Mid-America Info Videos

Hi all,

I thought that I would follow Albert & Hanneke's lead, and share with you the Mid-America Information videos that have been put up on Youtube. You might even spot us Kiwis in them! ;)

These videos are really nicely put together and give a little glimpse into life at seminary for the students, and even the wives. : )

Like Albert & Hanneke said though - you are always more then welcome to come visit us and see for yourselves! :D

Well we have a lot of snow.

And I mean a lot. As I write it is snowing lightly outside and the house across the street looks like it's frosted. The plough has just driven by trying to clear the roads, and this morning I watched someone turn into our street and drive (or rather slide) down it sideways before getting back on track. 

It's exciting times! I had to dig our car out this morning because it got stuck. The good thing is that everyone drives really carefully, and because it's not too cold at the moment (only -4C) then the roads aren't too icy as far as I can tell. The snow is staying really powdery and soft. There is a lot of the stuff out there though. It is getting to a point for people that they shovel their driveways and they are running out of space to put the snow. 

A couple of 'snow mountains' down our street

I'm not sure what Josh is doing here - maybe we won't try and figure it out.  :)

All along the streets and in the car parks of the stores there are huge mountains of snow - which are frustrating because you can't see around them when pulling out. We have been introduced in our time here to the marvelous invention that is the snow blower. You push it like a lawn mower and it scoops up the snow and throws it off to the side. Very cool. 

Calf-deep snow in some spots - even deeper in others! Very thankful for my furry snow boots!

It was quite a nice, and relatively warm day on Sunday so Josh and I decided to go out for a walk and take some pictures for you all. :) Then last night (Tuesday) it started snowing again, and I think that we got another 6 inches at least. It has only just stopped this afternoon (Wednesday).

Trekking through the snow from the carpark to our apartment

The trees are really pretty. 

 Notice the depth of the snow next to the path in the above photo? It's even deeper now. 

Pathways have had to be chiseled out of the snow along the side of the road.

I love how the snow sits on the trees. Looks like a Christmas card. 

The other day was clear and beautiful. We had sunshine which was really nice - and on my way to nanny at 7:30am the light was just amazing as the sun hit the snow. I didn't get any pictures in the morning, but we also had an amazing sunset - so took a couple of pictures then (when I wasn't driving - trying to be responsible) ;)

Beautiful colors and clouds

"O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens! 

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?"

~  Psalm 8: 1, 3-4  ~

Spiritual Check Up

We had an Elder's visit last week, in regards to wanting to join Redeemer Church. It was a really nice time spent with the two visiting Elders who came, and they asked us some really good questions. 

One thing that they gave us just before leaving was a document entitled 'Annual Spiritual Check Up'. I have to confess I only just read it this morning, but it is very good! So I thought that I would share it on here. 

It is from the C.S. Lewis Institute website, and explains itself well (as well as poses some very good and challenging questions for us to ask ourselves)...

C.S. Lewis Institute 

Discipleship of Heart and Mind 

www.cslewisinstitute.org 

Annual Spiritual Checkup 

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37-40 

Each year many of us will go through a physical check-up, perhaps do a financial check up at year’s end or at tax time, and perhaps do a performance review at our workplace.   But how often do we take time to review our spiritual life? 

Those who are saved by grace are called to grow in grace (2 Pet. 3.18).  As disciples of Jesus, we are to live a life of love – love for God and love for our neighbor, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Too often, in the busyness of our day-to-day lives, we let other priorities crowd out the two highest priorities Jesus gave us.   The following questions are designed to help you examine your spiritual life over the past year and to prayerfully seek God’s help in areas where you desire to grow in the New Year.    

Loving God with all your heart, soul and mind. 

1. How is my personal relationship with God? 

• Do I have a growing desire to spend more time with God? Am I spending appropriate time praying, reading and meditating on the word?
• Am I growing in my desire to obey and please God?  Do I obey out of gratitude for God’s love?  Or from guilt or fear? 
• Have I fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit?  Do I ask God to fill me each day with the Holy Spirit? 
• Are there areas I am holding back from God?  Which ones?  Why? 
• Am I more aware of the sins in my life? Do I repent on a daily basis and receive forgiveness and cleansing from God. Have I fully, truthfully repented of all past and current sins? 

