you to pieces in the spleen"

So, on October the 5th we went to Spier in Stellenbosch. I blame sunstroke for putting mayonnaise instead of sun-tan cream on Charis's face. Basically I was looking at her, not the containers, they were next to each other on the table, I put what I thought was the sunblock on my hand without looking, started applying it to her face, and thought that's a bit yellow, and it's not rubbing in very well... oops!

There's a great art-imitating-life cartoon on the subject at The Western Nostril, that great source of cartoons that could have been puns.

In a recent SABC article SA to earn millions from biggest ivory sale, the following peculiar sentence is found in the last paragraph:
Parts of the 45% [of the ivory from the period 1988 to 1994] are of elephant moralities.
Perhaps moralities should read mortalities

Lex Loizides has been doing a great series of blogs on church history, but little did I know that he's actually a first-hand source! For example, he's just done a post on Wycliffe, who was a fantastic preacher as can be seen in this great painting:

John Wycliffe. In the villages and towns the people listened eagerly to Wycliffe and his preachers reading passages from the Bible - in English. One in particular, in the lower right hand corner, seems in earnest prayer... perhaps due to the proximity of the axe to his face.

Original image here: John Wycliffe. In the villages and towns the people listened eagerly to Wycliffe and his preachers reading passages from the Bible - in English.
See blog referencing this