Photo's from our US trip

RESOLVED

Rachel (Mixon who we stayed with) and myself

CJ Mahaney

Rick Holland Steve Lawson

The Speakers who blessed us so much!

CJ Mahaney, Steve Lawson, Rick Holland, John MacArthur, John Piper, Randy Alcorn

The Stage (yes, it felt a little like a rock concert)

LAKE TAHOE
The view!

View from the mountain "Heavenly"

I love that you can see snow in the background and it's summer!

Lyle with his cousins Tyler and Kristy

Michael and Lyle outside the Mixons apartment

(they saw a Shelby parked out the front and couldn't resist posing!)

LONDON

(our impromtu day trip on the way home)

Mark, our tour guide

(and friend of Lyle's from highschool)

Big Ben at 12:00

Westminster Abbey (My favourite)

Buckingham Palace

(the flag is up, so the Queen was home!)

Home again, home again

We're home again! Our trip to the States was an amazing blessing! We arrived home last wednesday (and yes, it's taken us about this long to recover from jetlag!)

The Resolved conference was amazing. The theme was Heaven and Hell. The Lord was so gracious to change my perspective and help me understand more His sovereign control of His world. I often over the years, have battled with understanding God being loving and kind, yet allowing the existence of Hell. I think in my finite compassion I have created my own justice mentality, and as much as I have accepted that God does send people to Hell, I don't like it. Listening to John Piper one evening at the conference the Lord helped me understand more clearly the reality of Hell echoing God's grace. If there was no reality of Hell, and no understanding of our being so utterly deserving of it, then we would not understand the amazing, overwhelming, indescribable power of His grace in our lives to not let us go to there! He has lovingly chosen me to be a light unto the world and an undeserving object of His mercy and grace. It really is inconceivable, and draws my heart to praise Him for His goodness to me.

We were also blessed to go to Lake Tahoe, to visit Lyle's Aunt and her fiance who live there. I also met Tyler and Kristy, Lyle's cousins. After Tahoe we went back to LA and spent more time with Michael and Rachel who graciously hosted us for our time over there.

Donovan Drew is Kerry's brother (Kerry is at HBC) and he also went to high school with Lyle. He was married on the 22nd of June and we were so thankful to be present! The photo below are all the South Africans (well, minus Kim and myself I suppose...lets say all the HBCers) who were over in the USA for Resolved and this was taken at Don and Heather's wedding. It was such a blessing for Lyle and I - our first wedding after our own. It was special to be reminded of our marriage relationship, and a convicting reminder of where we're failing too!!

All in all we had a fantastic trip and are very thankful for the Lord's provision in allowing us to go. I'll post more pictures up soon (we're having a few little computer issues right now!)

And life goes on...

We don't have too much to report from our little home lately.

This week has finally given us something exciting to share! We went to Johannesburg for 3 days for the Shepherds Conference. It was awesome!! Jerry Wragg and Ken Ramey were speakers, they both went to The Master's Seminary in LA where Lyle is planning to study. It was so encouraging for me to see Lyle's excitement as he heard these men talk. I was able to catch up with my friend Michelle who was an RA for me about 12 years ago when I was at college! It was a sweet time of fellowship with old friends and new and we are so thankful that we had the opportunity to go. As far as Jo'burg goes, I do not understand how anyone lives there! it's SO cold. Like, SO cold. I'm sure it was all of 14 degrees...then the sun went behind the clouds!!

Monday week (the 9th) we're going to be flying to LA to head to Palm Springs for the Resolved conference. We're going to hear Piper, MacArthur, CJ Mahaney, Rick Holland, Steve Lawson and Randy Alcorn (I think that's all). Lyle was telling the foundation kids this evening (the teenagers) that we are going and said "We'll be hearing some of the best preachers in the world, I mean it, the BEST preachers in the world". Needless to say we are very excited.

After June we'll have the short term missions team come over from the USA (Grace Community) and we will go on retreat with them. Then in August we have church camp...
I love retreats and camps. It's so great to get out of the typical routine of our weeks, enjoy round the clock fellowship, hear awesome teaching and be generally encouraged by the renewed sense of God's powerful work in His world. I'm seeing already the blessings of being in ministry. These retreats and camps are a particular highlight of that. :)

Birthday Weekend

Last weekend we went away for four days for our birthdays! It was my 30th on the 3rd and Lyle will be 26 on the 12th. We went to Ithala (pronounced ee-taa-lah), a game reserve that is about 5 hours north and inland a little. It was truly awesome to see God’s amazing creation.

