With the news of Japan’s earthquake and the tsunami that followed it yesterday, it seems rather irrelevant to be sitting here updating you on two months of Davis family news.
There used to be a frame on the wall of my father’s downstairs toilet, containing a cartoon of two tiny men under a huge, snow-capped mountain. One was saying in awe to the other, “It makes me feel wee and insignificant,” and the other was responding, “That’s because ye are wee and insignificant.”
That’s how these tremendous ‘acts of God’ always make us feel. When we see trees torn up, homes literally lifted from their foundations and ten-tonne lorries tossed about like matchwood in an unstoppable flow of water, we recognise our own weakness before the power of nature. And yet, paradoxically, it also makes us realise how extraordinary it is that each one of those ‘wee and insignificant’ people actually matters to God. Our little lives with their little, unimportant happenings are important to Him in the same way our children’s small, everyday joys and pains matter to us.
So we pray for each one of those people directly and indirectly affected by the terrifying events of yesterday, and hope that God and others will help where we cannot. And we get on with our daily lives, just a little more grateful for the fact that we are here for another day, and perhaps a little more afraid that one day it will be us and not ‘them’ who are suffering so.
It’s amazing that two months have passed since the last blog, and my apologies to family and friends who have been looking for news. It’s been a busy but productive time for us as a family, and March has begun joyfully, with the arrival of Ben and Jess, who are here to spend four months with us, and who are already busy with tutoring, dog-walking, helping my class with their ‘portfolios’ and even cooking dinner once in a while! But more of that in a later blog…
Here are some snapshots and comments about the past two months. Floods and fevers, beaches and barbecues, kittens and Kruger, practising and performing. All these have made up our time – as well as the usual work, work, work, of course. As for fevers, well, no photos of these of course – but it’s been a rather sickly time for us, for our colleagues and for our friends. Some strange bugs around in Maputo this year!
The worst floods we've yet seen hit Maputo - Jan 2011
Will between the pools
Will and Owald, exhausted after leaping in waves (Feb 2011)
Waves at Bilene - beyond the lagoon
'Braai' with the Van Schalkwyks (Feb 2011)
Kitten fostered for 2 days (then found a home) - Feb 2011
A lunch-time visit to Kruger (before shopping trip) - saw more cheetah! (Feb 2011)
Will's band, 'Statement', practising
'Statement' at their first live performance
The teachers' band performing!
The Davis family in Mozambique 