What is a sandy colour, about 1.5 inches long, and scuttles along the ground?

That isn't a riddle, I really want to know. Last night I went downstairs to the laundry which is in the basement of the house we are currently house-sitting for the Couperus's, and there was something with the above description that scuttled under the dryer. I haven't seen it since - and it weirded me out a bit. Haha

Life in Lansing, Illinois

Well, this is just a mini-update, because there isn't too much to report from our end. Josh has his 'end of semester' exam on Tuesday, so he is currently studying hard for that. It means that he will get the day off on Wednesday, so I am looking forward to that. :D

He is doing really well at the moment - sitting on an A- which is  about 93%. As long as he manages to get around that amount on his exam he will keep that grade. So that is really good going, especially for someone who hasn't done a language in a long time! 

Last week we were very kindly invited to have a swim in the pool of a family from church with a group of other people. That was a lot of fun. I was looking forward to it all week because it has been so hot here - but as it turned out the pool was hotter than the air outside it! It was a crazy kind of experience getting into hot water in an outside pool. However, it was still really nice to have a swim, and lots of fun spending the evening with everyone. 

I also got to go out on Thursday with a lovely Kiwi lady from church and she treated me to a Culver's 'concrete mixer'. (N.B. Culver's is a fast food chain over here, but it has better food than other places like MacDonalds) I was excited to give one a go. I tell you what, it was A-mazing! For a girl who does like her ice-cream, the USA certainly has a lot to offer. Haha.

Hmmmm - treats of deliciousness.

On Friday night we went along to another free concert that was in a local park. It was a really nice evening, although warm - and it was quite cool hearing some more live music. This one was a tribute band for John 'Cougar' Mellencamp - who was relatively well known in the 60's-70's and was from Indiana. So although we didn't know most of the music, it was still a fun way to spend the evening. 

It was quite amazing because pretty much the whole time we were there, it was balmy, calm weather - but over to the right of the photo you can see some dark clouds. Well they developed into another lightening storm that was in the next town over. For the whole of the concert there was some epic lightening that we could see across the sky, but it didn't hit the area we were in until well after the concert was over. 

I have been trying to keep up with the cleaning of the Couperus's house so that it isn't a mess for when they get back :) and also it's a good habit to get into right! So I pulled out the Jif to do some epic scrubbing with the other morning. 

JIF! Peanut butter that is...

Yup, so over here Jif is peanut butter. Took some getting used to the idea of using something that is a house-cleaning product back home on our toast, but we are getting used to it (especially because it is delicious). Don't worry, I stopped myself from using it to clean with just in time. 

We are still being amazingly blest and well taken care of over here - like you wouldn't believe! We are very thankful because clearance came back from the apartment that we applied for - so we are set to move in on the 1st August. We are so thankful! Plus we (well, I - as in Hannah), have been writing up a list of all the things that we will need for the apartment - kitchen utensils and the like. I visited a couple of the thrift stores over here, to see what I could find which has been a help. However, because of the immense generosity of the people from the Seminary and our church, it looks like there will be very little that we will need to purchase. Again, it has been very humbling experiencing this generosity - and all I can see is how amazingly good our God is, in that He has been providing our every need, even when we are so undeserving. I found this verse the other day:

But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
~ Philippians 4:19 ~

Ain't that the truth!! And we are experiencing it first hand. Not only through the practical and physical blessings that we are experiencing, but also in Josh's studies, and in the blessing it is to be a part of such an amazing church community over here. We have a lot to be thankful for. So with that I will bid you all adieu for now, and hopefully will have some more to update you on in a week or so! 

P.S. And if anyone can answer the question in the title... I'll leave it up to you to judge whether or not I actually need to know what it is. Maybe I don't really want to know!  :)

The Windy City

That's how they refer to Chicago, although we haven't experienced that side of it yet. The weather has yet again been amazing over the past week - and was actually quite pleasant last week because it was a little bit cooler, with a nice breeze and not as humid. This week however is set to get up into the 90's (possibly as hot as 35+ degrees celsius for us metric people).

Last week was pretty fun! Literally, come to think of it. We travelled in by train to downtown Chicago to visit the 'Taste of Chicago' festival. This is a festival held in Grant Park where a bunch of local restaurants have booths where they can sell samples of their food. There was also a concert incorporated into the festival of a well known current band called 'Fun' - which was a free concert. This is pretty unheard of for us - to hear about quite a high profile band having a free concert. So we thought we would go seeing as it was free, and we like a few of their songs. :)

So here are some touristy pics that we took on our travels...

