Reformation day

So last night was the Reformation party at our house...it was a massive success. One of the coolest parts for me was having apple cider (I just love the stuff) and watching everyone carve pumpkins for the FIRST time in their lives. Everyone was like...can we carve pumpkins every week? Clint did an awesome message on the reformation...which lead to an awesome Q&A afterwards. Some people who came who weren't Christians couldn't understand that works don't save you, that its grace by faith ALONE that saves. So Clint got to really talk to them about how it is a FREE gift and no matter if you are the best person on the planet, you still deserve eternal punishment cause you have sinned, and it is by believing and trusting in Christ's work on the cross and repenting of your sin that saves you. I think they understood afterwards. What a blessing to be apart of these students lives!! Afterwards we sang "A mighty fortress is our God"

The pumpkin in front won the carving contest....hey we only had 5 pumpkins....but at least we found some to carve considering its Spring here!! It was actually cold enough to have a fire...so we lit up our house with just candles and paper lanterns and lights. It looked really cool and kinda spooky!

Cornerstone!

Pumpkins

Ok, so our Cornerstone group is gonna have a Reformation Day party tomorrow, and I went looking EVERYWHERE for pumpkins to carve. Considering its spring, and no one really celebrates Halloween, it was a tough search. I finally found 2, but they were 15 dollars each (yikes!!) And then I called around, and it turns out a lady in our congregation had some growing in her backyard!! (They are smaller than normal, and not super orange, but I think it will still work right?) We will find out tomorrow!

I baked 2 pumpkin pies for the occasion...no one here has ever had a pumpkin pie, or apple cider, so it will be fun for them to try (thanks to the team for bringing out those heavy cans of pumpkin!!!) They don't really look perfect, but it is my first attempt, and they smell good :)

And we had our 2nd scan of the baby yesterday, and saw its arms and legs and heartbeat, it looks more and more like a little baby! :) They did a test by measuring a fold in the back of the neck and said that it is low risk for Downs Syndrome. So "baby Lime" is alive and kicking! We saw it jump a couple of times, it was hilarious!

Clint has been preaching through the book of Ruth, and it has just hit me how amazingly sovereign our God is through everything in life. Here Ruth was a widow, a foreigner, with no hope of re-marrying anyone, and as the text says she "just so happened" to cross Boaz's field and glean there...the only person PERFECT for her who could be her redeemer. The Lord's timing is perfect in our every step, and in every decision we make He guides our steps. Our God is the best!!

toes....

So this is what our baby's feet are supposed to look like this week (11th week!) Amazing....so much detail down to each toe! You can pray for me cause I get "afternoon sickness"...and its hard to keep up with everything that needs to get done (especially cooking...its sooo hard to cook meat, the smell of anything cooking kills me!) but I keep thinking about how its soo good that I feel sick cause it is a good sign in the pregnancy....and I have it alot better than other women!! The Lord is truely good, I can't believe He is granting us this little gift! We truely are fearfully and wonderfully made. This week its "baby plum"....last week "baby walnut". I can't believe its the size of a plum already, I'm not even showing yet!

Anyone have any name suggestions for baby Archer?!? :) Please comment!!

Safari

This week Clint's parents took us on a safari game drive to Hluhluwe (pronounced Sha-shlu-ee), about a 3 hour drive from Durban.

Clint and I infront of the "don't get out of the car....you might get eaten!" sign.

Both sets of parents/ in-laws and us! :) The rondovels we stayed in are behind us...they were beautiful!!

One of the "Big Five" animals you wanna see in South Africa...a Rhino!! (the others are Elephant, Buffalo, Lion and Leopard). Check this things horn out, its HUGE! It had just gotten out of a nice mud bath...mmm.

Ok, so can you spot it?!? Its a cheetah with its back to us. (right in the middle) There were like 6 cars all looking at this cheetah...they call it a "cat jam" here :) but it was sooooo far that this is the closest my camera could get. But it was still really awesome... Cheetah sightings are really rare!

Zebra crossing (literally)

This is a good perspective of what its like...your in your car and the animals are...well, right there! These our two rhino crossing the road.

