The Alabaster Jar Fund & The Blistered Sister

As you can see from her post uploaded on the blog while I was away, Nikki has not lost her sense of humour and continues to have us all in fits of laughter with her incredibly entertaining perspective on life. As she mentioned, she has really been battling to sleep, and had a migraine headache for most of last week, poor thing. She also had an appointment with the Cardiologist and met with her Rheumatologist again last week. Nothing new to report there other than the fact that her heart is fine. This week she has a CT scan scheduled, an appointment with a Maxillo Facial surgeon and more Chemo on Wednesday! Busy week!!

They are so blessed to have medical aid in place to cover many of these costs (although getting all the expenses and papers in order is like a full time job, as I am sure you can imagine!) Apart from allopathic medicine, Nikki is using a number of excellent supplements, vitamins and natural remedies to help her cope with the onslaught of chemicals in her body. None of these natural supplements and therapies are covered by medical aid.

It is with all of this in mind that I would like to introduce you to….

… THE ALABASTER JAR FUND…

A number of Nikki's friends have been approached over the last few months by people asking whether they could contribute financially in any way. So, we have collaborated and have now set up a fund to help towards all the added extra costs. This is completely OUR initiative and does not come from Nikki or Adrian’s side at all. In fact, it has taken us quite some time and coaxing to get them to finally agree to this.

For some time now, I have had it in my heart to open a fund in order to just bless Nikki and her family as they walk this very challenging time. To lavish our love upon them, to give them something that is simply a gift – to use in whatever way they see fit or wherever there may be a need in their lives. I was challenged by the scripture in Matt 26:7 where the woman came to Jesus in His darkest hour (he was facing his betrayal and crucifixion) and poured out the alabaster jar filled with very expensive perfume over his head. She washed His feet with her tears and her hair. This was the most lavish gift she could bestow on Him. I felt there were many who were possibly moved in a similar way, just to bless this family financially in a time of incredible need – if only to demonstrate our love and the love of God to them. It is important that you know that this fund is not set up because the Boyd’s are struggling to get by in life – we also realise that they live a very comfortable lifestyle and there are others in the world who are suffering through incredible poverty and financial difficulties in their lives. But that is not really the point, as I have explained…

Adrian and Nikki have been so incredibly moved by generosity shown to them through meals, shopping, lifts, babysitting etc. over last while. They have been blessed by the way that people have been obedient to God’s leading and many times a meal or an offer has come in just at the right time. So thank you for showing your love and support to them in that way. They were very much against us starting this fund as they felt that people had done / already were doing so much.

...THE BLISTERED SISTER...

In October last year, I was challenged to start running and interceding for Nikki as I ran. The process of running and training has been very important to me personally in this process. The time taken to train has given me time to think, worship God, pray and intercede on Nikki’s behalf. I have felt that my training has paralleled the process that Nikki is going through in her healing. With every step I take, I pray that the enemy’s plans in Nikki’s life be defeated. I pray healing over her body and speak the scripture in Isaiah 35:3 over her – “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees”. I believe God that she will be running with me one day and continue to thank God that she will see her dream of horse riding together with her precious Hannah one day fulfilled. This focus has helped me through the toughest of times out on the road and on the road to healing in Nikki’s body.

SO - I will be running the Two Oceans Half Marathon (21 km) on 3 April (this Saturday) so please pray and believe with me for Nikki’s healing as I run. I had hoped to run the race for sponsorship for the fund but Nikki and Adrian are have said that they would rather I don’t raise money through sponsorship (they feel people may then feel pushed into giving something) but rather leave it so that if God leads someone to give financially, they have an avenue to do so. They would also very much like for donations to be anonymous if possible - to keep things simple and uncomplicated.

The bank account details are:








Please don’t feel pressurised in any way to give towards the fund. It is simply a tool for those who feel they would like to contribute in this way to do so. I would like to re-iterate that NONE of this has been suggested or brought about by Nikki or Adrian. In the same way that a gift is given simply to bless a friend, without any strings attached, this fund is intended to bless our precious friends and show them our love and support.

Thank you all so much!
Eve

From the Horse's mouth!

