Hey y'all

Just a news update from our weekends expereinces since arrival till monday evening.

Our first family with whom we stayed in Huntsville, Alabama were Newell and Mary Witherspoon - not related!! Such kind and generous people, we had a simply wonderful time learning about their family and spending time with them at their/ our sister church - Covenant Presbyterian.

Let me get back to the action that has occurred in between all the hosting of the many diverse and wonderful people of our sister church. Saturday hit us with a bang - mostly becuase of the Jet lag - as we pushed ourselves to not sleep until late on Friday after our dinner reception. We spent the next few hours developing and working through the program for the huge Celebration service which will be taking place on Sunday 12th September. We also managed to fit in some time to felowship with all the different Prebytry members who came from South Africa which was simply marvelous. During this time we had a superb guide from the 1st Presby Church of Huntsville - Harriet - who took us on a tour of her sanctuary and bell tower before we left for our picnic up on Green Mount. Alabama is nothing like i expected. When i say this, i was not expecting such fancy and beautiful homes, such natural beauty and such mountainy and lush green settings. Take my breath away! God has created some breathtaking scenery on this side of the world and i have kept saying to so many Alabama home towners that i wish wehad some of their nature right outside my front door. WOW!!

Sunday was a very special day for us as we were for the first time going through to our sister church to meet and spend felowship with them. What an experience? Firstly, our services are very different, our church buildings are very different, but our congregants are almost exactly the same. Let me explain. they have 3 services in the morning. 8:30 is the up beat contemporary service, 9:45 is sunday school where they have teachings for every age from kindergarden through to 90 year olds teaching stories or bible study type lessons and so on, 11 whihc is the more traditional service - i mean seriously traditional. We chose to attend the various sunday school and teen lessons to gain knowledge and fellowship within our ministry field. We also attended the traditional service where only a choir and choir master and pianist accompanied or led the hymms. Apart from the worship which i struggled a little bit with and the very rigid structure of the service, the sermon was very honest and striaght forward. It was an interesting experience.

Following this we were introduced to many bright eyed and friendly people who wanted to share and talk to the South AFrican couple. We even attended a lunch with some and continued interesting conversations. After luch we went ome with our new host Annette Shilling on the other side of Madison county where Huntsville reigns. Annette decided that we had to visit the botanical gardens which was such a fascinating time exploring the natural wonders of the Alabama plant world. They also have a fun time setting up scare crows as part of the summer and fall season within the garden.

Today was a very similar experience although totally mind blowing and again simply breath taking. We were all shepherded into cars and driven through to Scottsville where we walked around a flea market. Then we were taken through to the Cathedral Caverns - a wonder cave - which is a huge cave like tour into the depths of this one mountain where we witnessed some spectacular sights with the different rock formations and stalagmites and stalagtites. All of whihc had been formed by water erosion and possibly some human input. FASCINATING!! Finally from here we were taken to the maple mount in Huntsville which is there cemetary and was interesting to wonder around.

Ang and i are thoroughly enjoying our visit thus far and are looking forward to our fellowship with our congregations and churchs more this week and weekend.