Waiting to catch the train at Homewood Station

The 'Bean'

Happy Hannah because she has a Churro :D (it was the first place I wanted to go) 

The Buckingham Fountain 

Josh playing around with his fancy panoramic camera

Panorama by the Buckingham Fountain

Genuine deep-dish Chicago pizza - really yum.

It was a good day trying out some local food and getting into the spirit of the festival. It was also a super hot day. We ended up sitting for a good number of hours in a spot that we picked for the concert (in anticipation of the fact that it was going to get super busy - and it sure did). However unfortunately the spot we picked ended up bordering on being a swamp. Well - it was pretty damp on the grass, and although we had bought a big thick beach towel to sit on (not anticipating dampness considering it was so hot), it soaked up the damp pretty quickly, and consequently soaked our butts too.

Not having many other options in so far as good spots to sit though, we stalwartly held our place - thinking well, we are Kiwi's after all. And therefore are pretty used to living in swamps. :) We also got quite sunburnt, so after coming from NZ winter with our glowy white skin, we have now started to fit in a bit more with the locals and are a bit more bronzed (once the red died down).

It's pretty amazing - for the number of hours that we spent in the sun, we were only just burnt. Compared to back home, if we had spent that much time in the sun with no sunscreen we would probably be in hospital being treated for burns. 

This was our delightful swampy spot for the concert.

By the time the concert started there were looooooooots of people.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole thing was people watching. The people are so diverse (which I guess you would expect to find in a massive city), but they are diverse in different ways to back home. So it was really interesting watching everyone.

The past weeks have been busy, but enjoyably so. We have been shown masses of hospitality from the people at church. They are SUCH a blessing to us! 

We have also enjoyed a couple of opportunities to hang out with some of the other Greek students and their families, thanks to their hospitality too. It's great to meet some of the others who are in a similar situation to us - and they are all really lovely! 

Interestingly, in Josh's Greek class at the moment the majority of students (as in about 90% of the class) have relocated to be there. And most of them are 'internationals' - harking from NZ (of course), Canada, South America, the Netherlands etc. It makes for a really interesting group and class discussion. 

I have been out and about cycling around again, just getting to know the area and enjoying the breeze! It is VERY hot here. You know it's hot when you are inside, lying down in bed, not moving - but you are still sweating (sorry if that's a bit TMI for you all, but it illustrates the point). :)

And apparently it's only going to get hotter. We have adjusted to the temperatures mostly, but it still takes some getting used to. It really impresses me that the people in this area are so used to these crazy hot humid temperatures in the summer, and then freezing cold and snow in the winter. It would mean that you could travel anywhere and not really be phased by the weather. 

We have a huge amount to be thankful for - and in particular we hope that we may have found a place to live! We only got to go and visit it yesterday, but it seems to be just the right size for us, and within our means. So we haven't yet confirmed it, but Lord willing, we will have a place to move into soon. We will keep you posted!

Otherwise we are so massively thankful for the kindness and generosity of the people at our church and at the seminary. We know what it is like to move to a new country where you don't know anyone, and having people to help makes such a huge difference! 

Soli Deo Gloria! 

The Land of the Brave

Wow my first blog entry (as Josh)!

Good evening to all our readers! We value your readership and hope you enjoy our experiences vicariously. 

So, to the update!

First up: 
A massive thank-you again to everyone who has generously donated so Hannah and I can come over here to study in America. This wouldn't have been possible without your help and support. Also a special thanks to our deacons back in Auckland who have done a great job with everything. We are so thankful to God that he has provided us with such a great massively extended international family through Christ. 

Secondly: 
You guys (specifically) have got to get over here!

I know that not everyone is called into the ministry and I also know that not everyone gets excited about standing up in front of people but WOW! This has already been an incredible experience. 

If y'all don't mind, I'm going to operate on the basis that y'all (apparently you can y'all multiple times in the same sentence) read Hannah's blog entries and I'll just mainly talk about what she hasn't. 

People weren't kidding when they said that intensive Greek was intensive. My normal week will generally be Mon and Tues with class from 8am-11:20am and then Wed with no class followed by Thur and Fri with the same hours. Thus far you're probably thinking that I was making a joke about the intensive thingy. Well, I don't know about the other guys but the homework which accompanies each class takes me about 8-9 hours per day. That means that outside of travel time and lunch and dinner I'm working pretty solidly till 10 or 11pm every day. The Wednesday and Saturday (our non-class days) are generally spent in revision and reviewing old vocabulary while also reading ahead so that you can try to hit the ground the following day with your feet instead of your head. 

