What is the real cost of disobedience?

February has been a very big month for our family. Spencer and Jane welcomed their first child, and our first grandchild. He is a boy and his name is Beck. He was born on February 2, 2024, weighed 6lbs 3oz (3KG) and he is perfect. He has blond hair and blue eyes like both his parents. Their mini Golden Doodle (named Swazi) has welcomed Beck and keeps a very close eye on the baby at all times.

A couple of weeks after that Chloe packed up her house in St. Catharine’s and she and “Coal the cat” moved to Dubai to join her fiancé, Asad, who went on before to start his job there. Asad’s family lives in Dubai and they welcomed Chloe with open arms into their home, and Coal arrived “VIP style” a day after Chloe did. This is a big step for them both as they work on wedding plans for November weddings (one in Eswatini and one in Dubai) and continue to build their professional and private lives.

Ian and I are eternally grateful for our Boards of Directors who have approved and supported our request to take a 3-month sabbatical, which allowed us to be present for the birth of Beck and to take Chloe to the airport in Toronto. We plan to spend the next two months resting, restoring, healing, growing and looking to what the next few years hold for us. We are truly an international family. This journey has not been an easy one, but we couldn’t be more proud of all our adult children and their new families.

For those of you who don’t know, Spencer and Jane met on a Heart for Africa trip to Swaziland when they were 14-years-old, and now they are married and have a baby… the next generation of Maxwell’s to serve the people of Eswatini. Chloe went back to Canada after graduating from high school in Taiwan, and met Asad at Brock University. They survived the Covid-19 pandemic together, both getting jobs making Covid test kits as their first jobs out of University. They not only survived but thrived. Now they will join in matrimony in two countries and bring many new people into the journey with our family. Neither of them would have met their spouse had we said “nope, that’s too hard” when we were asked to move to Swaziland. It’s impossible to really measure the cost of disobedience.

Meanwhile, back on Project Canaan, we have 406 children who call PC home. On February 29^th, 64 children will make the move to their next home. Nine babies will move to the toddler home, ten toddlers will move to E1, six E1 boys will move to E2 and 39 big boys will move their new home at E8! What a day of rejoicing that will be!

In other news, baby Hakeem will head back to the US in April for his cleft palate surgery and Phiwa will also travel to get fitted for a prosthetic nose (and possible cranioplasty). All of this happening while we relax on a beach and enjoy the sunrise and sunset. THANK YOU to our amazing team at Project Canaan who are managing all of this without any needed input from us. We are also eternally grateful for you!

Last, but certainly not least, we received two babies since Ian and I left Eswatini and so I am asking you to consider sponsoring one of those children, or one of the dozens of children who do not have a sponsor yet. Would you consider being a monthly (or one time) sponsor so that we can continue saying YES to Social Workers who are desperate to help save little lives.