More photos next time! :)

City of Durban

Sunset over the city of Durban...pretty big for "rural Africa" huh? This is the harbor view. Click on the photo for a close up view :) Me and my dad. Its funny that you never really do the "touristy" things...like going to actually look at the city of Durban until you've got people to take around. Like I think I never saw the Hollywood sign until I was 21 when there were some friends from overseas who wanted to see it!

Me and my mom

Our Anniversary...

Our 4 year anniversary

Clint took me to the revolving restaurant in Durban for our anniversary. Its 34 stories tall, and revolves so you can see the city of Durban in an hour, the view was amazing! The food was awesome too, its a family owned Italian restaurant, and the owner comes personally to take your order.

So on the table it says that its one of 37 revolving restaurants in the world. We figured we've been to 3 (L.A., USA. Vancouver, Canada. and Durban, South Africa). We made it our goal to try and hit as many as we can in our lifetime. This was the coolest one I've been to though cause you get to see the harbor, the ships out at sea, and then the city, so the view changed all the time. I can't believe we've been married 4 whole years!! It just doesn't seem real. Next year we will need a babysitter! Its "Baby Strawberry" now! :)

The city

The Harbor

First scan!

So I had my first "baby Archer" scan today. We've been naming it by its size, so this week it was "baby grape" last week it was "baby rasberry." Your first scan is pretty nerve-wracking cause you never know what they are going to tell you (did the heart stop beating? is it ok?) but it was amazing to actually SEE the baby...and the heartbeat (most of the baby was just a heart beating!!) So now I actually feel like my "morning" (afternoon) sickness isn't just a figment of my imagination. (The head is to the right by the way...the first one always just looks like a blob!!)

My parents arrived safe and sound this week...and my mom actually was there to see my scan today! This is them in front of the "valley of a thousand hills" just a few minutes drive from our house. The view was amazing! My dad got sick this week (with the same flu I got when I first came here, and practically the whole missions team caught while they were here!) but he's starting to feel alot better! Clint's parents are coming down too this week, so it will be the first time all of them have met!! We are all going on a game drive to see African animals at the end of this week.

My parents under "African Thatch"

Church Camp

Church Camp Group Photo (we are on the right!)

Clint with some of the young adults

The sunset from our campsite, pretty awesome huh?

Clint's mad soccer skills

Our whole church did a "barn dance".... I don't think I've laughed this hard in a while watching South Africans learn American barn dances. Yee-haaah!

Our speaker this year was Stuart Olyott. He was so awesome! He spoke on Justification, Adoption, Sanctification and Perseverance. It was so great sitting under awesome preaching and then having him in our home afterwards. What a priveledge!

Spurgeon

So there is another little addition to our family (besides the littlest one EVER (the size of a lentil bean at this point). SPURGEON!! We got him last Saturday as a friendy for Geneva. Most families in South Africa that we know have like 3-4 dogs (no joke!). I've always wanted a Lab, and we went to the pet shop to pick up something else, and there was Spurgeon!! They were selling him as a half german shep/half lab. But the Vet reckons he's a purebread.

Geneva and Spurgeon are now best friends. They sleep together, eat together, play together and fight together. Yesterday it rained, and Spurgeon was black not white! (Geneva had taught him how to roll in the mud!) I love him so much, he runs soooo clumsy, it is hillarious!!

Spurg and Geneva napping after a long day at the park.

Spurgeon and Tobi (they are becoming friends too)

My parents arrive in just under two weeks to visit us!! Woo hoo!

What to expect...

So after going to 2 malls and 6 bookshops, I finally found it!! Wooo hoo. It's so funny not being able to just strut right on into a Barnes & Noble thats 2 stories tall and pick out whatever book you are looking for!! But it was kinda fun going on the hunt. It's funny cause all the pregnancy magazines here are British, so they all use the word "mum" instead of mom, which has always freaked me out a little! So my favorite thing this book says is that I can't change the kitty litter when I'm pregnant. Yippeee!

So many people have asked how I told Clint?!?! Well, after taking the test at 7am to find out, and after seeing TWO lines (not one!) I ran straight to the fridge and pulled out Clint's favorite possession, an IBC Cream Soda in a bottle that we brought over from the states in December that he was hoarding cause its his favorite, and he was waiting for the "occasion" to drink it. I ran straight back to the bed where he was asleep, woke him up and I said "I think you should drink this for breakfast" and he was like...."huh? is it going bad?" and I was like...."no to Celebrate!" and he was like "huh?" and then I told him I thought I was pregnant, and showed him the stick. With blurry eyes he looked at it, looked at me and smiled...and was like....are you sure?!?!? So we drove across the street to the medical centre to take a blood test, and after a (grueling!) hour, she said, congratulations!! We couldn't believe it, and are just so happy. Clint made the announcement on Sunday morning as his opening illustration...everyone was suprised and started clapping. It was a pretty cool moment. It still doesn't really feel real.

