I SPENT 7 MONTHS IN THE STATES IN 2007. THIS LITTLE PART IS JUST SOME OF MY DREAMS I GOT TOLIVE OUT THERE, AND THEY HAPPENED AS GOD HAD PLANNED THEM!!!
I can get more out of God by believing Him for one minute than by shouting at Him all night. Smith Wigglesworth.
It was a dream come true, the night Catherine and Lisa got to sit and watch as the San Fransisco Giants played the St Louis Cardinals. It was a night to remember. Cath was all excited as she got ready to go to the game, Lisa just enjoyed the share childlikeness of Cath's reactions. As Cath entered the big stadium and was staring everywhere and was taking in everymoment, she slowly approached the entrance to the door where it was all to take place, the excitement was just to much to bare but the two braved it as the game had already began! WOW what a moment it was nothing could have taken it away from Cath and Lisa. The game was amazing and in the 7th inning they got to sing the ball park song....
"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don't care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game."
And of course they could not have gone to the ball game and not had a hotdog and a coke, it was just the way to seal off the evening, but then even better. Barry Bonds(check out his website http://barrybonds.mlb.com/players/bonds_barry/index.html to see who he is) hit a home run, as Cath and Lisa watched they could not help but smile and giggle at each other because Jesus really blessed them with a special evening of fun and dreams!
Ok here I am back to reality a bit, or maybe not......
Its been a while since I wrote about where we have been and what God has been doing, the time has really past us like crazy, but we have enjoyed every moment of it! Leaving Oregon and heading only about an hour from there we stayed in a cabin for 2 nights at a place called Silver falls, We got to see the backside of a waterfall.. yip it actually excists believe it or not, and of course it was fun to see. staying another 2 nights there we camped and well the rain just began on our journey, campiing is fun but camping in the rain takes on a new meaning to the word camp, but we learnt how to put a tent up and take one down pretty quickly, we are pro's now.
Easter Sunday we got to walk through fields of tulips, wow what a day, it seemed unrealy and the colours were just incredible. Heading down the coast we hit huge amounts of rain, it was crazy and as Cath played games on Lisa saying we can camp in this weather no problem, Lisa was thinking wow Cath is more adventurous then she thought. But after some communication and some laughing God blessed us with a place to stay that was dry and warm and half the price of a tent site, wow what a blessing.
Caves what are those, we found the Oregon Caves, (check out site if you want http://www.nps.gov/archive/orca/home.html) well Lisa did she wanted to go there for about 5 years, Just needed some crazy South African to go with her.. then she found me. So off we went to see the caves with our fun and adventourous tour guide. he was great and took us on an extended tour of the caves, we were in there for 2h30hours. And just as we were about to exit Lisa was smelling some strange smell, so she was looking on the walls to see what it was instead of finding the smell she found spiders and Caths hand right next to them, freak out I did, but praise Jesus I missed putting my hand on them, we never did find out what that smell was.
Califonria here we come...... I had finally reached California I was driving and over the boarder we drove, now I can officially say I have set foot in California. We headed for San Fransisco. We found Lisa's generous friend who let us stay with here for a week, we were just so glad to have a bed and some dry clothes and bedding, was like staying in a 5 star hotel. Some fun things we saw and did, well of course the baseball game topped it all off, but we walked the bridge.. the Golden Gate bridge!! We braved down town San Fransisco, well we got off the train a few stops to late and ended up in the scary part of town, but what would a trip be like to San Fransisco without seeing the scary danger side of town. Spent some time at the Golden Gate park, ate some ice cream there, went to the beach, I still cant smell the sea here, strange for me, Cape Town is the place to smell the sea. Oh yes I had my first "In and Out" burger experience, Mac Donalds just does not even come close. yummy yummy!
Next stop Sonoma, we went to see a friend of Lisa's, that was fun to hang out and this time we got to drive over the Golden Gate bridge....we left there late one day and headed down the coast, we wanted to find a camp site that we could stay at for at lease 2 or 3 days, we were kind of tired of just staying one night at a camp site. We drove and drove, we wanted to find the perfect camp site, well by 10h30pm we eventually found it, well it was that or sleeping in the car, running out of gas nearly, but finding some gas and then stumbling on a campsite, we just decided that this was going to be the place, we set up camp and went to bed. To our great surprise we woke up in the morning surrounded by great big red wood trees and about 2ft from our tent was a river, wow, it was perfect, Lisa and myself looked at each other and send weldone! It was an amazing 3 days of resting and no rain and just spending time alone with Jesus. Realsing we could not stay there forever we packed up and headed towards San luis, staying there 2 days with some friends of Lisa. We got spoilt again with some Sea Kayaking, oh how I love the water that was so much fun!