To add to that we are having our mid-semester examination on Tuesday!!!!! That practically means that we have done one term's worth of University Greek in 5 days! 

Now you guys might think that's a little crazy. I have to say though that I find it hard to believe what I know now about Greek (I'm actually reading sentences) compared to what I knew a week ago. But there is so much more to this than learning some weird squiggles on a page. 

(Btw: If you only use the Greek alphabet to pronounce letter sounds then 'ειω βρω, υοτ-δω εια νω' sounds like 'yo bro, whaddu ya know?' in Greek (phonetically). Pretty sweet huh! It's Sunday night so I'm off the books! Don't worry Mr. Rogers: I hadn't even thought of wasting time doing that before I started writing this blog post!)

Our lecturer is really excellent and we begin each lesson by exegeting a Greek passage of scripture which relates to our work ethic in some way and then pray. I'm not sure whether anyone outside of New Zealand realises this but for Kiwis that is quite a novel experience. To go to a tertiary institution to study for a degree and to have your lecturer begin a class in prayer and talk to you about how amazing the complexities of your language study are because God was working through it in all these ways is just phenomenal. We have also sometimes finished class by singing a hymn.

Just some of my vocabulary homework for Wednesday.

Anyway, our class is made up of 9 guys from very different backgrounds. Each of them is from a different part of the world (Canada and USA are represented in different candidates) but Chile, Holland and New Zealand are just a few of the options. It has been really encouraging to hear some of their testimonies about how God has chosen very different men from very different backgrounds with very different experiences all to be members of His family! I really look forward to learning alongside them as the degree progresses.

People have been really generous and friendly here. We have been well taken care of. I'd like to give a special shout out to Grant Dykstra who is the man. He has been a great support. (There are heaps of people with recognisable Dutch names over here but I don't know how related they all are)

Well I must away ere the break of day. I intended to write a longer blog but I'm afraid I have to cut it short because it is late for me here (I spent too long coming up with that Greek NZ slang and we ended up being invited to one couple's place for lunch and then another for dinner!)

If you don't mind: we crave your prayers! If you could copy the following and nail it to your 'prayer post' we would really appreciate it :)

Prayer Post:
Thank God that 
a. We have found a new church family here at Redeemer Church
b. We have mobility (got a car)!
c. Our funds have been internationally transferred (banking woes NOT our deacons btw!!!)
d. Greek is going smoothly so far
e. His providence and care is just so much more than we need!

Ask God for
a. Another place to live before Albert and Hanneke get back (about 5 weeks)
b. Wisdom (in general)
c. Clarity of thought and memory when I sit my exam on Tuesday morning. 

τιλλ νεξτ τιμε,
Josh

Celebrating Guy Fawkes...

... whoops, I mean Independence Day (sorry, couldn't help myself).

So last night was pretty fun because we got to celebrate our first Independence Day in the US. We took a walk around the neighbourhood in the afternoon and were met with delightful sights of families throwing baseballs around the yard, and the delightful smell of BBQ wafting off the grill. We don't have a BBQ unfortunately - so Josh had to make do with pizza. Otherwise it was a pretty normal day for us - until it got to 9pm when we wandered down to the local park for the community fireworks display.

This was quite an epic fireworks display. It went on for 1/2 an hour, and was pretty impressive. There were heaps of people down at the park, and it was nice just to sit out on a balmy evening and watch the display. Josh took some pretty cool pictures and a short video that shows a bit of it. It was great to get out and do something a bit different. 

 

Today was business as usual for Josh with Greek class in the morning, but then we had an errand to run around lunch time, so afterwards decided to treat ourselves to our first 'eat out' lunch - at Subway. Hahaha - yup we are still playing it safe. It was cheap (for both of us together it cost less than one foot-long costs in NZ) and relatively familiar. I noticed that the two girls who were serving us were giving us some funny looks when we were first ordering, but then they finally asked where we were from and seemed very impressed that we were from New Zealand. Said that they liked our accents and that we needed to go back again so that they can hear us talk some more. Haha it's the first time that we have had anyone exclaim over our accents since we have been here - everyone else just seems to take it in their stride. So that was kind of cool.

Then we decided to go to a local park to eat our lunch and enjoy the sunny weather. And even had a go on the swings in the playground after we had eaten. It was nice. :D Here's a panorama that Josh took, our car is parked down the street on the right. It's a really pretty area with lots of big trees and that luscious grass again. :)

Hopefully Josh will get the chance to write an update for you on how he has been finding Summer Greek so far. He has definitely been working very hard. Otherwise we are very thankful again for everything that we have been blest with so far, and the next big thing is just finding a place to live - but the Seminary are being amazingly helpful in regards to that, and are searching for somewhere for us at the moment. 