Our church camp is next week, and Stuart Olyott is the guest speaker. He is staying with us this week, and he has a gluten allergy (no wheat, rice, oats or anything!) so if anyone has any good "gluten free" recipies...please give me an email!! :) Stuart Olyott wrote an awesome book on preaching, so we are super excited to have him in our home. Its one of the blessings of being the "pastors home" is you get to host really cool guest speakers!!

Expecting!!

Any idea why Clint gave me THREE flowers on Tuesday?!?

Cause there are 3 of us now!!

WE ARE EXPECTING!!

There will be a little Archer sometime in May

WOOO HOOO!

"Behold children are a gift from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of an ARCHER, so are the children of ones youth. How blessed is the man who's quiver is full of them. They will not be ashamed."

Psalm 127:3-5

Picture of the day: Rain on my flowers this morning on my front porch

So this week we are having the meeting at the church to see whether or not our church is moving to this new location, and whether or not we are going to build it! The elders have asked Clint to preach on the biblical principles involved as well. So its gonna be a huge day for our church this next Sunday!

There is a family in our church who is really greiving right now. The Webster's have been coming to our church for the last month or so, and their 2 son in law's who were best friends (Mark & David) were hit by a car while cycling on a local road here in Durban. Mark was instantly killed (early 30's with a wife and 2 kids) and David is still severely injured (also early 30's with a wife and 2 or 3 kids) . We met with Mark's wife Tanya (who is just a little older than me) this week. It was amazing to see how strong her faith is while sitting in her now quiet house at the loss of her husband. I didn't even know what to say. But since this tragedy both wives have started attending our church regularly, and I am going to be giving Tanya a ride to Bible study tomorrow, so pray for me that I'll have the words to say, and pray for Tanya and Bernadette (sisters) who are both going through extreme pain. Tanya says she has no idea how she's gonna face every day without Mark.

It's so hard to know what to say to Tanya when I've still got my husband sitting right next to me. It made me thank the Lord once again for such an amazing husband like Clint, and for sustaining both of our lives for this long. I don't know what I'd do without him.

Tobi

Meet our new kitty!
"October" or "Tobi"

So Clint and I drove down to Amamzimtoti (a beach town like 30 min away) to the animal rescue SPCA. It was the only SPCA that had kittens in all of Durban (usually there are a million!!) And there she was....a cute tortie shell kitten along with her 4 sisters who were either white or tabby (too normal for us!) so we chose her right away, but then realized her personality was kind of skittish!! We were a little uncertian she would like us, but decided to take her anyways thinking she might warm up to us in our house. Well, since she got home she hasn't stopped purring (literally!) and isn't satisfied unless she is in your lap. I think she is so happy to be in a home instead of a cold cage with loud dogs barking. We love her to bits.

We named her "October" cause ever since we got married in that month, Clint has always wanted a kitty named October or "10-4" (our date!!) but we usually just call her "Tobi" for short. She looks a bit like Autumn, my favorite season. She will never replace Starbucks, but she's slowly worming her way into our hearts. :)

Grateful-niz

"The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; He knows those who take refuge in Him." Nahum 1:7

Thank you to ALL of you for your thoughts, prayers, cards, notes, emails, calls, googletalks, i.m.'s etc. about the loss of Starbucks our kitty (aka Niz)! My inbox was full the next morning after I blogged about grieving over Starry with notes of encouragement and prayers and stories of other pets and how they will be missed, or just cute stories about other kittens. Cynthia got to share the gospel with her daughter because of it, praise Him!! It was so awesome to have the "body of Christ" from afar come around us. Thank you!! :)

So "my pastor" Clint and I have been talking alot about why this happened, and why us, and why now?!? Questions like these arise when any tragedy happens, but in a particularly hard one, sometimes you can slip into sinning thinking that God wasn't in control. HE IS in control, and sovereign of all things, and that has been such a comfort!! If He wasn't in control over every moment I think I would fall to pieces. Everything dies because of the curse of sin that we incured, therefore the whole of nature was plunged into the same curse. And that's just what happened with Starry, and what will happen to us too. This happens so that we can cling to our God, who made heaven and earth and everything on the earth and just learn to trust Him more. ALL things work together for good, to those who love Him right? We've been "grieving" over the loss of Starry, but we still trust in His awesome character, that NOTHING goes unnoticed by our God, the Creator.

"Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus
Just to take Him at His word
Just to rest upon His promise!
Just to know "thus saith the Lord"

Jesus Jesus how I trust Him
How I've proved Him o'er and o'er
Jesus Jesus, Precious Jesus
O for grace to trust Him more."

Amen and amen.

In Memory of Starbucks (Niz)

So last night around 9'oclock Clint and I were in the middle of playing roh-sham-bo to see who would go look for Starbucks. Every night she goes out and we go and find her next door at the pre-school play yard scampering about and tormenting the dogs next door. Just as we are about to go get her we get a phone call from a lady who says she's been hit by a car and that she is dead. We couldn't believe it so we raced over to the street just next to our house, and there she was. She looked like she was just asleep, but she was totally limp. I kept asking Clint if we could take her to the vet, and he kept telling me it was too late...so we sadly took her home and buried her in our back yard. It was probably one of the most traumatic things I've ever had to go through. I haven't cried this hard in a long time. She was only 9 months old.

Starry wasn't just a normal kitten. EVERYONE loved her. I mean everyone. She was one of those kittys that had such a great personality you couldn't help but love her. She would fall asleep on my head every night and purr till she fell asleep. When you took a bath she would pat the bubbles till they were all gone. When you were working on the computer she would jump up on you lap, but hit all the wrong keys before she settled down. And every morning she would wake us up with a "kiss" with her nose on ours. She is what helped me get through the move having something that "loved" you to come home to. Sometimes Clint and I would come home early from being out cause we missed Niz. Clint says that the Lord gave her to us just when we needed her most. I know she's "just a cat" but she really ment the world to us and we loved her very much. She was part of our family, and will be sorely missed. Goodbye Niz! We love you.

New Church Building

Our Lord is soo good! Our church services right now are at max capacity. I think you could probably squeeze 10 more people in on a Sunday! So just as this problem appears, a new developer knocks on our door a couple of months ago and says he's got a piece of land for a new church building, and he really wants our land cause he can zone it to be commercial (which means he can build a big supermarket or whatever on our land, but he can't on his). So...the elders of our church have decided to look into this cause there is really no other land in Hillcrest, its all being developed so quickly...that this is our only opportunity to move to a new spot and still be called "Hillcrest Baptist". It's the perfect sitution cause this guy is also a builder. Which means that when he builds us the dream building, we move out of our old one, and into the new one right away. And because our land is more valuable than his, it will be a very cheap building. Our old building seats 150-200. If all goes well the new building will seat 350-400 and have a new kitchen and classrooms for our pre-school and everything!!! Its so exciting!

But that also means that we have to move too! Cause our house is on the church property, which means it will be demolished by the developer. We've been looking around for houses, but there is nothing in Hillcrest for less than 1 Million Rand. So....we are waiting for the property market to crash....hopefully!! A million rand is, well, super expensive (yikes!)


This is Niz investigating my guitar case. We are slowly introducing "new" songs to our church, this next week will be "Wonderful Merciful Savior."

Parable of the 2 brothers

So I recently got my work visa, (praise the Lord!!) so now I'm the administrator for Hillcrest Baptist. In other words...Clint is my boss! This leads to some pretty funny sinarios when people in the church ask to make an appointment with Clint and he says...uh, speak to my secretary. And they're like...uh, who?!? Or when people call and ask if my "daddy," the pastor is in. Maybe American accents sound younger? So half of my job is telling random people that Clint will not be attending their ecumenical meetings. Clint gets like 10 invitations a week for faternals and prayer meetings and stuff where all the churches in Hillcrest try and unite. Its so weird cause they all have such opposite beliefs, but they trading peace for false unity. If Clint went to half of those meetings, how would he even have time to prepare 2 sermons or counsel his own congregation?!? I have no idea how other pastors do it, unless they spend 10 minutes preparing on Saturday night.

