Cornerstone Retreat

This past weekend we went away to the Draakensberg for our Cornerstone (young adults) retreat. We have a short term missions team (STM) out from Grace Community Church at the moment and they came along to keep things lively. We also had some of the young adults from Joel James' church in Pretoria, and some folk from Hope Valley join us. It was such a blessing to have our little group expanded by some more brothers and sisters who love the Lord.

Trevor Peacock (he was the STM leader and is studying at TMS) gave us some awesome messages. I was really blessed with his talks on Ephesians 6, the warfare we're in and the armour of God. I don't think I've ever heard a sermon on it (well, not since I heard it in Sunday school) and it was really refreshing to be reminded of how well we are equipped by the Lord to live in today's world and fight the enemy at every turn.

myself with Michelle and Jill

We stayed at a Scripture Union campsite called Glenhaven. It was so beautiful, but the temperature went down to -8 (celsius) overnight!!

During our free time we played some 'bonding' games!

most of which seemed to leave us in hysterics

catching Michelle was easy, she's only short :)

Andrew on the other hand, all 6 feet and 10 inches of him,
proved to be a little more challenging

The farmer on the other side of the river was doing some burning.It was amazing to see the hillside go up in about 2 minutes.

We did some archery

(Lyle and I were better at posing that hitting the targets)

I don't think we discovered any amazing hidden talent, but it was a lot of fun
(you can see the hillside in the background still burning a few hours later)

Some inside games were just plain confusing to me...

(I still don't know how the cards stick on peoples heads...)

Group photo!

The Wallabies were playing the Boks on the saturday... unfortunately we didn't have a TV. we did however find a radio station...but it was in Afrikaans....so my only hints of how we were doing consisted of the boys frowning, the commentators saying the Aussie players names, and the cheer in the background on the broadcast....all I have to say is

"Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi!!!" :)

(and to say THANK YOU Samma for my wallabies scarf, it went down a treat!!)

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