Now, game reserves are great…

BUTT…

All the animals seem to want to run away from you! However, we did end up getting some great photos as the days went on. Action shots of animals are difficult when they’re eating and cleaning themselves, but I did my best and these are some “action shots”

an Impala cleaning itself

I was loving the borrowed lens from a mate of Lyle’s too. It was amazing to see some animals just wandering up the road towards you, almost knowing their job was to pose for the tourists!

A little rock dassie
(pronounced dussie - it's an Afrikaans thing)

Kudu
(they make 'biltong'/jerky out of these guys!)

Warthog!! this is the real life Pumba!
Ugly as anything, but still weirdly cute.
When they run their tails stick straight up in the air!






FINALLY on the last day we saw some Rhino,
I was VERY excited!

Cricket...

This one's for you Tash!

The Friday before last (April, 25 - ANZAC day), we took the Foundations group (teenagers from HBC) to the final of the national league. It was between Durban (Dolphins- who were green) and a team north of Pretoria (Titans - who were blue). Unfortuately we lost but the we had sooooo much fun! Frankly I think its because the Dolphins have a silly name for a cricket team...and they're green. Which just doesn't even make sense!

Mitch, Tim, Dane's hand, Sarah, Dane, my eye.

Lyle and I got a little silly...

An action shot, I think Shane took this one...nice
Me with Dane...I thought he'd at least pull a silly face with me,
then again, maybe he knew his mother would see this...

My dear friend Boitumelo came to visit Lyle and I for a week as well, so she was able to join us. She had never seen cricket played, even on TV, so we did our best to explain without confusing her thoroughly!! I was refreshed to have her company while she stayed. B2 - THANKS for the visit! xoxo

B2 in our garden - B2 is easier to say than Boitumelo :)

Kyle's b'day

We celebrated Kyle’s birthday a week and a half ago with a Braai (BBQ) at the church. We had some awesome food that Rachel and Kerry organised. It was a lovely night to relax and have some great fellowship.

Kyle, Warren, Rachel and Jen

Rachel, Jen, Kerry, Kyle, Warren and Lyle's eyes and nose...

Steve’s going well. He’s learning to help Lyle in the office while he works. He’s becoming more friendly and more mischievous at the same time, we sometimes find him on his cage, having flapped (he flaps he doesn’t fly because he has his wings clipped) down from his perch to his cage. But then he doesn’t really know what to do so he makes funny ‘I’m annoyed at you’ noises while you take him back to his perch. He’s started to respond to us. In the morning if Lyle gets him up and places him on his perch he’ll call out to me with a whistle. When I finally whistle back to him he then makes another noise to say hello. I’m trying to teach him “g’day” but we’ll see how it goes.

Steve passing Lyle a pencil to help him work

Steve

Today….we became parents to a 5 month old African Grey (a parrot) and his name is Steve! He’s beautiful. He’s a bit of an escape artist, we bought him home this afternoon and he jumped off his perch a couple of times and headed for the door! :( But we have now settled him on his perch in the centre of the house so he should be happy there (we hope!!) It's worked out perfectly, I've been wanting to place something in this part of the house, I just didn't know what!

We’re learning to bond. Thankfully he doesn’t bite (hard) he’s tame enough and I’m sure he’ll love us once he gets to know us.
In the mean time we’re furiously hunting the internet for “what to do with African Grey’s”

Isn't he a beauty!

This is me and Steve bonding...he'll let you scratch him...sometimes :)

Easter

Our Easter long weekend has been awesome. We did....nothing. J Actually we had some awesome sermons from Clint this weekend. We had church on Friday and Sunday. If you go to www.baptistchurchhillcrest.com you can find them on the website. He doesn’t hold back AT ALL and my heart was really encouraged by his faithful teaching of the truth. This is one of the reasons I love Hillcrest Baptist – there’s no milky teaching, it’s all meat!

