Reflecting on the last year... Fall and Spring Semesters at TMS

At Jeffrey's Bay Bible Church (JBBC), we typically have a more relaxed evening service on Sundays and are given the opportunity to give a testimony and I thought that I would try to do something similar with this post. 

Our testimonies for The Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 are as follows: (Imagine an animated and excited pitch!)
- Izak has completed a full year at The Masters Seminary and we honestly have no doubt that it has all been by the Lord's grace! There have been times when it all just seemed too much and there was too little time! During these hard times we would remember what Wynand had said about focusing on the mound of dirt where we are digging right now and not on the entire mountain! Such wisdom in these words, sometimes I was convinced that I could see an actual mountain!

- Izak and I were able to finish Hebrew Grammar 1&2 in this last year and now can read the Old Testament a whole lot more than before we did the classes!
Here is a pic of the Hebrew class: (Professor Hassler is in the back middle with the black pullover... the rest are students)

With our final exam, Professor Hassler wrote the following on my paper: (In the picture below...) The professors were always so gracious and accepting and I often felt like one of the seminary students! Dr Harris in our prayer class asked me to share what the class had meant to me with the rest of the 'real' students! It has been such a wonderful year and Izak and I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing it together!

- As one of his 'techy projects' Izak managed to convert his windows mobile phone into an android. (Far more user friendly in the States this way...) It was quite a feat and now he gets to use the phone in ways he couldn't before. It has turned into quite a valuable tool! Here is the token android picture:

- Due to Izak's job at the Bookstore we have been blessed with almost a bookshelf full of books after our first year! Here is a pic of our book collection:

- We have had a very old fridge (older than me and not working quite as well!) until approximately two weeks ago- and recently our landladies replaced it with a brand new one! Now, for the first time we have a working freezer AND perishables seem to be lasting longer! (And I thought it was just the way that food is here! :) ) Here are some pics of our new FRIDGE!

 

 

- A VISA prerequisite before coming here was that we could meet all of our financial obligations for the first year and the Lord graciously met all these needs! As our first year came to a close, we had no idea how our financial obligations would be met for the following year -  a big part of these would be tuition costs. God has been so gracious and has provided our tuition fees for us through the same couple who agreed to support us in the same way this last year!

- As many of you know, we were blessed with a holiday to Windsor- from one of our landladies who owns timeshare. Windsor is north of San Francisco and +- 7hours drive from here. Our holiday is in the third week of July and our car is giving us trouble, so getting that far with our car would possibly have been a challenge... Well, the same couple who are sponsoring the tuition are giving us flights up to our holiday destination and the use of one of their vehicles! What a blessing! (It will help us to relax and simply enjoy the time away...)
 
- One of our landladies- called Ina is a seamstress and she is teaching me to sew! It is something that I have wanted to learn to do for ages and I am so looking forward to it! She has already helped me by altering some garments that desperately needed changes! What a blessing!

- Recently our finances were so tight and we were trying to use what we had in our grocery cupboard in order to get by that week. On that very same day we received coupons from one of the grocery stores in our area and one of the coupons was for $12 and a few of the discount coupons were for items that were on my shopping list! Coincidence? I think not! Here is a picture of the handy coupons:

 - We have just finished our first summer classes and they were called "Pastor's home" and one of the tasks that had to be done was for Izak to take me out on a date (I got to grade him!) and a family from Jeffrey's Bay had sent us a financial gift specifically for a date and we got to use it for just that! I love IKEA http://www.ikea.com/us/en/# (A Swedish home decor place which is very creatively set up like real rooms incorporating their products and also has very reasonable and yummy food!)- it is so fun and you get lots of creative ideas! PLUS breakfast is one of my favourite meals! So we went there for breakfast and then walked around and even went to see a movie! Needless to say... he got 100%! Here are some pics from our date:

Our tasty breakfast burrito's:

  A view from the window:

And some of IKEA:

In essence, a verse that rings true to us in summarizing this year is from Psalm 138:8, "The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; Your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever."

Well, thanks for popping in! We look forward to hearing from you!

Exploring the Griffith Observatory with Mike,Licia and Connor

Mike and Licia are friends of ours from our days in London! We had known that they were planning a visit for a while now and so it was so good to catch up- even though it was for one evening! It was also good because Izak was forced to take a break in the midst of the intense schedule. We decided to go to Griffith Observatory since we had heard such wonderful things about it from friends and the admission is free! 

