Greater is He...and More Special News...

I didn't think I would ever have the blessed opportunity of sharing something as special as this on my blog again...certainly not after my dear mother had not one or two, but three miscarriages in the past two years...

Dear friends I am simply delighted to be writing this post today and sharing with you the workings of our Almighty Father in our lives...

My precious mother is carrying a beautiful bundle, and for the first time, it is a...little boy!

Can you believe that...? 

We have never had one of those around here...only girls have been welcomed into our little family so far...  But we are all thrilled at this new blessing due to arrive in April 2016, Lord willing of course, and we are eagerly anticipating his arrival...

How strange to say his...surprisingly, from the very beginning of my mom's pregnancy, we all fell into saying ''him'' or ''his''...this was even before we discovered it was indeed a ''him'' all safe and healthy in my mother's womb!

My mother and I bought the first little babygro the other day and what joy it was to browse the baby section of the store again...without experiencing pain and heartache...

 

Rebekah, who is now a sweet six year old, was the first baby I wrote about on my blog...I started my blog in April 2009, and she was born a few months later in June of 2009...

My mom's past three miscarriages were difficult for us as a family to accept, and it was so hard to watch our mom go through such pain - both physical and emtional...

In August my mom quietly told me she was expecting once again, and although every ounce of me wanted to shriek with glee, I withheld my joy and remained focused on serving my mother and helping her through the next few weeks...each time she miscarried, it was at about 12 weeeks.  This time we withheld from telling the little girls until Mom was further along...

At 11 weeks my mom scheduled a scan, and we all waited anxiously at home, assuming the worst...but when my dad texted me with the news that all was well...oh my!  I burst into tears of joy and relief!

This week marks 19 weeks gestation, and after another scan, it appears that we are expecting a little brother...a precious, adorable baby boy!  

Having only had sisters up to now, this is a whole new experience and I can't wait to meet him...what will a little Gray boy look like?

You can imagine the happiness around here...we are so grateful to the Lord for seeing fit to bless our family with another little one and are humbled at His goodness...

Little Sofia is four years old and too adorable for words...she was the second baby I wrote about on my blog...and I thought she was the last...praise the Lord that He had other plans!

Having gone through the pain of losing unborn siblings, I have become more sensitive towards those ladies who have either lost an unborn precious babe or not been able to have children at all...  Oh, what pain, and I pray I may never take the gift of life for granted!  

While my family may be rejoicing at this time in our lives, I realise many other dear ladies may be reading my post today and experiencing tremendous heartache...I pray that your hearts may be comforted by the True Comforter...I believe He aches for us in our pain, and sees our sorrow...

Sometimes we need to go through certain trials in life to be more sympathetic towards others...even though the past three miscarriages were not something we would have chosen to go through - no one likes to suffer - but we did come out of these challenges stronger in our faith and closer towards each other...

We chose to praise the Lord for seeing fit to allow my mom to carry and give birth to six healthy girls...I think experiencing the fragility of life makes us all the more thankful for the blessings we do have and more appreciative of the time we have had with them.

Every day we live and breathe on this earth is a gift from our Father in heaven, and each day spent with a precious loved one is only by God's grace...  I am striving to embrace and enjoy each swiftly passing moment and season in life, and thank Him for the privilege of being a big sister to so many...

Do I love being with them all the time...?  No.  Am I always wonderfully patient and giving of my time...?  Oh, definitely not!  But the Lord sees my failings and is so gracious in giving me another sibling to practice on...
How do we develop patience, self-control and gentleness within ourselves...?  By daily practicing!  What better way to rid myself of all selfishness than to be in this home where I am surrounded by imperfect individuals like myself and am constantly on call and available for His glory!  No, it is not easy and many times I cry out to our Father for His strength and grace!

And then He reminds me of the beautiful sacrifice made by my dear mother...

...She has laid down her plans and her life to carry another arrow for His army...another precious babe for the Kingdom...  I pray someday I may be just like her...what a blessing to learn from her and see the workings of our Almighty God in our lives because of her obedience.

We continue to trust Him to carry our baby brother and uphold our mom, giving her all the strength she needs...and I ask that you, my dear friends who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, would you keep this little one and my mother in your prayers...?

~

I am so glad to have had the blessing of sharing this special news with you today...all praise and glory to our Lord and King...for His love endures forever...

