Driving

I am working on getting up some photos of our house, but here is a driving story in the mean time. Today I drove our beast of a car for the first time. There are a few reasons that I haven't driven it before now, mostly because we have been fairly busy, but also because it is huge and a manual, which I'm not used to driving. So when you consider those things and then consider the roads around here, it has been enough to make me want to give up driving altogether. 

Before we left Australia I did do some practising in a manual, but without having a manual car to practise with regularly, I never really gained a lot of confidence in my abilities. But here we are, in Malawi, with a manual car, a big, turbo diesel, manual car, which I need to get used to if I want to gain some independence. 

So today we went for a drive. We chose this afternoon because the roads are a bit quieter on the weekend and with our language lessons Monday to Friday, the weekends give us a bit more time. Ok so I may have only driven about 20km, but during that 20km I avoided hitting any of the 100+ people walking or riding on the road. I also avoided hitting any goats, chickens or other cars, so all in all quite a successful outing I think!

We did get a few weird looks as people saw Ben in the passenger seat, you don't really see a lot of women driving their husbands around. So although I am not quite ready to drive around by myself, I think I am almost looking forward to our next lesson.  

A trip to the nursery.

Today on our way back from the lake we stopped in at a nursery to get some plants for our new home. I had a few things in mind, but not sure what plants they would have, I was trying not to get too ahead of myself. I have been wanting to grow some aloe vera for a while, so that was first on my list, second was a nice plant for inside the house, thirdly some herbs, and fourthly, whatever else took my fancy. 

Walking through the nursery was great, they had a wonderful range and signs in English, which was very helpful. After spying a few herbs on the way in we walked up and down the rows of plants just seeing what else they had. Thankfully right about then someone came to help us and steered us in the right direction of the aloe vera, hooray- aloe vera: tick. 

Next a plant for inside, there was lots to choose from, so we ended up with a bamboo palm and another smaller plant for inside. Inside plants: tick. 

Thirdly was the herbs. We had seen mint, oregano and basil on the way in, but we were also guided to rosemary, chives, garlic and lavender. Herbs: tick. 

Next was whatever took my fancy, and I have to say I was really quite restrained and we only bought one more plant, a beautiful flowering plant, I think it is a type  of bougainvillea, but I gues we will find out. 

And now for the surpring part, all of this set us back 7,200 Kwacha! A whole $20! There are definitely some things more expensive in Malawi, but I'm happy to discover plants are not one of them, and we all know what that means, more trips to the nursery for me!!

1 month In

It has been 1 whole month since we left Perth, and I can't believe how much stuff we have done! We have spent nearly 10 hours in airports, 15 hours flying, we have been in 3 countries and stayed in 5 different houses, and that is just the start!!

We have also had some really good and some really tough times, but we are so grateful that we have an amazing God, who knows it all, and is taking care of us. 

The girls have been amazing, doing so well with all our moving around and uncertainty. They are loving playing with all the other kids, and getting braver everyday with all their new aunties and uncles. 

At the moment we are spending some time with our team, which has been so wonderful, and this weekend we are getting ready to move into our house in Malawi while we learn language and culture before moving to Mozambique, so look out for some pictures soon. 

A Great Birthday!!

Well last week it was my birthday, that is right, I have now turned the big 24, and yes, only 1 more year before I can rent a car haha. For my birthday Ben kept everything very hush hush, and although I teased him about getting me a puppy (a very impractical gift) he got me something both lovely and practical, a bike. But he also got to go with the bike, helmets for me and Elizabeth, a bike rack for the car and fitted the back of his bike rack with a seat for Elizabeth, which she just loves. And aside from a short ride to test out my wonderful present we had a lovely restful day at home with lots of family time after our time away at the pastors conference without Elizabeth, yes you read right, we left our little angel with my parents and had a few nights by ourselves at the conference. So my birthday came just in time and we had a great day playing and resting together. And of course no Good birthday is complete without an ice-cream cake, and it was so good!!

Elizabeth loving her bike seat

My beautiful bike, we have called her Tiffany because of the colour.

The yummy ice-cream cake Ben made me. 

Playing Outside

Elizabeth loves being outside, like really, she LOVES being outside. She cries and throws little tantrums when it is time to come inside and she spends a large amount of her time inside going to the back door and looking out, waiting for us to say yes you can go play out the back, but really how can we deny her when she looks so happy...

Spoilt or what...

How lucky am I, 2 mornings in a row I have been blessed with breakfast in bed! And just incase you can't make out the picture, that is a warm banana muffin, a hot milo and a piece of mars bar slice, so I have to say, spoilt or what! What an amazing husband I have.