2. Am I actively serving God?  

• Volunteering at church? 
• Praying regularly for the pastor, staff, missionaries and volunteers? 
• Am I seeking to make others feel welcome in my church? 
• Doing my job with excellence? 
• Reaching out to those around me? 

3. Am I growing in my desire and actions to give sacrificially to God’s work in the church, in caring for the poor, and in other ministries?  

• Am I teaching my children about sacrificial giving and putting God before materialistic desires? 

4. Am I living in humility before God, my family, friends and co-workers?

5. Is there evidence of grace growing in my life? 

• Do I thank God every day for his love, grace and mercy and saving me from what I deserve? 
• Am I seeing evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in my life (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control)? 
• Am I learning to see others through the mind of Christ?  
• Am I treating others with the same grace God has shown me? 

Loving Your Neighbor 

6. Am I loving my family as I should? 

• Husbands, are you loving your wives? How, specifically? 
• Wives, are you respecting your husbands?  How, specifically? 
• Parents – are we teaching our children the Bible, how to pray, and how to please God? 
• Children, are you honoring your parents?  How, specifically? 
• Am I managing my time in a way that reflects God’s priorities and honors my family relationships?  What specific changes are needed? 
• Are there any outside influences that are harming my family relationships?  If so, what will I do about them? 

7. Am I forgiving others?

• Is there anyone among my family, friends, neighbors or co- workers that I refuse to forgive?  
• Do I fully trust that God has forgiven my sins? 

8. Am I growing in fellowship with other believers? 

• Am I part of a small group?  Is it making a difference in the lives of participants? 
• Do I have a godly mentor to help me grow in my walk with Christ? 
• Am I mentoring / discipling a newer believer? 

9. Have I personally witnessed to anyone in the past year? 

• In my neighborhood?
• In my workplace?
• Am I prepared to share my testimony? To share the Gospel?  
• Am I fervently praying for and planning opportunities to witness in this coming year?
• Am I being salt and light in my neighborhood, workplace and social groups? How, specifically? 

10. Am I focusing part of my time and money to help the poor and disadvantaged?  

• Am I teaching my children about the importance of helping the poor?  How? 

Jesus says that if we love him, we will obey him (Jn. 14.15), and he calls us to grow in grace and love. Do you have a plan for growing in your love for God and love for your neighbor for this next year?  Will you prayerfully prepare one before the end of the year?  To help you grow in these areas, you’ll find a variety of resources on our website (www.cslewisinstitute.org).

(N.B Just a note from Hannah - I don't claim to have written any of this - it is very good challenging stuff from the C.S. Lewis website. To read more you can visit their site - and you can also download a printable version of this Check-Up here. I think that they make a VERY good point when they say that this is something that we need to prioritize each year, and each day in our daily meditations - and it is something that I can confess I haven't been very good at. But what a blessing to have such a reminder right? And what a blessing that we have such a gracious God that will show us such patience, and send us gentle and loving reminders like this huh! It lends even more motivation to want to do it.)

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. :)

Living the life of a student

Well another few days down and we have more to be thankful for (isn't that always the way?). :)

It seems that God has provided a car for us, and although we are still having trouble getting our funds over here people are being amazingly generous and helping us out in trust. So Lord willing we will have a car on Saturday! Which will be huge. :)

On Wednesday I was feeling quite unwell, so we didn't leave the house and I just took it easy. Josh did some more Greek study, he has got the alphabet down pat, and has been working on some translation and pronunciation. 

Thursday we needed to go and get some groceries, so in the morning we walked to the nearest supermarket which was just over 2km away - so not tooooo bad, but made a bit more tricky with the heat (it was 89F, so about 31 degrees celsius) and also having to carry bags. But we like a challenge, and we don't mind walking at all, so made it fine. :)

We had a lovely simple dinner in the evening and spent quite a bit of time gazing out the window at the fireflies. It was the first time that we had ever seen any in real life and it was really cool! What amazing creation right! This little bit of video was the best I managed to get of them, and I'm not sure if you can see much in this, but at the end you see one flash across the screen. :) Also there was another lightening storm that night, so you can spot a very quick flash in the sky at the start of the video. 

