First time Disney movie- The AristoCats

Sunday, after church my kids stuck the movie Aristocrats into the DVD player and sat down to watch. Joe and Ricardo came to church with us Sunday and they also sat down to watch the movie. The difference is that they are 22 and this was the first time they had ever watched a Disney movie. That sort of broke my heart.

They have not grown up with the innocence of a child. They had to be on their own early in their lives and really never had the opportunity to be kids. It did make me giggle to watch them loving this movie. They sat forward and watched eagerly, they belly laughed at the funny parts, danced to the musical parts. When I watch them they remind me of my little guys Gabe and Eli watching a movie.

I'm so thankful that we have them in our lives. I'm so thankful that they have Lifexchange in their lives and I love seeing the difference that Jesus and Lifexchange have made in their lives. To check out lifexchange go here.

See Joe sitting forward, he was loving it!

They watched the whole movie so intently

So much fun,
Andrea

Thanksgiving 2011

We have so much to be thankful for! No matter what we are lacking or think we are lacking almost everyone I know is incredibly blessed!

We ended up being the only Americans at our Thanksgiving day feast. This was a first for us, but what an amazing time we had! There were 38 people and everyone brought dishes, they all made something that would come from a typical Thanksgiving day meal and boy did we eat well. It was fun getting to spend the day with new friends and let them experience our holiday.

Our friend Daniel carving one of the turkeys

Our back garden set up for our Thanksgiving feast

Brie made a Thanksgiving tree for us and everyone wrote on the leaves what they were thankful for. It was really special and I think this will be a new Render tradition.

Brie had all the leaves set out to write on

This was after when all the leaves were filled out

The day before Thanksgiving we were out driving in Cape Town and drove past a huge township. The houses were made out of cardboard, metal sheeting and wood slats. The houses had no bathrooms they had a row of community toilets that did flush, but I don't think they get cleaned... ewww! I thought about all those time I think our house here in SA is too small, compared to our homes in the states it is small. But, compared to these shacks we have plenty.

I am praying that this year I can remember how blessed I am and that my hand will always extend to the poor and needy. There are so many needs here and it can be overwhelming, but God always brings His plan into view and we can meet the needs of the few he puts in front of us.

We had 3 of the guys Shelby works with from Ocean view at our Thanksgiving. Joe said he had never eaten turkey before, but boy did they eat that day. We laughed because we had never seen such full plates. I'm so thankful to be able to do life with these guys and to just have the opportunity to love on them.

Here are 2 of Shelby's guys Keenan and Joe posing with Daniel and Drew

I pray you all find yourselves grateful for the many blessings that you have. Please use your resources wisely and I pray that you live open handed with those God has put in your life.

Blessings abundantly,
Andrea

Stay at home missionary

Stay at home missionary is now my new title. I just came up with it. When we moved I had glorious visions of reaching unreached people groups and clothing tons of small brown babies. Now, dont get me wrong, I have clothed some brown babies and I seem to feed lots of extra people weekly, it is just different than I thought it was going to be. Different but not a bad different.

I have been a stay at home mom since I had Brie and I still am. This has always been my mission field and I guess no matter what our longitude and latitude on the earth it will be my mission field until my kids are bigger. This could be a LONG time since I have a 2 month old :) So I am embracing it.

This is what I did as a mom missionary this week. We started school!!! In America you all started the end of Aug, but the new year of school starts in Jan here in South Africa, so we started in the middle. Plus we couldn't wait all of our new books looked exciting. It has been an awesome week. I am so proud of my kids, they each worked really hard and did everything with a happy heart. I am praying that this year will be blessed. I have 2 highschoolers and 2 in elementary this year... plus the baby!

I am doing the Beth Moore study Daniel with a friend. I'm so glad to be doing this, we has women need to encourage each other in the word and get it inside of us. I'm praying that as this week goes on that I can find the time for all of the homework.

I've made healthy meals, homecooked for the crew all week. I've even cooked some lunches and provided healthy snacks. I figured since it was the first week of school we needed brain food. Apparently it worked because no one starved and school went fantastically. Plus I didn't forget to entertain, so the feeding of others was also happening.

