South Africa Missions 2010

Lucas and I were hoping to go on a missions trip this summer to the Christ Church Christian Care Centre in Hillbrow, South Africa. Unfortunately it is not going to work out for us this year, which was disappointing, but we are open to other possibilities for missions, as this is a passion of mine that I want to share with Lucas. I will still be helping out where I can with the planning.
Each year our church sends a team to help out this church and care centre (orphanage), which was started by Mike and Renu Sunker, who are church partners with The Bridge Community Church.


Here are some pictures of the orphanage and Hillbrow! (The couple is Mike and Renu Sunker, who founded the orphanage).

Vancouver 2010

The world is watching Vancouver as we host the Olympics in this very warm and beautiful weather (although not so good for snow!) - And Lucas and I have been enjoying the fun going on in the city.

The Olympics are also a good reason for Ash & Brent to come out for a visit too, which has been nice! Us ladies were able to enjoy pedicures this morning too in celebration of all our birthdays : )  I will be going to see Men's Curling tomorrow night (not that I'm a curling fan, but I'm a Canadian fan and its an Olympic event so I'm in!)

We took the bus into town... took a ride in a bobsled... had some Heineken at the Holland Heineken House, and did lots of walking and transit!

Events of January

January has flown by! We celebrated my 23rd Birthday this month, which was mostly taken up by tests and interviews, but we were able to enjoy a nice dinner with Mom and Kevan and watch a movie when we got home.
I am still job searching and so is Lucas - we both have more prospects and each of us are onto our second interview for a position.  We are just trusting that God is in control and hope find something soon! So much seems to be up in the air so we look forward to being settled and know our schedule :)

In January we had an Olympic Launch party with the Abbotsford Execs - it was a lot of fun, with an amazing dinner (steak you could cut with a butter knife!), WII sports on the big screen, and a 'martini louge.' Here are some pictures:

Lucas had another "Book of Records" JR. High event last week, back by popular demand. For the first challenge/fear factor, it was a race to see who could drink a cup of blended happy mean (cheeseburger, fries and drink!) - no one finished and the consensus was "it tastes like that back of your mouth after you throw up." (and it smelt terrible too!)  More records were recorded into the book!

Post Christmas and looking forward to 2010!

Okay - so I totally missed taking pictures this Christmas! I have nothing to prove that it even happened, but I'll give you some of the details anyways...  We hosted our first Christmas at our place, having mom and Kevan out. They brought the turkey and stuffing though because I didn't want to screw it up! hehe. Then of course we had the extended family gatherings. Christmas was fun and we have been enjoying some down time, which is much appreciated.

It has been an amazing year, with a ton of changes, including both of us graduating and of course getting married. We are happy to be somewhat settled with the big changes. Jenn is working on getting a job in her field, so we hope all that goes well.  Lucas will be a certified personal trainer in march, and is looking to start working part time at a gym soon, so that's exciting!  We look forward to seeing what else 2010 holds for us... including the Olympics!

'Tis the Season!!

We have been having a lovely December - and today we celebrated Lucas' 24th Birthday!  We took him to the Q Steakhouse for a fancy dinner. I got him PS3 Need for Speed Shift for his birthday which he is enjoying so much! He also got a Best Buy gift card from mom so he enjoyed going there this evening to get some gadgets, including a web cam for his skype chats with his family :)


We went out and got a Christmas tree and decorated it a week ago, which was fun. We went out to Langley to chop it down, which was a fun adventure.  I also made a wreath a couple weeks ago. Our place is ready for Christmas!

Downtown Vancouver has a great outdoor skating rink - Lucas and I went down there one evening to take pictures. It was beautiful. Here is a picture of the skating rink, as well as some other photos Lucas has taken recently.

 

Atlanta Georgia... "on my mind"

Lucas and I are in Georgia right now, leaving tomorrow afternoon. We had the priveledge of being brought out for a conference for church that just so happens to be in Atlanta (at Perimeter Church) ... so we got to visit the Thompsons too!! It has been a huge blessing because we weren't sure when we would be able to come out next. It makes life busier (mostly for Jenn who is missing other work and school - which just makes her more behind!)... BUT IT'S WORTH IT!  We got to spend Thursday morning and afternoon with the family and we'll have a couple hours tomorrow before we leave to hang out. 

As for the conference, called "Transformation," we have been in the Children's Ministry Track learning about some of the things that this church does to run its programs (which are massive and entertaining... I'll show pictures of it) and learning about how to be effective in our ministry. They have shared a philosophy of a healthy church, which involves head (truth, biblically focussed), heart (passion and what drives you), which leads to hands (which is service reaching out into the community).  Pastor David is in the Spiritual Transformation Track and Eli is in the Community Track (so we've got all three covered). 

 

 

 

Halloween '09

For Halloween this year we went to our friend Stacey's party ... and after contemplating on what to dress up as (Lucas wanted to keep it simple and be Bob the Builder again - but I insisted that it had to be a couples costume) we decided to be Olympic Torchbearers. As you probably know, the torch was lit in Greece and brought in to Canada just last week, so we thought it would be fitting for this year and we should take advantage of that. Our torch did have a real flame (candle shoved down there), but we have no pictures to prove it. I guess you'll have to take our word for it :)