I have to confess, I like fashion a wee bit (possibly more than I should)(I did warn you it was a confession), so have decided to make it my personal mission to try and create a comfortable wardrobe on a teeny budget. We came over with only 3 bags, and mostly summer clothes. We didn't want to have to pack a lot of clothes because we needed space for other things. So we don't have anything for winter apart from a few hoodies and a couple of pairs of jeans each. So up the road is a Goodwill store (like a big op-shop) which I haven't been in yet, but I think that there will have to be some recycling of clothing going on and I am going to have to crack out the needle and thread and get some ideas off Pinterest! :D We'll see how we go. 

This afternoon we were able to meet up with another student who will be starting study this year and his wife. They were a lovely Dutch couple, so it was really nice to meet them and compare stories about our experiences so far in the US! 

I have been trying to do a bit of baking, so have made some cookies mostly as thank you offerings for all the people who have been so kind to us so far. When words aren't enough, say it with cookies (I think that's how the saying goes). :) However the batch of chocolate chip cookies that I made this morning were a little bit of a fail - it was so warm here that the chocolate all melted into the dough. So they are pretty much just chocolate cookies now. :P Oh well, once I bake them hopefully they will taste ok - that's the main thing!

My supposed 'chocolate-chip' cookie dough - hmm or not.

I also made some home-made lemonade (non-fizzy) with just a couple of lemons, a bit of sugar and water which has been very tasty and upped our vitamin-C intake a bit hopefully! It's great to be able to make a cool, cheap and tasty alternative to just having water. :)

So despite frustrations over not having easy access to our funds, and therefore having to be dependent on other people's kindness (testing our humility) we have a huge amount to be thankful for. A very kind lady from church on Sunday gave me a daily devotional book by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, and the devotional from the 27th was talking about dealing with difficult situations (referencing Romans 8:37), and said the following:

"But true, Christ-centered, grace-motivated gratitude fits everywhere, even in life's most desperate moments and difficult situations. Even when there are no "answers", it gives hope. Gratitude is what transforms overwhelmed strugglers into triumphant conquerors, even if their circumstances remain, for the present, unchanged."

Although our situation really is not very difficult at all - there are some things that we are experiencing that we could too easily get frustrated and stressed about, and sin in doing so. So it was great to have a reminder to take stock of all we have to be thankful for! And just to prove that it is still us writing, we thought we'd throw in a selfie. :)

Allo!

We thought that starting up a blog just before our journey over to study at Mid-America Reformed Seminary (MARS) would be a great way to keep everyone up to date. So here we go! (Plus we were inspired by the Kiwi's who are already over there and have their own blog - you should check it out HERE, it's a goodie :)).

So here it is. A place where we will (hopefully) keep you up-to-date with our adventures in the USA, as we face new cultures, and different climates. A new living situation, and a reverse way of driving. A place where the way we say 'tomato' is altogether wrong. Intensive Greek, being back to full-time student life and Christmas in the snow! Dun dun DUN!!! (I hope that sounded as dramatic and exciting in your mind as it did in mine :D)

Maybe a little bit about us for those of you who may not know us so well. :) We are both born and bred Kiwis. Both raised attending church - Hannah at the Reformed Church of the North Shore. Josh moving around a bit because his Dad is a minister, so he was at Pukekohe Reformed Church, in Christchurch at Bishopdale and then Dovedale as it was instituted. 

We were married 8 1/2 years ago, and can gratefully say we are even happier now then we were when first married. :) Josh has been a high-school teacher for the past 6 years, Hannah has been pursuing book illustration. So far, the Lord has not blessed us with a family, but He has blessed us in a huge number of other ways. We spent some time living in the UK after living in Christchurch for the first 3 years of our marriage, then came back to settle in Auckland where we have loved being members of the North Shore church once again. Now we are heading off to the USA so that Josh can study for the next three years working towards a Masters in Divinity. After which, Lord willing we will return home to NZ! 

This is us, and we hope that you will see us grow spiritually as this blog grows literally over the next three years. :)