September Update! (Finally)

Allo allo!
Well, it has been a busy month (September was anyway), and we can't really believe how time has been flying by. One thing we do know however is that it is about time we gave you all an update! 

Josh's story is currently pretty straight forward - he is studying. Ha ha, that hasn't really changed. He has a couple of exams this week, and in the weeks ahead - so he is just really focusing on that and making sure that he has things clear in his head. Primarily he has been focusing on the languages. Greek he found relatively straight forward to learn - and I think that his year at Uni studying Latin perhaps helped a little with that. Hebrew has been trickier, especially as the characters are new too. Thankfully, there are a couple of guys in his class who have already learnt Hebrew, and are good teachers themselves - so he has been able to study with them which has been a great help. He seems to be able to cover more ground that way, and because they can test him on it it speeds up his learning process a lot. 

As for me, I have been (mostly) keeping out of mischief. ;) As I have perhaps mentioned in my last post I have been volunteering as an art teacher each week for a homeschooling group. This has been really fun - they are a great group of kids, and boy do they have amazing imaginations! Ha ha! I was working with the 3-7 year olds last week drawing a imaginary trip that we had thought up - I got them to think of a place they wanted to travel too, how they were going to get there, and who they were going to see. One very creative young man was flying to Canada in a jet plane, which was being attacked by missiles from all directions (he's only 4, and you know what - his drawing was very good). It's interesting seeing what the boys come up with in comparison to the girls. :D

Each fortnight on a Thursday morning I have also been helping out taking care of a bunch of about 8-10 3 and 4 year olds for an hour and a half while their Mum's go to Bible study. That is definitely an interesting challenge! They are super cute, but it is an age group that I haven't worked with much before, and they are quite different! We have been working on the Armour of God - which is lots of fun. So each time we are making different parts of the armour. Last week we made helmet masks so they put their masks on and then to occupy them for a while we did things that soldiers do. So marching, riding horses (more fun than pretending to be in a jeep or tank ha ha), flying in aeroplanes, and then by that time I was exhausted, so I said that the other thing that soldiers do is sleep so they can recoup their energy - so I managed to get them lying down for about 5 seconds before we were up marching again. : ) The week where we make swords is going to be an interesting one...

I have also had the opportunity to start up some piano lessons again! I figured out that I haven't actually had lessons since I was about 13 - which is slightly scary, but I have kept up playing. So we thought that this is something that we could invest in that may come in useful in the future. It has been really great to learn again. Unfortunately we don't have a piano (I don't think there is any way we could get one into our flat anyway, ha ha) however some very generous people from church have said that I can go around to their place any time and use their piano to practice on. Plus I was given a little keyboard that I can use at home to practice with when I can't make it to the piano. Generous people huh!

Piano practice time!

The trees are all changing colours over here now - and the weather has been a lot cooler - and actually really nice over the past couple of weeks. Although the weekend was unseasonably warm. 

Morning walk - doesn't really look that different from NZ huh? :)

I also got to go with another lady from church last week to the Westfield Mall that they have over here. We just had a mooch around the stores and stopped for a coffee. In the middle of this mall they have a full sized, double story merry-go-round! It's pretty cool. 

So otherwise it's been nice to have time to spend with people from Seminary and church, there are some very very cool people over here, and we are so thankful for the opportunity to get to know them better! Experiencing their generosity and thoughtfulness has been a massive learning curve for us - in so far as learning to graciously accept it, as well as hopefully learning how to do it ourselves. So that, Lord willing when we are in a position to be able to be generous in the future we will be able to do so in a similar way to these people. Unrestrainedly. 

I was also given a ticket to attend a conference the other weekend - so a lady from church who was going took me along. It was really encouraging and challenging stuff. With a focus on being thoughtful and loving towards others from a Biblical perspective - and selflessly giving of our time and gifts to other people. As you can see - it was challenging! But we got to hear Paul Tripp, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Susan Hunt and Elyse Fitzpatrick - all who have written books that I have read, so it was pretty cool to be able to actually get to hear them speak. They were all really good. Very humble people - which was pretty cool. 

You can tell it's Autumn (or Fall) over here when all the Pumpkin flavoured stuff starts coming out. Not to mention all the Halloween decorations show up in people's front yards. I got to try some of these cookies at someone's house, and managed to discover them on sale at the store this morning - so I nabbed some. They are soooooo delicious. The American's know how to do good cookies, that's for sure. Good for Josh to be able to snack on while he's studying huh. I was thinking of him. ;)

Drooooool.

In the meantime we can say that we are still so thankful and feel very privileged to be over here. We are being massively blest by being able to live here and experience the culture and build relationships over here. Plus the seminary is so great - Josh is learning a lot and is enjoying his studies. We have a lot to be thankful for! Speaking of thankfulness - Thanksgiving is coming up in a couple of months and we are really looking forward to celebrating that for the first time. :)

Right well, that's about everything up-to-date for now. I promise that I will try and be a little more regular, but our lives are kind of ticking along in a routine now, so there isn't much that is newsworthy right at this moment, however you never know from week to week what could happen. ;)