C c c cold!!!!

Ok, so I know it is only April, and I know that some of you may be shocked to read that we have put our winter quilt on the bed, but even more exciting than that, our electric blanket has also made it onto the bed! I know, I know, it's not that cold, and I would tend to agree, but my cold little toes definitely disagree! And just so you get a better idea, as I am writing this, it is 11 degrees, which is definitely cooler than last week, so the only thing that comes after winter bedding... lighting the fire, bring on winter!

She Crawls!!

Finally after what feels like a really long wait Elizabeth has finally decided to start crawling. I admit she hasn't made it very far using this method and it is still a bit slower than her current rolling and reversing action, but it's a start.

To go with the crawling she has also started pulling herself up on things and has become quite determined to walk so I am sure long before we are ready she will be running around keeping us busy!

Ram Sale

One of the things that I really love about being a pastor is being able to have the opportunity to share in people’s lives and also the life of the community. And here in the country it seems community is a big thing. 

Last week I went with one of the local farmers from church to a ram sale at a local stud. I’ve never been to a ram sale before and so I didn’t know what to expect. For those of you who have never been to one either let me quickly explain what they are. 

Ram sales are held by people that breed rams. These rams are then bought in an auction by farmers who take them back to their own farm who in turn use them to, as I think is the technical term, “service their ewes” as part of their breeding program. 

The ram sale is held in a big shearing shed. At this sale there were 176 rams up for auction. Each Ram has it’s own pen, and all the pens are arranged in rows 15 pens long. Now if you are a farmer interested in buying a ram you arrive maybe 2 hours before the auction starts to peruse the auction items.  Judging which rams to buy by their size, their wool. In fact (and I am saying this not to be rude but merely from a technical point of view) even the size of the ram’s testicles gets a look in; the bigger they are the more “ewes they can service”. 

Then at the set time the auction starts. Hat’s off to the Auctioneer, he auction/speed talked his whole way through all 176 rams in what seemed a matter of minutes (in reality it was a few hours) without a break. I bet his throat was sore by the end of it though. Anyway all sold and from what I heard it was a great sale for both the buyers and sellers.

It was a win for me as well, did I mention that there was free gourmet food on offer. The ram sellers put on morning tea, afternoon tea, and lunch. And despite the large turnout no one went hungry. For lunch we had a roast lamb that was to die for along with homemade lamb pies. For both morning tea and afternoon tea there was cakes and slice also to die for.

Not bad for a days work.

Church Breakfast, more than a novel idea.

During the month of September Wagin Baptist has been having breakfast together. Breakfasts would start at 9am followed by the church service at 10:30am each Sunday morning. These breakfasts were put on by the leadership of the Church for everyone who came to church on a Sunday morning. 

Each week the turnout was great with practically everyone who was coming to church coming to the breakfasts as well. 

The Church made good use of the new BBQ over the month cooking sausages, bacon, eggs, mushrooms, and tomatoes. Also to go with our cooked breakfasts we had toast, cereal, fruit salad, a lovely muesli mix, and breakfast muffins. 

The Church really enjoyed the breakfasts and there has even been the suggestion of making it more regular or at least a seasonal tradition. One of the great positives of these breakfasts has been the fellowship that has been enjoyed each Sunday. 

So often we rock up to church just before it starts, take our place in the pew, not really talking to anyone. And when the service starts we all sit not interacting, singing and listening in our own little box. And then when the service finishes we either quickly drink our cuppa and eat our biscuit or rush off and get church business sorted for the next week. 

What these breakfasts before the service have achieved is incredible. You can feel the real community spirit at these breakfasts and then that also overflows into the church service. I was leading the the first Sunday, and besides the fact that no one was late, the singing almost blew the roof off. Everyone was singing with one voice. 

It seems that church is more than a rock up, sit, listen, go home event. These breakfasts confirm the fact that Church is a community of people that live like a community, in community with each other and with our King Jesus. I think Jesus may have been onto something when he described the end of time as a feast. I think being a part of these breakfast here in Wagin has helped me better understand that grand feast that we will all sit down to when our Lord returns.

Mr Chef with the new bbq

Thanking God for the food

It's almost ready

Ok now time to line up and enjoy

Cereal anyone?

I forgot to mention we also had a communion feast as well

A great time to enjoy good food and great company

Totally Worth the Wait...

