The Rock.
On my father's farm in Zimbabwe we had an old workshop with a service pit for working on the vehicles. It had a few major problems though; it was too narrow and not deep enough. Later on we built a new workshop with a perfect service pit very close to the house.
I decided to make a service pit just like the one we had here in Kilwa.
The 3D design and the approved drawings that were submitted to the town planner showed the position, and everything looked so beautiful on paper.
The moment we began digging a major problem emerged. A massive rock was hidden right in the middle of the pit.
We decided that it needs to come out even though we realized that the cost was going to be high. I went to one of the local hardware shops and bought a 14lb sledgehammer.
We worked really hard for the first two days, and then I remembered a fairly primitive method in which your heat the rock with fire and then pour water on it when it is really hot. The sudden cooling causes the rock to crack. This method helped to speed up the process a little because it fractured a layer of about 2 inches of the really hard rock,and made existing cracks even bigger. We worked on the rock for another three more days to reach a point where we were satisfied that we could finish off the rest of the cutting with an angle grinder .
The Reef.
We discovered a small beach about 500 meters from our house. One day Annine went swimming with her swimming goggles about 50 meters from the shore and discovered that there is quite a lot of coral reef.
We very soon invested in some cheap snorkeling goggles and have been going out on a fairly regular basis. We had to borrow a reef guide from some of our team members so that we could at least know some of the fish that we were seeing.
The regular snorkeling has been really good keeping my nasal passages cleared, and at the same time it gives my lungs a bit of a workout.
The other big advantage of this activity is that it gives us a little bit of a breakaway and family time.
We don't have an underwater camera, so I have borrowed this picture of Annine's favorite fish, the Moorish Idol.
Revelations.
Over the past year I have been writing a few blog pages which were mainly focused on our traveling and everyday life, and even though these are important components in building our life story, there is one aspect which can be very easily overlooked.
The primary reason for us being in Tanzania is to bring the Kingdom of God to where we live. I have chosen to make the last section of all my future blogs reveal something of what we are working at Spiritually, or where the Lord has been working to teach and help us grow.
In a recent survey I had the experience of not being able to give through much in the way of results of our work. I do know one thing however; we have not held back in building relationships. We are richer because we have wonderful friendships that have developed out of this work and we trust that the Lord will help us by His Spirit to break through the stony ground, and see a fruitful harvest.
I was reminded constantly of Jacob digging wells while we were beating relentless away at our rock, that Jacob had to keep digging by faith that he would eventually find water.
Our prayer is that you will also be sustained by the Lord to keep on digging at the "rocks" in your life so that you will also see and experience a victorious life in Him
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