Jesse Mario Brefo…
Our first good news if you do not know already is that we are pregnant and expecting the latest addition to the Brefo family to arrive 11-11-11!!! Thanks to modern technology, at 12 weeks we found out the gender of our baby. We found out it was a boy. His name is Jesse Mario Brefo. “Jesse” because in the bible, “Obed” is the father of Jesse (Ruth 4:22; Matthew 1:5). And he was named “Mario” after his grandfather.

God has been providing our every need as He always does. Being part of a church that encourages and teaches Biblically on the beauty of families, we are surrounded by big families. Within weeks of our pregnancy, we had already been given a suitcase of baby clothing, a bassinet, crib, a car seat, a stroller and many other wonderful items. We have been blessed with wonderful people around us.

Housing…
We have been living with a wonderful family since we arrived in August 2010.. The Mobergs had their 6thbaby in December and Abigail has been a wonderful blessing to be around. We have grown very close with the family and knowing that we were expecting and would need a larger space they asked us if we would consider staying with them and renting out another room. They kindly offered to convert their play/school room, which is adjacent to our bedroom, to a living room for us so that we could have all we needed. We are thankful to continue leaving with the family and have spent the summer re-decorating our new room.

Here are some pics of the room before and after…
Before: 

After:

Obed worked extremely hard putting up shelves, painting the room and doing other handy man jobs!

It has been really fun as we’ve worked together making pillows, table runners, placemats, curtains, re-decorating dining table chairs and making wall features! We discovered the wonders of Stitch Witchery which allows you to hem things together without sewing!! Check out some of our creations…

I have to thank Grandma Carolyn (Dinah’s mum) who helped me make our curtains as well as my friend Vanessa who taught me all things are possible with Stitch Witchery… I had a lot of fun learning from these ladies.

Resolved…
As always we are experiencing a beautiful Californian summer. We have been able to relax and have lots of quality time with each other and friends. We also spent a couple of nights in Palm Springs for a conference called Resolved. Palm Springs is literally a holiday resort in the middle of the dessert with weather over 105f! This is an annual conference for the college ministry at the church. We were blessed with wonderful teaching by John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, CJ Mahaney, Rick Holland and Al Mohler. We had a wonderful time getting to know some of the college students at our church. We were thankful for this refreshing get away…

Us with CJ Mahaney and Al Mohler…

Fall 2011…
So now we prepare for the next semester. It will definitely be a busy one. Obed will be doing 10.5 units and will also be more  serving the church by getting involved in a crossroads Bible study called Truth Study.Truth Study is a college Bible study gathering based at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). It is one of the finest arts colleges in America, founded by Walt Disney himself. 25-30 students attend Truth Study each week and most of them attend Cal-Arts. The college is very liberal and is not fond of Christians, so a bible study there is an amazing opportunity to be a light in a dark place. Truth Study meets every Wednesday evening at the college. We began attending a few months ago and since then Obed has preached twice and has recently been asked to help lead the group. We are excited to be involved and have grown to love this fun and adventurous group.

We hope to keep the blog updated but with all the changes and baby Jesse coming in less then 3 months it may be a while before you hear from us again. Please continue to pray for us as we prepare for the next season of our lives… 

Obed and Elena Brefo

Q) Where in the world can you visit a Desert Garden, a Japanese Garden, a Rose Garden, a Chinese Garden, a Jungle Garden, and many other Gardens all in one go?

A) Only in America!

For a birthday treat (both our birthdays are in February) we recently visited Huntingdon Library and we had the most amazing day out.

What struck us was the amazing detail in each and every plant and tree. We could only glorify God as we gazed upon His creation…

Jeremiah 10:12 It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens

Although Huntingdon is famous for its library which contains rare books and manuscripts as well as its Art collection, we went for the Botanical Gardens which are out of this world!

The Botanical Gardens are an ever-changing exhibition of colour and a constant delight. Covering 120 acres, more than a dozen specialized gardens are arranged within a park-like landscape of rolling lawns.

