YEAY!

Holidays!!!

They're finally here! Sleeping, writing emails, fiddling with our blogs without feeling guilty, talking on the phone resp. skype for hours, doing some craft, playing computer games, reading all these books we bought, cooking, no planning, a little bit of work to make the load easier for next semester, writing letters, catching up on birthday presents, meeting people for coffee & chats, visiting friends from last year - HOLIDAYS!

Praise the Lord, we once more got through exams without being sick, without being too stressed... well... at least we're noticing some improvement - and every Stuvac (=prep time) convinces us more of the value that lies in intensive time spent in the word - it makes such a difference to our relationship with God, it's unbelievable! Unfortunately, what's even more unbelievable is the fact that we tend NOT to do it unless we're 'forced' to. That's actually quite a sad discovery. The theological jargon would probably be 'human depravity'... or plain sinful laziness.

It's scary, if you think about it... but at the same time, it's amazing to realise how incredibly patient God is. It's not just a phrase of some description, God REALLY IS compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love, otherwise no one would ever get anywhere in their Christian walk. The more you think about it, the more amazing it becomes that anyone ever makes it at all. I guess that's what you call grace...we can't fool ourselves, it's God who picks us up time and time again when we fall. It still takes effort to get up, though. It's a wonderful mystery, this whole perseverance-preservation-sanctification-business... God is the one who keeps us going, if we keep going - isn't this the most bizarre & wonderful paradox ever?!

You just have to love how this God of ours keeps on surprising you...and the more he surprises you, the more you're able to trust him... amazing grace.

'Sent from heaven'

We've become uncle & auntie again!


On June 9, little EMMA VALENTINA was born in the early hours of the morning & her proud parents PHIL & EVA have been trying to catch up on sleep ever since ;-)


And even though we are currently many, many kilometers away, we are very happy with them & proud of this latest addition to the 'POHN-Clan'!

Sheep, rats & performing dogs

I wish they'd remember that the charge to Peter was 'Feed my sheep', not 'Try experiments on my rats' or even 'Teach my performing dogs new tricks'.

C.S. Lewis, quoting an unspecified source concerning the desire of some ministers to ceaselessly 'improve' the church service.

The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

C.S. Lewis in 'Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer'

prayer

Effective prayer is the fruit of a relationship with God,
not a technique for aquiring blessings.

Many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys,
who ring front door bells
and run away before anyone answers.

- Carson, 'A Call to Spiritual Reformation'

one week...

...until STUVAC, which means: exams are just around the corner! We've had a busy, but good semester. Despite the busyness, everything seems much more relaxed the 2nd time around, it really helps to have more of an idea how things work. We enjoy the fellowship on campus and at church, it's such a blessing to hang out with different people who've had different experiences with God and just learn from 'each other's stories'.

Last week, Claudi was on a women's weekend away near Waterslea/Koloona. Morning runs, gorgeous weather, an absolutely stunning view, thinking about the breadth, width and depth of God's love, making cards, chatting, laughing, praying,... it was such a good breather!!! It also was a powerful reminder about the miracle of salvation, the way God is really able to work with, in and through broken people, wow!

Brooke, Erica, Claudi, Adele, Kim