Pake and Beppe!! (& Grace's Birthday!)

Phew finally! Time and technology is allowing me to continue my journey with you all. Some of the posts are going to be a few months old, please bear with me as Albert's family in particular would love to see the family visit in photos! So just like over the summer internship posts, there are mostly going to be photos only with a few words here and there! Enjoy!

 

Towards the end of our internship, Albert's parents were due to arrive in Canada to spend time with Albert's third cousin. This was already arranged BEFORE we knew that we were going to Canada for our internship. Pretty cool huh?

 

Albert's parents (whom we hadn't seen for over two years!) were due to arrive on the 31st of July in Buffalo, NY, having flow into the USA the week before. Albert's parents were delayed on their train journey across the USA and so arrived in Buffalo a day later than planned! Albert had thankfully planned his days off way in advance and so having the following day off wasn't a problem. We had told Albert's parents that we wouldn't make the 'trek' across the border to meet them in the USA. We might have mislead them slightly. We instead had arranged with the Bumas (Albert's third cousin) to meet them at the train station in Buffalo. What a surprise it was! We also decided to see the American side of Niagara Falls that day. We had been given some spending money by some lovely people and had saved that especially for a trip on the Maid of the Mist. It was even more special to enjoy that with Albert's parents and the Bumas but also since it was Grace's 11th birthday that day!

Very excited girls!

The Train!

Smiles say it all!

Father and Son

Sight seeing at the Falls

Do you think they are happy?

Another family shot

I think the girls saved up all their stories to tell Pake and Beppe!

One of the attractions, see the power of that water

He wanted his photo taken

Very nice family photo! Thanks Durk

Following are some photo's of us going on Maid of the Mist. I haven't got many good ones of the actual falls as it was far too wet. You will just have to imagine it! We were given these plastic ponchos for which we were very grateful otherwise we would have been saturated! What an awesome experience to get so close to the falls. We chose the Maid of the Mist on the American side especially as it was the boat company that got the closest to the falls.

Zara

Kate

Grace

Beppe

Pake
(I don't think he wanted his hat to get wet?)

Beppe and the girls

Selfie with Michaela

Family photo (taken on the boat)

approaching the falls

the falls are in there somewhere in the mist!

See the blue 'dots' some of us walked that too,
pretty cool to be that close to the water

Present all the way from NZ

One thrilled Gracie with a new purple jersey!
Thanks Pake and Beppe

Finishing the long day with pizza as a birthday dinner for Grace!

True Woman Conference 9-11 October 2014

(Phew I think Albert with the help of an online 'helper' has fixed the laptop! It looked like we might have had to buy a new laptop. So grateful that it's got a few more months at least!)

 
WOW! What an up building/blessed/refreshed/challenging couple of days!
 
Hannah and I had the privilege of going to the True Woman 2014 Conference(DO look at the link, you won't regret it!). I had to arrange quite a few things including babysitting for two days. Thanks so much for those who had my girls for the two days while I was at the conference. I'm pleased to report that all the ones that stayed home i.e. Albert and the girls had clean washing and did eat! ;). I came home to a lovely smelling house as Michaela had baked pumpkin loaf! YUM!
 
Hannah and I had decided to attend the pre-conference seminar as well which dealt with leadership. Although both us are not necessarily leaders, we thought with our 'new' future roles it might be helpful! Since there were only two of us, we were seated at the very front. We were treated to a very nice 'boxed' lunch with all sorts of treats. Generous sponsors had also provided books, a calendar and a magazine for all the pre-conference attendees!
 
Nancy Leigh DeMoss spoke on 1 Thessalonians 2 with the topic of "What are the characteristics of effective ministry?" I really enjoyed her teaching us verse by verse.
 
After our pre-conference seminar we had some dinner and then the real conference started! We were treated to fantastic speakers. I'm going to link some of the blog posts that give an excellent recap.
 
Here are some of my thoughts about the conference!

• Prayer. I really appreciated the prayers that saturated the conference! Everyone that registered by name was prayed for! About 50 men came to the conference at their own expense and prayed for and during the conference, for special prayer needs etc. They also had a special prayer room where you could go and someone would pray with you!  WOW!
• Reverence for Christ. Seek first ye HIS kingdom!
• Cross of Christ - Just about all the speakers, although some of them were 'famous', showed us our need for Christ and not themselves! Again WOW! Most speakers exegeted a bible text.
• Worship Music - I'm not much of a music fan but WOW. The music was NOT over bearing, just leading us in worship. I LOVED listening to Kirsten Getty, she got an awesome Irish accent! A lot of acappella singing as well which sounded pretty awesome with 8000+ woman at the conference!
• I didn't enjoy the speaker on Friday night, Hannah and I left early that night!