THE CHINESE GARDENS…

THE DESERT GARDENS…

THE JAPANESE GARDENS…

The Huntington Art Gallery, originally the Huntington residence, contains one of the most comprehensive collections in this country of 18th- and 19th-century British and French art.

To think that the one who spoke all this into existence knows us by name and has given us eternal life through His son Jesus Christ…

Colossians 1:16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

We hope this posts inspires you to see that God created the world in order to display His glory. May His glory also be displayed in your life through His son Jesus Christ

Revelation 4:11 Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.

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One thing I noticed about living State Side is that this really is the land of convenience. Everything here makes life easier… In case you don’t want to get out your car to purchase medicine you go by the drive-through. Or maybe parking the car and walking to a cash machine is too much work for you, so we have the ATM-Drive through. Who wants to slice a bagel, when you can buy the bagel already sliced. The list of conveniences is endless!!

Now when it comes to cooking or baking I’m not into short cuts! I don’t consider using a packaged cake box REAL baking! But sometimes we have to lay our pride aside and go with what works best and that may be very true for mothers who are super busy.

I say all that to point you to the next recipe for quick and tasty meals for mothers because it does involve a short cut… Our friend Betty Crocker’s Au Gratin Potatoes!!

However this is a super wonderful meal and it works wonders on a cold rainy day (which thankfully are scarce in LA!!)… It has some yummy healthy veggies in it too…

Also there isn’t a huge list of ingredients needed…

This meal was originally made for us by a lovely lady we met at church who invited us to dinner… Jennifer Rice! Thank you for your hospitality and sharing this recipe with us! I enjoyed making it!

I hope you get to try it… CHICKEN BROCOLLI CHOWDER

INGREDIENTS:
1pkg Betty Crocker au gratin instant potatoes
3 cups of water
2 cups of milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
½ cup finely chopped onion
2 ½ cups chopped broccoli
1 ½ cups sliced carrots
1 chicken bouillon cube
1 ½ cup cubed cooked chicken

METHOD
- Place the water and milk in a large saucepan
- Whisk in the packet of sauce from the potatoes
- Add all ingredients except the cheese and chicken
- Bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer for 25+ minutes
- Add the chicken and cheese and simmer for another 10 minutes

Nice served with American style biscuits (known to us Brits as savory scons) or fresh crusty bread

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I have SO much respect for mothers. Of course this is the same for fathers but for the sake of this post I will just focus on mothers. Coming to America I have been so encouraged to see so many women with a passion to be godly wives and mothers.

Grace Community Church does a wonderful job of teaching us that though man and woman are equal in Christ we have very different roles in the home and the church. I see this lived out by so many here.

We live with a family who have 6 children! It has been SUCH a blessing to live with this amazing family. The wife/mum has dedicated her life to this wonderful calling. It certainly doesn’t come without it’s hardships but I’ve seen the fruit of her labour. Having a newborn to a 10 year old and did I mention home-schooling means that time is very limited. It’s been my pleasure to cook for the family and introducing them to some new meals.

Knowing how short time is for so many mums out there I decided to submit a few tried and tested kid-pleasing recipes that any busy mother can through together.

The first of this series is….

CROCKPOT NACHOS

Crockpot’s (slow cookers) are great time savers. America is great for coming up with things that make life easy lol! You just through all the ingredients in the morning and let it cook in time for dinner.

This meal is made up of Crockpot Nachos, Chipotle style rice and Chipotle style guacamole as well as sour cream and fried plantain. Chipotle is Obed’s new favourite restaurant… Its fresh Mexican food put together in front of you. It is fast food but very healthy fast food.

The Crockpot nachos recipe was given to me by my lovely friend Claire and I added a few extra Ingredients to suit our tastebuds…

The rice and guacamole recipes were taken from Chipotle’s website.

I hope you get a chance to try this quick and yummy meal.

