Thursday, September 28, 2006

Happy Birthday!


This is just a short note to wish my wife, Natalie, and her twin-sister, Michelle, a very happy birthday.

Natalie, we love you very much! You serve and love without hesitance. You are beautiful! You are appreciated and we pray that this year will be filled with love, fulfilment and joy.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

What shall we say...

Win a fun holiday or a ... funeral?

September 23, 2006 Edition 1 Pretoria News

Staff Reporter

When one thinks of a church fete, prizes like heavily decorated cakes, cards and other homemade goodies spring to mind - but a funeral?

That's exactly what's on offer when the Randburg Methodist Church holds its fete on October 7.

For a mere R10, one can enter the raffle and win a self-catering weekend for 10 at the Malutizicht Lodge near Ficksburg, a self-catering weekend for four to six people at Little Eden, Cullinan, or a funeral worth R8 000 courtesy of undertakers Collinge & Co.

Congregation member Margaret Lombard, who is helping to arrange the fete, told Pretoria News Weekend that Collinge & Co's offer of the prize has been welcomed with open arms.

"Anyone who has had to pay for a funeral knows it's no laughing matter," she said.

Asked if it was not a strange prize to offer patrons, she pointed out that various kinds of businesses offered what they could - and Collinge & Co was no different.

"That is what they offered, and it was accepted with thanks."

Undertaker Mike Collinge said the prize consisted of a coffin and services, including the removal of the deceased, arranging the death certificate, arranging the funeral, preparation of the deceased in the coffin, conducting of the funeral at the chosen church, transport of the coffin to the cemetery or crematorium, delivery of the ashes and death certificate.

It did not include "third party payments" - costs such as donations to the minister, organist, verger, church, catering, flowers, doctor's fees, crematorium fees, cemetery, Press notices and the like - "as we have no right to dictate to the family regarding what they should do at the funeral".

Monday, September 11, 2006

Matthew's birthday




3 years ago we were anxious and scared. Our little Matthew was born with a series of heart-defects that threatened his life. He was born with dextrocardia, upstairs-downstairs ventricular orientation, VSD, ASD, PDA and the worst, transposition of the great arteries. In simple language, his aorta and pulmonary arteries were switched around, his heart was lying on the wrong side and was twisted sideways. Along with that he had several holes in his heart. Thanks to Dr. Colyn at UNITAS, Drs. Dansky, Mamorare, Colsen and Kinsley, Matthew had a successful repair when he was 4 months old, undergoing an 8-hour operation at the Walter Sisulu Paediatric Cardiac Centre at Sunninghill hospital.

Look at him now! On his birthday he is healthy and riding a bike!


Thanks for all the prayers, the commitment and knowledge of the doctors, and most of all, our Lord, who held us very close to his heart.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Short note

Just a short note to say that Matthew's operation went well. He was
discharged the same day and wanted to kick a ball on arriving back
home. Thanks for all the prayers!

Monday, September 04, 2006

Spot our baby



This is a 3-D picture of our developing baby. He is lying with his head against the placenta, thus the poor quality of the image. In the middle you see his eye. He is looking down, so use his eye as a reference point to identify his nose, mouth and his puffy cheeks.

Our little lion.



Our little Matthew has an inguinal hernia and will be undergoing surgery tomorrow morning. Please pray for him and us.