We are a group of young couples from Valley Church in West Des Moines, Iowa who have felt God's call to help The Pines Christian Care Center for Children in Welkom, South Africa as they care for children who have been orphaned by the AIDS Pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Monday, September 01, 2008
Kevin Barber
Kindra and I are in the planning process of leading another team from Valley Church to go back to The Pines in February. So, we will once again start updating this blog with new content for that trip.
I have finally taken some time to re-design the blog so it is no longer a standard Blogger template (Yay! -- as a computer geek, it was driving me nuts). I still have a few bugs to work out and some cool little things I want to add; those will come in due time.
Please be praying for God to raise up a team from Valley who will be able to be a blessing to The Pines. In addition, this is the first time Kindra and I have attempted to lead something like this, so please be praying for us as well. Finally, if you feel led, please be considering financially supporting this team - it has been a financially tight year for us (as I'm sure it has been for many others), but that gives God an opportunity to be glorified by providing for the trip (I've been reading John Piper, if you can't tell).
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Kevin Barber
Kindra and I are in the planning process of leading another team from Valley Church to go back to The Pines in February. So, we will once again start updating this blog with new content for that trip.
I have finally taken some time to re-design the blog so it is no longer a standard Blogger template (Yay! -- as a computer geek, it was driving me nuts). I still have a few bugs to work out and some cool little things I want to add; those will come in due time.
Please be praying for God to raise up a team from Valley who will be able to be a blessing to The Pines. In addition, this is the first time Kindra and I have attempted to lead something like this, so please be praying for us as well. Finally, if you feel led, please be considering financially supporting this team - it has been a financially tight year for us (as I'm sure it has been for many others), but that gives God an opportunity to be glorified by providing for the trip (I've been reading John Piper, if you can't tell).Show / Hide Comments 0 Comment(s) Post a Comment
Friday, June 08, 2007
Kevin Barber Now that nobody probably checks up on this blog anymore, the long-awaited slideshow is here! I apologize for long delay in getting this up.
Here's the deal, it is a very large slideshow and I was trying to fit it all nicely into one song, so if you click the 'Play' button on the bottom-left corner, it will play with music but will go through the pictures very quickly. I still highly recommend doing so :-)
To go through the pictures one-by-one, click on the arrows in the bottom-center bar. You can also look at all the picture in the "gallery view" by clicking on the grid icon in the bottom-right corner.
Kevin
P.S. After posting this, I noticed that one of the sides is cut off... Click Here to view it in a new window.
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Kevin Barber Now that nobody probably checks up on this blog anymore, the long-awaited slideshow is here! I apologize for long delay in getting this up.
Here's the deal, it is a very large slideshow and I was trying to fit it all nicely into one song, so if you click the 'Play' button on the bottom-left corner, it will play with music but will go through the pictures very quickly. I still highly recommend doing so :-)
To go through the pictures one-by-one, click on the arrows in the bottom-center bar. You can also look at all the picture in the "gallery view" by clicking on the grid icon in the bottom-right corner.
Kevin
P.S. After posting this, I noticed that one of the sides is cut off... Click Here to view it in a new window.
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Monday, April 09, 2007
Crannell's As Kevin's previous post said, we have made it home! I want to thank everyone who prayed for us on our trip. This was truly an amazing experience for us, something we will never forget. I hope you got a little glimpse of the amazing and powerful things we had the privilege of experiencing. Again thank you so much. I would also like to thank the other people who went on this trip with me. This group of people made this trip what it was for me. I can not thank them enough for the way they let God work through them. We shared something with each other that can never be taken away. I only hope that everyone can experience this someday. I also want to thank the Niehoffs, Brian and Lois are an incredible couple that God is using in an amazing way. Please continue to pray for them as they continue in this task God has given them. Last I would like to thank my wife. Going on this trip with her has strengthened our marriage in a way we could have never imagined. She is truly an amazing woman and I am blessed beyond words to be married to her. As Kevin also said early please check back for more pictures, as they will hopefully move you the way they moved us when they were taken.
God bless you all,
Scott
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Crannell's As Kevin's previous post said, we have made it home! I want to thank everyone who prayed for us on our trip. This was truly an amazing experience for us, something we will never forget. I hope you got a little glimpse of the amazing and powerful things we had the privilege of experiencing. Again thank you so much. I would also like to thank the other people who went on this trip with me. This group of people made this trip what it was for me. I can not thank them enough for the way they let God work through them. We shared something with each other that can never be taken away. I only hope that everyone can experience this someday. I also want to thank the Niehoffs, Brian and Lois are an incredible couple that God is using in an amazing way. Please continue to pray for them as they continue in this task God has given them. Last I would like to thank my wife. Going on this trip with her has strengthened our marriage in a way we could have never imagined. She is truly an amazing woman and I am blessed beyond words to be married to her. As Kevin also said early please check back for more pictures, as they will hopefully move you the way they moved us when they were taken.