INGREDIENTS:
1lb ground beef
½ small onion finely diced
1 tsp minced garlic
1 can or fresh black beans
1 pkg frozen corn
1 can rotel (cut up tomatoes and green chilies)
1 pkg taco seasoning
A few handfuls on fresh spinach leaves
Grated cheese
Mexican Chips

METHOD:
Put all except cheese and chips in crock pot and season with salt and pepper
Cook on low for 4-6 hours stirring every hour or so.
Towards the end drain some of the juice. Add the spinach leaves and cheese
Serve with more cheese and chips

P.S Remember to sign up to our blog on the home page to receive more updates and recipes…

We have recently returned from a 3 week trip to our homeland… London! It was such a blessing to spend time with beloved friends and family.

PLANE TICKETS PAID FOR
Firstly we have to tell you the little testimony of God’s provision… Going home to the UK can be very expensive and in September we were seeing if it was possible to actually book tickets to go home at Christmas. We made the decision to go ahead and we booked the tickets. The following day we had a tax rebate which covered the cost of one ticket! As if that wasn’t enough when we got back at Christmas we received another tax rebate which covered the cost of the other ticket!

THE ONLY FLIGHT
Then due to the snow storm all flights were cancelled to and from London Heathrow. We arrived at the airport with slim chances of boarding the plane. We heard that every flight was cancelled before and even the flight after ours was cancelled and yet we boarded the plane and flew back home with no trouble (apart from a 5 hour delay due to technical problems). It’s such a comfort to know that God is in full control of all we do.

FIRST NIGHT IN LONDON & GREEK FOOD
Our first night back was spent with my (Elena’s) family enjoying a traditional Greek meal! As everyone knows north London is saturated with Greeks so good food is not hard to come by especially with a lovely mum who can cook gooood! But here in LA I’ve only seen one Greek restaurant and it sells Pizza! Despicable!

TIA THE CAT
Part of staying with my parents meant hanging out with Tia… apart from her anxiety issues she’s the sweetest cat ever!

OBED’S MUM & GRANDMA
We also enjoyed spending time with Obed’s family. Grandma seems to get younger each day!

THE PATTALIS FAMILY
We enjoyed the hospitality of the Pattalis family. If you don’t know about Pasticho then you are missing out! It’s like a Greek lasagne and my aunty Maria’s is one of the best!! They even made Obed’s favourite dessert… Apple crumble and custard! They too have a cute cat… she is overweight but in deniel!!

CHRISTMAS DAY
This Christmas was spent with family but sadly Obed’s family couldn’t make it due to sickness. We all had a nice time hanging out together and enjoying a traditional Christmas meal.

OUR DEAR FRIENDS
We were also able to hang with very dear friends. It was a blessing to see the growth in so many lives. A hunger for God’s word was evident in many. We are blessed to have such dear friends…

MATTHEW AND NATALIE
It was great to see our cousins Matthew and Natalie and their cute little boys. Natalie is the Haloumi queen (a lovely Greek cheese which we’ve found impossible to find in LA!)

NEW YEARS EVE & ANNIVERSARY
New Years was spent playing games with family at the Lewis household. We also celebrated my aunt and uncle’s 25^th year wedding anniversary. Congratulations guys!

A DAY IN CAMBRIDGE
As we have many friends in Cambridge we decided to plan a day trip to this historic city. We had a nice walk around the town and spent time with more friends.

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
And as our trip came to an end we spent the day with family celebrating my cousin’s 19^th and 21^st birthday. It was also lovely to hang out with little Natalia Eve France who entered this world 2 months ago. It was a great way to spend our last day in the UK.

Overall we had a wonderful trip. We saw the hunger in many for sound Biblical truth and we look forward to seeing what God may do in London in the years to come.

FREE FLIGHTS!
On the 10^th of January we headed to the airport with our luggage and we exited London with a hearty English breakfast at the airport. As we waited in line to check in a lady from Virgin airlines approached us and asked if we’d consider leaving on a flight that left 4 hours later, and in return we received 2 free return tickets to travel anywhere in the world in the next 18 months! What a blessing! It’s amazing to see how the Lord always provides.

Sadly we didn’t get pictures of everyone we saw but thank you to all of you who made the time to see us. It was a trip to remember.

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December is upon us and we have been informed of the “big freeze” you’re experiencing in the UK! Of course we don’t want to rub it in, but here in California, apart from a few hours of rain ones a week; we have had clear blue skies!!!

