Random Moments are SO much fun!

#1: When we got back from Fall Break and even during Fall Break we all came down with a cold. Ugh. We sounded miserable, and felt miserable too. :P So we got a picture to capture those fun memories of being Sniffle, Cough and Sneeze :)

**one of the cool things about having a cold (yes.. there was actually something neat in all of this :) ) was that we had a cold while it COLD outside!! :D That hasn't happened in about 3 years, so it was really cool. :D

Having a cold has made me SUPER thankful for nice hot tea :D Ah!

#2: Janessa and I were lifting weights one night, and I was holding the weight over Janessa's foot. Janessa was like,"Hannah! Don't drop that on my toes or you'll break them!" Break them? Hmmm.. maybe. Well, because I was unsure about that, Janessa decided to prove her point by dropping the weight on a pencil. Um, I guess she was right. The poor helpless pencil was crushed!

#3: Friday night the Great Hall served us banana splits!! :D I haven't had a banana split in.. oh wow... a long long LONG time. Mmmm.. it was so good! :D Thanks Great Hall!

#4: Fall is here! And I absolutely loove this season! :D Damarise, Janessa, Bethany and I went on a walk to see all the loverly fall colours! :D

#5: This is Andreas! :D My home sweet home!

#6: Anddd Andreas has some LOOOONG staircases! After our walk enjoying the fall colours we went to find the basement of Andreas... we found it :)

#7: Andreas got together Saturday morning in Chattanooga to help serve the city. Imani (my hall) got to help out at a community kitchen. We all had loads of fun organizing stuff, cleaning, and decorating a gingerbread guy :P

Some of the organizing that took place with some but not all of the organizers :)

Almost all of Imani who went to help out :)

#8: Saturday afternoon, Damarise, Janessa and I decided to go watch the soccer game. It was SOO cold so we didn't stay too long, but when we left the Scotts were winning :D Yeah!

#9: I know, I know, I've already said this once, but it is SO worth saying again... I LOVE fall!!

#10: Yep, this is definitely a random moment... this is to show what floor we live on.. the 4th! :D YEAH!

#11: I'm starting to look into my classes for next semester. I met with my AMAZING advisor on Friday to talk about the classes. She gave me a list of all the ones I should take. I am SO thankful for her (and the list she made) without that I'd be totally lost as to what classes I should take next :)

#12: Yes, yes, another random thing, but totally cool! My laptop has a card reader :D And it has been SO fun to stick in my memory card and import my pictures like that instead of having to find the camera cord and go through that whole hassle. Yah, I love my computer! :)

Now that I've showed random pictures of random moments of my week, how about a cool story to close with? Ok, the verse in Isaiah.

Isaiah 40:31-"But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

I've always read that and found it so encouraging and neat. But the illustration about eagles wings and soaring on them... that always was confusing for me. Well, the other day in Old Testament class (one of my favourites! The teacher is SO great :D) Dr. Ward asked us if we knew how baby eagles learned to fly. None of us knew how, so he began to describe the process to us. Before the babies are born the mom makes the nest as comfortable as she can. She finds cushiony supplies to line the next with and warm things to keep her babies warm. When the eaglets hatch the mom is constantly supplying them with food. But, when the mom decides her babies need to learn to fly she will strip the nest of everything comfortable, only feed them what they need and then push the babies out of the nest. WHAT?! I couldn't believe that! But then Dr. Ward continued. The mom pushes the baby out of the nest and because the nest is up very high the bird is plummeting towards sure and certain death when all of a sudden the momma bird is underneath the baby. The mom catches the baby on its wings and brings the baby back up to the nest to do the same thing over and over again. Wow! After Dr. Ward finished that story the verse in Isaiah just became a whole lot more cooler :) When we place our hope in the Lord we will soar on wings like eagles. Christ will always be there, just like the mom eagle :) Wow! What a great and glorious God we serve! :D

List of Randomness

#1: We had a safe flight back to the USA! It was pretty uneventful and we had the smoothest landings I have ever felt! It was wonderful!