So Clint and I were used to hearing 6-7 sermons a week, and now we don't really get that, so we download tons off the internet, or get them from friends. This last week I've been listening to sermons that Christen Hardy sent us on the Prodigal Son.The preacher pointed out something I've never noticed before. The context of the prodical son is that the Pharisees are complaining that Christ is spending time with the tax collectors and sinners. In response Jesus tells the parable. Everyones focus is always on the prodical son, but he points that there are 2 responses by 2 brothers. He points out the response of the older brother once the repentant son comes home. Luke 15: "Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!' His point is that the response of the prodical son is the same as that of the tax collectors and sinners, he repents of his sin, and running home to his Father. But the older brother's response is the same as the Pharisees...'look at how I've served you, and you're not showing me any glory!!' His point is that both brothers are lost. The younger brother is lost cause of his wickedness. But the younger brother repents, and comes home....."Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son." But older brother is lost because of his "goodness"! The older brother rejects the pleading of his father, and cause of his good works.... not his badness is the reason he's lost. He thinks he's repentant cause he confesses his sin all the time and is a 'good son' but is relying on that for his salvation. He stays outside and refuses to join the celebration for his younger brothers return, and is therefore outside the blessing of the Father. So there are 2 ways to be lost in your sin. Either the wickedness of sin itself, or in thinking you are "to good" and don't need God. So he was saying that true repentance is looking at your wickedness as well as your "righeousness" and confessing the motive behind it. When you start repenting of that then you can start seeing growth in your life. It just was so clear when listening to the message. I had never really focused on the response of the older brother!! It was an amazing sermon, thanks Christen for sending it!!

Jesus the Lord my Savior

So today was a public holiday ...and I was planning to go to the botanical gardens with some friends to have "british tea" (its girly, I know) but I woke up...and it was raining. NUTS! I was so sad, but then it became one of those really cool dark rainy days where you stay in your pj's and read and drink like 8 cups of coffee. I've been playing this song all day on my new guitar (Clint, the most amazing husband in the world had Austin T. Duncan bring me out a new Taylor guitar, it sounds so awesome even if you mess up!)

Listen to it here: http://ruf.org/sounds/mp3/JesusTheLordMySavior.mp3 by Sandra McCraken
I love the words: "What'er I need in Jesus dwells, And there it dwells for me."

Jesus, the Lord, My Savior
Jesus, the Lord, my Savior is,

My Shepherd, and my God;

My light, my strength, my joy, my bliss;

And I His grace record.

Whate’er I need in Jesus dwells,

And there it dwells for me;

’Tis Christ my earthen vessel fills

With treasures rich and free.

Chorus: Mercy and truth and righteousness,

And peace, most richly meet

In Jesus Christ, the King of grace,

In Whom I stand complete.

As through the wilderness I roam,

His mercies I’ll proclaim;

And when I safely reach my home,

I’ll still adore His name.

“Worthy the Lamb,” shall be my song,

“For He for me was slain;”

And me with all the heavenly throng

Shall join, and say, “Amen.”

1000 Hills Baptist

So today part of my job was to go on a photoshoot for our new church plant "Thousand Hills Baptist Church." We are building them a building...cause right now they are meeting in a tent. My job was to photograph the people, and houses in the area so we can present the building project to our church. Here are some photos from the photo shoot today of the Thousand Hills area. This is rural Africa! And its only 10 minutes from our doorstep. It's amazing how so close to us is such poverty, it was such an eye opening experience. To quote Derek Webb "Poverty, is so hard to see, when its only on your TV, or 20 miles across town"

Government housing. The government builds these one room houses for people. They substitute for squatter homes, where people just build shacks out of iron.

Woman selling items at a tuck shop

The valley of 1000 hills. This church reaches out to this whole area. Ironically this shot is taken from a huge hotel that looks over the poverty and AIDS stricken valley.

The sign that currently leads up to the tent church, but will soon lead up to a church building! They are building it out of entirely recycled material. So the walls will be made out of coke bottles and tires and stuff. Then the photo below, a view of the valley of people it will reach! It was so exciting to be apart of this project. How great is our God that He is exaulted amoung the nations, and the whole earth!

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah" -Psalm 67