There are two good reasons to use this picture of honey jars as the feature image for today’s post… but I’ll get to those in a bit. Let’s go back to the beginning of the week…

Jean-Marie’s Funeral

Dominic & Timo spent the morning / afternoon looking after Jean-Marie’s grandson whom, the family felt, was a bit young to attend. Roman loves Dominic (also his Sunday School teacher). Young person… if you have the chance to teach Sunday School, combining the cool factor that younger kids will ascribe to you, with your own walk with God, can have a lasting impact.

Sophie, meanwhile, came with Liz & I.

The funeral was at a crematorium (first time for me) and the casket was present. Only after the funeral would the body be cremated and the ashes placed into an urn in preparation for burial the next day.

It was an honour to officiate Jean-Marie’s service and speak to 50-60 members of the community who’ve never (yet) stepped foot in our church. Following the message, Liz, Sophie & I sang the song I referred to last week. It was powerful to share with them the peace we experienced in the hospital room.

Thank you Lord for an opportunity to speak of your peace to the wider community.

Sophie’s Book….

She has sold a number of books this week and is elated to see some of her friends sending feedback, along with many of you who gave feedback via facebook, which I relayed.

IF you’ve picked up a copy, she’d love to have pictures of some of her readers (selfies + the book) to help promote (via her instagram I believe). If you’re so inclined…

If you haven’t picked up a copy yet… for you or for a friend, check it out here.

Project with Dominic

As Dominic is getting ready for university studies in the Fall, we wanted to get him his own space (he’s been sharing a room with Timo for all of his 18 years!). I’ll vacate my office, which will become his bedroom, and relocate myself to a small mezzanine at the top of the stairs.

Since the boys currently have a big bunk bed structure, which can’t be split into two single beds, we were going to need to invest in something, so we opted to build in-stead.

It’ll be a basic farmhouse-style bed, so nothin’ fancy, but it’s also cool for him to be participating in his first real build… discovering tools, understanding some of the things to think about, and learning from MY many mistakes! 😉

Perhaps coolest of all is just spending the time together.

Sweeter than Honey

On Thursday I went to check on one of the hives that I’d split from the mother colony and saw that, after one month, there was no queen in the hive. Bad news. A colony will not survive without a queen.

I went digging into my strongest hive looking for some young eggs that I could give my split, from which they could raise a new queen. What I found however was that they were preparing to swarm: there were 4 swarm cells (new queen cells). I took one of the swarm cells for my split, made another small colony and left two cells in the hive (as I didn’t seen any signs of a queen).

The other thing I saw was a PILE of honey. I was able to extract about 14kg (just under 31lbs) worth, so we are set at least until winter. The photo above is about 4.5kg (10 lbs) in some recycled honey jars that Liz has been keeping. All that and they still have honey to do them the rest of the summer & fall.

God’s Word = Sweeter than Honey…

Psalm 19.10 says that the Lord’s pronouncements are sweeter than honey and we’ve found that to be true this week.

Last night was the final night of the European & Middle-East region Youth Congress 2020 (online version of course) and Victor Jackson spoke on how God uses the wilderness seasons in our life to prepare us for God to do an even greater work both in & through us.

It really touched all 5 of us deeply. There have been so many times that we’ve felt the pangs of loneliness here. But the upside is… if we’re able to maintain our relationship with the Lord in tact, in the absence of a wide Christian family / well developed Christian culture, then it births in us a strong foundation. In North America, it’s easier to base one’s relationship with God on mere church attendance or a Christian peer group… at the expense of a deep & meaningful relationship with God himself.

God ministered to us last night through Bro. Jackson, and just like honey (moreso really), feeling the touch of God’s hand on your life… is sweet!

Have you felt it recently?
I hope you do today!

God bless you & thanks for spending a few minutes with us!