New Year New Beginnings

It is a new year and with a new year comes new beginnings. Each year in Hands at Work, God gives us a Watchword which we use to guide our year. This year, God gave us a word from Habakkuk which says “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.” We took time in small groups to reflect on this together and individually. For us as Hands at Work this year, we will go through times of struggles and times of celebration, but God wants us to be reflecting on the times which he has stood by us. In the busyness of carrying out our daily tasks and lives, we can forget how faithful God is in the small things, but this year he is calling us to remember that. We are excited to see what this year holds for us as a family.

The Hands at Work family at the beginning of 2015

Over the past few weeks, Morgan and I have had time to recuperate before the beginning of the year which is always busy! We had time over the Christmas break to get settled into our new house and also host people on Christmas morning which was amazing. We love having the space to be able to host people and to be able to do this on Christmas morning was very special. We enjoyed a bring and share breakfast while opening gifts from friends and family. Later during that day, all of the Hands family came together at lunch to enjoy meat from the braai (South African barbeque). It is still very strange to celebrate Christmas in the hot weather but we shut the doors at night and turned the fan on full speed to try and make it feel a bit more like a home Christmas season.

Christmas Morning in our House

Even though the Hands offices are closed over the Christmas break, there is still work to be done, but we managed to keep it to a minimum and got some rest. A group of us all headed out to Mac Mac pools, a nearby waterfall and tourist site to celebrate Mel’s (one of our Australian volunteers) birthday. It was a very hot day and even though we put on sun cream, many of us still got burnt. The water was definitely refreshing on such a hot day. Also, during the break, we had Silo come to stay at our house. We spent time playing games with him, catching up and watching some films. He is still looking for a permanent job so please pray with us for that. We also have the chance to go to Kruger Park with our friends from Zambia and their two little girls. I saw wild dog for the first time in four years! And we had a great cheetah sighting.

In terms of travel for this year, we have not got much planned yet but God knows his plans for us and so we wait to see what they are for us. We are still currently waiting for my South African visa extension to be approved, so prayers for that would be much appreciated. In terms of our roles, Morgan will continue to head up our communications team who share our stories, updates and highlights from inside Africa to our partners, churches and friends outside of Africa. For myself, I will continue to work with our finance teams throughout Africa.

That’s all for now, but we are excited to share another years worth of adventures with you soon enough!

 Tommy