Where my phone has been

Yesterday, Paul preached in this young church in Kalkfontein.  Palm Sunday had it's palms! 

They had a wedding there on Saturday, so the church was still decorated all pretty.  I love that a man talked about that.  He said the couple who got married "was a little bit late", but they were doing the right thing. He asked if anyone else wanted to do it.  "Shacking up" is too, too common these days, and it was refreshing to hear someone offer the godly option.  

 They don't seem to have garbage pick up at all in this neighborhood, so the trash was DEEP!  I wanted to get a picture, without being obvious, so I tried my selfie skills, with not the greatest results, but you can get a glimpse.

 On Saturday I got to help with an outreach to women in the beautiful little seaside town (300 people, I heard) of Scarborough.  It was an ocean theme, so this is the little clams I made to bring.  Pinterest came through for me with the idea, but my cookies weren't exactly what I had in mind.  I was pleased to find little cake decorations that were labeled "pearls".  Just what the doctor ordered!

 My phone goes on Tuesday nights to Josh's self-defense course.  They tried to get me to join in.  No thanks!  I'd rather get attacked by strangers than classmates.  Josh gets a rough workout there!

 Paul and I got a beach walk.  Again, I sigh over my selfie skills, but I guess I have an excuse with Paul.  He's 16 inches taller than me, so we're challenging to get into the same picture.

 Noordhoek Beach is one of the prettiest in the world!   It has a shipwreck in the middle for some atmosphere, and a mountain sprouting right out of one end.  White, white sands are just beautiful.  We'll see the other end of it a little later.

 My phone comes with me to Joy Club, but I'm too busy to take pictures of the kids, I guess.  But a neighbor lady admonished us not to let the kids destroy this landmark.  See that thing sprouting up there?  It's the jawbone of a Southern Right whale!  They were used as property markers in the fishing village of Kalk Bay.  Most are gone, so this piece left in the ground is noteworthy.

 At home, I did remember to take a picture of our water saving fun.  I rearranged the kitchen so that I can catch laundry water in a trash can, to use in toilet flushing.  We also save shower water and dish water for the same.
So last week, someone messed with the buttons on my washing machine, and left while it was washing, and that trash can overflowed all over everywhere!  It went out the kitchen door and down the hall in the lines between the tiles.

 We had a meeting at our friend Louis Campbell's church.  My great grandfather was a Campbell (my grandmother too  :- ) so maybe Louis and I are cousins.

At the other end of Noordhoek beach is a place where people can rent horses.  Josh got to go with his cousin Hannah who came to visit for about 10 days.  

 While the big cousins went galloping along that gorgeous beach, 3 of the little cousins came with me to check out the snake park.

 The green mamba was the prettiest.  In a way.  It's one of Africa's deadliest snakes.

 Another day we went to sit on an ostrich so Hannah could get a chance at that too.

 The 4 little cousins met Tom Thumb, the smallest full-grown male ostrich in the world, according to Guiness.

 I dragged Paul out on the M-5 one day, instead of a more quiet neighborhood walk, so we could get his age in a picture.  He loved it.

 Hannah also got to try kayaking in the water near our house.  She didn't even tip over!

 We loved having her with us, and it was a good excuse to go fun places we hadn't been for awhile..

 like to the penguins in Simonstown.  We dropped Josh at a youth group there, and then walked around for the evening waiting for him to be done.

Jedidiah was our lone kid that evening, with 3 adults, and he enjoyed the taste of "only child" for a change.  Riding cannons is so cool!

I copied Hannah on this one, and I like my artsy picture.  I would have missed it otherwise.  

And the last place I want to mention that my phone/camera has been, is doing a little project with Connie.  We started an Instagram account for Constance (pictured) and Prudence, 2 dolls.  They're our Proverbs girls, and we're trying to put pictures with Proverbs.  It's harder than I thought.  

This picture goes with Matthew 6:19, as that picture (made of sugar) corrupted.  

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust (and water) doth corrupt...

Sunday in Rwanda

Our first Sunday in Rwanda, Paul didn't preach any where, we just went and listened in a big church.  This Sunday was different!  We were to meet Bob the translator at 8:00 AM at Victorious School.  Look how bright and educationally decorated Victorious School is.  I 

 

like it. 

 There's a nice review of the human ear. 

A nice little crowd wants to be in on the review of the ear. 

 The school mission was painted on the wall...

 and a nice little crowd wants to be in that picture too.  :- )   

 I like it!  "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly".  A little triangle shaped garden is just the place for some more richness. 