God bless you all,
Scott
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Sunday, April 08, 2007
Kevin Barber We're back!
After a long flight (3 of them, actually), we made it back safely to Des Moines. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers. We got in at about 11:00 Sunday morning.
Happy Easter!
Kevin
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Kevin Barber We're back!
After a long flight (3 of them, actually), we made it back safely to Des Moines. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers. We got in at about 11:00 Sunday morning.
Happy Easter!
Kevin
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Friday, April 06, 2007
Kevin Barber This is going to be a short post because it has been a long day, and we got back late from dinner at Ruan's. Everyone is packing and getting ready for bed, which just leaves me (Kevin) to write :-)
Our last workday was today and we got the flat finished before lunch and the afternoon was devoted to cleaning up. Everything came together quickly and it looks very good now that it is finished.
The girls dyed Easter Eggs this afternoon with the kids and we are leaving behind Easter baskets for them to open on Sunday.
As I mentioned earlier, we went to Ruan and Lindie's house for supper tonight - they fed us authentic South African food with excellent dessert (couldn't tell you the names of most of it, but it was very good).
As you probably already know (or have figured out) we will be leaving tomorrow - our flight is at 6:45 local time (subtract 7 hours for Central time). We'll leave for Johannesburg around 8am and spend the day in the area probably shopping and possibly visiting the Apartheid Museum.
Lastly, I want to mention that I am planning on posting a slide show of our pictures from the trip. Between Kindra and myself (the two photographers of the group) our current count of pictures is 1283, so we definitely need a bit of time to put it all together. Keep watching the blog for the link to that. I also will try to post some of my favorite pictures directly on the blog when we get back (as time allows).
So much for the short post :-)
Kevin
Scripture chapter of the day 1 Corinthians 3
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Kevin Barber This is going to be a short post because it has been a long day, and we got back late from dinner at Ruan's. Everyone is packing and getting ready for bed, which just leaves me (Kevin) to write :-)
Our last workday was today and we got the flat finished before lunch and the afternoon was devoted to cleaning up. Everything came together quickly and it looks very good now that it is finished.
The girls dyed Easter Eggs this afternoon with the kids and we are leaving behind Easter baskets for them to open on Sunday.As I mentioned earlier, we went to Ruan and Lindie's house for supper tonight - they fed us authentic South African food with excellent dessert (couldn't tell you the names of most of it, but it was very good).
As you probably already know (or have figured out) we will be leaving tomorrow - our flight is at 6:45 local time (subtract 7 hours for Central time). We'll leave for Johannesburg around 8am and spend the day in the area probably shopping and possibly visiting the Apartheid Museum.
Lastly, I want to mention that I am planning on posting a slide show of our pictures from the trip. Between Kindra and myself (the two photographers of the group) our current count of pictures is 1283, so we definitely need a bit of time to put it all together. Keep watching the blog for the link to that. I also will try to post some of my favorite pictures directly on the blog when we get back (as time allows).
So much for the short post :-)
Kevin
Scripture chapter of the day 1 Corinthians 3
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Thursday, April 05, 2007
Kevin Barber
With one work day left, we are very close to completing the flat. Today we got all of the walls primed and painted and most of the trim painted. We only have finish work left on the walls and the ceiling in the kitchen. Jenny and Anne got their hair braided by the house mothers.
For dinner tonight, we treated ourselves to Dros, a popular South African steakhouse chain. Kris tried his luck with driving in South Africa (left side of the road) on the way to dinner and Kevin tried out his driving skills on the way back. No major dents to report in the Combie bus!
The best news of the day was Ntswaki (Pictured in the Purple, front-left) coming home from the hospital earlier than expected. She seems to be doing well - A real answer to prayer. We ended the night with a "Welcome Home" party for Ntswaki, sending the kids off to bed with bellies full of ice cream - the house mothers must love us :-)
Our Devotion of the day was from 2 Timothy 2
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Kevin Barber
With one work day left, we are very close to completing the flat. Today we got all of the walls primed and painted and most of the trim painted. We only have finish work left on the walls and the ceiling in the kitchen. Jenny and Anne got their hair braided by the house mothers.
For dinner tonight, we treated ourselves to Dros, a popular South African steakhouse chain. Kris tried his luck with driving in South Africa (left side of the road) on the way to dinner and Kevin tried out his driving skills on the way back. No major dents to report in the Combie bus!
