He will make me surefooted as the deer...

Cam started Monkeynastix yesterday, at school, and seems to love it! He jumps around and says, ‘Monkeynastix! Again! Again!’ So this year he’ll carry on with Kindermusiek on a Tuesday and do Monkeynastix on a Monday... All terribly exciting! :)

The photos: Cam wearing his undies (which gets messy...); Cam in his Ochse House t-shirt for the St Alban’s Inter-House Gala; and Cam holding onto a speaker – his latest favourite thing to do – while listening to music and dancing.

By way of encouragement, I just thought I’d share the following passage from Hinds’ Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, which I am re-reading with absolute delight. Much-Afraid, the unlikely heroine of the story, is pondering the wild flowers, which grow and are beautiful in hidden places in the wilderness where there is no one even to see them or to appreciate their beauty (i.e. what’s the point of them?). The Chief Shepherd responds with the following:

‘Nothing my Father and I have made is ever wasted,’ he said quietly, ‘and the little wild flowers have a wonderful lesson to teach. They offer themselves so sweetly and confidently and willingly, even if it seems that there is no one to appreciate them. Just as though they sang a joyous little song to themselves, that it is so happy to love, even though one is not loved in return.

‘I must tell you a great truth, Much-Afraid, which only the few understand. All the fairest beauties in the human soul, its greatest victories, and its most splendid achievements are always those which no one else knows anything about, or can only dimly guess at. Every inner response of the human heart to Love and every conquest over self-love is a new flower on the tree of Love.

‘Many a quiet, ordinary, and hidden life, unknown to the world, is a veritable garden in which Love’s flowers and fruits have come to such perfection that it is a place of delight where the King of Love himself walks and rejoices...’

(Hurnard, 1975)

More miracles

Yesterday was Cam’s check-up at the Pretoria Eye Institute. He was pretty cooperative and Jacobus could successfully examine him – just in his consulting rooms; no anaesthetic, thankfully. He will have another exam under anaesthetic in two months time, but hopefully before too long he’ll be big enough for the docs (and Dad) to be able to examine him while he’s wide awake. (When we put his lenses in every morning, he chants, ‘Lie still! Open wide! There we go!’ at each stage of the process.) Jacobus was really happy – his eyes are still in good condition (all things considered! :)). His red reflexes are good, his eyes look healthy and ‘clear’ (no vitreous build-up), he is managing a bit of binocular vision and he is focusing well (again, under the circumstances).

Jacobus arranged for us also to see Dr Gideon du Plessis, who specialises in strabismus (squints). He is a wonderful, kind, godly man who knows all about Cameron’s case. At first he counselled us that right now would probably be the best time to operate in order to correct Cam’s squint, hopefully to give him some sort of depth perception. But then he examined Cam and he just kept saying, ‘Well, I can’t believe it... I can’t believe what I’m seeing...This is fantastic...’ and so on! Again, by God's grace, Cam has exceeded the expectations and predictions; what he is and what he can do are supposedly medically impossible. Dr du Plessis said that someone with Cam’s ocular condition should not be doing as well as he is, and that in fact we definitely shouldn’t operate now, and who knows, maybe not ever. His squint is not entrenched; with continued visual therapy and taking out one contact lens every afternoon as we have been doing (to strengthen the alternate eye), the squint may well, Lord willing, correct to an acceptable degree sans surgery. Thank you, Lord! We were so deeply relieved and grateful that we sommer ordered pizza on the way home, to celebrate... :)

Art

These are photos from a small exhibition that we held yesterday afternoon, to showcase Cam’s exceptionally insightful artworks that he created at school this week. I think the piece entitled ‘Turquoise Marie Biscuit’ is particularly creative and shows real acuity. He also enjoyed eating this pièce d’oeuvre after the exhibition... :)

Elephants and miracles and cars

Cam has graduated from the Bunny Class to the Elephant Class, at Heavenly Babies (we are so proud :)). Aunty Lyn is his new teacher. She is pure kindness and love, and Cam has settled down quickly. I’ve been away for the past two nights, on a New Boys Camp. By day 2 Cam really wanted his Mommy back... :( which tugged unbearably on my heart strings... but most happily I am home and he is smiling!

Cam is seriously into cars at the moment. He is building up a little fleet (his Mini Cooper is pictured here, with Lola and his juice, having an afternoon snooze in our room after a busy morning of racing...).

I quickly snapped the other photo when I came into his room the other day and found him on his bed reaching up for his dragon fly mobile. It spoke so strongly to me of miracles and grace. My Mom gave Cam that mobile when he was born, and Murray hung it up in his room the same weekend that we moved into Maldon Road. It was three days later that we found out about Cam’s eyes, and it was hard for me even to look at that mobile because it seemed to mock us. What was the point of hanging it up when Cam couldn’t even see it? What a journey Cam has walked since then! To think that he was born blind, and yet now he reaches up to touch and examine up-close his sparkling bedroom insects... How awesome, how incredible.

God continues to hold us in the hollow of His hand.

A haircut on New Year's Day...

Holiday pics