I have been doing a bit more baking, and made some butter and buttermilk this morning which came out pretty well! So made a loaf of bread with the buttermilk which is quite tasty. A lot of food here seems to have quite a bit of sugar in it - so the bread that we have been buying from the store is quite sweet tasting (to us anyway), so it has been nice to be able to make some of our own bread. It's been really nice to make the most of summer fruit that is cheap here at the moment too - so we got some strawberries today which is exciting (it's not even Christmas and you can get strawberries! Heheheheh) So I have to decide whether to make them into sorbet, soft-serve ice-cream, or just have them fresh, all of the above are tempting!

A new week...

...and more blessings!

Saturday was an exciting day because we got a car! God has been so good to us, and particularly in this regard. The car is very nice, and we have been told that the particular type of car holds it's value really well, so hopefully taking care of it over the next three years means that we will be able to resell it at a minimal loss. So now we are just praying that the Lord will take care of us as we drive it!

And we both have been doing a good amount of driving - so far so good. We have both found that we have managed to adjust to driving on the other side of the road pretty quickly. I still find that I get a little nervous before getting out on the road, but once I'm driving things fall into place, and it helps to just follow everyone else!

The next thing that was important was to get a GPS, which I think will become our best friend in our time over here. 

Well we had another really great Sunday at Redeemer church. If anyone is interested in where we are attending church over here, you can check out the Redeemer website here. We heard two excellent sermons, and got to meet some more members of the congregation. A bonus was also that after the evening service we got to see the Holtslags from Dovedale church in Christchurch. :D It was nice to see another couple of Kiwis. 

On our way home from church on Sunday night the sunset was A-mazing. We attempted to take a picture of it, which gives a bit of an idea how cool it was (but doesn't quite do it justice).

Amazing sunset Sunday night

You can even see our good friend the GPS in the pic. Josh has set the little icon representing us as a monster truck - which is getting into the American spirit. :)

On Monday Josh started Intensive Greek! He was pretty excited about this - he has been waiting to start studying for a looooong time now, and he is loving sinking his teeth into it. He is going to write an update on how he is finding the class later this week, so stay tuned. :)

Over the past couple of days I have been working on menu plans for dinners/lunches so that I could put together a grocery list and go shopping. Finally I got it done today and worked up the courage to go on my own. It sounds silly, but I was nervous about using our new bank card - you know, there is nothing much worse than getting to the supermarket checkout, go to pay and your card doesn't work, or you haven't got your wallet or something like that. :P So I was praying like crazy as I walked around the aisles that the card would work ok. As a backup I had a check that I had brought along - which is really weird to me, we've never used checks before (it's what our parents did back in the day) but here they are still really prevalent. 

Grocery shopping is quite an experience here. In many respects it's very much the same as home; standard aisles, trolleys, etc. But there are subtle differences - for one thing there is quite a bit of range. Say you want some mustard - great! But good luck choosing which mustard you want. There is a whole shelf, floor to ceiling a good meter wide full of about 40 different mustards. Thankfully my job is made easy because we go pretty much by what is the cheapest (with most things anyway). 

There are also people who pack your grocery bags for you (and often double or triple pack them), and then they wheel them out to your car for you on these little special trolly things. It was nice, but I had to kind of get used to it, considering I felt quite capable of taking my own groceries to the car. Haha. :)

Some of the food is super big too. You should see the tubs of ice-cream. 8-O And I got some veggies today too that were impressive. Such as the capsicum...

...and the zucchinis...

...and I didn't get a picture of them, but you should see the onions! They are humungous! Seriously, one is about the size of a baby's head! (Sorry, I couldn't think of another size comparison :p)

Prices vary compared to back home. Some things are really cheap - like 18 eggs for $2.40 (cheap right!), and a gallon of milk for $2 (in all seriousness). And I got a pretty good deal today, at least I'm pretty sure it was a good deal (compared to home anyway) - three massive chicken breasts for $3.45! That will go towards 3 meals, so at only just over a $1 for meat per meal - I'm thinking that's a good deal. 

With huge vegetables and my thumb placed next to it for scale. 

There are other things that seem to be a lot more expensive though - like herbs and spices can be up to $4 each (although I haven't managed to shop around a lot, and I also scored some for 89c), and yoghurt is kinda pricey. 

Apologies to anyone reading this who really is not very interested in the ins and outs of grocery shopping over here - I realise that it is kind of a menial subject - but it has just been so interesting learning what little things are different about here vs. NZ. Plus hey, at least you got some silly pictures. 