#2: It was SO nice when we got to Dullus Airport, everyone spoke American English :) ... What a great welcome back to the States!

#3: We can plug all of our stuff directly into the wall! It's so nice! :D We don't have to lug around converters all the time :)

#4: I saw a squirrel yesterday!!! It was soo neat! I haven't seen a squirrel in... ages :P

#5: We ate STRAWBERRIES!!!!! Oh my! They were SO good! Thank you Grandma! She's been treating us to a bunch of good food: Bagels, lasagna, milk, orange juice, whipped cream and strawberries :) Thank you Grandma!

#6: Daylight Saving Time. It's so... different! In Mozambique the sun was set by 5:30. Last night I went to bed at 8pm and it was still light as day!

#7: The internet here is SO fast! :D It's GREAT!

#8: And last but not least, in exactly a week Damarise and I will be flying up to see Ruth!!! :D I can't wait!

Thoughts, Ponderings, & Rambles

It seems like months since I have sat down to write a blog post about what is on my mind, or what God's been showing me through His Word or other things that have been happening in my life. I feel like I've just been writing down the basics of what's been happening on a day to day basis and not writing much else. So, I'm finally taking the time to sit down and write a real blog post. But now, where to begin?

First off, I will have to say, I am thrilled to be back home! Someone once said,

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

And I would have to agree with whomever said that. It is so true, you never realize how much you miss something or someone until you're away from it. Being down in South Africa and away from all of our friends and family here made me realize just how thankful I am for everything God has blessed me with in Nampula! He gave me more siblings, the Woodbulls, a wonderful youth group where I can grow more in my understanding of God, and an amazing body of believers that prayed for us and comforted us the whole time everything was going on with Ian. Not to mention what great friends they all are. God has blessed me so much! And I am SO thankful!!

Being back home we have now kicked school into high gear. Damarise and I are trying to finish up school before we leave here. We shall see if that'll actually happen. Lord willing, it should! :) We still aren't sure where we'll be going to college, but we are praying about it and trusting in the Lord.

We're also busy packing up our house. Seems like we just got unpacked from our trip to South Africa, and now we're at it again. Packing up to leave for good! Wow! Nampula is the longest place we have lived in since 2001. So it will definitely be tough having to say goodbyes and leaving.

Speaking of goodbyes, the other day I was thinking about all the goodbyes I was going to have to say, and how most of them would probably be for good, because I don't know when I'll see most of the people here again. And I was reminded (again) just how awesome God is. He is so indescribable! And so good! As I was thinking about all the goodbyes, I took out my diary to start writing, but instead started fumbling through the pages of it and I came across an entry I had written when we were living in Massachusetts. I was saying how terrible goodbyes are, but how wonderful God is. And how neat it is that God provided me with all Christian friends. He knew I would have to go through goodbyes and how painful they would be, but God, in all His wonderfulness, gave me Christian friends so that even if I didn't think I would ever see them again on this earth, I would see them one day in heaven. And that, well, it just put me in awe of how great our God is!! What a mighty God we serve eh?!

Well, it is getting late, and my eyes are falling asleep on me, so I should probably close. Thanks for reading through all of my rambles and thoughts for now. Hopefully I'll be getting back to blogging more often! :)

Long time...

Wow! I am so sorry I haven't updated in a while! Time is just going by way to fast. Since I haven't updated for about a week, I think an update is due. So how about random things happening in my life right now :)

1. I finished my family Christmas shopping on Thursday! Yay! I am so happy! :)

2. I read a hilarious book on Tuesday! Damarise and I were babysitting the Kern and Morrison kids and I read this book about three time and laughed each time :) It's great!

3. Not sure if I already said this but Damarise and I have bought our tickets to go see Ruth! Yeah! It's a sure thing now! :) 

4. Well, the rest of what I will say deserves it's own blog post... 

So until then,

tchau :)

The Last Few Days in a Nutshell

I'm sitting, Indian style, on my bed, three pillows tucked under my left arm, the floor fan (which actually isn't on the floor despite the name) blowing on my back, and my brain trying to figure out what to update about. 