THANKSGIVING:
This November we experienced our first American Thanksgiving. This is one of the biggest holidays here in America and some say it’s even bigger than Christmas. Many decorate their homes with festive orange and brown colours during the week of Thanksgiving! The actual day is every fourth Thursday of November. Most people have the day off work and all families come together to celebrate Thanksgiving.

We had many invites but we decided to join the family we live with for the day. We went to Dinah’s parents home who are the proud parents of 4 children and 12 grandchildren! There was an abundance of food and we’ve now learnt some new American recipes! A favourite of ours was cornbread casserole. We really enjoyed this holiday as it reminds us to be thankful. Most of all we are thankful that Jesus Christ gave His life so that we could be forgiven of all our sins and have eternal life.

SEMINARY:
My first semester of seminary is nearly complete. The week after this will be my final week. I have got one Hebrew exam and a few assignments to hand-in and I’m done.

My first semester has been one of discovery; a discovery of my strengths and weaknesses as a Christian, a husband and a student. My strengths need to be preserved, and my weaknesses need to be strengthened.
I have learnt many valuable lessons and my goal is, and it should be, to apply the good and shun the bad. In other words: to grasp good habits and unlearn bad ones.

I’m looking forward to the hiatus before my next semester. This will be spent loving my lovely, amazing, beautiful, sweet wife; catching up with friends and family; and prepping for the upcoming semester. I can’t wait because my brain needs a break from thinking, my eyes need a break from reading, my fingers need a break from typing, my backside and chair need a break from each other, and my laptop needs a break from my table. Looking intently forward to the break…I need it!

OUR NEW CAR:
We told you in the last newsletter that our car broke down and we were in the process of getting a new car. Well we now have a car! We call her “Ruddy Cherry”!!!

This car was a given as a gift to us by a man from our fellowship group who owns many car dealerships here in Los Angeles. We are so thankful that those who can are helping those who are in need. We are so blessed by the generosity shown to us.

When we first came to America everyone told us that the best cars to get were Hondas and Toyotas! Literally every other car on the road is a Honda or a Toyota but our budget would not allow us to get one so we went with an American car instead. We are amazed at how God worked it out so that we could get the car that would be best for us.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS AND RESOURCES:
We have come across a wealth of books and resources since coming here and we want to recommend a few:

Marriage:
Sweethearts for a Lifetime by Wayne Mack

Parenting:
The Faithful Parent by Stuart Scott and Martha Peace
Shepherding a Childs Heart by Ted Tripp

Christian Living:
Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges
Trusting God by Jerry Bridges
If God is Good by Randy Alcorn

These books will be beneficial to you and great for Christmas gifts. They are all available on amazon.

RETURN IN DECEMBER:
We plan to exchange the blue skies of California for the big freeze of the UK this Christmas to see family and friends (now that’s sacrificial love.lol). We arrive on Tuesday the 21^st of December and return on the 11^th of January. We are looking forward to this time to catch up with everyone.

Thank you again to all of you who support us. It makes a big difference. If we do not get to see you we wish you a very merry Christmas.

Please do keep in contact as it’s always so lovely to hear from you.

We do try to put updates on our blog so please do sign up to it if you haven’t already… http://thebrefos.wordpress.com

All our love,

Obed and Elena

We’ve been here in America for nearly 3 months now and have loved and appreciated each and every day. We are so thankful that God allowed us to come here. We thought we’d post an update on all our latest news in case you don’t receive our newsletters…

OBED’S NEW JOB
Obed can work 20 hours on campus and so when we arrived we looked into job opportunities but none came up. Thankfully the seminary favour international students and after a few weeks he had an interview to work at Grace Community Book Store and they decided to give him the job. www.gbibooks.com.

We are grateful that he was chosen for this wonderful job. For some reason the Americans really love the British accent and so they put him on the shop floor. It’s a brilliant job and works well with his hours at seminary. He also gets a very good discount on books, which is a blessing for his studies.