With joy in Christ ~

 "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord:  and the fruit of the womb is his reward.  As arrows are in the hand of a mighty warrior; so are children of the youth.  Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them..."

~ Psalm 127:3-5, KJV

The start of a new series…Happenings on the Homestead - July 2012

July: An interesting and exciting month for our family...we learnt so much, experienced so much and loved so much...I remember only the joyful moments found in it...dear, dear July...

However, I will miss many things in my life that changed in this month...I’ll miss sweet friends who left for another life in another country and I’ll miss the moments that can never be relived with my family...



First leaves on our apple tree...

But I do not want to look on the downside of July; I wish to look at the bright side - this month I truly tried to bask in God’s riches and grace.

Peach blossoms...first of the season...oh how delighted they made me feel!

This area is being developed for a big food garden.

But first of all, welcome to our little piece of earth, where we hope to grow abundantly in Christ and live sufficiently off the land...this is God’s farm and He has graciously allowed us the privilege of working it and at the same time have Him work in our hearts.

Garden...

Somehow we managed to achieve so much in the garden during July...I think it was due to the fact that the weather played along about 70% of the time...I cherished the warm days and cheerful skies and made the most of them. I planted lots and lots of seeds towards the middle of July and now I see them greeting the world in their trays!

Seedling trays resting on top of the rain tank...

Our kitchen garden in the process of being developed...we’re getting there!

Our second batch of potatoes...

We harvested our first lot of potatoes this month and managed to get five meals for our family out of that crop – not bad seeing as it was a) our first attempt b) the size of the patch measured only 2m x 2m and c) I got too impatient and pulled out the plants when the tubers were still fairly small. They were divine anyway and had a completely different taste to that of store bought tubers.

Hmmm...I used our first baby potatoes in a stew...

...And as a side dish with roast chicken.  I steamed the potatoes until tender while I fried together a few diced spring onions and five crushed garlic cloves.  I then placed the potatoes, garlic, spring onion and a huge dollop of farm butter in a dish and tossed gently.  They were delicious - if I do say so myself:)  lol.

Other harvesting done this month included a fair amount of lettuce, celery and parsley for salads. I actually picked a few heads of broccoli today for a warming sweet potato and broccoli soup. The recipe is at the bottom of this post.

Already Dad and I have begun sorting out our other veggie patch which is at the back of our house (see photo at beginning of post). Dad hoes the area to be used for planting and I help him by clearing out the grass and weeds. Dad then has to lay plastic along the sides of each bed in order to keep the pesky moles out. This takes him a long time...

I managed to plant another crop of potatoes in the new veggie area on Saturday and we are almost finished patch number two where I’ll plant broad beans and runner beans. There are so many other things we need to plant NOW but poor Dad only has so much time after work and on weekends...I struggle with my back so I cannot really do any hard work in the garden other than planting and weeding. We’ll get there in good time, though! My mom has taught us to live by the old adage: ‘Slow and Steady wins the race!’

Fortunately, we did plant lots of peas at the beginning of July so they are growing nicely now in the small kitchen garden as well as carrots and beetroot which I have sown successively. I’ll let you know what crops we’ve got in the new garden next month.

It is exciting to see more and more space being taken up by vegetable and fruit producing plants.

Animals and Meat...

In July the milk production went from good to great and from great to amazing! This morning I came inside with ten litres of milk. Dude, the foster calf, is almost fully weaned now, so I have to get every drop of milk out Molly’s udder. It is rather tiring and I do prefer it when there are calves to suck out those last few drops! Dude has a full feed in the evening though.

The most wonderful thing about fresh milk is the lovely layer of cream that rises to the top after 12-24 hours of refrigerating...I am so happy I acquired the job of scooping the cream off and making butter! I really love all the jobs that come with farm life and I’m happy I get to lend a hand in all of them, but milking and making milk products happens to be my favourite of all...

We don’t get quite enough cream to make quite enough butter for our family, so we do have to buy in each month. But as our milk production has increased this month, so has our butter making! We reckon we get over two bricks a week (over 1kg of butter) from Molly.

We are getting laying hens very soon – Nancy is delighted because she’ll be in charge of them!  Dad and our neighbour, Uncle Terence, began building the coop this month and should complete it in August sometime. 

