Virginia Ross's testimony

Mrs. Virginia Ross was our special speaker in our Ladies Bible Study, and I'd like to kick myself for not having video taped her. The whole thing was excellent, and I got a blessing in an area where I had a fear that the devil was probably going to blow up into an overwhelming thing. More about that later.

Mrs. Ross was a Young! When she was young Young, her mom died, which left her with a loneliness that she says was part of what drew her to Jesus. She was involved with dancing, boys, hairstyles, movies and everything else she could think of that would give satisfaction, and yet was so unhappy. Her friend Blanche was the same, and then Blanche got saved. She couldn't understand it. They were all Presbyterians, all church people, and didn't understand what it was that Blanche had done. She remembers saying, "Blanche is not ashamed of Jesus, and I am." They thought she must have turned Catholic, but Virginia took the time to find out more. She was very drawn to whatever Blanche had, but felt she would have to give up everything, her university plans, her entertainment, and even her family if she were to follow the Lord. She determined the cost was too high and said she wouldn't do it, but then, after a week long visit with Blanche, she was shocked to hear herself say to Blanche, "Can I get saved right here or do I have to be in a church?"

She mentioned that verse "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? Nay, but rather division." Luke 12:51. It was certainly true for her. Her whole family was in an uproar over her conversion, and then she wanted to go to Bible college instead of being the first in the family to go to university (her uncle had been going to pay). Many years later her father admitted that she had chosen well, and 10 years later her twin sister got saved too so there was sweet fruit, but only later.

She went through a very dark time of doubt almost immediately after being saved, but then, as she prayed, she opened her Bible to Revelation 3:15 and knew she was one of the lukewarm ones! From that time on she was surrendered and soon planned to be a missionary.

She considered boys to be one of the worldly things she had denounced so planned to go as a single missionary, but God had other plans. She was all ready to go on one boat in 1949, at age 29, but her visa never came from South Africa. She couldn't understand it! Why would God allow this to happen? But very soon began to see reasons for the delay. First of all, Blanche's house was struck by lightning and burned to the ground WHILE she was bringing Virginia home from the boat she wasn't allowed to take.

Secondly, that was when her twin got saved, partly from reading The Robe and then with Virginia's help.

So months later, visa in hand, she tried again. This time she was one of 12 passengers on a cargo ship. As she came on the ship, she was told that there was one other missionary on board. She was glad, thinking he was probably an older missionary from whom she could learn. His name was Archibald Macintyre Ross, 2 years her junior. They were assigned to the Chief Engineer's table, right beside each other for 3 meals a day, for 3 weeks. You can imagine what happened. She was impressed with his looks, and that he knew the Bible better then she did. She would argue with him, but he was winning all the arguments.

She was in the habit of reading the Bible each night before bed, so one night she read the last 2 verses in Proverbs and a chapter in the New Testament, (she didn't say which, but I guess it was 1 Corinthians 13). The first opened her eyes to the fact that God valued married ladies, and the second opened her eyes to the fact that Archie was right in their argument about women preachers.

The next day when they met before breakfast, she said she had read some scriptures. He said, "Was one of them Proverbs 31:30, 31?" to which she answered, "How did you know?" and then he asked, "Was the other 1 Corinthians 14?" She wondered if he was a mind reader! "How did you know?" she asked again.

The answer left her dumfounded. "Because I prayed that if you were the girl for me, that He would have you read those two passages."

"Where does that leave me?" she sputtered, rather amazed at that unique proposal.

"Just where you've always been. I have my guidance, now you'll have to get yours," came the reply. All this happened on the equator, she told us, but she held off saying yes til they came into Cape Town.

Things were complicated for a bit there, as he was assigned to Zambia and was with the Brethren, while she was to go to the Transvaal with her group. So it was at least a year and a half before they got everything squared away. She became Brethren while in Durban, and he got malaria and had to leave Zambia so they finally got married and were married for 54 years.
They had 4 children, 3 girls and a boy. The boy is in Parow and the girls are in the States and New Zealand.

It was sweet to hear her talk about her husband of 54 years. She used a lot of "very"s. He was very Scottish, very good looking, very smart, very godly, and very humorous. She said the last 2 years with him were the best "because he did everything I told him to." :-) But then she said really they were the best in fellowship. He was paralyzed from a stroke, so they were living in the States, but unable to afford help there. Her back was going from helping him, so they ended up moving to Cape Town where they could afford to hire nurses to help him. She said he wanted to go to heaven ever since the stroke, but the Lord left him those 11 (I think) years, and she really enjoyed him. He could still preach, but he couldn't walk without help as it was his entire left side that was paralyzed.