SEMINARY

Studies are going very very well. We are in midterm, and apparently this is when it starts to heat up. I can see it; students sleeping in class or struggling to stay awake, students are less social and there’s a shortage of coffee.lol

I’m loving the class’s, especially Old Testament Studies—we have been reading through the OT. My first time reading the bible in chronological order, and I regret waiting till now to do it. Also loving Hermeneutics. This class teaches us how to accurately exposit the bible. Intro to Preaching is good. It’s a practical class, very interactive. It’s all about learning how to stitch sermons together and preaching. Hebrew is the toughest class. But I’m taken each class at a time and good progress is being made.

I’m enjoying every minute at Seminary. I’m being stretched to the limit in many areas, especially academically, but knowing the purpose I’m here (Christlikeness) inspires me to continue to eject every weight and sin from my life, and keep running the race (Hebrews 12:1-2).

SEMWIVES

Is a class offered to the wives of the husbands in seminary. It’s a wonderful opportunity to be trained by older women who are the wives of the professors and pastors.

Each Wednesday evening over 100 of us wives come together for a wonderful night. It begins with fellowship over some lovely treats and home-made goodies, and then we get into our groups we have been assigned and go through whatever the leader has arranged. We share prayer requests and learn more about the ladies in our group.

Next we have teaching which is aimed at guiding us SemWives. It has been so wonderful to meet so many godly women and to learn from older women who have been married for many faithful years.

Our first session was with Pastor John MacArthur. He reminded us that our first priority is to be our husband’s helper. He also shared some very practical advice on how we can support our husbands in this season and as they go onto ministry.

Patricia MacArthur (John MacArthur’s wife) sat on my table and I didn’t even know who she was till someone said her name! She’s such a sweet down-to-earth lady.

It’s a blessing to be around so many like-minded women. We are truly grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow in this wonderful godly setting.

MARRIAGE DISCIPLESHIP
We have been overwhelmed at the number of resources and opportunities available through the church. We decided to take one of those opportunities and join the 1 year marriage discipleship class. We and 6 other young couples are currently being mentored by 2 older couples and each month we get together to learn fundamental truths and practical insights into building a godly marriage and family. We are going through the book “Sweethearts for a Life time” by Wayne A. Mack (we highly recommend this for all married couples). We are seeing the serious importance of going over these truths and correcting our hearts with the Word of God. It has been a real blessing to us.

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP
As we are going to be living here for a number of years we decided to become members of Grace Community Church. We have been greatly blessed by the sound teaching and wonderful community of friends at GCC. We are now getting plugged in and will be looking for ways to serve at the church.

OUR CAR & GOD’S PROVISION
We bought a car in August and it had been working fine till a week or two ago when the engine stopped working as we were driving 70mph down the freeway! We thought it would be a small problem but it turned out that the engine was broken! We were quoted thousands of dollars to get it fixed and we were unsure of what to do. We asked our friends if they knew of any mechanics. Within a few days we were contacted by someone from our fellowship group who we have never even met. He asked if he could pay for our car to be fixed or if we would prefer him to buy us a new car! We were overwhelmed by the generosity shown to us by this brother. We are so thankful for God’s provision through the body of Christ.

PRAYER REQUEST
Can we ask that you continue to pray for us? Pray especially for Obed as his workload is heavy. Please pray for God to help him balance his prayer life, marriage, studies, work and health!

Please can you also pray for our living situation? As you know we currently live with a wonderful family. The husband is a police officer and his work hours have been cut and so they have put their house up for sale and they are hoping to downsize. It is extremely expensive to rent an apartment here so please pray for God to provide the right home for us at the right time and that we would be anxious for nothing (Philippians 4:4-7).

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In England you don’t have to go too far before seeing an Indian restaurant or take away. In fact a good spiced curry is England’s favourite dish! Yes even more than fish and chips or bangers and mash. The Brits love a curry!

We too love curry! Obed was born in Ghana and has a palate for spicy food. I grew up on mainly Greek food but my dad had a liken for curry. Since I was born there is a tradition in the Angelides household, and that is Saturday night is Indian takeaway night! Sometimes, we would even watch Indian movies with English subtitles!

In 2005 I had the privilege of going to India on a mission’s trip and I must tell you that we have been greatly deceived! Why? Because what we eat in the West is rather different to true authentic Indian food!