Most of our meat is hunted by Uncle Terence when he can and the rest we do have to buy in.  However,  it won’t be too long till poor Dude grows up...eventually we’ll also have chickens which we’ll slaughter for meat:(

My favourite chore of the day is milking Molly and looking after the calf. That is, if it isn’t raining...

In the Kitchen...

July isn’t our month for much preserving...however, we always have things to do in the kitchen, whether it is bread baking, butter making or just general food preparation. I spend a lot of my time cooking which is time happily spent for me...

Mom plans the meals and I help her by telling her what we have in the fridge etc. I also have the privilege of cooking several times a week for my family. You could actually say I see to a lot of things within the running of the kitchen because most of my chores happen there – I am chief-in-charge-washer-upper (if you get such a word as that) and chief-stove-looker-afterer (I KNOW there is no word such as that!). As mentioned I do the butter making and generally see to the incoming and usage of milk and milk products. Mom sees to most of the bread baking. Nancy has to do the drying up and Beth dries the plastic dishes and sets and clears the meal tables. Gabrielle does her share by drying the cutlery. I like to see that the kitchen is tidy for my Mom so she can function properly there once every meal is complete.

We also use a wood stove which has a small oven. Although it does take longer to work with, it saves us a LOT of electricity every month and I have come to love it so much that I prefer working on it to the electric stove - plus it heats up the house!

Beth and Gabrielle helping Mommy bake.

Mom likes to encourage us in the kitchen and makes sure Nancy and Beth have time to make things too.  Here Beth made yummy corn fritters for lunch while Nancy made oven potato chips and guacomale (below) for lunch another day.

As promised, here is the recipe for our yummy sweet potato and broccoli soup which I made today:

15ml butter

250ml ready-made white sauce

500ml chicken stock

1 large head broccoli, broken into florets

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

Salt to taste

Heat the butter. Saute the sweet potato for a few minutes until it justs starts to brown. Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil. Cook until the sweet potato is tender. Add the broccoli and cook until just tender. Transfer the vegetables to a blender and process until smooth. Add the white sauce and pulse until well combined. Transfer soup back to pot and heat through.

The incredible thing about this meal was that it cost us virtually nothing to make. Here is a brief rundown for you on what it might have cost and what it actually cost us to make: Note that I quadrupled this soup recipe to feed our family for two meals.

125g butter - Approx. R5

2.5 litres milk - Approx. R15

Chicken stock – Approx. R5

3 large heads broccoli – Approx. R15  

About 12 small sweet potatoes - Approx. R20

Other and electricity – Approx. R5

= R65 (a conservative estimate)

It was amazing to think about the ingredients I used in this soup because they were either given to us or we made or produced them ourselves. Plus we didn’t use any electricity and our wood was free! All it cost was extra time and effort.

Butter made from our own cream from our own cow – zero

Milk from our own cow – zero

Chicken stock was homemade on the wood stove – zero

Broccoli was grown in our garden – zero

Sweet potatoes were given to us by our neighbour – zero

We didn’t use electricity. Instead I made the soup on the wood stove and used wood we got for nothing – zero

 

If only we could live like this always, but it is a start! One day we’ll get to eating everything that we either grew or produced on our homestead. I only see these blessings as gifts from God – I never thought He’d see fit to give us our hearts’ desires as it says in Psalm 37! The pleasures that come with the hard work and the satisfaction found in living a self-sufficient life is incomparable!

I love living differently to others and I am so grateful for the Lord’s goodness. I think I learned how important it is to be thankful this month – my greatest memory from July was watching Jesus work and provide in our lives and in our hearts:)

Greetings,

Kelly-Anne

P.S. We do find time for schooling and leisure, it just happens whenever we can get to it. We have a room in the house, meant to be the lounge, which is quite large and my mom has converted it into a stunning school room. We spend lots of time learning and creating in there!

Life On Bethany Farm

Hello everyone!  Here are some pictures of our new home!


















Can you see our house?

 

The back of the Groblers house.

 

 

The vegetable Garden.

 

The mielie field.



The apple orchard that surrounds the farm.



There are lots of new chicks being born on the farm!

We are going to be eating lots of beans soon!
























The cheeky geese!

Me busy planting lettuce seedlings in my garden.

I often help milk the cows.  

We really are enjoying life here are Bethany Farm!

More photographs soon!

Blessings,
Kelly-Anne

Hello Again!