Here are some of the links:
Opening night: http://www.truewoman.com/?id=2995
Day Two Recap http://www.truewoman.com/?id=2997
Final Day Recap http://www.truewoman.com/?id=2999
Resources http://www.truewoman14.com/resources/
Some unedited video http://www.truewoman14.com/unedited-video-archive/
Marriage Testimony http://t.co/www821I15N (I bought and read Vicky Rose's book, very inspiring)
 

Nancy Leigh DeMoss

 

Our lovely lunch

 

Opening Night with Nancy and Joni!

 

Gettys

 

Vicky Rose (watch her testimony) and Nancy

 

Blair Linne - Spoken Word Artist

 

Break out session 1 - Hym sing with Joni and
Keith and Kirsten Getty

 

Janet Parshall - radio host

 

Hannah and I

 

Violins

 

8000+ women!

Nancy - Saturday Morning session

 

 

Naghmeh Abedini wife of imprisoned Pastor Saeed Abedini

did a little sight seeing

Bought some books at discount price. We are studying
Nancy Guthrie in our ladies bible study. Well worth it!

 

Bought some of them, got given some.

 

Why I've been absent?

I'm not ignoring this blog or you but our main computer aka the laptop has been out of action this past week. There is some virus on there that Albert is having trouble getting rid off. All photos etc are on that computer. The laptop is also getting old so hopefully Albert is able to resurrect it otherwise a new one might be on the horizon. The girls also do all their maths plus some history via cd rom on the laptop so that part of school is being postponed for now. So hopefully things will be back to normal soon. I've got plenty of photos to share!

Mid America Reformed Seminary on YouTube

For those you who are interested about MARS and what it is like etc. Here are some youtube video's that came out today.

Here is the main page: Mid America Reformed Seminary

• Mid-America Reformed Seminary Introductory Video
• Life at MARS: Ministerial Apprenticeship Program
• Life at MARS: Women's Fellowship
• Life at MARS: Alumni Thoughts

These video's are just a glimpse of what seminary is really like. Come and experience it for yourself sometime! :)

Pooh Sticks, oh I mean Eyeore Sticks!

This post is a mix of visiting a tourist attraction as well as having some fun! Donkey (Eyeore) came as well for some 'training'! So instead of Pooh Bear playing 'Pooh Sticks', we had the Donkey try and play this game. We also did some 'hill' training and again instead of the donkey's carrying our gear, we carried the Donkey! Thanks Izaak for being such a good sport! (The girls and I thought this was all very hilarious!)

The girls insisted that I take photos at this spot!
(Zara and Kate)

Zara, Michaela, Grace and Kate

Do you see anything unusual?

Pooh, I mean Eyeore Sticks!

Gloomy? 

Fighting to get a cuddle/photo with Eyeore

Grace's well loved Donkey!

Hill training

Thanks for being a good sport Izaak!

I think Donkey 'ate all the pies!'

You might recognize some of the landmarks, I blogged about it here when we visited the first time!

Reflections on our Summer Internship 2014

My reflections on our summer internship. 

First of all, I'm not going to write a comparison between this summer and last summer. It's pretty hard to do that anyway as it would be like trying to compare apples and oranges. Second I'm not going to give a huge detailed list of everything we did as I've done that already in my photo posts over the summer. Here are then some short reflections on our summer. 

• Privileged - As summer interns we are so privileged to be able to involved in peoples lives and see how God works in their lives. It is humbling experience and very encouraging!
• Large Church - Wellandport URC is a large church about 600 people including a huge number of children. Last year they had 19 baptisms! We really enjoyed this aspect with plenty of children for the girls to play with. Adults our age to play games with and hang out. 
• Farming Country - Very interesting to say the least! We city dwellers enjoyed a taste of the country from seeing a goat farm, cows being milked, chicken farm to realizing how important the weather is to farmers. Something I have never thought about! The crops got in ground late this year because of the VERY wet spring.
• Heritage Christian School - I might have drooled over the Christian School. Enough said! (We got a tour of the school and most of the children in the area attend this Christian School. I like the fee structure also, with a per family fee as supposed to a per child fee like in the USA.)
• Session/Consistory/Elders/Council - I keep getting the terms confused and gave up on what meeting Albert went to :). Albert was VERY impressed with the way meeting were run and the way matters were dealt with. The Elders were very diligent in their work and protected their Pastor as the Pastor's main job was to preach twice each week. So this would have been almost on the top of the list of our learning experiences as a church this size is not something that NZ has (yet!). 
• My Experience - While I thoroughly LOVED the summer and the opportunity, I have realized that I'm not a country bumpkin. I quite like the conveniences close by and having fast internet helps too :).
• Goodbyes - While we are getting pretty experienced at this now, but this continues to be hard! It is still worth the investment in relationships even for a short while despite the fact that you might never see them again this side of heaven!

There are a few more photo blogs to come from the summer. 

LOVE the girls in this photo!

Photos are taken by J&J Dykstra! Thanks heaps :)