February 6th

We can't believe we are in week 5 already - time is racing by so quickly! Jon went on a walk with some people from the church on Saturday in Adlestrop - great weather and good fellowship.

Ali did the children's talk in the morning service on Sunday. She blew a balloon up, let it go and then hung grapes on a piece of string! And all to illustrate John 15:1-17.

Jon led communion in the evening - but without the balloons, string and the only grapes were in the wine!

Ali went along to the lunch today and then shared some of her personal story at the Ladies Fellowship. Jon is busy planning the Home Group material for tomorrow evening.

January 24th

First up - Ali passed her driving test on Monday after the blog was published - She is still in shock!

Second, we were at another pastors' meeting yesterday morning, followed by Jon going to the lunch club and Ali going to the Ladies Fellowship. There was lots of postive feedback about Jon leading the evening service on Sunday, but he was accused of being a Pentecostal by one lady! (This was a positive comment...!)

Jon went to the Christianity Explored course that began at Cambray on Monday night. It was a generally good experience but it was the introductory session. Hopefully he will be able to continue going along and see some more of the course. Seeing as it is based on Mark - the Mark course we did in the autumn term will be coming in useful!

January 9th

Yesterday evening Ali was invited to a meeting that was discussing arrangements and plans for a women's away day. It was very interesting to see how they view the importance of women in pastoral care within Cambray.
Today we began by meeting with John, Fred and Don to talk over what we'll be doing during the week. We then went along to the lunch club and got to know a few of the more mature members of the congregation. The food was great, and the club seemed well attended.
After lunch we went in two different directions; Jon went to the men's prayer meeting and Ali to the ladies fellowship meeting.
The prayer meeting consisted of about half a dozen older men, although some people were away today. Jon was asked if he would mind opening with a brief moment of devotions - five minutes before the start! It seemed to go OK, and it was good to spend time in prayer with these men.
The ladies fellowship was a well attended group. Two ladies shared their personal verse for the year and Ali was interviewed (but at least had had prior warning and was ready to be questioned.) Fred spoke about Psalm 138 and afterwards there was a welcome cup of tea!
This evening Jon has gone along to sit in on a deacons' meeting.

In the next couple of days we will be attending home groups, a bible study and the toddler group, so will be quite busy dashing back and forth to Cheltenham.

August 11th

Jon had the opportunity to visit the same couple as last time (two weeks ago). The lady had been at the womens meeting yesterday and had taken a copy of my devotions home with her - she has already given a copy to her neighbour.

While he was out I did some preparation for Sunday. Jon got back just before lunch and I went straight out with Ian to the Foundations group. They were having a pancake party to encourage newbies to the group. There seemed to be more people round and the conversational English class (based around a newspaper article on the water shortage here) attracted a bigger group than the previous time I was there. Afterwards we moved into a time of games followed by worship. As we were waiting for the games to begin I spoke with one girl, from Hong Kong, who happened to have been born in England – near London! Her parents moved back to Hong Kong when she was about 5 so she doesn't remember much about the UK.

I took the girls along to South Bank, leaving Jon to work on his sermon once I had got home. Ian rang me while I was out to tell me youth group wouldn't be happening so having got back and told Jon, he decided to go to Bridges. As we arrived home we found Jon taking pictures of the beautiful sunset - the colours were amazing!

I didn't say anything yesterday but we heard about the news from the UK at around 7pm Australian time. It is a weird experience to know all that is going on back home. We are hoping it won't affect our journey back which is coming all to quickly - we can't believe we've got less than two weeks left!

Jon has just got in from Bridges - he found the group really encouraging tonight as he saw the young people really starting to build relationships with each other and grow as a group. When he gave out a leaflet advertising the prayer event we are planning, they were all shocked that we are going home so soon. They can't believe it any more than we can!

August 10th

Jon took the girls to a new park nearby while I went and led the devotions at the women's meeting. It went really well - they asked if they could have a copy of what I had prepared to let everyone take one home! I had to leave early so Jon could go out and got back just in time. Jon had just had a call from Ian - so he rushed off to the church to meet up with him.

Jon went with Ian to the pastor's meeting - there were three other pastors there from two churches. He was struck by the fact that both churches had significant missionary programmes overseas. Peter Law, who spoke at Malyon yesterday, shared more about his organisations work. It was good to be able to learn more about what is happening in Eastern Europe.

This afternoon we managed to visit the beach, after I had finished my preparations for Home group this evening, to keep the girls entertained for a while.

Ian picked me up for Home group in his mini (he had told us previously that it has dodgy brakes!) which was an experience in itself. This week there were two children and five adults so there was more discussion during the study this week.

August 7th

We spent this morning reviewing last week with Ian and covered this weeks plan. We then arranged our placement project with him - a prayer event due to happen on our last Sunday here. There is a lot of preparation needed to get this together which we will have to start this week.

There seems to be a lot of things coming up, we will be going to the Baptist College on Wednesday after the change in our arrangements for last week. We will be going along to all the regular events that we have already been involved in - English conversation, Home Group, local pastors' meeting, etc., but in addition Ali will be leading the devotions at the womens' meeting on Thursday and Jon will be involved in the youth group on Friday.

This afternoon Kerry took us to the Gold Coast - the journey is a good time to talk about church and about our ministry as well.

The Gold Coast is a magical place with golden sands and huge rolling waves. The girls and I all got soaked, several waves took us by surprise and we got our trousers/shorts all wet! It was really blowy, but absolutely - take your breath away - beautiful! I found several fan shells which are gorgeous!

This evening we did planning, but are struggling with getting thoughts into words.