Romans 1:20

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

Saturday, August 29, 2009

The TMS Picnic

The storeroom is full and ready to be packed into the cars!

The Blazer took most of the books for the book giveaway, and Andrew was put in charge of it

My Handsome husband giving instructions

Or was he being given instructions?

The morning of the picnic at Oxnard! Andrew supervises the book-table while I wander around and take pictures with the new camera that was lent to us since ours broke!


The food setup

The Volleyball Tournament! We had a great team and fought our way to the finals!



But even with such skill... We came second, and got to choose a few of the really nice free books that were put aside for the prizes



My shift at the welcome table.

Each family got a bucket, spade and some bubbles! What every kid needs at the beach!

Tom Drion, Student Body Bigcheese was running the show...


Pit Spitting Competition with Ryk competing against the likes of Ray Meringer and Dr. Grisanti

Lynette and I baking in the sun!


One belongs to the Botes' Family and the other to the Alberts'!

Joshua and Christa Alberts

The newly sem wife, Ashley wauhop and I hang out on the sand while our hubbies cool off in the water before heading on home




Shadow Picture!

One stop on the way home!

The LA Fires raging as we head on to Santa Clarita

Friday, August 28, 2009

Class Begins!

Today is the first day of Seminary classes for Andrew! This semester is going to be a busy one for him. The classes he is taking are:

1: Ordination Prep with Prof. Bob White:
One of the hardest classes apparently. The boys need to memorize the theme and outline for every book in the Bible with its chapter breaks, all the key chapters, people AND verses for every book, and be ready for weekly quizzes of large sections, a mid-term and a final exam. Here's an example:

GENESIS

THEME: Beginnings/Covenants/Generations

OUTLINE:

I. Primeval History (Ch 1 - 11)

II. Patriarchal History (Ch 12 - 50)

KEY CHAPTERS:

1 Creation (broad perspective)

2 Creation (focus on man)

3 Temptation, Fall, Curses

4 Cain & Abel, Cain's line -- civilization

6-8 Flood: deliverance in the Ark

9 Noahic covenant, curse of Canaan

11 Babel: dispersion of nations

12 Abrahamic covenant established

18-19 Sodom & Gomorrah

22 Isaac is offered up

32 Jacob wrestles w/God

37 Joseph is sold by his brothers

49 Jacob blesses his sons

KEY PASSAGES:

1:24-27 6th day of creation

1:31 Creation is declared "very good."

2:24 A man shall leave, cleave, and weave

3:15 The promised seed (see below)

6:1-4 The "sons of God"

12:1-3 Abrahamic covenant

35:9-12 Jacob becomes "Israel."

50:20 "God meant it for good."

KEY PEOPLE:

Adam & Eve - the first humans

Cain - Adam's first son; the murderer of his brother

Abel; a wanderer.

Abel - murdered second son of Adam

Enoch - Father of Methuselah; walked w/God; never died but was taken.

Noah - walked w/God, built ark, father of Shem, Ham & Japheth; cursed Canaan.

Shem - Noah's eldest, ancestor of Abraham

Nimrod - hunter, great King, founder of cities, son of Cush.

Terah - Abram's father, left Ur for Haran

Abraham - father of nation Israel

Lot - Abram's nephew, dweller in Sodom

Sarah - Abraham's wife, Isaac's mother

Melchizedek - priest, king of Salem

Isaac - son of Abraham & Sarah, father of Jacob

Esau - Isaac's first born, sold birthright

Rebekah - Isaac's wife, favored Jacob

Jacob - (Israel) Father of 12 tribes

Leah - Jacob's less loved first wife

Rachel - Jacob's beloved wife, mother of Joseph, dies bearing Benjamin

Joseph - Son of Jacob, sold as slave, exalted in Egypt


And that's one book of 66! At least this is one of the longer ones. The New Testament is easier...

2: Pastoral Ministries with Dr. Montoya:

A comprehensive look at philosophies of ministry.

3: Preaching Lab:

This class requires them to preach once every two weeks for half an hour in a specified genre, and then bear under the criticism by lecturers and students alike. Sounds really scary! Andrew has not had many opportunities to preach so is excited to see how he does!

4: Church Leadership with Rob Iverson, the Chairman of the Elder Board at Grace

5: Marriage and Family Counseling with Dr. John Street

I am really excited about this class because I will be going to sit in with him for this class. It will be good for our marriage and for future ministry!

My friend Jenny should be doing the class too since Master's College is not offering it this semester. It'll be fun to get to know her better too! We will probably drive down together since our husbands carpool together in the mornings.

This leads me to another exciting thing! I have been allowed to audit Master's of Biblical Counseling classes at the college! They start next week! I am just so blessed to be able to have this opportunity! I will not be an official student or receive any credit, but will be attending and handing in assignments with the rest of the students! There is a wealth of knowledge to be harvested and I am looking forward to learning to better counsel myself and others biblically. With my husband going into ministry I am sure these classes will make me better equipped to be his helper!

I am taking:
Methods of Biblical Counseling
Hermeneutics
Child Development
Theology of Biblical Counseling

Please pray for us! The next few weeks should be really busy and I won't have much time to post, but will try my best!


Thursday, August 27, 2009

Saying Goodbye to the Gilchers

The big moving day! Jerod and Sarah took a church up country and will be sorely missed! I was the local babysitter for Hailey and the kitty!





Andrew is a highly sought after "Truck Packer" and can get the maximum use of space!

Dropping Sarah and her wonderful mom off at Burbank airport... We will miss you!!!

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A New Camera!

We have been so blessed to have been lent a camera like this one for the next year or so! This is a vast improvement on the last one we had, and are excited to be able to document our stay here in the US again! You can now look forward to high quality pictures of what we are up to here in LA!!! Thanks to the Melicharek's, another seminary family, for lending it to us!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Nursery Duty


Wow. Never experienced anything quite like this before! I take my hat off to the people who are part of this ministry week in and week out, because Andrew and I helped with the 0-18 month Nursery Room during one of the services and was completely exhausted afterwards! at least 20 tiny kids were in the room, some of whom could hardly sit up yet, and most not too sure why they can't get all the attention from you! But it was a great opportunity to see how Grace handles this ministry and we learned a lot from it! It is such an important ministry to ensure that parents are fed from the Word regularly, because they must be constantly refreshed by the Truth in order to raise up children in the Lord.

But I'll take a break for a while and maybe pick an older age group next time!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Welcome Ryk and Lynette!

We get to welcome another South African family to LA! Ryk and Lynette Botes, with their three children, Francois, Marissa and little Daniel arrived for TMS this week and we are so excited to get to know them! We also had the privilege of babysitting Daniel the first Saturday since they had meetings to go to with their oldest son who was starting at the Master's college. We had such fun!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat

Today I took Andrew to see his first play at the college of the Canyons Theater. The building is really cool, the story was funny and we really enjoyed the experience! What a fun date! It is VERY loosely based on the life of Joseph at the end on Genesis, with a lot of artistic license! I will have to post pictures of the building at a later time!

Later... Here they are!!!