Welcome back after the Christmas break. I hope you all had a great family time and were able at some stage to just chill and relax.

Books 4 Cambodia: I am pleased to now be able to say that all the books have been sorted and packed into boxes for the Books 4 Cambodia project. Over 500 boxes in total filled with over 24,000 books. We still need to collate the exact numbers. This has all been achieved since September. The last day of 2013 was spent with about 15 other wonderful folk who came and helped us sort and pack. It was an amazing experience for our kids to see the difference it can make when a lot of others pitch in and help. We were all exhausted at the end of the day and a couple of friends took us out to McDonalds to celebrate. This taught the kids so much about encouragement, generosity, helping others and how small things can make a huge difference.

Mentoring: An exciting moment for Princess (10) was when an older girl of about 17, asked me if she could mentor Princess. This girl comes from an outstanding family and the girl has shown in several ways that she has maturity, spiritual depth and great character. This girl was mentored last year whilst undertaking a metamorphosis course and has realised that she can now impact someone younger by investing into their life. Princess is only ten years old but I am more than happy for this girl to speak into her life. It is so important that our children have other “high quality” people speaking into their lives.

Visit to the Morgue: We were very fortunate to take part in a rather unusual experience, but one that I am hoping we can do more often. Our family, as part of the Stairway Healing Rooms team, was asked if we could go into the Coroner’s Court Morgue and pray for a lady who had died suddenly with no apparent reason. This lady had commented to her daughter that if she died, she wanted her to ask the Stairway Healing Rooms team to come and pray for her to come back to life. As soon as we received the email, I knew this was something that our family could be involved in. I believe that it is important for our kids to not only see us involved in ministry but to be participants too with us, where appropriate.

When we were in South Africa in 2011, Supressa Sithole had prayed over my hands, prophesying that I would be involved in raising people from the dead. This man regularly prays for the dead and sees them come back to life. The very night we had a meal with him was when he had prayed over the phone for a lady’s dead husband in Germany and the man had come back to life. At the time, I can remember asking him what are some “keys” to praying for these folk. His comment was that you need to be sure that they want to come back to life. Thus, he doesn’t pray for people who have committed suicide.

I can also remember hearing Jennifer Toledo (She has written a book -“Children and the Supernatural”) speak and she commented on how her children will occasionally practice at home in praying for raising someone from the dead. One of the siblings will pretend they are dead, and the others will pray for them to come back to life. This may appear unusual, but Jennifer then went on to comment, “I bet you my kids will see someone come back to life before your kids”. This really challenged me. What a great idea to talk about, practice etc as a family night topic.

Thus, as a family, we joined with three other members and some of the lady’s close family and friends and went into the morgue. Matey had been keen from the very beginning to get in there and touch her body and pray for her. Princess was content to sit in the waiting room and read a book. That was o’kay with me too.

It turned out that this is a very modern building, not at all like my training hospital morgue. No sterile clinical stainless steel. A beautiful sitting room with the glass doors pulled back and the body lying on a trolley just two metres from where Princess sat.

The level of faith was so high in the room that I really believed she would come back to life. We had water ready for her and realised we would probably need to call an ambulance etc. Unfortunately the Morgue doesn’t yet have a policy and procedure of what to do in this situation, but let me tell you, they will be writing one soon. I really believe that we will be going in there more often. There have been a lot of prophetic words spoken of raising people from the dead and the dead won’t be coming to Stairway. We will need to go to them.

Unfortunately she didn’t come back to life on this earth. As the leader prayed near the end, “We realise that you may be dancing with Jesus in heaven and really enjoying yourself. If I was dancing with Jesus in heaven, I wouldn’t want to come back to earth so we release you and let you go.”

A great experience to be part of. It didn’t freak the kids out, it was just part of life. I believe that it depends a lot on how you as a parent handle these situations. Before Princess was six years old, she had already been to multiple funerals, including a toddler whom she knew. It is part of life.

Vision for my parenting: I have been challenged lately by the Bible reading I have been doing. In Habakkuk 2:1-2, the Bible says, “I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.” This passage is about intercessory prayer, but I feel challenged also in my parenting when reading it. Have I written down my vision for parenting my children? As God’s appointed guide and carer for my children, am I clear on what my vision and goals are or is my life so busy with day to day living that I just ‘wing it’? Have I written them down clearly so that at a glance, we can all see the goals and big picture in raising our children? Is my focus on success or greatness in God? On building a secure future or impacting others?

Have you written a short vision statement for your parenting and family life? What does yours include? I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to comment below.