She learned a lot during his illness. She started driving at age 78 (My friend Mary is totally inspired by that one!) and learned to use the computer at age 81. She confessed she's a little proud about that, because there are only 2 of the old ladies where she lives who have learned the computer and she's one of them. I think she lives in the Retirement Hotel in St. James.

She talked about love, and how there is nothing better in this life then to lay down your life for another, and how sweet the time was for them as a couple while they went through this time of ill health. That is the part that particularly encouraged me! I was under the impression that it just kind of got worse and worse and then you died, but she describes it as better and better with the Lord, and the difficulties are just incidental.

She did share about difficulties like impatience with her husband, hip surgeries, a prolapsed uterus after the birth of her son (10 1/2 lbs which is about 5 kilos!!!) and so forth, but able to see how God had worked in those situations.

El Sobrinito

I don't much like photos of myself, but Daniel's cute enough in this one to make up for my double chin. He turned 15 months this week, and is such a fun little nephew. I like the way he follows our Josh around like a shadow. He likes everything Josh does, UNLESS Josh dares to us the "n" word on him. He's not crazy about being told "no" by anyone, but especially his buddy Josh. That feels like treason!

I was hoping to add a bunch of pictures on here tonight. You see, in Africa we pre-pay for our time on the internet. So we buy it by the gigabyte. We ran out near the end of the month, and I couldn't just let it wait for the next month because Thanksgiving was in there, and we wanted to call the States using Magic Jack which means it's through the computer and is nice and cheap. But, knowing we had a nearly full gigabyte, and that any "left-overs" get sacrificed at the end of the month, we splurged this evening on the internet. For a bedtime story we watched Tim Hawkins on Utube, and before that we saw a bunch of clips of the Duggars on TLC.com (We're just fascinated with the Duggars. They seem like our kind of people :-)

But my picture adding got thwarted. The pictures I wanted to add are in emails, and I can't figure how to get them out of there into here, and tomorrow we get a new gigabyte which is supposed to last the whole month of December, though it never lasts a month. We always use at least 2 gigs.

Anyway, I also did our prayer letter, and got all the trillions of those sent, so we must have used a good chunk of that gig. Enough so I can now go to bed in good conscience...hopefully to sleep better then last night.

Before I go, let me just tell you about last night. It got wild! A car was stolen to the left of us down the street, and the thief pushed it to the right of us, up the street. The neighbor below us heard noises and went to check (brave guy, Geoff!) He ended up catching the thief and standing on his ankles til the police came! Someone else was standing on his shoulders.

I heard all this commotion and was peering out windows, trying to figure out what was going on. Finally, I went to see, in my lovely blue Chinese bathrobe. Berwick was thrilled to have company outside, so she was right at my side, thankfully, when a policeman walked in our gate.
We always wondered what Berwick would do if...or should I say when...an intruder entered. Now I know! She started barking and heading for the policeman! I got a hold on her collar, but the wind was blowing like the wind blows a lot in Muizenberg, and that blue bathrobe wasn't doing the greatest job, so Berwick got dragged quickly indoors.

Not only the car robbery, but Josh walked in his sleep AGAIN! He's a bit freaky when he does that, talking, smiling, and one time jumping over furniture.

After all this excitement, I was just dozing off, and a pigeon had to have a seizure on our bathroom windowsill! Twice!! I don't know why, and didn't much care at that point, just wanted my heart to stop thumping out of my throat. Maybe the pigeon was just flying, but it sounded like a seizure to me.

So that's why I'm behind on my beauty sleep. I'll see if I can do better tonight.

What a class of cuties! Evangel loves doing crafts with the Ladies' Bible study daughters. From left, we have Joy, Julia, Gabi, Rebecca, and Megan. Josh did a little craft of his own, making himself an apron out of 2 bandannas and 2 belts. Smarty pants!

While on our last trip, in Swellendam, we got to go to the Drostdy Museum. We didn't go look at these sheep, they came to look at us! They were amazed at the boys goofing around on a threshing floor.

There's our 3 kiddos in an old charcoal mill. Swellendam is the 3rd oldest town in South Africa, and is about 2 hours from Cape Town. We could get a feel for what things were like 200 years ago at this museum.

Margie and Amy, my quilting friends, this photo is especially for you!

This floor amazed me. See those little dots? Each one is a peach or nectarine seed! We all decided Josh should make a floor like that if he ever makes a house. At the rate he downs nectarines, it would take him about a week to have enough seeds. :-)

A highlight of Swellendam was picking Youngberries! It was the first time we have ever done it, and we like the fruit of our labors.