Does that ever bug you... when you post a whole bunch of stuff throughout one week and the next you have absolutely no idea what to post about? Well, that's where I am. Just stumped at what to write about on my blog. So, I hope that this post, about the last few days... or just Sunday, doesn't bore you to much :P 

Alright here it is, yesterday was Sunday. We went to church and it was... empty. Well, almost empty. It was funny though! About 80% of the church had gone to the Nazarene Church to celebrate their 100th anniversary with them. That left a few Mozambicans, us, and the Rwandans. All the songs we sing in our church are a cappella. They sound beautiful... when the congregation can pronounce the words. Tee hee hee :P We started to sing one song and none of us except the few Mozambicans could pronounce the words. So us girls and the Rwandan ladies are all trying to keep from laughing cause it just went silent until the chorus which we could all pronounce. It was funny :P 

After church ended we headed on home and the Woodrows picked us up to go to SIL to practice music for that night. Music practice went smoothly. I got to play "And Can It Be?", "Oh Lord You're Beautiful" and "Who am I?". We've been trying to get "I Can Only Imagine" down smoothly... but so far it just hasn't been working out... we've been trying ever since January 2007 :P Maybe one day! Anyways, leading the worship went well and the message afterwards was really good! 

We headed on home after the SIL service and had dinner. The pastor's wife came over to talk to Mom and give us some of the special drink stuff that they have at every big party. :) She said the party was looong! From 9am-3pm! Woah!! ... After she left we all headed for bed... except Dad, Damarise, Mom and I. We stayed up talking in our room 'til 10:30pm when...*Vwoom* the electricity went out. It's rather humorous actually. :P Ok, it was hot! But it's only our little section of the street that goes out. Like 10 houses! It's crazy!! It didn't come back on 'til 9:44am this morning. I was almost wishing it would stay off longer so that we could break our 15 hour record. But oh well :P I'm thankful it came back on when it did! It was getting hot! Although it made me even more thankful that God has us here now instead of way back when the Woodrows were first here. They said that the electricity could be off for 6 months at a time! Woah! I think I'll stop complaining about a few hours! :P 

Well, that is my last couple of days in a nutshell.... And today is Monday :) Yeah! I love Mondays! What a wonderful day of the week! Hehe, ok sorry that was random... but I guess that's what this whole post has been :P 

I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful day! 

Randomness...

1. One week from today, Damarise and I will be taking the SAT. Wow! I'm, again, nerve racked! Please pray for us on October 4th as we take it. Thank you!

2. Speaking of october 4th, I have dubbed that day, "Day of Adventure". Why? Two years ago marks the day we arrived in Mozambique, Africa! That was one huge adventure! October 4th, 2007, marked living in one place the longest since Canada! Wow! And this year's big adventure, ah yes, the daunting SAT. 

3. The hot season is back and active. Kicking it into high gear right away. One day it was "cold" the next it was unbearable. If you move a lil' bit you feel like a melting puddle of mush! It is hot! Can't wait for the rains to begin though! 

4. I watched "Bridge to Terebithia" again last night. It's so sad! I've seen it three times and still start bawling at the sad part :'(

5. I'm trying to think of random facts that I won't make into a post... hmmm... :)

6. Right now I'm watching Damarise trying to play a song on the piano. It's quite the scene. She has our lil' speakers on the edge of the piano attached to her iPod (which is playing the song) sitting in front of her. Her left elbow is smashing down three of the keys and her head is resting on her left hand while her right hand is playing the song. Haha, she looks thrilled :) 

7. In a little of seven months we will, Lord willing, be back in the States! Wow! Time has flown by!

8. Ok, this is all the randomness that I can think of right now. Instead of thinking up lil' random tad bits of what's been happening, I'm think of stuff to post about :P Aw well. Thanks for reading this random post!