Random Thoughts and Photos

View of our church from the parking lot.
Autumn is here, and is soooo cold!! :) It snowed on the mountains about 2 hours away this week. We flew to Johanesburg for the South African version of the Shepherd's Conference and saw the snow from the air. For South Africa, there was TONS of snow on the mountains, it was beautiful, but disappeared within the week...its all gone now! It was great to see Dr. Barrick teaching at the conference, he was my boss at TMS, and Clint's professor.

And we got to see Kerry Drew! :) Part of our Cornerstone group (we are missing a few!)

These are some of the guys from our Cornerstone study: Adam and Steve are from England (Left two guys) and the guy with the striped shirt Brian is going to be baptized soon.
A few of the girls in our study.

This photo was taken when we got off the plane in December after 24 hours in the air. Yikes. I didn't even know the people who greeted us at the airport then, but now, 6 months later, they are a huge part of my life here.

This is where our bible study retreat is going to be in a month!
Clint's quiet time overlooking the view!

Sunday & our Elders & Deacons...

Our church from the back. They've added these funky green chairs cause there is no more space in the pews. The wall is blocking the right wing.

Clint preaching on the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The Deacons (L to R & top to bottom): Veon, Duncan, Gavin, Graeme, Burt, Mark, and Anthony.
These are the elders (L to R) Neil Swan, Glen Cherry, Keith Brown and Clint Archer.

New Families in our Church

These are some of the new members who have joined our church recently. I'm now taking "church photos" for our directory, so here are some of them! :) These are taken at church after the service.

Ryan and Jessica Slater (Matthew, and little Taylor)

Piet and Klaaje, Piet (Pete) plays the bass guitar, and he's hillarious! He makes me laugh every Sunday, he's got grandfather humor.

Glen and Tracy, and little Jason

Tracey and Anthony Done, and Sara and Matthew. Clint made Sara cry onstage last week during the childrens catechism questions, so everyone mocks him now.

Random shots:

Clint chatting to Kim & Veon

2 guys from our Cornerstone study: Arthur (left) and Brian (right)

I'm gonna try taking photos of Clint preaching this week...so stay tuned!

From the perspective of an outsider:

The hot and cold taps in S.A. are chasims apart. So this is me when I wash my face in the morning: Turn on the hot tap, start lathering. Wash face. Burn hands. Turn on cold tap. Relieve burning hands. . Rince face with cold water. Stare at hot water tap with distain. I have no idea how the locals do this. Clint says something about mixing the water in the basin, but really? Too much effort.
The keys here look like they are from Shakespeare's time. And there are keys for every room. So when you go to the bathroom, you get a key and turn it in the door. Its like you live in a castle. And your key ring has like, a million keys on it. And there are extra gates to every door. So if you loose your keys, well, you can't only not get into your house, but into your rooms too.

In SA this is a common sight. Now even on the gates around our house. :)

Cornerstone

Last Friday night at Cornerstone went really really well. Clint shared his testimony (in depth with the gospel) to the whole group, but the coolest part was that a girl brought 2 guys she met on the beach, who hadn't heard the gospel before. And a guy who was Catholic was there, and if you know anything about Clint's testimony, well, there was no doubt that it was clear the differences between Catholicsm and Christianity (grace by faith!) . And the two visitors, Darren and Ryan said they would come back next week. People were asking questions and totally understanding the gospel, it was great.

Afterwards we introduced Mafia to Cornerstone. They LOVED it. I think we played 10 rounds till about 11pm. There was yelling, and pointing fingers, it was awesome, they totally got into it after the first practice game. In fact, they couldn't stop talking about it. It really made our group connect, cause the 2 guys that usually come that are to "cool" to participate, were totally loving hanging out with everyone, and we went out for coffee the next night and those two guys were totally connecting with all of us, it was awesome. So the Lord uses testimonies, and Mafia, to break down barriers!
So, STM team thats coming, prepare yourselves to share your testimonies, and play ALOT of MAFIA! :)

Amamzimtoti

So after a crazy crazy week of Clint only seeing the 4 walls of his office.... we went away for a day to the beach Amamzimtoti. To bad one of the most hectic storms came in that day, but it was still beautiful!

Some prayer requests this week!

1. Pray for Clint as he has soooo many appointments with people this week, and still has 3 sermons to prepare!
2. Pray for our bible study Cornerstone. Half the students coming are Christians, and half are not. The unbelievers are starting to bring their unbelieving friends (i have no idea why, besides the grace of God!) So pray for them and their salvation. Pray also for us, and the "saved" croud as we share with them this Friday night. The Lord is really doing amazing things in these students lives.
3. Pray for one of our church plants that we visited today. The pastors name is Paulos and he was telling us how the struggle with AIDS in his community is huge. The main outreach they have is giving the gospel and then serving heathly food to AIDS victims (veggie soup & squash). They also are trying to raise up elders, as their church doesn't have any at the moment. Pray for him and his wife Nellie, their testimony and their witness in the community, that it stays strong!! Pray also for Clint as he will be preaching there within the month.
4. Also just a praise! We have been praying alot for friends, and there is a crowd that after every evening service has been going out for coffee afterwards, alot of them are from our Cornerstone group, so we are starting to hang out with people! Clint challenged this guy to mini golf on Sat, and schooled him properly at it, so now he owes Clint a months worth of after evening service coffee at Mug and Bean. :) Oh! Also, pray for me (Kim) as I am starting up a ladies Bible study in the book of 1st Peter, for wisdom!!

Much love -C&K