Danelle got back yesterday after 5 days up north at her’s grandmother’s funeral.

I have been looing after the kids all week as well as trying to get a reasonable amount of work done. Reality is I didn’t get much work done at all. With a 4 year old and 2 year old there is very little that can be done as they require a fair bit of attention and energy.

When I came to send out my weekly prayer letter on Thursday I realised I had nothing substantial to say, or if I did I couldn’t be bothered writing it. I was quite tired and brain dead / numb from the kids.

I know this is the situation most mums find themselves in each week and it was good to be able to appreciate it. That said, I will happily stick to working as I do and leave Danelle to the home duties. As much as I love hanging out with my kids – and this week was a heap of fun – I don’t think I am wired up as a person to live there every day.

Well done to all you mums who do this day in day out!

Tomorrow is going to be fun!

Danelle left today for Halls Creek/Fitzroy Crossing where her grandmother’s funeral will be held. I have the kids all week and tomorrow is their ‘special day’. Ellie has been looking forward to this for two weeks now and counting the sleeps.

I love these days where we hang out all day and do the stuff they love.

It’ll mean breakfast at McDonalds, followed by Pooh’s Heffalump movie, then a visit to the swimming pool and then… I reckon Sam will need a sleep! So we’ll come home and play and then… I reckon it could be pancakes for dinner.

I can pretty much count on an early start tomorrow though. It feels a little like that Christmas eve feeling.

Today we had a great session with Darryn Altclass speaking of his work with Third Place Communities in Hobart.

Like John Jensen, Darryn spoke of the fact that people who are not Christians obviously don’t feel any need or desire to hang out in churches. Therefore we need to rethink the primary question we are seeking to answer as churches.

Is it ‘how do we get people into church?’ or ought it be ‘how do we get Christians into their communities and connecting with people out there?’

This weekend rather than charging admission to the events we held, we decided to simply take an offering with all the money coming in going directly to those who were speaking.

I have to admit wondering if we’d finish up short.

Reality is we pulled probably twice as much money as we would have thru an admission fee and we were able to really support and encourage the work of those who were presenting. People were very generous and I have say I was reminded of something in that over the weekend.

When people believe in something /someone, money somehow becomes available.

Thanks to all who were generous. I am sure the guys really appreciate it!free all the pretty horses

Yesterday we took Ellie to get her 4 year old needles – 3 of them.

She is a wonderful kid but definitely doesn’t like needles and can really kick up a storm in these kinds of scenarios. We left at 10.00 for the Doctors – both of us – me to hold Ellie and Danelle to look after Sam while Ellie screamed.

For some reason they called us into the room 10 minutes early… in time to watch another little 4 year old boy reduced to tears by the needles. He tried to be brave but after his two needles he was crying fairly loudly.

I don’t think this was good for Ellie to watch. As she watched him melt into tears she began to freak out. So when it came time for her turn she was well and truly ready to fight. She yelled, screamed and put up a fight I would have been proud of.

We managed to get her shirt off and did one arm… then the other… then the thigh…

I reckon when I left I felt every bit as traumatised as she did!

Needles suck.

Arrived… Its cold – that’s Melbourne for you…

I had the worst fish and chips in Melbourne the world. Thick doughy batter that was inedible and soggy three day old chips… The little Italian woman at the shop doesn’t speak enough English to understand ‘squid’…

"Can I have some squid rings please?"

"I don’t know what he is…"

I didn’t have squid…

divx last drop the I am staying with Phil and Dan for a few days and then I’ll join Kim Hammond. the joy of travelling…

It was that kind of day in sunny West Oz again today.

I tried to get my two presentations for the National Forge Summit finished today – which was a tad ambitious! I got the first one done (‘A Daring Adventure or Nothing – The Heart of an Apostolic Leader) but the second will have to wait.

I finished up at 4.00 and then Ellie and I decided to take the 4WD over the dunes and down to the beach to build sandcastles and play until dinner time.

The sun was warm and the breeze light. The surf was still huge and in the middle of it all we built sandcastles, collected shells and just had a fantastic ‘dad & Ellie’ time. It was one of those windows of time when that you savour and enjoy to the full.

Last Monday’s surf was so good that Paul and I decided that given the beautiful weather we would do it again today.