It was such a fun trip (even the navigating our way there) since it reminded us of our London city walks. We were given a deck of London walk cards and it really made our London experience quite exceptional as it helped us to find landmarks that we otherwise would have missed. I remember us going by famous author's homes and fun hidden restaurants that well known people had gone to! We would definitely recommend getting a deck if you happen to be in one of the cities that they are made for... Here is the link: http://www.chroniclebooks.com/citywalks/) So, this time, we did an 'LA walk' with our car!

Driving towards Griffith Observatory, we were amazed to see how beautiful the area around Griffith Park is... so green and lush! We parked quite a way from the observatory in the end because it was very busy- even on a Thursday evening and so it did turn out to be a bit of a city walk after all!

Here is the beginning of our 'trek' up the hill to the observatory:

As you climb the hill leading up to the observatory, you begin to get a better and better view of the sprawling city from above:

Here we have made it up the hill and have our first view of the actual Griffith Observatory:

Here is another shot of LA from the front of the observatory:

A closer look at the entrance: (including the astronomers memorial in the entrance grounds and the details on the wall of the entrance door...)

And your South African's upon arrival: It was such a fun experience!

Then, on the inside of the Observatory... in the Central Rotunda:
Impressive Ballin ceiling and wall murals:

Then meet Mike and Licia:

And meeting little Connor for the first time:

 

 Within the Rotunda, there is this Foucault Pendulum, which was developed by a French physicist called Leon Foucault and it demonstrates the rotation of the earth... Must say that seeing how it proves the earth to be rotating made me feel a little motion sick- fortunately it isn't something that I am continually aware of! Here are some pics of the pendulum and then a short clip:

Then, we got to see a Tesla Coil: (It was created by Nikola Tesla in +- 1891 and is a sort of resonant transformer- it was used to conduct experiments for things like electrical lighting...)

 

 Here is a quick clip of the Tesla Coil:

Then, there are amazing views of LA from these observation terraces: (You can see the Hollywood sign in the second picture if you look carefully...)

Then, pictures from the different areas within the observatory: (There is a planetarium that is apparently very good that we will try and go to see next time.) 

Seeing all of this made me think of Psalm 19:1, which says,

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.”

We hope that you enjoyed a quick tour of the Griffith Observatory! We look forward to hearing from you and thanks for reading our post!

Goodbye to Mrs C, Volleyball games and Trader Joe gift vouchers

Can you believe that we have had our last Sem wives meet-up until next semester? That's right! Only 5 weeks until the end of the semester.

My sem wife table leader Mrs C (Colleen Craigen- who is married to the well-known Dr. Craigen) is leaving with her beloved husband to go and settle down closer to their kids.

She shared about herself with all the ladies for our last night of festivities... for this semester!

Here are some pics of the evening:

This is one of our table... the girls from table 3:

A table heavy laden with scrumptious goodies:

My partner-in-crime for the evening- Elena from the UK... We had such good fun! 

 Mrs C, sharing her encouraging yet tear-jerking message...

Then... for those who were not aware... I have started assisting one of the seminary students coach volleyball for the Grace Community School that is on the campus. The sem student has classes for part of the practices on both Tuesdays and Thursdays so he needed someone to help him out on those afternoons. Before you ask if I have ever played volleyball before... the answer is... No! I have indeed never played volleyball before in my life! The good news is that I am only responsible for the warm ups and some drills. (Bonus! Free gym twice a week!)

I tried to help a girl with her serve based on my tennis know-how and I hope that it helped! hehe! ;) 

I have really enjoyed getting to know the middle school girls (grades 6-9) and learning all about Volleyball.  I went to watch one of their games this last week and it was so sweet- they dedicated the game to me and then won it! Go Lady Hawks!

Here are some pictures of the Lady Hawks A team:

And here are the sweet B Team girls supporting them as they played:

And here the B Team girls are in action:

Then, we were blessed with some Trader Joe's vouchers and some of the  ingredients were used to cook the below recipes...

With the help of a sem wife called Katie (who reeeally knows how to cook!) I made:
1.) Parmesan and caramelized onion brown rice,
2.) Sauteed reggae coloured veggies and ...
3.) All-American cranberry chicken

I am still amazed at how well it worked out!

First the Trader Joe voucher:

A pretty one of some bright peppers in my star colander: ( I love stars! And Lenore had kept this for me. when we first arrived..)

Here is the meal:

And a happy Izak:

Finally, you'll be pleased to know that I ventured off on the LA freeways to South Pasadena to have coffee with a friend from our Glendale Bible Study.... Christy! We went and had such fun chats, giggles and wonderful treats with her sweet little boy, Caleb... here is a cute one of the two of them:

Well, thanks for reading our fairly long post- we hope to hear from you soon! Keep in touch as always!

Your Bakkes'