Hello again!! It feels so good to be on my blog again! We haven't yet got Internet on the farm as we are too far out!! I tried going to the library, but each time I went, they were offline! Fortunately my dad has been working in Cape Town so I came down with him to stay at my best friend, Heidi-Mari. I am staying for five nights - but I am really going to miss the farm!


Now I want to tell you a bit about the farm!

...It is BEAUTIFUL!! Never in our lives have we felt so happy! There is so much freedom and we are NEVER inside (except of course when we are sleeping) We beg to be allowed out, but not until our chores are done!!

Our cute cottage, what do you think?

There are also many down sides but we are choosing to focus only on the good!

Snow on the mountains!

Beautiful sunset!

There are two horses: Gaylord and Snowflake. Snow is pregnant!! Very exciting! I ride our neighbour's horse called Hazelnut. She is three and has only just been broken in but she is so gentle and sweet and
thinks she is a human. She comes to you for cuddles and hugs and is so good with the little ones even though she is still so young! I am teaching her to trot properly and to stop (she doesn't like to stop) and we are starting to canter! I ride bareback all the time because she is not trained to have a saddle! We ride up and down the road! Snow and Gaylord are very nosey. Snow loves my mom and she comes onto the porch! Gaylord we call 'Dopey' from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - he always looks sleepy!

Snowflake

Gaylord......"Hello"!

Trying to eat my breakfast of maize meal...as you can see I was having a bit of trouble....!  I actually got a bit of horsey slobber on my bowl...yuck!

The guinea pigs are doing so well! Cocoa gave birth to Tammy, Peanut and Butter a week or two ago, and Candy, my guinea pig, had her babies just before I left - four, the most she has ever had, or so we thought! This morning my mom sms'd to say that she had two more during the night!! She now has six!! Now there are 13 to look after till it is time to sell them! (Nancy didn't keep Honey.)




















Peanut

Butter

Cocoa with Peanut and Tammy.  They are feeding!!!

There is a forest at the bottom of the farm where we have picnics and collect small pieces of wood for the little coal stove in our living area.

The little ones play all day on their bicycles riding up and down the drive! They play with mud, tadpoles and sand toys!!

Nancy and I are enjoying living on a farm! I planted lettuce, radish, onion and Swiss Chard seed the other day. The Swiss Chard is for my guinea pigs!

The sunrises and sunsets are ten times better than in the city. The frogs croak all night, sending us to sleep, crickets chirp and a little bird hops about, tame as ever on our porch! Life is harder and tougher than in the city but there is a purpose to living - there is freedom and beauty all around us and we are wonderfully happy!





















This move was good - we are where we are meant to be - praise be to God for opening this door!!!

Blessings to all,
Kelly-Anne

Happy Holidays And Some News!

Happy holidays!  Yesterday the schools broke up for the holidays, so that meant my dad is now home for a month,as he is a school teacher.

It is so nice now that my dad is home and he can be with us!   We really miss him when he is at work, we love it when he is home!

Our dad is loved!  He really is a blessed  daddy!  When he has to go to work in the mornings, we are all very sad.  Sometimes Beth and Gabrielle are still asleep when he has to go to work, so when they wake up and find he is gone, there are tears!

We have really, for a long time prayed that our daddy could come home, and work from home, being with us all the time!

Another prayer of our family has been to live on a piece of land in the country, to raise our own meat and vegetables, and to live a self-sufficient life.... to homestead!

And God has come through! After years of prayer, He has made a way for us to move to a smallholding,  near Kynsna!  It is a 4.8 hectare smallholding, with a little cottage on it (a VERY little cottage), in which we are going to live!

 This is the cute little cottage we are going to move to. It's going to be a really tight squeeze, but we are thrilled with all the space to run and play outside!  There is a banana tree, too! Not a bad start to our homesteading efforts...organic bananas!!!

This is the view to the west....isn't it beautiful? Those are the Outeniqua mountains in the distance.

Our little business making and selling fudge has taken off, and we hope to  now live off it!  That means my dad can stay home!  Yes, he will be working, stirring fudge and delivering it to shops, but at least he will be with us!  If he has to deliver fudge to a shop, he could take one of us with!

He has also started a new business venture, called Micro-University, with a wonderful, Godly friend and mentor, helping teenagers find their gifting and purpose to make wise choices for future careers. Check it out HERE!