Well, It's kind of weird to be writing on my own blog, but here i go...
Hello, firstly to all of you! (and thanks for being interested enough in me to be reading this blog, by the way)
I thought I'd update the blog for Eve this time, since she's been running around a bit lately, doing what she does best - Everything for everyone else!

We returned last week from a GORGEOUS week away with our family at Shelley Point - I must mention that it has to be one of the most beautiful spots on the planet! I have made a little comp of pictures of our holiday, so hopefully I can get the pictures uploaded okay. Anyway, when we came home Eve hit the ground RUNNING... more on that in a minute. She and Pete went camping for the weekend, so I mentioned to her that I might update the blog for her while she's away.

So, it's now 3 in the morning and i couldn't sleep. We started off getting to bed a bit late after having my folks around for a yummy dinner, so I thought it would be easy to fall asleep (trying to not rely on sleeping tablets) I tried getting all comfy, and that didn't work, we even killed mossies to ensure a good night, so the mossies were dead... and i was wide awake. I thought maybe 3 pages of my book might do the trick, so Adrian kindly agreed to me keeping my light on for a wee bit... but the 3 pages didn't do a thing ... now the light was out... but no.. still wide awake... so i had a brainwave - i used my ipod for a light for reading a couple more chapters under the duvet... which worked for about 20 minutes, but I have this thing about breathing stale air... so that got a bit claustrophobic. In hindsight, i should have thought of getting a snorkel out of the garage, to breathe fresh air from under the duvet, but that would have meant getting out of bed, and waking up even more. I'm glad I didn't do that, because, knowing me i would have probably stumped my toe on something lying around on the garage floor, and causing trouble than it was worth, and then, if i had got one, i would have probably been suspicious of spiders or something... Then... (and this is where you come in)... I had the idea of updating the BLOG.. so here I am.. (OOPS Dan's awake... see you in 10) - I'm back he was having 'silly dreams' poor little chap!

I'm sorry, I know I get really silly when I'm tired, so I'll try to be a bit more helpful with information.
Our time away... WOW what a lovely time we had! It is always such a treat to go to Shelley Point... we absolutely LOVE it there, and it has all the comforts one could hope for, which made my stay this time, particularly comfortable. (A big thanks to the van 't Hof's - who generously let us stay at their beautiful holiday home) The house is right on the beach, so we could watch Daniel fishing (95% of the time we were there) from the balcony (notice him telling a 'fishing story' with his hands to a new friend on the beach in one of the pics). Anyway, all was going well up until the day before we were due to leave. Adrian was diving for something interesting to put in a nearby rock pool (smallish shark or something) for the kids to look at. He had just found a really big star fish, and 'Queenie' (my mom) came leaping accross the rocks to show Megan what Adrian had found. From where I was standing, I could just see that my mom was not going to make it accross to the other rock from where she was - and then I saw her jump - oops! She fell really badly, and broke her arm. She couldn't feel her arm at all and when my dad got to her, he had to bend it back to face the right direction (gulp!). So ... Queenie ended up staying 2 nights in a nearby (very nice) hospital to have a long pin and 2 screws put into her badly fractured arm.
The up side of this little ordeal was that we got to extend our stay by an extra 2 days. (thanks again to Leen and Mies) on the last day (Sunday) as we were about to start packing up, the kids walked down to the beach with their buckets and nets, and we noticed that there were dolphins jumping out of the water just in front of the house, close to where the kiddies were - Adrian took the opportunity to gear up and go for a swim with them - pretty awesome! (managed to snap a pic with the kids and the dolphins - so that's why i put that pic in, too.. it just tells such a story, and summed up our time away beautifully).

Since we've been back, my folks have had their work cut out for them with big groups coming back to back for dinner, bed and breakfast. Since my dad's (right) shoulder was operated on a few weeks back - and is still very painful, and now my mom has her (left) shoulder in a sling and is in loads of pain - Eve has picked up the ball at Afton Grove. She should run for President. She's just too cute!

Okay, now seriously, I am still not in the slightest bit sleepy, but I am rather sore, and we're due to get up in a few hours, to visit friends up the line, so I should really TRY to sleep again.

Catch up again Soon...

Nikki

ps. in the pictures: Bianca dropped in for a day to visit us with her gorgeous 3 children, (our kids 2nd cousins) - that's them all in the pool