I haven't disappeared! I've simply been disconnected these past two weeks.

Source

Our city experienced quite the cyclone after decades just two weeks ago. Winds rushed passed us at 130km/hr. We saw quite a bit of destruction; but perhaps most upsetting was the number of trees we lost. On my drive to school we pass through about 2km of forest area. Not any more. All the trees are down now. Our networks were also down, so we had lost contact with the outside world for over a week before we learnt that our city had lost 60% of its trees to the cyclone!

 

It's on everyone's mind now to plant as many saplings as we can. Summer is usually scorching, but there was always the ever present shade of trees to stay cool under. Not this coming summer though. We will be reluctantly awaiting its arrival with much nervous trepidation. We've hardly had any rains this year either. Quite ironic considering the flood we had last year at around this time. For a few weeks our city was called the Venice of the East because one could travel no distance without a boat!

 

I find it hypnotically fascinating, the extreme changes in our weather and seasons. Sometimes I feel like I am a bystander, looking in on something bewildering but incredible. I believe I could so easily be a nervous wreck. But the simple knowledge that the Lord is in control of everything is comforting. Whilst neighbours were imagining the foundations of our building rocking in the midst of the cyclone, my husband, little boys and I had our faces pressed against the closed window panes, as we watched the wind take on a shape and force we have never witnessed in our lives before. It filled us with awe, and may I say?...a sense of peace. Only that morning, when the cyclone warning was going out, my husband's mother called him and told him to read Job 38:11. That whole chapter is beautiful, and this particular verse talks about how God has set a boundary even to the winds and the seas. Nothing can go past the limits He has set. Amazing, isn't He!?

 

Now, after two weeks, I have borrowed my husband's laptop as we sit in his hometown, and using his data card I've decided to dash off a post in here to let my fellow bloggers and readers know that I have not forgotten this little bit of space, only that I have been unable to log on for this while. I should be back at a fairly decent pace now.

 

To those of you who have been showing interest in the read-alongs I am hosting, welcome! I am very excited to be reading with you all in 2017. I shall have a starting post for each come January. Until then I hope you are all having a lovely end-of-2016 week!!:)