Great Weekend

Hello friends and family!

Hope you are recovering this Monday morning from your fun and festive Superbowl parties on Sunday night. I actually missed being at those silly parties - something I seemed to plan every year begrudgingly while I worked at church and now I missed being a part of one! We actually got together with a group of American volunteers from Living Hope to watch the game together LIVE - which started at 1 AM. Yep, that's right, we are true and hard-core Americans. We had a proper party feast with sandwiches, dips, chili, cookies, fruit (boring) and Coke. It was so fun! Okay, so Casey and I went home after the first quarter of the game - hah - but it was a great night anyways. Good game though, as we caught up with the rest of the story this morning.

We were blessed to have a great weekend just pass, and I am first thankful just to really be feeling better. Thanks for your prayers and encouragement last week, and I feel privileged to have a community surrounding us that will allow us to be honest and vulnerable about this experience. So thanks for always listening! My health is better, and I think some of the meds my doctor changed have helped my sinus and stomach problems. I also saw a chiropractor about my shoulder tightness which is heightening my headaches and that REALLY helped. I think that is definitely where I hold my feelings and tension, so it seems that I need to continue to do a better job at resting and working through the intense situations we are dealing with here. Prayers for me as I learn to do that - but I am really trying! Thankfully as well, Casey is a great partner in all this, very supportive, and seems to be super-man and can thrive on much less sleep, loves to help with Kieren, and is still growing his ministry in the meantime. Show-off. :)

I preached my fourth sermon in a row this weekend at Ocean View Methodist on 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' and it was my favorite by far. I really feel like I continue to connect with the congregation, and more and more, I fall in love with them and am so excited about their passion for Christ and potential to change this community. Next weekend is 'covenant Sunday' when they look forward to the goals and vision for the year and I'm excited to get them rallied around what we believe God wants to do this year in our church. We also visited Simon's Town Baptist church where Casey shared about Ubuntu and we are working with their pastor, Martain, who is very excited about getting their church on board as a partner in the Simon's Town primary school. This is very exciting and Casey did a great job at sharing. In the evening we went with Kieren and our friend Michael Jenkins to Hillsong Church again where they had a 'vision' night with goals for 2010. It was very inspiring and exciting and we really feel that God has given us this passionate church to feed into US on Sunday nights as we are always ministering to others. We have always wanted a church to just 'be' and this seems to be a place where God is feeding and growing us right now. Good stuff.

Other than that we had a fun weekend hanging out with friends, seeing Avatar in 3-D (TOTALLY recommend it!), going to the beach with Kieren, hanging with the Ocean View kids and watching soccer with them, and just being together as a family. Casey and I even had a lunch date on Sunday. Great weekend and I was just reminded that God has put us in the perfect place for this time. Some days life seems so random and disjointed, but this weekend we saw again that God has a place for us here and a purpose and He also just wants us to enjoy life.

Kieren is really working on her walking skills, and now doing 5 steps in a row at times. We will DEFINITELY make a video this week and post it. She is a star and doing new things every day, spouting out new words like 'juice' and 'ouch,' and even started hugging Casey and I last night. She is a trip.

Have a great Monday! Lots of love,
Sarah