July newsletter page 1

July's newsletter (click on image to enlarge). If you don't receive it and would like to, or if you get snail mail but are happy to switch to e-mail, let me know at psalm96three@gmail.com and I'll switch you over. Blessings!

Little Big Day Out

Our church in Melbourne, Grace Baptist Church, had a VBSish day today called Little Big Day Out. Lenna, the pastor's wife, is the mastermind. Here's some pictures and a (long) video from the day (don't bother watching all of it unless you're my mom - just there if you're REALLY bored). :) A (shorter) video of Gretchen teaching the kids our verse, John 14:6 follows. The included video is Gretchen and I doing our story. Gretch, Tania & I led the 1st and 2nd graders for the day. They were great fun. Pray for all the kids who came that the Lord would remind them of what they learned today and that they would have come to know Jesus more or for the 1st time. There's pictures here too of us having lunch at Lee and Janet's. They go to Grace and are a fantastic couple. Their girls are super sweet too. We enjoyed the fabulous food Lee crafted for us too. They are a blessing to us. Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Another one bites the dust

Another term that is (bites the dust). Hooray, we made it through Semester 1 by God's grace and lots of chocolate. Here are some pictures of the fun things anyway. Who wants to see pictures of me sitting on my bed typing away on my computer for hours? :) So I didn't take pictures of that obviously.

Some of the pictures show one of the projects we had for our Phonology class. It is a tribute to Bruce, our instructor for that class, that we left the class with a ginormous packet, were told it would take us an average of 20-35 hours to finish it, and we were all excited to start. He gave us little "stress release" packets every week (with chocolate) and a certificate of completion when we were done. Plus, he was clear in his expectations, made it manageable, and fun. He's a great teacher. Here's those pictures!

Make a Smilebox photobook

Wish I could show you pictures of my friend who is responsible for the buns in the pictures, many of the monkey games, and the decorated white board! We had to see her off at the airport the end of June. She's off to start work in a country a long long way from here. Pray for her for safety and that she would be a witness where God leads her! The Dodgy D Dorm dames will look a bit different next semester without her. We miss you already, dear friend!

Proud to be an American

The longer I'm away from the States, the more I come to appreciate America. It's a beautiful country with fantastic opportunities, generous and encouraging people, great ideas, taken-for-granted freedoms, quality goods, smart progress, fair laws, great hygiene :), the best prices in the world, and great unity through diversity. I'm proud to be an American and to call that my home country. Other countries may want to tear America down, but God bless the USA!

May 09 update

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks! There are a few more here from when my parents were here their last few days, some class pics, and a few others thrown in. There are just six weeks left of this semester so crunch time is setting in and it's starting to feel a whole lot like summer school again! That's a bit overwhelming. It's been a busy time with my parents here, then the Director of Biblical Ministries Worldwide (our missions organization) here sharing vision for BMW for the next few years, then our Area Director from BMW here. Our weekends have been packed with meetings but it was nice having visitors from the States. I've had a bit of time to hang out with my new Coptic friends amidst the craziness so I'm enjoying getting to know them. Enjoy the pictures and praise God for a way to share this with you across the world!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Parents visit!

Make a Smilebox photobook

Class, mice, and other random things

Five weeks of 1st semester flew by and we are now on our Easter/Fall break for two weeks. I was ready for a break but timing won't feel so nice when we start back and have 10 straight weeks until the end of the semester. Ah well. So far I've only gotten pictures in Grammar class but here are some fun examples of the kinds of crazy things we do in grammar: treeing out the order and structure and grammatical relations of various languages. Somehow I made it through elementary, junior high, high school, and college and never once learned any sort of grammar so this is all new to me. Those of you who diagrammed sentences growing up will recognize this but note that we are learning how to do this for languages whose word order is completely different from English. It's kinda fun really. :)

Just before break we celebrated Jesiah and Addy's birthdays. Jesiah was 4 just before Christmas, but we were so busy packing to come to Australia that we didn't really celebrate. One day a few weeks ago Gretchen said she was tired of something. Jesiah sighed and said "well I'm tired of not having a birthday." Whoops, that was a good reminder to have it! You don't always expect a 4 year old to remember those sorts of things! Addy had her 1st birthday the end of March so the baby is turning into a toddler, wow!

For the final bit of randomness here, I have to tell about our mouse friends. We've caught two and seen evidence of others. They are super cute little buggers but definitely make it hard to keep pasta, cereal, and crackers on hand... I'm realizing new things about how I'll have to keep my dry goods in Vanuatu. Multiple ziplock bags just don't do the trick.

The most significant thing about our break is that my parents are here to visit though, yay! Check out my other post for pictures from them being here. They've helped out a ton in babysitting and we've loved being able to hang out. If anyone else wants to come check out Australia, we'd love to have you come!! :)