The best news of the day was Ntswaki (Pictured in the Purple, front-left) coming home from the hospital earlier than expected. She seems to be doing well - A real answer to prayer. We ended the night with a "Welcome Home" party for Ntswaki, sending the kids off to bed with bellies full of ice cream - the house mothers must love us :-)Our Devotion of the day was from 2 Timothy 2
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Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Kevin Barber
"Breaking" News: We cracked the safe!
Note: This is just an update from the earlier post today... We did lots of more important stuff today than cracking into a safe, so read that post first... this was just a fun little side project.
OK, so here's the back-story on this. Since this building was formerly the offices for a gold mining operation, and since they had pretty much left everything as was and vacated the building, they have lots of safes here, most of
which Brian had a key for.
One particular safe, however, was very large and was in the "Cash Office" - no keys or combination was left that we could find, so we did the next best thing - punched a hole in the wall and took the safe apart from the inside. When I say it like that, it sounds very easy...
First, the safe has concrete walls about 1 1/2 to 2 feet thick with rebar on both sides. We went through a variety of tools to get even one hole all the way through. Today Brian rented a rotary hammer and made much shorter work of punching the hole in the wall.
Next, once we were able to squeeze inside (and when I say 'we' I mean Kris, Scott, and Cory) we went to work on pulling open the safe door after discovering the key for the inner gate. This safe had 2 combination locks and a key lock, so we had to pull apart the backs of the locks to watch the cams line up to get the correct combination. We also pulled apart the key-lock since we could not find the correct key.
So, what was in the safe? Like I said in the earlier post, there were 2 additional safes and a lot of books and papers from the mining operation - nothing of any value or interest to us. There were two "mystery boxes" which we found out
were cash boxes - empty, of course.
After much searching, we did finally find the keys for the safes inside - not a whole lot of interest except for a very interesting briefcase - with an alarm and smoke bomb!
So, although we had lots of fun in the process, it ended up being rather anti-climatic getting into the safe. It still brought back memories of "exploring" as a kid.
-Kevin
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Kevin Barber
"Breaking" News: We cracked the safe!Note: This is just an update from the earlier post today... We did lots of more important stuff today than cracking into a safe, so read that post first... this was just a fun little side project.
OK, so here's the back-story on this. Since this building was formerly the offices for a gold mining operation, and since they had pretty much left everything as was and vacated the building, they have lots of safes here, most of
which Brian had a key for.One particular safe, however, was very large and was in the "Cash Office" - no keys or combination was left that we could find, so we did the next best thing - punched a hole in the wall and took the safe apart from the inside. When I say it like that, it sounds very easy...
First, the safe has concrete walls about 1 1/2 to 2 feet thick with rebar on both sides. We went through a variety of tools to get even one hole all the way through. Today Brian rented a rotary hammer and made much shorter work of punching the hole in the wall.
Next, once we were able to squeeze inside (and when I say 'we' I mean Kris, Scott, and Cory) we went to work on pulling open the safe door after discovering the key for the inner gate. This safe had 2 combination locks and a key lock, so we had to pull apart the backs of the locks to watch the cams line up to get the correct combination. We also pulled apart the key-lock since we could not find the correct key.So, what was in the safe? Like I said in the earlier post, there were 2 additional safes and a lot of books and papers from the mining operation - nothing of any value or interest to us. There were two "mystery boxes" which we found out
were cash boxes - empty, of course.After much searching, we did finally find the keys for the safes inside - not a whole lot of interest except for a very interesting briefcase - with an alarm and smoke bomb!
So, although we had lots of fun in the process, it ended up being rather anti-climatic getting into the safe. It still brought back memories of "exploring" as a kid.
-Kevin
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Kevin Barber
Today we really got to see the wildlife in Africa, and killed much of it. Jenny was welcomed by a toad in the bathroom this morning, Anne took on and defeated an "African Killer Wasp of Death" (I think it was just a normal wasp), Scott killed two bees, and Mama Agnus and Mama Gift (the house mothers) showed us how to get really, really fresh chicken... let's just say we now know what "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" looks like.
On to more serious matters (not too serious, though), we continued with our painting extravaganza, completing the painting in all 3 bedrooms and priming throughout the rest. The children even came in and helped with the painting; they were very happy to help. Jenny hung curtains in the library and K
ris created a beautiful etched-glass window (he attempted to learn the fine art of glass cutting - he didn't do too bad for a newbie).
Tiffany taught the kids an "American" game of tag, the kids did well - they thought it was funny that they could run faster than us, even barefoot.
