Jesse

This is our grandson Jesse and today he is 7... I can hardly believe his has been in our family for nearly 7 years.

You may wonder why Jesse is holding a sign saying 'happy birthday Miles'? Well Miles is the son of their friends who are missionaries in Burundi. They did live in SA and when Miles was first born they used to visit the orphanage where Jesse had been placed when he was first found abandoned on the day of his birth. Miles' parents and older brother used to go to the orphanage and spend time with the babies, because Jesse had been born on the same day as Miles they took a special interest I him and prayed each visit that Jesse would be adopted by Christian parents. 

Well skip a couple of years and our daughter and son in law, Vashti & Martin, began to attend a new church in Durban where they met Miles and his family. It wasn't until a while later that they discovered that link and that Miles' parents had already met Jesse before he had been adopted by Vashti & Martin. 

This is a story of Gods faithfulness and also how He places a bond between His people which cannot be broken even when they move miles away. 

We are so thankful to God for placing Joseph and Jesse in our family.....He is good indeed!

This is the first picture that we saw of Jesse, Vashti is on the phone telling me that they have brought him home while Martin took and emailed this photo to us

Jesse and his big brother Joseph

self control

Today Joseph received 'Star of the Week' award at his new school, he got to go up to the stage in assembly and shake the head masters hand.....I would have loved to have been able to see that. And look what he received his award for...exercising self control! What a great gift to have :)

Book Bag

I was 'chatting' with my daughter in SA on our Blackberries. She mentioned that her son needed a book bag before he could bring home a book from the school library. His classmates had theirs when they were in kindergarten but because Joe went to a different kindergarten he didn't have one and the lady who made them was no longer around. I asked dimensions etc and what colour he would like as I went through in my mind what heavy fabric I had already...I could only think of a piece of orange twill when the answer came back, "He would like orange please." PTL! I asked if he would like his name on and the answer was "Yes and a boat please" I love how God is interested in every little detail of our lives, even matching up what colour book bag we want with what colour fabric our Grandma has in her stash!

I made the bag double layered with a velcro strip across the opening. The last photo below is of Joe saying goodbye to his teacher as he leaves school one day. I would love to be a fly on the wall listening to what he is saying to her :)

Joseph's Gotcha Day

Today is a special day.....six years ago this beautiful baby boy came home to live with his Mummy & Daddy. The top two photo's were taken a few weeks later on his first trip to visit his family in the UK...that first photo is him with his very proud Grandma. They call this day Joseph's 'Gotcha Day' Joseph had been wrapped in a blanket and left on a bench at Durban railway station on the day he was born, he was found and taken to a lovely orphanage. When my daughter and her husband called the orphanage to see how they were to go about adoption they were put in touch with a social worker. The orphanage and social worker we all Christians. Within a couple of days they received a call to say that a baby boy was available for adoption and would they like to go and meet him. When they arrived at the orphanage they were asked to wait for the owner to come and speak to them. During this time they looked at and played with all the little babies is the play room. My daughter said she just knew that none of these babies was 'her baby', they had prayed before hand that God would make it clear if the baby they were going to meet was the baby He wanted them to have. When the lady came to speak with them she told them that the baby she wanted them to meet wasn't in the play room but still in his cot. They went through to meet him and knew instantly that this was 'their baby'. Thirteen days later Joseph Ukheta Downs came home. Back then we didn't have Blackerry phones with instant messages and photo's. They didn't have very good internet connection and we had to wait two weeks before we saw a photo of Joe....that was a long two weeks. When we saw him although there are some pretty obvious differences, he was instantly our Grandson. And when we got our first sight of him in the flesh at Heathrow Airport we could hardly contain ourselves. We thank God for the amazing blessing that Joseph is to us!