A Kiwi Thanksgiving

And you are thinking... what exactly is a 'Kiwi Thanksgiving?'

Well, it's summer here - which means hot. And so instead of the tradition Thanksgiving meal we had a church BBQ! About 27 of us there. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time of fellowship and thanking the Lord for all he has done for us! :)

 Dad cooking the hamburgers and sausages and fellowshipping with Pastor G. 

The kids love Brother Spackmens water wheel.

Mercy's Eleventh Birthday Party

:) Friends :)

Norah, Jacqueline, Nicolea, Paris, and Mercy

 Chicken Enchiladas was her request for dinner.

~

Mmm... they were good...

(Nothing like complementing your own cooking. :P But really, they were good!)

Ezra's looking at his plate wondering if that's all he gets. :P

 Norah showing the girls her games on her ipod.
The little girls enjoy her so much... she is always coming up and taking them out to play or something.

Time for gifts!

The best part of the party... right? Oh, wait, or is the best part the cake???

The dress Mama made for her!

And this picture didn't come out that good...

:)

Emmaline did a beautiful job on the ice cream cake!

Baptisms

This past Sunday we had four people who wanted to follow the Lord in believers baptism - Vicky, a girl from the University Bible Study; Brother Quilty, an older man from our church in Pukekohe; and Mercy and Malachi. It was so exciting to see these people take this step. We use a baptismal at a church about forty-five minutes north of Pukekohe, so there was several people from our church in Pukekohe, all those from Auckland Bible Baptist Church, and about 20 students from the University there. It was a great time of worshiping the Lord, watching these follow our Lord in believers baptism, and fellowship... oh, and food, we are Baptist! :) 

And to read my Dad's post about the day you can click on this link! :) It was a very busy Sunday with three church services and lots of driving and food prep and so on... but a exciting and very blessed Sunday! :) Praise the Lord! :)

And here is a few pictures form the day! :)

Vicky giving her testimony. She gave it in Chinese because all the students from the University are Chinese and because she's not great at English and neither are many of the students... and then Ethan translated it to English for the rest of us. 

 Vicky

 Mercy

 Malachi giving his testimony...

 ...and then being baptized.

Vicky and Mercy

 Brother Quilty, Vicky, Mercy and Malachi

A heap of students from the University and some Snyders talking.

 Shephine and Paris. 

(Stephine is a little girl from Auckland Bible Baptist Church and Paris is one of our club girls from Tuakau.)

 Little girls playing after tea.

 Emmaline and Joy(another girl from the Bible Study at the University.)

 Pastor Snyder and Pastor G fellowshipping over tea.

 Emmaline, Mercy, Vicky, Joy, Nicolea, and me(Jillian)

 Mrs. G and Vicky

And a random picture of Matthew leading music.

Paris and Mercy in there matching dresses for the day! :)

Spring

Spring is here! :) Everyone is excited to have the warmer weather here and even more excited about less rain!  A couple of weeks ago we put in our small garden which is always fun. So here are some pictures from the past couple weeks!

 We planted capsicums, chilies corn, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, celery, and lettuce.

 David loved our homemade watering jug.

Cucumbers 

Malachi watering the lettuce.

Alicia getting ready to plant corn.

Watering is the best part of a gardening.

David would spend the whole day outside if we let him!

Daises are fun to play with, but they don't taste very good. 

Happy Guy!