Usually in prayer letters I ask prayer that we can bring forth much fruit, but this time it was the literal fruit. We have enjoyed some Youngberry cobbler. Youngberries are similar to blackberries, but are a little bigger. They have prickles too like blackberries.

A few more pics of the Barrydale adventure have to sneak in here. I love to see Paul zipping along in his Sunday best.

And one last photo for Aunt Grace:

Barrydale and Robertson Trip

Isn't Paul dignified looking, 4 wheeling/quadbiking in his Sunday best? We had such a special treat our Sunday in Barrydale. Auntie Christine invited us home to Sunday dinner, and her son and his kids gave rides on their toys. Their Josh and our Josh head off down the road.

Evangel and Chrismarie head out in the go-cart.

Timothy took a turn driving too, with their Josh on the back to save his life in case of emergencies.

We always think of Aunt Grace when we find gorgeous flowers along the way in our travels.

Evangel made friends with a monkey at Birds Paradise in Robertson. The same monkey hit Paul on the head, much to the delight of our kids.

This dramatic Toucan was one of our favorite birds.

Not the greatest picture, but I loved these haystack people and had to try showing them.

Happy Reformation Day

We've deposed Halloween, and replaced it with Reformation Day as a family celebration. This year we joined Peter Hammond at the Huguenot Memorial in Franschoek. The Huguenot Memorial helps us remember the Huguenot people who fled from persecution in France and found a new life in South Africa.

Paul preached behind the Memorial. Josh and Timmy (looking dead behind Paul) helped Paul act out some of his sermon. His board is flat on the ground because the wind was a bit gusty that day.

My camera didn't capture the total beauty of this place, but it gives a hint of it.

While Grace (Paul's sister) was with us, we went to see a rose farm near our house. It's only about 15 minutes from home, but I had never been there. I'm glad she inspired our visit.

Chart Farm as the rose farm is called looks over to the Constantia Mountains. I hope I get to take other visitors here cuz I want an excuse to try their coffee shop--not that I drink coffee, but those little cakes are calling my name. Plus I might need to stock up on roses. You can cut your own for R4 each (about 50 cents in the US).

At the end of October, it was my once-a-year turn to hostess my book club ladies. Our meeting in the living room was pretty normal, but our husbands and sons decided to get together too, so they all crammed in to our bedroom to watch a war movie together. I thought they were move worthy of a picture then our normal gathering in the living room. First time we've done major entertaining in the bedroom, (except for the boys' pillow fights on our bed during ladies' Bible study, but that wasn't "legal" :-)

Josh and Bronwyn (who lives downstairs from us) were a great help getting ready for the event. They liked my little shishkabobs.

Berwick's in the doghouse again. She really did it this time. On Friday we gave up paperworking homeschool, and had a projects day. I was rejoicing in how well it was going. Timothy, Josh and I got the bunny hutches repaired and painted. Timothy did the sawing, and both boys pounded in a lot of nails. We made some fake sky lights at the same time (painted the boards that cover the holes into the attic like a sky). Things were getting ship shape, and then....tragedy. One of us left the fence open, and Snowball was hopping around lose while we painted his cage. Berwick could not apparently control her baser cravings; she seems to have caught the bunny and shook him.

We were all mad at Berwick, yet trying to realize that she is created to be a dog, a predator, and she didn't do it to be bad. It might have made it easier if she were repentant. She's still drooling at the sight of Toffee and her new baby, so we know she'd repeat the performance if she got the chance.

But we are homeschoolers, and we were having a projects day, so we called Johanneke, our very brave friend from Holland, and asked if she'd help us with the bunny. She was game, so we loaded up and hurried to her house to have a biology lesson and a taxidermy lesson. I have pictures, but I'm not going to post them, at least not yet because I can't find the camera cord. Snowball looked better alive.

Evangel's birthday blender is a delight to the whole family!!! Someone knows how to pick a gift.

We went on a field trip to Groote Schuur Hospital this week to learn about the world's first successful open heart surgery.

The museum was in the actual rooms the surgery took place in. The donor was a girl who was hit by a car.

Dr. Christiaan Barnhard was the doctor who performed the surgery. I was fascinated with this silicone look alike. We are all so pleased that it is a South African who did the surgery, a charming, good looking man who became the darling of the country.

He looked so real! But I found his story a bit sad. He came from a Christian family here in South Africa, but it seems as though his amazing success and popularity went to his head. He divorced his first wife and remarried two other times to beauties much younger then he was. He had 6 children but died alone on the island of Cyprus. I think his parents were probably pretty disappointed in him. "Let thy work appear unto thy servants and thy glory unto their children," is our prayer for our children.