For lunch on Friday we went to Lyle’s folks house. It’d be great if you could pray for us with witnessing to his family. We so desperately desire for them to know the Lord, but we need great patience with the Lord’s timing. We know that it is only Him who changes hearts and at the moment I’m learning what it looks like to wait on the Lord for the salvation of ones you love. It’s such a big deal. It’s not like waiting for a house , a job or a spouse which are all so trivial in light of eternity. Their hearts are very hardened at the moment, but I know the Lord can do anything.

On Monday we went to the beach with Trevor and Az – they’re a really great couple, Lyle and Trev went to school together. It was the four of us and a whole bunch of people from their church. So we had some new faces to meet, although Lyle seemed to know a few already. The weather was perfect, the water was perfect and it was just a really great day. I even got a little tanned J

Today however, I’ve been mowing the lawn...so I’m completely exhausted. We fired our gardener because it costs too much and we have the time to do it. We were going to do it yesterday but because we had a phone call for the beach I convinced Lyle that I’d be fine to mow it today. But I’m thinking I’ll stick to the weeding and Lyle can do the mowing (our lawn is HUGE by the way, so I’m not just being a wussy girl). The beach day was totally worth it though!

It’s school holidays for the next three weeks. It’s an unusually long break, but I’m looking forward to it. The kids have a few things lined up, so I have some days off.

And life goes on...

Ok so I NEVER update this thing, sorry. This year is flying past and I’m trying to grab a hold of it! We're continuing to LOVE our church, it is truly a blessing to be there. We are headed to the Resolved (www.resolved.org) conference in LA in June. Both Lyle and I are super excited to see people we love and miss. I'm excited to introduce my husband to people too!! :)

Last weekend Clint and Kim moved into their new house! I was privileged to look after their little Noah for the day. He was, of course, an angel. Kim has updated their website with a few pics of the house – and lots of smiley photos of Noah http://www.archersinsa.blogspot.com/

Here's Noah in our living room

and a close up just 'cos he's so cute

He took a little while to be sure of me although I became his best friend when uncle Lyle came home from helping with the move…but if I had Lyle’s face staring at me when I was 10 months old I’d probably get a little upset too

As for us, we’re doing well. We’re enjoying life and certainly keeping busy enough to keep out of trouble! We’ve had a few braai’s (BBQ’s) at our place. With the heat we bought a pool, however, I don’t think it is intended for more than one grown man. Actually I don’t think it’s intended for any grown up anything…however that doesn’t stop some people…

And for something random, yet interesting…this is a picture of a newspaper that is sold in southern Africa.

And in the close up we see the 15 million Zimbabwe dollar price tag in …so absurd. Yet, as I've learned to say "That's Africa baby!"

Wedding

Here are two pics one from the wedding reception here in SA (top pic) and one from the wedding in Oz. We had great photographers at both our weddings, it was such a blessing.

Honeymoon!

We were so blessed to go to Dunk Island for our honeymoon. It's a tropical island in the Great Barrier Reef off the north east coast of Australia. It was SOOOO beautiful. I thought Lyle wasn't taking enough pictures but he said that it was pointless because "how can you capture this beauty?" that was so true. We loved enjoying the beauty of God's creation. It was such needed holiday too!!! we did so much - Lyle had a great time devouring some books, we played golf, tennis, slept, hiked, snorkelled, slept, went on a jet ski, snorkelled, slept...it was fantastic.

In the airport waiting for our plane to leave - Lyle received a new lens as a wedding present from our awesome photographer and friend, Matt. It didn't take long for Lyle to use it!

we spent 2 days in Cairns first, this is along the ocean front

this is the view from our beachfront balcony

we went for a hike up the mountain in the island and came across some native wildlife!

I have to admit I was exhausted (28 degrees 85% humidity!) but of course it was well worth it

There are stingers/jellyfish up there that are rather dangerous, so they have signs posted all over the island near the water with waterbottles full of vinegar - which eases the pain (very slightly!)

There's one jelly fish called the Irukandji which can kill you...i was rather paranoid and I don't think Lyle really understood until we were talking to one of the diving staff. Lyle said "yeah ok, we have jellyfish too", and the staff member said "not like this you don't, it probably feels the same till it stops your heart beating in 20 minutes", he added "I've treated so many people for them that I once stung myself on the wrist to see what all the screaming is about" Lyle asked if he screamed and he raised his head with a serious look on his face and nodded!

this is me trying to be artistic with Lyle's camera :) we were on Muggy Muggy Beach