Down to Los Angeles we headed, just kind of feels unreal sometimes being here. Lisa's parents stay in San Pedro which is close to LA. But that first night we stayed at Lisa's aunt as we were going to go Yard saleing the next day - what is a yard sale, well its were people put out their junk or stuff they dont use and sell it for really cheap - but little did Cath know she was going to get a great surprise in the morning. Waking up early we were gettng ready to go, and Lisa's uncle wanted to go get coffee, so we agreed to go with, we walked outside and there it was, his car A PORSCHE! Now I still am trying to get used to the coffee thing but its kind of taking a while, but my comment was "well I dont mind going to get coffee if I get to drive in the Porsche" the reply I got was...... "Well would you like to drive it" Now who would pass up an offer like that, certainly not me, so like an excited kid I jump in the drivers seat of an amazing porsche.....Lisa got to sit all scrunched up in the back bearing with her friend as she got to live out another dream. WOW! It was such fun sitting behind this car and actually driving it, it brought a new meaning to the word fun and excitement. Definately a car I would like to have one day, it kind of made up for a bit of my sad story back home, as my car got stolen... yip my beautiful car, don't we all just love South Africa!!!!!
ok so back to earth, from the Porsche drive of course I did not stop smiling the whole day and giggling, like a little child, and then off to yard saleing we went, lots of houses with lots of junk, but I did pick up some baseball mits for my nieces, my brother and myself... all for an amazing price of about R100. It was a real deal but my bargaining skills weren't up to scratch Lisa thought I could have got it for cheaper, but wait till next time!
Troop Beverley Hills.....if you have not watched it, I think its about time you did, was one of my favourite movies as a kid. After much searching we eventually tracked it down, the video store even sold it to us for $2 think its not popular anymore....but Cath needed to watch it before troop Lisa and Cath headed out to Beverly Hills/Hollywood for a tour. It was a good laugh and got Cath all excited for the next adventure. So off we went the next day to the place of the stars. Well Hollywood was kind of interesting, we walked on the path were the stars are in the ground took some pictures saw some sights, and decided that lunch was just more important, especialy when it was "In and Out" burgers on the menu. So we sat on Sunset Boul;evard and ate In and Out and prepared ourselves for the next leg of the journey, Beverley Hills, now as a kid Cath would dream of being rich and wanting to have a house here one day, yip its shocking I know but hey as a kids its always good to dream of weird things. So we found the Beverley Hills Hotel, now if you watched the movie you would see a scene from there - go watch it I tell you its worth it - we took some pictures to say we were there, drove through some streets of Beverly Hills, then headed down to the famous Rodeo drive, were if you hang out a long time you might see some famous star come buy something, needless to say we walked down the street, went to the bathroom, took some pictures and left, seemed like it did not live up to all that Cath had thought of but it was worth the visit as now Cath can say, she has walked the famours Rodeo drive were you could easily spend thousands of dollars on a shirt! Scary I know.
Ok, I am sorry this is so long, but you could take a break and come back later to read more of the exciting journey.. or you could just keep reading its nearly over.....
So Lisa and Cath would like to have gone to Disney land but when it costs lots of dollars they decided that God needed to give them some tickets, well little did they know He had it all planned 25 years ago! So on the 3rd of May Lisa turned 25 and her mom sent us to Disney land for her birthday. It was a day to remember we woke up early, we left the house by 6h30 and headed out to the place of a Million dreams!!! The excitment was wounding up we got our tickets and waited in line to enter the place were dreams come true. Lisa got to wear a badge for her birthday and every employee who saw her wishe dher happy brthday, we saw Mickey mouse, donald duck, pluto, winnie the pooh, and after much tracking down eventually found goofy and of course Cath could not resist taking a picture with goofy. We did most of the rides and did not even have to stand in long lines to get on them 30 minutes tops and that was the kiddy ride, but it was all leading up to the best part of all, the parade. It was Cath's favourite, the music played as all the different characters, some on floats some just walking and dancing came down main street. If you asked Lisa what her favourite part of the day was she would say...having lots of people say happy birthday, not waiting in lines for rides and watching Cath experience Disneyland for the first time. And if you ask Cath what was her favourite part of the day she would say....the parade - here is her comment " it was like a dream come true seeing all the disney land characters, that you only see in the movies and remembering all the songs that came with them and it was not a movie anymore it was real life! yes all my friends out there, they are real, disneyland made it real, the cartoons do excists, I saw them for real, yippee do da yippeetee yay my oh my what a wonderful day" So after a full day of being on our feet we headed home at 9h00pm, to rest our weary legs and nothing could have taken away the day we had full of a million dreams!
If I re read what I just wrote I realise that Jesus is really just taking us through a time where He is spoiling us and letting us live some of our dreams even though they might seem like nothing to some people and stupid to some especially in the bigger scheme of things, but I know I am in a season of just being and having fun, I cant explain it but I sure am enjoying it. But it does not stop me from wanting to see Gods kingdom come on earth, because in the midst of all that we are doing we wait for oppurtunities to show Gods love and share His heart with people we come across, and whether its smiling at someone or talking to someone or praying for someone we are learning about what Jesus is in us and how we are to function from that and not strive in that.
So to end off all I can say is go live your dream its worth it! I am and I get to go to a Dodgers baseball game tonight and eat a dodger dog!
love you all, sorry its so long I will try write sooner in future then it wont be so long!
catherine