The walls are just covered with the alphabet, instructions, body info, etc. so we thought it was pretty funny to find this one:  We should not write on the walls. 

 The first place Paul preached was not Victorious School, but a polytechnic school.  Lousy photography, for sure.  I'm too timid about making a disruption, but it gives an idea of the place. 

 Church two was a boarding school, and Paul preached twice there to the boarding students.  At the first one, my photography was even worse.  Shame, because there were about 600+ students crammed in there, very attentive to everything, though they lost composure a little when they learned our Josh is only 14.  But outside there was this beautiful bunch of bananas waiting to be photographed. 

 A smaller group of younger children and maybe staff was the next place, at the same school. 

Paul and Bob preached and Paul drew. 

The fourth place was now in the afternoon, and your faithful photographer was not so faithful.  It was hot, and my dress was hot, and I got terribly sleepy, and there are no pictures of it.  Too bad because it was really a church, not a school. 

We didn't get home until after rather late, tired, hungry, and hot.  It was good to just eat some sandwiches and put our toes in the air and rest. 

Cool sign, huh?  It was over the door of the church where Paul preached Sunday morning, and because I liked it so much, I remembered to take pictures of the church for my blog. 

I first visited this church way back in 1978 I think, when I was in 7th  grade and one of my teachers was the pastor of this church.  It has a very cool spiral staircase in the tower, and is unique in my experience of New England church architecture. 

But this church has grown!  By leaps and bounds!  Sweet, friendly, evangelistic people attend here, and we so enjoyed the two services with them. 

Here's the old and the new beside each other with some random motorcyclists buzzing through our picture. 

Paul preached on the Lamb and the Cross and was very bold about sin.  He was quite fired up.

In the evening we went to a church in Hillsboro, NH, where I saw a guy I went to high school with at Dublin Christian Academy, and I utterly forgot to take any pictures, which is normal for me. 

I just enjoyed these friendly, enthusiastic churches.
 "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the house of the Lord." 

Six Weeks Later...

 Back in the middle of February, I said I was going to take pictures of some of the different churches we visit, and promptly lost the camera.  It has recently re-surfaced from where it was hiding in a pile of napkins so here's another church at last. 

 Plumsted Baptist Church people purchased this spacious estate with the thatched roof house, and have been using it as a church until they could build the bigger building to the right.

I like the older parts the best, but the new parts are necessary for this growing church.  Our three
kids go here on Friday nights for Youth, so with Paul gone for so long (this 6 weeks apart is the longest time we've ever been separated since we were married) this is where we settled in to attend
on Sundays.

In South Africa we get a holiday and church services on Good Friday, so we went to Plumsted Baptist this morning, a cool fall morning, to have Communion with the people there. 

The pictures look like there weren't many people there, but really there was a good group. I just picked a windy moment when few were outside. 

Glimpses of our weekend

 We are avid readers of World Magazine, a Christian news magazine.  Every issue they have a photo of church from around the world, so I started taking a picture of some of the places Paul preaches.  A group called Livingstone meet in this building in Grassy Park, though it isn't a full time church building. 

 Our friend Oliver has spent 9 months working on building his own kayak.  It was a huge project!  His grandfather helped.  On Saturday our family went running down the road to the vlei near our house for the long-awaited launch.

 What a beauty!  The wood just shines.  Daniel fits in one of the little compartments, and Connie would probably fit it the other. 

 Tim got out there in a fiberglass kayak to show support for the glamorous wooden one. 

 Daniel waited patiently for his ride. 

 Back home, the youngest Youngs, Connie, Nathanael, and Daniel are a photogenic bunch.

Evangel and Timothy got a chance to do a puppet show and little program on Monday to a preschool in the suburb of Crawford.  Before they began, I snapped this picture of the slightly embarrassed teens. 

 And I double-checked with Jenny, to make sure none of her kids were afraid of puppets.  She assured me they weren't, but when the show started, FOUR little girls began to howl!  Jenny was so surprised!  Apparently they are only afraid of OUR puppets.  (Notice hastily vacated seats in this picture, and the little one in the white shirt is about to join the howlers.)

 For the rest of our visit, that little one kept asking me, "Where's the monkey?" and I had to keep assuring her, "Monkey's all gone."  I felt like a terrorist!

 After all that trauma, Evangel told a sweet story about a little red hen.  She used a soothing voice and tranquility was restored.

 Then Timothy did a magic trick with a beer bottle. 

Josh came along too. His speciality is crowd control.