India is an amazing and unique place.

The smells, the colours, the flavours, the music all make India so different

Now we live in Los Angeles and have not seen one Indian restaurant yet! Apparently they’re out there but not as common as in England. Here in LA nearly 50% of the population are Hispanic residents so where in England we’d see an Indian restaurant on every corner they have a Mexican restaurant. Since coming to LA we are really enjoying Mexican food. None of that ‘Old El Paso’ stuff we get at Tesco but really good quality foods.

So with no nearby curry houses to hand thankfully my mum passed onto me a few really really good Indian recipes. A week or 2 ago we fancied a curry and so I decided to get out my faithful booklet of recipes and choose one. One I love is a Chicken Madras Curry but the problem with that is that it really does stink out the whole house for days. Seriously you can smell that curry down the road! Since we live with a family and share their kitchen I figured they’d not want to wake up to the smell of curry each day!  The other is a Shilpa Curry, named after Shilpa Shetty as I think it was originally her recipe. I decided this was the safer option and went for it.

We thoroughly enjoyed this meal…

I thought I’d share this recipe with you. This is espeically for some of my American friends have been craving a curry…

Ingredients:

Chicken Breasts diced
1-2 onions
4 large tomatoes chopped/tin of tomatoes (fresh is better)
1tbl cumin powder
1tbl coriander powder/paste
¼ tsp chillie powder (or more for hotter)
1 ½ tbl garam masala powder
1 tsp garlic (fresh or paste)
1tp ginger (fresh or paste)
2 bay leaves
1 small cup of milk
½ cup of ketchup
Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Fry the onions for 2-3 minutes then add the chicken and cook for 5 minutes
2. Add all ingredients except the milk
3. Stir and bring to the boil
4. Turn the heat down and add the milk
5. Simmer for 15 minutes and then leave to settle for 10 minutes

ENJOY!

For more recipes check out http://thebrefos.wordpress.com/from-our-kitchen/

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‘A Western Jamboree… What’s that?’ Thought Obed as he drove past the sign a few young girls were holding. He stopped by and had a look and knew it was something his wife would enjoy going to and he certainly was right!

So we had the privilege of enjoying a spontaneous date at a Western Jamboree just a few minutes from our house. We weren’t sure what to expect as we entered but it was like we left the cool fast paced life of California and entered the world of horses, cowboys and Yeha’s!

So basically I still don’t know the technical definition of a Jamboree and google couldn’t even help me with that one but I do know we went to one! A lady who lives down the road owns a ranch and put on a fund-raising Jamboree for the community. Included was: Crafts, food, pony rides, face paintings, music, entertainment and cuddly critter petting area. After browsing through the stalls we went to the cuddly critter areas…

The chickens were sooo cute! I never thought I’d say that about chickens but the one we held was so soft and gentle. I can’t believe we eat these cuties! But then again they work great in a curry!!

Now this next guy was a real character! He really reminded us of someone but we couldn’t figure out who… Seriously what a face!

Then we went into the area the goats resided and we were able to get real close!!

Mr Baa Baa was seriously overdue a hair cut! I’m sure there were other animals living in his coat!

After all that time hanging with the animals we took a break and enjoyed some flavoured crushed ice and sat back and enjoyed the atmosphere…

We then met a real life cowboy! His name was Michael and he told us a little about life on the ranch. He owned a few horses and his daughter has been ridding since she was 1 years old!

Michael was very kind to us and offered us a ride on his horse…

We love the sense of community here. People are super friendly and you can never go too far without bumping into a “Christian”. I say “Christian” as we can’t  assume someone is truly a Christian just because they say they are especially here in the states. 76% of Americans identify themselves as Christian!

Talking of Christians not really being Christians and sheeps and goats all in one blog post I think this scripture would be relevant:

Matthew 25:31- ³¹“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. ³²Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. ³⁴Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. –  ⁴¹“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

So it may seem a little heavy to through in this topic of judgement but it is so so important and more important then anything else we can really write about. This scripture is a serious reminder to us that there will come a day of judgement.