So, after a few people asked about it, we figured we'd update you on the safe... After renting a rotary hammer (basically, a small jackhammer), we were able to get our first glimpses into the safe to find... two more safes! That REALLY has our curiousity. There's also lots of books and papers and what we like to call "the mystery box". Even as we type this, we've got our people working on the safe... We hope to be in all the way soon.
Finally, but not by any means least, the baby that was admitted to the hospital last week was discharged today - she is looking much healthier and she even got a visit from her mother, who is still in the hospital.
Nswaki, the girl from the Pines, unfortunately may not be coming home by Friday - she may still need more IV antibiotics, but her condition is still improving.
As the week is drawing to an end, we are realizing how much we'll miss seeing these kids and hearing their voices as they play and sing.
Today's devotion was on 1 Peter 4.
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On to more serious matters (not too serious, though), we continued with our painting extravaganza, completing the painting in all 3 bedrooms and priming throughout the rest. The children even came in and helped with the painting; they were very happy to help. Jenny hung curtains in the library and K
ris created a beautiful etched-glass window (he attempted to learn the fine art of glass cutting - he didn't do too bad for a newbie).Tiffany taught the kids an "American" game of tag, the kids did well - they thought it was funny that they could run faster than us, even barefoot.
So, after a few people asked about it, we figured we'd update you on the safe... After renting a rotary hammer (basically, a small jackhammer), we were able to get our first glimpses into the safe to find... two more safes! That REALLY has our curiousity. There's also lots of books and papers and what we like to call "the mystery box". Even as we type this, we've got our people working on the safe... We hope to be in all the way soon.
Finally, but not by any means least, the baby that was admitted to the hospital last week was discharged today - she is looking much healthier and she even got a visit from her mother, who is still in the hospital.
Nswaki, the girl from the Pines, unfortunately may not be coming home by Friday - she may still need more IV antibiotics, but her condition is still improving.
As the week is drawing to an end, we are realizing how much we'll miss seeing these kids and hearing their voices as they play and sing.
Today's devotion was on 1 Peter 4.
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Kevin Barber
After our morning devotion in 1 Peter, we noticed this:
"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." - 1 Peter 5:8
... very appropriate from getting back from the lion park yesterday! As we walked around the park, we were constantly followed by the lions, just watching us.
We have been getting a lot of comments on the blog about our April Fool's prank, some of which we have interpreted to be good-natured, others, not so much. Every night we sit down as a team and compose our daily blog update and on that particular post, we had debated for a while whether or not to put it, whether or not to add "April Fool!" at the end, etc. In the end, we did what we did and it may not have been very funny or appropriate to joke about.
We sincerely appologize to anyone who was mislead, offended, otherwise by the post. We are, however, beginning to feel distracted by some of the fallout of it, which is completely against the nature of why we are updating this daily. We love to hear from everyone back home and we really do all huddle around the computer to read each comment, so please keep them coming. But please do your best to be uplifting and encouraging.
As we all may have experienced, e-mail, blogs, chat, etc. are not always the best means of communicating emotional topics. Those of us who have used computers long enough for this will know well how what we write can be easily mis-interpreted because there is no good way of communicating the tone of the message.
As we read this morning from 1 Peter 4:11, "If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ." This is a wake-up call for us, but also good to keep in mind throughout our daily lives.
Thank you for reading, commenting, and keeping us in your prayers!
Kevin
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After our morning devotion in 1 Peter, we noticed this:"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." - 1 Peter 5:8
... very appropriate from getting back from the lion park yesterday! As we walked around the park, we were constantly followed by the lions, just watching us.
We have been getting a lot of comments on the blog about our April Fool's prank, some of which we have interpreted to be good-natured, others, not so much. Every night we sit down as a team and compose our daily blog update and on that particular post, we had debated for a while whether or not to put it, whether or not to add "April Fool!" at the end, etc. In the end, we did what we did and it may not have been very funny or appropriate to joke about.
We sincerely appologize to anyone who was mislead, offended, otherwise by the post. We are, however, beginning to feel distracted by some of the fallout of it, which is completely against the nature of why we are updating this daily. We love to hear from everyone back home and we really do all huddle around the computer to read each comment, so please keep them coming. But please do your best to be uplifting and encouraging.
As we all may have experienced, e-mail, blogs, chat, etc. are not always the best means of communicating emotional topics. Those of us who have used computers long enough for this will know well how what we write can be easily mis-interpreted because there is no good way of communicating the tone of the message.
As we read this morning from 1 Peter 4:11, "If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ." This is a wake-up call for us, but also good to keep in mind throughout our daily lives.Thank you for reading, commenting, and keeping us in your prayers!
Kevin
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