Abby's 4th Birthday!

Abby gets to have a lot of celebrations for her birthday! She had a school party which was a pirate/princess theme and then she had a party with our family on her actual birthday. 

Skyler Franzen was my helper and dressed up like "Belle" 

 This was pop the loot for the pirate part of the party. There were special sweets inside the balloons.

Christmas 2013

Christmas was a great time! We read the Christmas story, opened stockings and presents then had a "braii" for dinner. Fun memories!

Christmas 2013 cont.

2 Years in Africa!

In the past two years we have been on a journey as a family that has been incredible both in the ministry we've been doing as well as the growth of the Smith's! 

I wanted to tell the story through pictures. Jacob has a lot of the ministry pictures and has shared a lot of the stories on our Facebook group, but here's our story as a family...

This was taken as soon as we arrived at the airport, April 19,2011. Abby was just 15 months old!

Because our container took a few extra months longer to arrive we stayed in the Franzens' one bedroom flat for 3 months. We all became like family and had our first Easter with them.

This was our first intern class...Bobbi, Katie, JV and Micah. What a great group!

Our first winter (May-August) was a filled with many teams and Jacob's mom, Karen, visiting. After all the work and trials it took to get us to Africa, we were amazed to experience God's faithfulness and His joy in doing the things He's called us to do! There was a lot of salvations, some healings, friendships made and fun times had!

This was most of the IA team back in 2011. 

Here's some pictures from that first 6 months of living here. Abby was still not even two and she did so well with living in a new country. She did safaris and met new friends!

This is Abby's first South African friend, Joanna. Abby met her on our trip in 2010 when we led the Teen Mania trip. Abby hadn't seen Joanna since she was 6 months  and both girls had changed a lot.

This is a group of team members from our 2010 who then came back on a 2011 trip or came as one of our interns. Three out of our four interns that first year were from our 2010 trip. 

Here's the Franzens who we are so thankful to have let us join their team. We love these guys!

More fun moments from our first year 2011-2012...

Chicken feet, anyone? :)

Abby shared our exciting announcement in September 2011

My parents came to visit in December 2011 and treated us to an amazing trip to Cape Town. What a fun time we had with them doing ministry together some and enjoying family time during the holidays!

Our 2012 intern class was our returning interns (Katie and Micah) and our new interns Cori, Sarah and Crystal. This group was such a sweet group who God used to touch many lives. What a joy and privilege for us to get to be a part of their lives teaching, mentoring and doing ministry with them.

 Jacob and another staff member took the team to Lesotho where they wear the pointy hats seen above. They did a lot of work with another ministry helping stop human trafficking and sharing the Gospel as well.

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Above is more pictures from 2012 year. We love living here!!!

It was exciting to have the Diepsloot school open in 2012. Rich and the team worked soo hard to get this going and little lives are now being impacted for the Kingdom!

We had our second Easter here. It's amazing how the kids have grown Abby's now 2 and Skyler's almost 13 at this picture! Jacob had to go back to the States to visit his dad who we thought was going to pass away because of liver failure, but in July 2012 he got a new liver and a new chance at life!! God is so powerful and works miracles!!

May 1, 2012 we left for the hospital looking like this and the next day came home with...Blaise Joshua Smith! 7 pounds 20 inches long

What special memories we have as a family of four now!

My parents came to visit in June and we were able to dedicate Blaise at our church here in Joburg.

Here's some fun family photos from 2012. Because of mission teams here Blaise visited the Lion Park 4 times in his first 5 months of life!!

The 2013 intern class now has our returning interns, Cori, Crystal, and Sarah and seven new interns!! God is so good!!

So now the story stops here at Easter 2013 with a new baby boy, new intern class, new memories made and knowing that there's still an amazing future ahead!

God makes all things work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28) !!