Every now and then we decide to have dinner after we put Elizabeth to bed at 7pm, this gives us an opportunity to linger over our meal and to catch up without any need to rush. The other night took this concept to a whole new level. My wonderful husband said that he wanted to spoil me and cook dinner and clean up as well, he wanted me to be a lady of leisure, so I told him that is fine if he wanted to get started after I put Elizabeth to bed, so he did.

He started pulling very random ingredients out of the cupboard and told me I was not allowed to ask what he was cooking. At first it looked like a risotto, but he still had ingredients left on the bench, try as I might I could not figure it out... Then suddenly it occurred to me, arancini.

At this stage the clock was reading close to 9:30pm, we had long been joking about being tired and hungry, however the funny side was rapidly being overtaken by real tiredness and hunger. It was pure relief to see the first batch hit the plate, and while standing at the bench while Ben was still cooking we started breaking into them. Oh, they were so delicious, delicious creamy risotto with a mozzarella centre with a beautiful crunchy coating, yep, definitely worth it.

Hanging Out the Washing

I know this might be hard to believe, but one of my favourite times of the day is hanging the washing on the line. Now dont get me wrong, it never used to be my favourite, but now that we have a beautiful and fun little girl that loves being outside, this potentially boring job becomes so exciting. Now a simple sheet becomes the best place to hide for a game of peek-a-boo and hearing Elizabeth sit and chat with the birds and other animals she sees, gladdens the heart. I guess I am just so fortunate to have lots of washing...

Hopefully this will mean we will be blogging a whole lot more!

Hi everyone, guess what. We've got the new blogger app for iPhone.

Now I don't usually endorse apps in a place like this but I had to blog about this one. Google's blogger app has come to iPhone. Now this means that we can blog about anything, wherever we are, when ever we want, as long as we've got the phone with us, which is like always.

So stay tunes for more blog posts from Love, Life and a little bit of mess!

We're Back!!

I know we have had a long and unexplained absence, so I hope you will forgive us for not writing, but we are back and ready to tell you all about our adventures from the last couple of weeks. I am going to break it up into 1 week blocks of the last 3 weeks, just so its easy to keep all the goings on straight.

Week 1
The first week away was spent in Perth. Ben attended a conference where  American theologian Scot McKnight was speaking. The conference was Monday and Tuesday, and while Ben was busy there I had an opportunity to spend some time with some friends and family which was great.

On Wednesday we ran errands and a few other jobs before things got really interesting on Wednesday night... We have been quite fortunate to get through the winter without any major colds or flus, but that all changed with Elizabeth getting quite a bad cold. Being away from home made things all a bit much for her, so the next few nights proved to be a bit of a challenge when it came to sleeping.

I ended up catching her cold, and it was at that stage I totally understood why she couldn't sleep, I was so congested that just trying to breathe made sleep nearly impossible. We stayed in Perth until Saturday as we had a few events to attend, the first being a goodbye party for our friend Alan, who has now headed off to Mozambique and the second an engagement party for our friends Tash and Dave.


Week 2
On return to Wagin, poor Ben had a sick and sorry wife and a sick and sorry daughter to take care of and while we tried to catch up on some sleep and focus on getting better we were also getting ready for the week to come, a week of training in Melbourne.


Week 3
We headed back to Perth on Saturday ready to fly out to Melbourne on Sunday morning. Elizabeth is becoming such a well seasoned traveller, this is her second flight to Melbourne, and she just loves flying and getting all the attention from the air hostesses. We were so blessed to be taken care of by some friends Richard and Maxine who took Elizabeth in as their honorary 7th grandchild.

The training we were in Melbourne to complete was like an induction course in preparation for heading to Mozambique. It was very helpful and we had such a great time making new friends and catching up with old ones. I think Elizabeth definitely enjoyed herself the most, being the only child on the course, she was very spoiled with willing arms to hold her at every opportunity.

We flew back to Perth on Friday night and arrived back home on Saturday. We are very glad to be home, although I think that now we are home Elizabeth may get a bit bored with only her mummy and daddy to play with, so I am thinking that we might start attending the local playgroup, but I will write more of that as it progresses. For now that is it, a very brief overview of the last few weeks.

Elizabeth's New Favourite Face

A couple of days ago Elizabeth started pulling this face, she scrunches up her nose and draws up her top lip and breathes quickly (I know you are all trying it hehe). She has been doing this to show her displeasure of a situation and sometimes just because she enjoys it. We are trying not to encourage it, but boy is she hilarious!!! I'm not sure the pictures really do the face justice, but I think you will get the picture. Please tell us, is this a normal baby face, did your babies make funny faces like this?

Happy playing...

And wham, that nose starts to come up...

Such a beautiful face!!