Jesus said in John 3:3 that we must be born again. We must be regenerated. We must look to the bible to know if we have been born again or whether we are goats.

A great message on this is: ‘How do I know I am Saved’ by Paul Washer:

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=1050795550

Now back to the Jamboree… Overall we had a wonderful time at this Western Jamboree and got a real feel for “The South”. A big thank you to my beloved husband who took the time out of his super busy day to spend time with me doing something so fun.

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The TMS (The Master’s Seminary) picnic is an annual picnic hosted by the Seminary for all the TMS students and their families. We were grateful to be part of this year’s picnic on Saturday the 11^th of September at Oxnard Beach Park.

In anticipation for this day quite a few people warned us that it would be cold at Oxnard beach and to wrap up warm but we thought this is LA! All we’ve seen so far is beautiful sunshine and blue sky’s so surely driving 1 hour to the coast won’t make much difference. Anyhow we woke up bright and early and left our home at 8.30am. The drive was pretty simple though long! After we switched onto the main freeway our GPS told us our next turn would be in 42 miles!!!

After about 45 minutes of driving it was as if we left sunny California and entered into dreary London and if it wasn’t for the palm trees, bigger roads, cars and country music we were listening to we’d forget we were in America! (Oh yes it might be a good time to mention that we are now officially country music fans!!!) Anyway back to the story, it turns out that the weather is quite different when you are by the west coast. The temperature dropped from 85f to 65f! Oh my, it was certainly cold!!!

However we definitely warmed up by all the lovely smiling faces that greeted us as we arrived. We registered our names and explored the picnic area while the others arrived. It was so wonderful seeing all the students and their families together in one place. There was a big playground for the kids, a bouncy castle (which the Americans’ call “a jumper”) and a long list of activities set out for the day.

So many people volunteered to make this day special. We know it must have been a lot of work preparing food for over 300 people so a big thank you to all the helpers.

After nearly everyone arrived we soon gathered together to pray and then dig into some great wholesome American food…. Burgers and hot dogs!! Oh yes! And if you squint your eyes while taking a bite you’d almost believe you was at In-N-Out!! The watermelon was super and may I say the cookies were very tasty! Everyone sat around and enjoyed more sweet fellowship.

The newbies like us wore a blue sticker with our name on it and the one’s that have been around a while wore red so it made it easy to know who’s who. It was really great to see all the men who study together come out to play and swap their suits and boots for shorts and flip flops!! Meeting their wives and kids too was a real blessing.

As I looked around I was amazed that God has brought us here. It is such a blessing and it’s still hard to believe that this is all happening. Beyond all the fun and games I was so aware of the fact that we are surrounded by so many people of the same mind set, with the same goals and the same desires. People who are chasing after God and not caring for the things of this world or to have a cushty life but people have and are sacrificing so much to be trained in the Word of God and to give their lives to serve God.

As all the mums chased their kids around I was so encouraged by the wives who have a desire to simply love their husbands and be good mothers. They care not for their own status but they glorify God in their desire to be suitable helpers to their husbands and it shines from them all! To see people living out the true purpose of marriage and reflecting the Gospel according to Ephesians 5! We are SO thankful that we can be a part of this and we are in awe of God’s goodness towards us.

Anyhow from all that reflecting we moved onto a seed spitting contest! Oh yes even the professor’s take part in this TMS picnic tradition! Sorry but you were caught on camera!!

There was plenty for the kids to do, and I’m sure the parents were delighted that their kid’s faces would get covered in whipped cream and chittos all in the name of FUN!!

Next while the kids went down to the beach to do sand castle competitions and other games the big boys (and girls!!) took part in a volleyball competition!

Would you believe that Obed’s team won and they all got a prize! Obed picked out the ESV MacArthur Study Bible, leather bond too!! He was very happy as he really wanted this so it was a real blessing to win it. However it came at a cost! He had to miss the football (soccer) tournament! But I’d say it’s worth it!

So it was such a wonderful day besides the cold weather. It was great to build relationships, some of which we know we’ll be a real blessing over the next few years! Thank you to all who helped make the day possible. We love you all…

The Brefos….

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