25 WONDERFUL YEARS

I have been married to the love of my life for 25 years. We have had an incredible ride together. He has become my absolute best friend and confident. We have raised together 3 incredible children that are in so many ways an extension of both of us but also very much persons in their own right. We are more in love now than we have ever been. It has not been an easy journey to get to this point we find ourselves at now, but it has been filled with incredible grace from God a lot of support from a special couple - Nicky and Avril Edwards.

We have lived in 15 different homes. When we first got married the law of the group areas act still existed and initially we had difficulty in finding a place to stay. Our first little place was a flat we rented in Berea Johannesburg which belonged to a friend of Andre's. We then managed a year later to purchase a flat in Yeoville Johannesburg, whilst I was working for Standard bank. 3 years later I was pregnant with my daughter Ashleigh and the group areas act was on the way to being scrapped and we manged to purchase a beautiful home in Illiondale. We would only be there 14 months when we made a decision to move to Cape Town. Another child was born in that home 15 months after Ashleigh, Jason Michael. We were the perfect little family moving to a dream destination. We sold up and rented for a year in Johannesburg and after my father had passed away we made the move to Cape Town. I still remember that day packing up with a sense of excitement but also a deep sense of sadness leaving my family in Joburg. Life was about to get very different, I was really close to my sister and we now going to be miles apart. Our children would not grow up together we would have to rely on holidays to see one another. Needless to say it was an emotional time! We arrived in Cape Town with Andre having secured a place for us to rent and when we arrived literally on the day the place was no longer available to us. Here we were Two kids all our furniture on the way down and no place to stay! Our lifelong friends Avril and Nicky were at the time living in Muizenberg and they offered us a place to stay with them and so our journey began. Our stuff was stored in their garage for a month while we looked for a place to stay. it was a difficult month, they also had a small child,Anton,and Jason had just started walking and well I remember the stress of having 2 toddlers in someone else home. My car was stolen within the first month of us moving to Cape Town. A month later we rented a duplex in Heathfield. A year later we would make the move to Fishhoek and there we stayed for 10 years and my third child Jesse was born in 1998. I remember Fishhoek days with fondness it is a beautiful place to raise children. We joined The Bay community church and so became involved in doing life with other like minded folk. Raising 3 children without any family support was no easy task, when I think back on those years sometimes its like a blur of goodness and madness all in one, Andre lost his job 10 months after arriving in Cape Town an he would face another 2 retrenchments. They were crazy difficult times. We were married 12 years when we would face the biggest challenge, life had been rough we literally sold the clothes off our backs to make ends me and well our love was almost non existent. We eventually went to a Christian marriage councillour who told us divorce was the best option! So glad we did not take her stupid advice. No we came to a cross roads loved our children too much to put them through that and decided that we would stick it out even though at the time it was hard to even look at each other. I AM SO GLAD WE DID. I LOVE THIS MAN. He has been such a hard worker in our 25 years together, such a strong and solid person. He has loved me when I have been unloveable. He has stood by me through all my ups and downs. Today he is a partner in a business, he has blessed our family with good things. He is a strong man of God who quietly gets on with life. He only wants the best for us. God has been so kind and so gracious to our little family, I look back on 25 years in awe of where we are today. Grate ful for our amazing children who have achieved against all odds and made us so proud each in their own unique way.

SO GRATEFUL EVERYDAY FOR BEING ABLE TO DO LIFE WITH YOU MY LOVE I LOOK FORWARD TO THE NEXT PART OF THIS JOURNEY MAY GOD CONTINUE TO BE GRACIOUS TO US FOR THE NEXT 25!