We have cleaned, straightened, organized, picked up more times than I care to remember. I am thankful that I have trained all of my children how to clean. Cleaning isn't just for girls, y'all!

In the office, I blogged, finished the newsletter, did some important paperwork, wrote a fold out pamphlet, answered emails, found parts for a vacuum and more of the like.

So, my life hasn't changed all that much. Well, yes it has, but I still do pretty much the sameish kind of stuff just in another part of the World. All for Jesus though. I also provide a nice home for my missionary husband to come home too, albeit loud home where he probably cant hear himself think.

If you are JUST a mom, dont think you dont have anything to do in life or your not important. You are the most important. You keep things going, you keep people from starving or not sleeping, you keep people clean and their clothes nice, you keep the entire thing going smoothly. Proud of you moms!!! We are all missionaries to our families and I pray we are blessing the heart of Jesus as we serve our families wherever we are.

Meeting Update!

Thanks for praying.  Had a great meeting this morning.  The mayor confirmed the need for more places of safety.      There are others in the area, but not enough to meet the need.  There is both a short term immediate need - place of safety, and long term - orphanage/cluster foster.  She loves the idea about a piece of property that would have all of the above.  I shared with her the vision of Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdales 4kids program and she said that apart from the church stepping in and helping that it probably would not happen.
At this time there is no munciple owed land that would work for such a place, however she asked to write up a formal proposal. We have all the necessary paper work in order to start such a place we just need to write the proposal.
She did tell us of a camp in the area that is strugling to maintain its mandate.  The property is owned and governed by a trust, so we could never own the property, but she said they may be looking for a ministry to come alongside them and enter into an agreement to help manage the property.  We have emailed the people at the camp in order to set up a meeting.
It was a great first meeting.  We have work to do and already have our next meeting on the horizon.  Thanks for your prayers and please continue.
Blessings

Meeting

Shelby has a meeting with the Mayor this morning.  There is a lot of government owned land here in South Africa.  We are looking to see if there is land available to have a place of safety / cluster foster home on.  The place of safety is like a temporary foster care for emergencies.  The social worker that I spoke with said that it can sometimes take up to 6 months to remove a child from a dangerous / abusive situation because they have no where for them to go.  These children are in need of temporary care until other family can be found to take care of the children.  Cluster foster care here is similar to adoption in the states.  A house mom or couple would be given custody of the children until the turn 18.
So the vision is some land where there could be 3-4 places of safety and 3-4 cluster foster homes.  Along with some community buildings and housing for staff and visitors.  That is what we are praying for and will be explaining to the mayor today to see if there is land available.  Please join us in prayer for the perfect piece of land, favor with the mayor, and Gods will to be done.
blessings

Calvary Chapel Africa Conference

Boy, did we have fun. This conference is a special time of year where we get to hang with friends and other missionaries, get to hear amazing teachers and have our cups filled. Our kids get to go to an amazing kids program all week that is like a cool all day VBS with a kids program at the end of the week for the adults. It is pretty much awesome and we look forward to it all year.

This year we had Bill Stonebreaker, David Guzak, Jim Gallager, and Rich Chaffin. They taught thru the book of Daniel verse by verse and it was such a rich study. Danita, Bill's wife, also taught thru Proverbs 31 for the women, but really dug deep to rich soil. All of the studies were such a blessing to us.

We have come back from the conference refreshed and ready to apply some new techniques to our work.

Brie and Grace playing in the gym

Finley and Murdo

Brie taking long exposure pictures in the gym

Awesome worship

Gabe flipping on the trampoline

Friends blowing bubbles

our awesome childrens church teachers 

Us and our awesome friends the Emmersons

A Timothy Sandwich

So you see we have an amazing time just being and growing in the Lord. The kids get to hang and play and flip and we get to love on our friends and be loved on. It was pretty amazing.

We are now back home and back to work. Shelby has lots going on and lots starting up, that we are really excited about. And on the home front, Finley is 2 months old and we are starting up school again. I have 2 kids in high school and 2 in elementary school. So far so good!!!

Blessings friends! Love the Renders