Calm After The Storm

The last 24 hours or so have been horribly wet and cold but mornings like this make it worth it.

I took this earlier this morning whilst walking Rosie in our local park.

Sadly despite all the rain of the last couple of weeks our dams are still desperately low and we need some serious downpours before summer begins.

Family Therapy

One of our better purchases in Blighty was the classic Pie Face game and today we managed to get some squirty cream and play.

Watch the video below and decide for yourself how much fun this game is.  All we can say is this was a great family therapy session and can't recommend it highly enough!

Renewal Of Vows

We were a little bit early when we renewed our vows two Sundays ago, our Silver Anniversary isn't until the 14th of September, but the opportunity was too good to miss what with us being back in St. George's for our last Sunday.

We had a great morning and must thank St. George's and the Rev Mandy Carr for allowing us to hijack the bulk of the morning service to do this!

It was also a great privilege to celebrate with some truly special friends, we know many couldn't make it and we missed you, but we're thankful to those of you who were able to join us. 

I had the privilege of speaking for a few minutes and I did say that we should really call this "a celebration of Paula's madness" having put up with me for 25 years.

That Was Blighty

Such is the modern world that I'm sat here at over 10,000 metres up in the sky and a little over 3,000kms from home but still able to access the internet via on board wifi.  I wrote that on the plane and then fell asleep and forgot to post it, so here is the blog post I wrote...

Well our long anticipated and planned for trip is over, we're just a few hours from being back home and it's been good to spend a few hours reflecting on the last five weeks.

Roadshow Schedule

Click the image to see it full size

Update On Aunty Henna

I'm delighted to say that Aunty Henna is home again!

She had pneumonia and has high BP. I was thrilled to visit today and find family members buying her food and pouring over her Discharge form with a dictionary!! As usual, everyone was waiting for me (the non medic!) to explain the medication! So what have you been up to I ask her, "praying" she answers! She really is my very own Aunt Clara from The War Room!! Such fun also to see her face as she was blessed with a DVD player, one of her heart's desires

Thank you Lord!

Go-Kart A GoGo

Today is a public holiday and what better way to spend it than on servicing/upgrading the boys' Go-Kart.

First job was to replace the broken front axle, it was a bit of a swine to do given that it involved drilling right through the length of the wood, but the finished job looks and works a treat.

Next up I swapped the old crate seat for a scavenged school style seat which I'd seen on a building site whilst out walking Rosie.

Personally I'm really chuffed with how it's all turned out and the boys gave it their approval declaring it to be "cool".

Aunty Henna

Over the years many of you have visited our friends in Chris Nissen Park and will remember my dear friend Aunty Henna from the HOPE Home Based Care team. Please will you pray for her as she is now in hospital with a respiratory infection and the Dr is also querying a stroke. I have just been to see her and we talked, read the Bible and prayed together. As we might expect, she is in her usual great spirit, full of faith and can't wait to leave and go home! That I can understand as the conditions at the hospital are really not great.

The Teenager Has Landed

Wishing our big 13 year old a 
Very Happy Birthday.

We can't quite believe that we got here but we're so proud of you son!

As Paula said on Facebook: Joel you are an exceptional, unique young man and we are so excited to walk into this next stage of life with you! Praying that "you will grow in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man" just as Jesus did here on earth. Love you loads!

Antlions

Some of you have been on safari and will have enjoyed looking at the Big 5, they are a truly spectacular group of animals.

What you may not know though, is that there is also a Little 5 of some equally amazing animals.

We have the Antlion or Lion Ant in our garden and as the drought intensifies so does their hunting activity.

Soup Kitchen

Recently we were at a Hillsong leaders lunch and were enjoying listening to a guy called Perry Noble (we had no clue as to who he was but he was very good. Read more about him here). He posed the question: "If your church closed its doors tomorrow would it be missed by the community?".  This got me to wondering whether or not The Gathering would be missed after just about a year in Firgrove.

Hand on heart I believe that we would be missed. We'd be missed for a few reasons but one of the main reasons is our weekly soup kitchen.