Frozen trees and praying

There is a weather phenomenon called 'frozen fog' that we have experienced this last week. Basically I think that fog rolls in from the ocean, much like it does over the Natal midlands, but then gets surprised by a nasty -17 degrees mainland, and goes into shock. Before it has time to wet its proverbials, everything is frozen and it carries on as usual. But whatever it comes into contact with gets covered in a fine layer of ice crystals. When it snows, the trees get these heavy lumps of white on any part that has sufficient surface to hold a bit of weight, but this just coats everything. It is spectacularly beautiful. I sometimes saw white plastic christmas trees in shops in SA, and always wondered at how fake you could get - why not luminous pink or ultramarine, while you are at it. But now I understand that they were trying to copy this.

We have just finished a week of prayer and fasting with our bible study group, and had a great

time praying with our friends. Instead of normal bible study, we spent the evening praying for the group and each other, and then also had a night of prayer on Friday. We really hope that we can do this more regularly, there is no real culture of prayer here, and the church prayer meeting consists of three guys who meet every week.

My mom is coming to visit next week, which we are excited about, since we were not able to go home and see all the other family. We are hoping to make a plan about when we can go soon, but are still waiting on an ID number for Annabel before we can really start thinking about it.

We have been skiing as often as Annabel allows it. Tracy needs to feed her and then go, while I take care of the hour and a half she is away. It is really fun, and we have found some nice tracks around the area we live, through the forest. I was thinking of the scene in the Narnia book last time I went skiing, where the little girl first arrives in Narnia and she comes to a place in the forest where there is a lamppost. It felt like I was in the Narnian forests.