Today I was preaching at East Fremantle Baptist Church where a mate is doing a great job of leading the people in mission.

As I drove down the coast and saw the offshore breezes feathering the large swell I must admit to wondering what I was doing preaching on a morning like this!

I had planned to finish my sermon yesterday, but with so much on I got all of 45 minutes spent on it and finished up very much flying by the seat of my pants today. Perhaps I should say the Holy Spirit was leading me… I actually think he did, because it seemed to connect very well with a whole bunch of people there.

When we left LBC I felt very strongly that party of my calling was to plant churches that plant churches and another part was to train and equip people in that – at the very least be a catalyst for creative thinking, so I need to keep that balance between occasional speaking gigs and being ‘in the neighbourhood’.

Today I spent the day teaching my students at the Christian school I am employed by – where only kids with at least one Christian parent can attend. What of non-Christians?…

Well they can go to… the school down the street of course! (You weren’t thinking ‘hell’ were you?!)

From there I made my way home on the school bus and stopped in at the local tavern – a blue singlets and work boots kind of place. I was picking up a bottle of wine one day and noticed that it gets busy on a Friday arvo, so I thought I’d drop in and see if I could make some connections.

I went last week and had some very interesting conversations about God, faith and the meaning of life. Today I got into some more great conversations with the local tradesmen – blokes who are the salt of the earth, but just talk a slightly different language to some of us.

It is a real cross cultural experience for me to enter this world – I wasn’t brought up to venture into pubs – especially ‘rough’ pubs, but I’m enjoying the challenge of connecting with very earthy people in their environment – again folks who are never likely to roll into a church service – but who need a listening ear just like everyone else.watch license to wed in divx

Whatever else I am these days, I am still eligible to attend the annual Baptist Pastor’ Conference!

It will be an interesting time – especially when ‘the question’ comes up… The question? Of course its ‘so how’s your church going?’

I’m still pondering how to answer that one.

So from Monday morning to Wed afternoon we get to hang out with other guys, eat some nice food and listen to an American bloke called John Kaiser.

Its going to be 40 degrees C tomorrow too – nice for autumn!

After 6 weeks of teaching Phys Ed to primary school students my level of enjoyment was averaging around 2-3/10 – very very low and I must admit I have been wondering if I have made a terrible mistake thinking I could get back into teaching.

I have asked our prayer team to pray for me on this and today felt significantly different. I’d put it up around a 6/10 – almost enjoyable and certainly moving out of the ‘laborious’ category.

I am hopeful that by the end of the term it will be scratching around the 8/10 mark – but for now I’ll take a ‘6’.

Thanks ‘pray’-ers!

After teaching my 11/12 year olds on Thursday and Friday and then babysitting all day Saturday while Danelle took a Creative Memories workshop I was well and truly weary of children.

Then… It was up at 6.00am this morning to grumpy kids and it has just been ‘good-night’ to grumpy kids.

I feel pretty grumpy right now too.

I don’t want to see any children for a long time…

Ellie has just figured out to use the mouse touchpad on my laptop. I reckon that’s pretty good at 2 years old!

The only problem is that now she’ll want to use my computer!

With a bit of luck and / or help from above we’ll be seeing some surf on Saturday morning!! The wave height is now 2.5 m and looks steady… Come on baby!

Anybody up for it?…free thirty nine steps the

The first hour after I get home from teaching I like to retreat to my study and sit alone, in quiet.

After 5 hours of 11 & 12 year old kids you get pretty weary! The last few weeks I found that I wasn’t changing gears from teacher to dad very well (“Ellie go and sit outside – don’t argue – right take a pink slip…) so for all our sake its best if I chill out for a little while…

Did I mention that there are 35 1/2 weeks of the school year left to go?

For the last five days Danelle has been at a conference in Sydney and my primary job has been to look after the kids. My other three paid roles have come second!

Prior to her leaving we spoke about it as a ‘problem’ that we needed to deal with as best we could. It actually was a bit of a problem as I teach Thursdays and Fridays, however friends took the kids for us on those days until school was over.

The other time they were all mine…

I think we were all concerned for how things would work out – could I handle the two kids? Could I still get done the stuff that I needed to?

Over the five days I got nothing of any consequence done – but I made a discovery. I love being with the kids! Now that’s not new to me – but often I have been with them while I have been trying to get other things done. For the last 5 days I decided that if I got nothing of my own jobs done it wouldn’t matter.

We spent 5 days having a lot of fun together and while work is piling up, I said to Danelle that I reckon it would be good for us to do this a couple of times a year. She goes away for a few days and gets a breather from the kids and I stop work and just hang out with them.

It wsn’t what I was expecting, (I thought I’d be tearing my hair out) but its a great discovery to make!

Or stupidity?…

Knowing it was going to be 38 degrees today we (Ellie, Sam and I) ventured to the beach. As some of you would know it is a major operation to get 2 kids to the beach when there are two parents present – but with just one it certainly adds to the adventure!

After dressing, suncreaming and packing drinks and food for two kids we headed off.

We managed to get to the Yanchep Lagoon where Fatboy spent the first 15 minutes whinging and crying. I almost packed up and came home… Then he stopped and we had a great hour of fun building sandcastles, digging swimming pools and messing around.

I feel pretty proud just to have done it!