Long Overdue Pictures #1 - Where I Stay in Chicago

A certain dear cousin of mine has lately been after me to update this blog. So, I have overcome my tardiness and procastinatory nature (for the present, at least), and have chosen some pictures to post. These pictures are of the Swets' house, where I stayed in Chicago. It's quite a pretty house, as you can see. The Swets have put a lot of work into it. The yard is quite large as well, and extends a long ways backwards. Very nice for studying, though I'm afraid I haven't availed myself of the backyard too often. :( I'll have to rectify that next year.

It has been very nice to stay here. The Swets are very kind & sociable, love to play games :), and always include us students (Aaron V. and myself) in the life of the household.

Pictures of Visit and Gary's Bachelor Party

These pictures are long overdue. The first shows a visit from Pastor Bouwers and Mr. Sinke. They came all the way from Jordan Station to visit me at MARS! That was very nice of them and of consistory.... a real blessing!


And this was from a while back. It's of Gary Z's Bachelor party.

Joshua Project

I came across this site the other day... it shows a map of the world where you can see the unreached people groups of the world.

http://www.joshuaproject.net/

Pond Hockey (or rather... Pond Shovelling)

Over the Christmas break, I visited Uncle Curt & Aunt Jane's house.   I went there right before that one big storm (when we got over 1 foot of snow).  We decided to play some pond hockey, but by the time we got the whole pond shovelled, we were just about too tired to play!  And we could only play for about 20 minutes before we had to re-shovel.  All in all, we probably did about 2-3 hours of shovelling for about 40 minutes of hockey.  :)

Here's a picture Derek took.  As you can see it was quite blizzardly!

Done!!!

With thanks to the Lord for His goodness and sustaining grace, I have finished my first semester at MARS!

After the final exam week, Erik & Gina (from New Zealand) invited all us first-years and Pastor Vander Hart over for a pot-luck dinner.  Here are some pictures, so that you can see a little bit of my class-mates.  The pictures are compliments of Pastor Vander Hart.

Yevgeni (my room-mate), and Pastor Vander Hart.

Steve and Russ in the background.

Russ and Evan (a friend from Beecher URC).

Richard B. (from Hamilton) and myself, as well as one of Erik & Gina's girls in the background. (I can never keep all their names straight unfortunately.)

Why one deer in the bush is worth two in the hand...

This story is actually a couple of weeks old, but it's been a little bit busy as of late (papers, exams, etc.), so that's why it took a while for this post.  

Anyways, to proceed with the story...

Yevgeni (room-mate from Afganistan-Russia) and myself were happily studying away one Monday night, when Dan (the son of the Swets with whom I'm staying) came in with a story to tell.  He had been trying to get a deer for weeks.  This time, he had a good opportunity to take down a good-sized buck.  But while getting a bead on it, another buck (unbeknownst to himself) walked behind the 1st deer.  So he 'killed two bucks with one shot', not always a good thing, as we found out.  (Two deer = double the work and double the meat.)

Dan had shot the deer a ways away from the road, so he recruited Yevgeni, myself, and Mrs. Swets to help drag the deer to the truck.  It was a good hike, probably a bit over a kilometer.  Part of it was through a chopped cornfield, which was quite difficult.  (I kept tripping and falling backwards onto the cornstalks.  :(  ).

Here's a picture of Dan with his two deer.

The next day, I helped Dan skin the first deer, and then skinned the second one myself later on in the week.   Dan did most of the cutting up, which was a lot of work.  Mr. and Mrs. Swets patiently worked in the kitchen, grinding up most of the meat and combining it with pork.  So we have a LOT of deer meat now!  And Mrs. Swets wasn't even sure if she wanted all the meat from one deer!  :)  But the following week, we had Gary Z. and Aaron V. over, and Mrs. Swets made some chili with the deer meat.  It was really good!

More Seminary Life...

This past Wednesday night, Corey, Simon, and Gary (fellow seminary students - middlers) came over for a hot tub party with Eugene and myself hosting.  (Yes, the Swets do have a hot tub, and a nice one at that!)  We had a lot of fun, with cigars provided by Corey.  It was a good time of fellowship, with conversational topics ranging from theology to Uzbekistan to student life.