Christmas, Si's birthday, and a partridge in a pear tree

Jesiah celebrated his 7th birthday in December!

We had his celebration at my parents' house and also had Christmas Eve with them.  Hought and Gretch and kids were in Terry for Christmas so just my parents and I hung out Christmas day.  It's been great celebrating holidays with family and enjoying quality time together.

 

 

 Addy got sea monkeys so my parents will babysit them and report on their progress while we're away.  :)

Here's some more pics to add to posts from before (kids programs and canning).

 

 

 

 

And then there's some other random events.

Dad putting my nightstand together.

 Me typing Sunday School and Lay Bible Institute notes for my mom when she had carpel tunnel surgery.  Please pray for her hand to heal fully, by the way, she's having some problems with it still.

 

 

 Gretch and I were able to sing together at church one Sunday, which was a lot of fun.

 

 Dad drew up plans for our duplex in Vanuatu so that we were able to purchase the appropriate building supplies to put in our container.

 

 Houghton doing surgery on my ganglion cyst.  :)

which of course draws a crowd

 

 

Jesiah at play...his last few weeks at public school for several years!

Canning take 2

We got another opportunity in December to practice canning again before packing our stuff for Vanuatu.  This time we tried some new recipes and to can meat too.   Haha, look at us, apparently we're all coordinating!  I'm just really thankful for my mom and her expertise and help with this stuff and her servant's heart in doing all this with us!

 Spiced apples and beef roast.

 Roast and hamburger.  It looks disgusting but it tastes awesome!

December newsletter

More December-y things

The Richards hosted our church's New Year's party at the house they were house-sitting at.  It was really nice fellowship, although everyone did poop out pretty early! I was invited to a nightclub party by some guy at the post office but did decide to turn that invite down....  :)





Because of being done with school, we had a lot more time the last few months in Australia to connect with friends from church too, which was really nice.  It did make it that much harder to leave at the end, but such is the beauty and pain of relationships, isn't it!  Here are our friends John and Joanna on the right here and Emmanuel and Marie Claire, who are just gearing up to be missionaries as well.  We talked them into going to Summer School at Equip to get the basic language and cultural acquisition skills we learned there.  And they hope to head out to Thailand to work with abandoned and orphaned kids next month, Lord-willing!  They have a nice website if you want to check it out at www.ricefields.com.au 

Christmas Eve pics

Christmas Eve I hung out with the Richards. They made super tasty food so that was a treat!  And it was fun to see the kids open their presents and get excited.  :)

 

 

Christmas day was our fun day with breakfast at the church, lunch and the afternoon with friends, then supper and the evening with other friends.  See older posts for pictures from that.

Housing

I was so fortunate in my months following school to have housing provided by friends from church.  I house-sat for my Lebanese friend, Amira for about a month while she and her daughter family in Lebanon.  She has 3 cats I fed while I was there, 2 of which were around a lot and very friendly.  It was fun to have cats around again.  They were very sweet.  Once she returned, I stayed with a Filipino friend, Joy (also from church).  Houghton & Gretchen were staying there as well and the last few weeks another family of Joy's stayed with us too.  Praise God for His provision of housing for the full time we were in Australia.  I thank God also for the opportunity to learn about several different cultures as a result of the multicultural mix of our church in Melbourne!  What an opportunity to have fellowship with Christians of all different backgrounds.  And they were so generous to us in opening their homes and hearts to us.  Thanks, friends! 

Dandenong walk with friends

Back in Australia, some of our friends, Lee, Janet, and Aurore took us out to Dandenong National Park in Australia several weeks before we came to Vanuatu.  It is a beautiful park so enjoy the pictures!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

See below for new posts from Vanuatu.  I'm just catching up on Australia ones now that I have regular internet.  :)

Christmas

Our Christmas this year was a special one even though we were away from all our family.  Our church does a Christmas morning breakfast so we started the day with that, then went to hang out with friends Lee & Janet, their daughters Aurore and Amelie, and Janet's dad.  Lee is quite a chef so we enjoyed tasty and perfectly arranged food at their house.  :)  Plus we had a lot of fun hanging out and talking.  That evening, we spent time with friends Phil & Lenna, their kids Andrew & Kristin and another family connected to the church.  After eating with them, Kristin engaged us in a rousing game of Bible Pictionary... using a knife and tub of butter for her creations.  Very unique game and very fun.  :)  We left their home late after singing Christmas carols together.  God has provided some very special friends for us here in Australia and I am thankful.