MARCHING ON!

BACK TO THE SWIMMING POOL AGAIN!!     Remember we planted this Pool in 2013.    We have had a lot of trouble with it, due mainly to the inexperience and 'know-how' of the so called 'Contractors' that laid it down in the first place.    But a year ago we found tiles breaking, or just lifting, on the floor near the shallow end.   We thought this was just going to need a few replacementd tiles, but more continued to break - and all along a particular LINE across the Shallow End and just above our name 'TESTIMONY'.

This is also just where the shallows begin to dip progressively to the DEEP end.      On investigation we discovered that the contractor had not laid a 'gradual' gradient downwards but an abrupt one which began midway between a line of tiles thus providing a kind of 'see/saw' effect on that row of tiles; they kind of 'pivoted'.   Thus water got between the tiles and the pool floor - and the glue diluted and the tiles began to come away and crack. The photo to the left just shows the situation to perfection.
To finally - we hope - fix this problem we hav, this week, had to lower the level of water in the pool to below the area of need, and adjust the pool bed along the line of fracture, relay with new tiles, and refill the pool water to the proper level.     Not a very BIG job, and only three days work.

I thought to share about it because it demonstrates the kind of thing that can crop up extra and often unexpected within a few days.     It had to be attended to quickly because it is in use a good twelve hours a day, and to Shut Down for just a day causes untold inconvenience - even now with the School Shut, for the Homes still use it, and also it is open to outsiders to come in to enjoy it.     Life is full of unforeseen events that add to or interrupt our plan for the day or week ahead.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

AND, OF COURSE, DONALD TRUMP has popped into the Last Days possibilities.    He who is a 'Friend of Israel'.      Gave me pause to consider National Leaders, and I found myself briefly thinking about the Emperor Marcus Aurelius who died around 180 A.D.    He was known as the "Philosopher King'  and considered the best of all the Emperors.    A man who lived for what he believed as a disciple of Socrates,   One of his sayings to the left says

'WASTE no more time

arguing about what a good man should be.!

BE ONE!

And even further ' REMEMBER who you are, WHAT you are meant to BE, and let your actions be done with dignity, gravity, humanity, freedom and justice.\

Let every Action be done as if it is your last - (AND do not act as if you are going to live for ten thousand years - death hangs over thee).   While you livest, while it is in they power, be GOOD.  Put it out of the power of all men to give you a bad name, and if anyone reports you not to be an honest or a good man, let your practise ( your deeds) give him the lie.    A Man or Woman of integrity and good nature can NEVER be concealed.'

Aurelius was followed by his son COMMODUS, a weak though not an ignorant man who took up his position as Emperor only to degrade it, and spoil it.     Indeed it is said of him that he took the Roman Empire 'from being a kingdom of gold, to one of iron and rust.'     And Gibbons, writer of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, believed that it was from the time of Commodus that decline BEGAN.

Commodus rejected his father's example in every moral way and lived only to please himself and the appetites of his own body and flesh.      He also deceived himself into believing he himself was a god, trusting in his own fallible wisdom and weak character.

Any one of us can be leaders, or have the ability to lead, but not everyone has what it takes to lead.

It takes Moral Excellence.   (read the Amplified Bible translation of 1. Corinthians 4v20).    Leaders without it, or without striving for it in their own lives, will lead us all downwards into chaos, but those who struggle to achieve and hang on to it will lead us up to sunlit lands of peace, prosperity and moral integrity.

Mr. TRUMP has trumped all the other competitors for the job, but does he have the Moral Excellency needed?     Will he BE a GOOD man?      JESUS says there is none good only God who made us, and thus only those who have turned their lives over to God in Christ can pretend to BE GOOD.   Who and What possesses Donald?      It will be by the Answer to this question that we shall see him succeed as a true Leader or not.

================================= 

THE LORD has today provided our needs, and although daily necessities continue to progressively, moment by moment, be used up, yet we are filled.     

I always remember the Widow of Zarephath told about in the Bible in 1, Kings 17v10-15.    The flour and the Oil never came to an end until the 'rain' came.  It was NOT a short time - when she needed - something it was THERE!

Last week we ran out of maize flour (a staple ingrediant of our diet) - not just Esther and me - but the whole Family of Testimony; FIVE households of more than 150 souls!        In the middle of the morning someone came to OUR back door and left FIVE BALES of Flour - anonymously- and so ....... we continued to eat what we initially believed had come to an end.    God does hear our prayer, and He does answer and we are KEPT by His Power working in and through YOU, and by others who even come invisibly to our door and leave their gift.   Truly God is Wonderful,    I have sometimes wokndered if the Widow becae kind of 'used to it' and took it for granted.     To us here it is such an EVENT, such a wonderFULL thing.    We are for ever touched, with the Wonder of it, the Miracle of it.     Blessed BE the Name of the Lord, the Name of Jesus.

Our love to you all in Jesus Name

John, Esther and Daryl Green