We are moving in less than three weeks, so we are very busy packing!  It is really challenging with little people running around!  As fast as we pack, they unpack!  So we have our work cut out for us!

We have moved many times in our lives!  I do enjoy it though - being able to de-clutter and move to a new place, unpack things and pack them in the right places is lots of fun!

So yesterday was the end of this life here in the Cape!  Now dad is home, and we can pack up our house quickly, and move! There were great shouts of joy when we heard the car coming up the drive!

Praise the Lord, he has answered our prayers and now our dream is becoming reality! 

Turning 13!

Yesterday was my thirteenth birthday. It was an amazing day and God really provided in miraculous ways for this special birthday of mine.

Since the beginning of 2009, my mom had been praying that she and my dad would be able to get me a digital camera for my next birthday. She knew that I loved taking photographs and wanted to be a photographer one day. I used to borrow my mom and dad's camera to take any pictures that I wanted to take, including flowers, 1 million photos of showjumping and just about any other action photograph that captured a moment in life. I would go everywhere with my parent's big Kodak camera attached to my side! When I mean big, I am not joking! It was so difficult to take a picture that needed to be low down! I would literally have to 'get' down there!

As I was saying, mom had been praying for a camera for me.

About 6 or 7 weeks ago, my dad went to one of the parents in the school he teaches at, to look at some of the photographs that the family had taken on the Orange River. My dad had taken them and some of the other school families down on a guided tour down the river this year.

They had taken some beautiful photographs!



























They are a very photographic family and each family member has a camera.

My dad was telling them that I had a blog and that I took photos of everything and how he and my mom were looking to get me a camera for my birthday.

When my dad was about to leave their house, the lady came out with a beautiful Panasonic camera that she didn't use anymore. She said it was virtually brand new! It had been so well looked after! My parents were so thrilled at this answer to their prayers!

My dad shared this testimony with quite a few people, most of whom were amazed!

I had no idea my dad was telling them! l I had no suspicions whatsoever! My dad managed to keep it a secret for a long time!

You can imagine how excited I was when I opened up a beautiful camera of my very own! I was so happy and overwhelmed! I was wanting to buy myself a camera for quite some time, but I was waiting to save up for the R1000 I needed to buy the cheapest camera available! My dad found out that my camera is worth quite a bit - about R3000!

















Excuse the bad hairstyle, but I had just woken up!

I was taking photos of everything, once I had learnt how to use it! Now my camera comes everywhere with me! I must just not lose it!

My camera is nice and small, so I can take pictures 'low down' without having to 'get' down there myself! I can just hold it with one hand and take a picture!

Having a camera is a dream come true! I can now start saving to go on a photography course! I love taking pictures and now it is even more enjoyable!

Nancy gave me a beautiful card she had been working on. She had decorated the inside with stickers! Beth, Gabrielle and Rebekah clubbed together to give me a pony magazine.












Rebekah kept trying to get my card, as you can see in this picture!

This was really a memorable birthday, one I will remember fondly for the rest of my life! My mom says that this birthday definately had the tag: 'from God, with love!'

Blessings,
Kelly-Anne

God Works Things Out!

As I write this, the ground is soaking wet from rain.
It rained heavily earlier, and poured the whole of last night.
The wind is also terrible! I was nearly blown away when I went outside!

Just as well my show was postponed to next week!


I can really say "God works things out"!
As I wrote here I was supposed to go to my first horse riding show today, but due to heavy storms predicted, it was postponed to next week Sunday (24th)!

This means that my mom can also come watch! She was unable to come, as she and my sister, Nancy, were going to stand in for me at my Saturday Market, so that I could participate in the show.

At my riding lesson on Thursday, my riding teacher, Kirsty, told me that there would be a huge storm on Saturday, so it would be wise to make it for another day! (It has been raining and storming since yesterday).

I thank God that he worked this out, because on Wednesday night I told my mom that I really wanted her to come and watch my show.

This prompted her to pray for some way for God to work it out so that she could come watch.

God answered her prayer and made the weather bad so that the show would be another day!

I can only say thank you!!!!!

God does answer prayers!

Trusting In God For Horse Riding!

Today I went for my weekly riding lesson. I felt so thankful and grateful as I rode. God has really performed miracles in my life so that I can do this. I think back on what I had to do to get to this place.
It was tough, but all worth it!!!


Horses are my favourite animal. I love that smell of their coat and that hay smell. There is something about a horse that I love!

