Friday, July 27, 2007

Missing the team!


This was taken just before the team left in front of our house....and we miss them! Our house was so quiet today (Those LOUD Americans!) Thank you for all your service and time to serve our church! May God get all the glory....C&K

Thursday, July 26, 2007

How many people can you fit in the Archer's house? This isn't even half of the people from our church that were over for the "American Pancake Evening" this last Sunday! It was a massive success....and the team made a bazillion pancakes for Hillcrest Baptist. Afterwards all the young adults stayed late to play yet another amazing game of mafia.
And the team left on Monday......our house is so.....quiet without all of our "kids" around! We miss you guys! But Marietjie & Anton are coming to see us this weekend...I'm way excited! I can't believe how many people the Lord has brought to us from LA for sweet fellowship. He indeed is a good Father!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Noah's Friends

Getting to know Noah has been so fun lately. He has just started noticing his "friends" ...his toy lion, and caterpillar....and he cracks up laughing, or squeals in delight when he sees them. Yesterday I was taking a shower, and I just put Noah down with his lion next to him, and I could hear him laughing through my whole shower. When I got out he was staring at his lion, cracking up at it with these huge eyes and gynormous smile. Ironically the brand name on the tag of the lion is "Noah's Friends" (no joke!) He has also started "standing" if you hold him from falling to the right or left..... Its super cute. Every stage just gets better, I love it! I just realized today that I haven't paid for a single diaper yet, and I've still got a closet full. At 10 diapers a day....for 11 weeks, that's ALOT of God's provision for us!

Monday, July 23, 2007

Painting & Cricket

So after painting our church for two days straight (thanks team...it looks awesome!) Liz had Cornerstone and the team over for a braai....where the Americans learned how to play cricket! The team
Wesleys learning how to pitch cricket (it is done with a straight arm and has to bounce first before hitting it...unlike baseball!)

Waiting to bat!


Clint putting on his "hard core" face while pitching the cricket ball :)
Michelle isn't scared of Clint!
Amanda's great hitAwesome fellowship over the braai....and some really really great steak! It was so awesome to see the unique bond of Christ and to see how the "universal" church so quickly bonds together. It doesn't matter if your South African or American...our God has captured his "bride"...the church....for himself, and that church is all over the world!

Fellowship with Kerry and Pati


The men smelling the awesome meat

Noah and I had fun while the team was teaching the Zulu kids last week (sorry no photos of Hope Valley!)


Wednesday, July 18, 2007

More Cornerstone retreat.....

Mad volleyball skills displayed:

Watchin the volleyball game


The 3 hour hike to the waterfalls....


Chillin after the hike


Daddy and Noah time!Campfire fellowship & worship


Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Tobi

Photo of the day: Tobi sleeping on the remote phone that Jesse broke. (We found out the hard way that indeed if you plug in an American phone without the converter...it leads to a smokey death of a phone). Tobi is mourning the loss.

Tala

On Saturday the Africans showed the Americans some crazy African wildlife at Tala Game reserve. We saw every animal you could see, but my favorite is always the Giraffe (i finally saw one drinking out of the lake, so cool!) Clint babysat Noah so I could go with!
This giraffe was galloping along the path...there are two others on the right...can you see them? :)
So we finally find the Rhino's on the way out.....and a bride and groom get out of their car wearing wedding dress and tux and all to take photos with the rhino (which is CRAZY by the way). They had a game ranger with them, but I was suspicious, .....all the Americans were like...well that means we can get out of the car too! But all the Africans were like.........no way, you'll get impaled by the rhino!! They promptly got yelled at by the game ranger for getting out of the car. Hungry Hungry Hippos sunbathing

And some strange looking Homo-sapiens

Friday, July 13, 2007

Cornerstone retreat!

This week the STM team from Grace Church arrived and we went on our Cornerstone Retreat! 6 countries were represented at our retreat....Australia, South Africa, America, Canada, New Zealand, and ...(honorary...China!)
Group photo of all 31 of us!

"Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!" Psalm 133

Jesse Johnson was our special retreat speaker....it was so cold one morning we listened outside to his sermon! (hense the beanie photo~notice the awesome pulpit?!?) My favorite sermon of his was "To live is ___" Can you honestly put Christ in that blank? If not than the phrase "to die is gain" is meaningless because anything else in that blank would make it "to die is loss"

Baby Noah's first Cornerstone retreat...he was a great little camper!
Group shots before the sessions of the team and Cornerstone:



Learning how to kayak....legend has it that there is a croc in this lake, but we never saw it, but it did keep our toes out of the water!


Kayaking on the lake was so amazingly beautiful....we had great fun racing and splashing each other....


Two Archers playing Archery (see baby Noah in the baby bjorn? :) Clint got a bullseye...and than missed every other time! (nuts!)

Hanging out by the lake
The sunsets were amazing!

All the girls
And the guys!

Thank you to all of you who sent amazing gifts from America (chocolate chips being my favorite!) It was like Christmas!

Friday, July 06, 2007

2 months old!

Noah turned 2 months yesterday! We are so blessed to have such a healthy little guy...we took him to the pediatrician last week and he says that he's perfectly healthy...our God has been so merciful to us. Praise Him!


He is starting to be soooo much more expressive very day, we wake up thinking what new face we will see! Today I had a record of the amount of times I changed him (clothes, blankets, everything!)....5 ......and he grew out of his first onesie....so sad!

Monday, July 02, 2007

Cross Centered Life


This last weekend we flew to Joburg and Clint preached at Tim Cantrell's church's youth camp. It was an awesome weekend as we went there the year before and already had met alot of the youth. He did a series on the "Cross Centered Life"

It was super super cold in Joburg...but everyone still gathered to hear preaching in the ice-box of a room! :)


Just the three of us


Tiny feet!



Noah's first bubbly bubble bath, he used to cry at every bath...but now he loves it!


All clean!