Written by Charlene Ward
Hello Cornerstone,
Hello to you all from a (very grateful) windy Durban North. I love it when the wind blows now as then we can cope with the heat. Well, here we are living in Durban and loving it!
We drove down on the 29th of January with Storm our cat travelling with Tarryn and I. She coped very well with the trip and went straight into a beautiful brand new cattery that I found on the Internet – God literally guided me to that website. We stayed in a friend’s flat for three nights (a huge blessing) until we could move into our new rental house on the 1st of February.
The removal van arrived just after 8am and after just over two hours they were unpacked. We had organised a storage facility and had planned to move all the extra furniture that afternoon. However when the team leader/driver of the truck heard about us moving it all ourselves, he offered to put all the extra furniture back into the truck, drive it to the storage facility and then they helped Barry off load it into the garage that we had rented. What a huge blessing as it took them half an hour to do it whereas it would have taken Barry a good few hours to do!! God was so good and took care of the details for us!!
We have spent the past two weeks cleaning, unpacking and getting ourselves set up in our new home. We are very happy here, and our cat has settled in well too. There is a lovely park area nearby which the girls ride their bikes to and play cricket with some of the other teenagers in the afternoons. They are very settled here and enjoying living in Durban North. We have met all our neighbours in our little crescent and they are all so friendly. Sometimes we stand in the road chatting for half an hour or more.
Robyn has settled in well at her school, Virginia Preparatory, and has made some friends. After her first week at school she was given an award for “outstanding effort” as her teacher could see that she was trying hard to catch up her work. You get to wear the badge for a week and then it is someone else’s turn. She is dancing at school as an extra mural and is enjoying it. She wants to go on a Kids camp next weekend that COGS is hosting, and went to their God Chasers equivalent on Friday afternoon for the first time. They call it KICK – it stands for “Kids In Christ’s Kingdom”.
Tarryn has also settled in well at her school, Danville Girls High, and went on her first school tour last week for three days. They went up to Seula which is near Tugela River mouth. She had a great time and got to make more friends. Next Saturday morning their school hosts a “Dad’s and Daughter’s breakfast” which she has bought tickets for. Tarryn is doing Art as an extra mural and may try Choir next term. The girls haven’t started with dancing yet as we are still finding our feet here.
The Wards in Durban North
I have been very busy setting up home, and now am doing my own housekeeping as our place isn’t too big. I have met some moms from Tarryn’s school and on Thursday morning I’m going to join their prayer meeting. They have a “Moms who care” group who meet at Danville every Thursday morning to pray. I have also put my name down to help at Robyn’s school. Every Wednesday morning the staff have a meeting and so they need moms to help out and monitor the corridors, so I have offered to help out and will be a “Corridor Monitor”. Still waiting to hear when my turn is. Never too old to be a “Monitor” – ha ha.
Barry is settling well into his new job at Softworx. Initially he was a bit frustrated as they seemed a bit disorganised and didn’t have things ready for him, but now things are up and running and he has met the clients. He has had to get back into Baan (software system) and remember it all, but it’s coming back to him. He has also been very busy here and working hard on our rental place. Quite a bit of household maintenance needed to be done like fixing the lights as lots of them didn’t work, getting the pool pump working properly etc. But it is all fixed now and we are doing well in our new place. We are so incredibly grateful that it has a little pool as we have been swimming almost every day. In fact Robyn’s blonde streaks in her hair are now green from all the swimming.
More exciting news is that we have a buyer for our house in Edenglen – took the estate agent 20 days to sell our place!!! God is so good and faithful!!! We are waiting to hear if their bond has been granted and then it will be all systems go.
We serve an awesome, amazing God and we are so appreciative of how our Lord has taken care of all the details – both big and small! We are going to visit various churches in the area and see how the Holy Spirit leads us and where He wants us to go.
We all send lots of love to everyone, and thank you for your prayers. God has heard and answered them!
Lots of love,
Barry, Charlene, Tarryn and Robyn