We are coming up to the 4th of July (obviously) but that is kind of a big deal over here in the States which is fun. So there have already been some fireworks going off, and we are looking forward to walking down to a local park on Thursday to check out the festivities. Fireworks are banned from public purchase in Illinois, but what is funny is that they are legal in Indiana, the border of which is just about a 5-10 minute drive away from us here in Lansing. So all the residents of Illinois drive over the border to purchase fireworks. But apparently in the past cops will wait just over the border and stop cars to search them for fireworks and confiscate any that they find. I wonder what they do with all the fireworks that they confiscate? Burn them? *snigger* Maybe they have a big party of their own (with the Indiana police of course, because it's legal over there). Anyway, that is going to be fun to experience the celebrations.  

Oh and I mentioned the other day that I had been baking some chocolate chip cookies that were a bit of a fail because it was so hot that the choc chips melted into the batter. Well I baked them, and they came out delicious! Even though they were more like "Chocolate with a little bit of Chips Cookies", I was still very happy with them. 

So if you are interested in trying some yummy cookies check out the recipe at the Sally's Baking Addiction website. Apparently the trick is in refrigerating the dough for at least a couple of hours before baking. That's all from me for now - over and out. :)

Word for the day - 'Derecho'

Well we have been here for over a week now and it has been a huge learning experience as well as a lot of fun. Josh has just the weekend to go before he starts intensive Greek, so in the meantime is making the most of recuperating from the jet lag and getting started with some study. I have managed to score myself a pretty nasty cold which isn't ideal, however the new experiences we are having is making up for it. :)

We got to go to Redeemer church last Sunday which was really great! The service and worship was very similar to home (even used the blue Psalter Hymnal) and the preaching was very good. It was convicting, encouraging, and thought provoking. The people were also really welcoming and friendly - not to mention generous! What a blessing to be far away from home and yet still find like-minded brothers and sisters. So Sunday was a fun day - it was nice to get out of the house as well, and have an opportunity to meet other people. We are hoping to go again this weekend and Lord willing make it our home church while we are here in the US.

Monday we spent most of the day at home catching up on some email writing and reading. On the weekend I was loaned the book 'Respectable Sins' by Jerry Bridges (author of 'The Pursuit of Holiness') and so far have been finding it really good to read - although it's very challenging! Which I suppose is part of the reason why it is so good. 

It's really cool to see all the American flags flying down the streets and on people's houses. 

Then we went and looked at cars. We are still trying to sort out getting our funds transferred from NZ which is turning out to be quite a process! It's pretty different to home that's for sure, and I guess just makes us really thankful for how straight forward some things are back home. 

Anyway, we went and had a look at cars which was quite fun. We saw one that could be a possibility, and I got to test drive it. :D It was a manual, which I was quite excited about, because I like driving manual, and I have been wanting to drive a new model of manual for a while just to give it a go. I think that the salesman was a bit shocked when we asked for the keys for a test drive - he raised his eyebrows and said 'It is a manual you realise?' - I just grinned my head off (most people over here drive autos). I just stuck to the sales yard rather than braving going out on the roads - haha not quite ready for that yet especially in a car that's not ours! So that could be an option, it will be great once we have a car and a way of getting ourselves around!

After trying out the car we then went to the seminary (we had someone from the seminary who was very graciously driving us around) - Josh and I waited in the car because it was just a visit to check in. So while we were waiting in the car I noticed that the sky to the west of us was looking dark. Really dark. Up to that point it had been  hot sunny weather with blue skies and a bit of cloud. 

Then BAM! - seriously it was practically that sudden there were massive black clouds over us and these crazy winds that were buffeting the car. I have to confess, it was quite freaky. A tree came down outside the seminary (just a medium sized one - but I was impressed). At first I was sure it was a small tornado, it really did feel like one - but apparently they get short burst storms like this quite often.

The ill fated tree outside the Seminary

As we drove back home there were quite a few branches off trees and scattered across the roads. I looked up the weather reports and as it turns out it was a 'derecho'. I had to look this one up:

"Derechoes are large clusters of thunderstorms that produce widespread wind damage, usually as a result of one or more curved lines of thunderstorms known as bow echoes. The word in the Spanish language means "straight" and these windstorms leave wide, long swaths of straight-line wind damage. These winds can be as strong as 50 to 100 mph or higher." 

So there you go, learn something new everyday. :) All up we are so thankful for how God is providing for us in our time over here so far. He has given us food to eat each day, a very comfortable place to stay, and much more. Plus we survived our first summer storm. :D