Monday Update

Hello everyone!

I am feeling so strange today because I am for some reason SO EXCITED that it's Monday!  I don't know what the annoying deal with that is, but I think I'm just looking forward to another week of life and ministry in Ocean View.  It could be that Casey and I had some VERY relaxing time this weekend as we were able to get away for 24 hours by ourselves with no sweet Kieren!  I did miss her, but then I just took a long nap, and ate TONS of great food, and stayed in a cool hotel in the city with Casey, and slept some more, and had a million conversations with my best friend, and that helped me get over it :)  We took some much needed time away and even though it was only 24 hours, it was very renewing and fun.  We came back Saturday afternoon and took a hike with Kieren - or now Casey calls them 'adventure treks' as we have all been inspired by Kieren's new best friend, Dora the Explorer.  The only problem was that after 20 minutes of singing in her backpack on the hike, Kieren promptly fell asleep for the rest of the hike as she was EXHAUSTED from her fun weekend.  Our great friend Danielle stayed at our house with Kieren and her two kids Joshua and Natalie and everyone had a great time.  This family is going through a rough patch (I shared about Danielle a lot this summer in the States) and so it was nice for them to just be away in our house.  One of the kids thanked Danielle for 'spoiling' them and letting them stay at our house.  Wow, too sweet and  humbling.  It was a win for everyone.  Saturday night we had dinner with our wonderful friends Wayne and Laurel Denne at their home.  They are incredible people; Laurel was a volunteer with Living Hope a few years ago from the US, met South African Wayne and the rest was history!  They are encouraging and wonderful friends.  Sunday morning started with church at Ocean View and I preached but with some  help from Casey.  I realized this week that our church family here had never heard Casey's story from high school of losing his parents and all God taught him through that, so he shared and I preached a short sermon on Romans 12:1-2 because Casey lives such a great LIFE of worship no matter what is happening.  Then we went to Hillsong Church in the city for a morning service and afterwards had lunch with Michael Jenkins and friends.  We noted that Kieren is becoming more and more fun to take to restaurants and really enjoys the time out too (this might be strange for toddlers, but she does great!).  Then we picked up Ben and Antony from UCT to bring them to Ocean View for our One Valley Festival wrap-up and celebration with the planning team, volunteers, and coaches.  It was a lively time and I hope Casey will share more this week.  We finished with a big group at our house for a pizza dinner.  Whew!  Even with a time of rest our weekends still end up being very full!  It was all great and we are excited for another week ahead.  Casey is working through more Ubuntu visioning and planning and I will be leading various ministries at Ocean View Methodist while my co-pastor Kyle is on holiday in the States.  Lots of do, but as I said, we are excited!

Lots of love,
Sarah