I have loved horses all my life!

In 2003 I took up horse riding for the first time. I rode a cute little Shetland, called Nik –Naks.
I rode for about a year, then we moved and I could not continue.

In 2006, we moved to Bekezela Adventure Farm in the Natal Midlands.
I prayed and prayed for my own horse and sure enough, a few months later, I was given a horse to look after. She was an old racehorse, 19 years at the time. She was chestnut with a star on her forehead and sock on her right – hand side back leg. About a month or two later her friend, Bolo joined her at the farm. He was also a thoroughbred, but had never raced, and had the potential to be a show jumper.

About 5 months later I was told that we were leaving the farm, and I had to give up my life – long dream to own a horse.

This move brought many tears and heartache to me, as it is very hard to give up something you love.

I had no contact with horses for about 2 years, but then we moved to Fish Hoek, where we now live, and I had hopes of going to riding school again, as we lived near Noordhoek, a big riding society.

Months passed and it was just impossible at that stage to even think of horse riding as my dad was still new to his job.

I did not give up hope, and used my time to read and learn more about my favourite creature.

In Knysna, where we used to stay, we made fudge to sell and help us out of our financial difficulties each month, so I decided to make fudge to start saving up for riding lessons.
Little did I know that this little fudge business that I had would grow in to something very big.

I kept going, even though my dad got retrenched from his new job 2 months later.

It took me a long time to save, but I had my focus on the bigger picture, being able to horse ride.

Because my dad was retrenched, I was not able to have him sell my fudge at work, but instead had to sell it around town.

Once I had a few hundred rands, I started looking for somewhere to ride.
I looked at a few places, but they were either too expensive, or somewhere where my dad and mom were not happy about sending me.

Anyway, it just had to be the Lord. We went to the library and well, I don’t really remember what happened, but my mom met a lady who was getting things for homeschooling and they just started talking and she mentioned that her niece was going horse riding in Glen Cairn. We questioned her
about this place and she said that the price for lessons was quite reasonable.
I was getting more and more excited as she talked further.

I went to check it out and it seemed to be the right place to go to!

It took me a few months more to save up for the gear I needed. I was soooooooo excited that I could hardly wait!
I did a market in October and made a nice amount of cash to pay for some horse riding lessons!

Slowly but surely, I bought the items of clothing I needed for riding.

I had bought everything I needed except the hat. I went to Noordhoek, praying all the time that they would have a hat for a reasonable price.
We walked in and asked the lady and she showed me a second – hand hat for a great price!
I tried it on, and it fitted!
It was also a Harry Hall hat that costs about a thousand rand new!
That was such an answer to prayer!

I was lucky that I still had my second – hand riding boots that I had gotten in Natal!


During the time I spent waiting I sometimes cried because it seemed it would never happen. I comforted myself by looking up Bible verses that had ‘waiting patiently’ in them.

Here are a few of my favourite verses that helped me through.

Psalm 37
4 Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart

7 Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

Aren’t these verses lovely?


A few weeks later I was back in the saddle!


I must say, my riding was terrible!
I had developed some bad habits and it took me quite some time to get rid of.

I was so grateful to feel the reins in my hands and to smell that smell again!
I praised the Lord for this miracle he performed!



God worked another miracle and gave me a market to sell my fudge at.
It is called the ‘The Triangle Square Market’ here in Fishhoek.
It is a ‘Slow Food’ market and is a great place to make money!

I now have quite a big business, making 5 different flavours of fudge.


This market was really such an answer to prayer, as we were praying for a long time for a market where I could sell my fudge, and what is also amazing is that it is down the road from our house!


I have finally gotten rid of my bad habits, after many months of just walking and trotting.

I am now cantering and jumping!

I have my first show on the 16th of May and I will post some pictures of my round.

I am so thankful to God for opening this door.
Sometimes it was difficult to carry on making fudge, but doing this has made me more appreciative of horse riding. I am not just going to stop when it gets tough or if I fall off, but I am going to persevere!

I am thankful that my mom and dad have made me do the fudge, because it has taught me a great skill!

I am still praying for my own horse, but I know God will do this in his time, but for now I am enjoying myself and working hard, learning as much as I can.

So, don’t lose hope and think God is not going to answer your prayer, but keep praying and trusting in God.

Sometimes things don’t happen in our time, but in Gods time.