So at 11.00 we hopped in the boat and began to head up to the Alkimos, noticing as we went that the swell was significantly larger than last time… Last time we went on a 1.5 metre swell and the waves were easily head high at this northern suburbs ‘swell magnet’. (Here is a pic my brother took of Scarborough today)

Today with a 4 metre swell we were aware that it could be bigger (Duh…) but how much bigger?…

‘A lot’ is the simple answer!

We baled on the Alkimos after viewing it from a distance. Its a serious wave in a small swell and today it was probably a bit out of our league. We headed out to a nearby wave – there were plenty to choose from as every piece of reef along the coast was breaking. We navigated between breaking waves and big swells to find a safe place to anchor the boat.

We paddled about 200m in to find the waves. Big, chunky, lumpy waves…

I got one and got pitched. Oh well… Paul got one and after 20 minutes was still paddling back out… or maybe he wasn’t… I couldn’t see him… What to do?

If he’s drowned in there then me going back won’t fix anything – it’ll be too late. Might as well stay and get more waves… Then again that could be tricky to explain to Trish… I decided against catching any more waves myself. If he was having trouble getting back out then (based on last week’s effort) we could both be stuck inside with the boat sitting out the back and no way to get to it.

So I decided to take the boat and go and try pick him up on the other side of the reef.

Of course what happens?… I circle around the reef and get to the inside just in time to see him finally make it out the back. I was quite glad he hadn’t drowned. (Would have been hell to pull him off the reef.) Turns out he had been giving vent to his seasickness and throwing up while caught inside.

Ten minutes later he caught a wave, came in and we headed for home.

Its a BIG ocean. We are so small alongside it.

Today was a reminder.

Its not often you get to say that about the surf but today was just that.

sahara download After 3 weeks of rain we finally scored a sunny day, with light offshores, so Paul (another local church planter) and I launched the boat and made the 10km trip up to the Alikmos.

The reef we surf over is 2km out to sea so the effects of any wind is greatly exaggerated. Its easy to get a bad day up there, but a good one can be very rare.

Today was sensational.

Head-high waves, very light breezes and only 3 or 4 other guys made it one of the best surfs I have had in a loooong time.

We were going to take the camera and should have… but alas…

The only bad part was when my arms stopped working. After not having surfed for 6 months a couple of hours is way more than I can manage. I was about to paddle back to the boat but got suckered into one more wave… a left hander. I was so wiped I couldn’t paddle hard enough to get back out thru the lefts and had to paddle right around thru the right – probably another 2-3 hundred meters.

By the time I got to the boat there was nothing left in the arms!

It was great to hang with Paul too, another surf lover and all round good bloke (for a South African 🙂

I’m not a big fan of internet tag – but when someone gives me a chance to talk about the books I love them I’m right in there!

Thanks Darryl.

download good dick dvdrip Here are my answers to the question:

Number of books I own – My guess = 1200?… Doesn’t really sound like a lot does it? I remember when i used to walk into the studies of older pastors and see walls of books… and feel so dumb… Now I use libraries a lot more and do a fair bit of reading online. I’m not dumb (I think) just living in a different age.

Last Book I Bought: Emerging Church.Intro by Michael Moynagh. I still haven’t finished it! After a while ec books become a bit ‘blah blah blah’, and while Mike’s book is one of the best around I just haven’t been bothered finishing it yet.

Last Book I Read – William and Catherine by Yaxley and Vanderwal. This was an absolutely inspiring read. What an amazing couple they were!

Books that mean a lot to me:

Cloustreet by Tim Winton

The Turning by Tim Winton

Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Anything by C.S. Lewis

Reaching for the Ivisible God by Philip Yancey.

What I love about both Yancey and Lewis is that they are absolutely brilliant minds who ask the difficult questions about God and who (despite their intellect) arrive at the point of saying ‘there is an element of mystery we cannot fathom’. They push intellect to its boundary and then take a leap of faith.

I’m supposed to pass this on to 5 more people, but that’s the bit I don’t like, so if you’d like to write about your book fetishes then do so!

Its a public holiday here in Perth.

A mate rang up yesterday to see if I wanted to head out on a deep sea fishing charter. I said ‘no’ thinking the weather would be lousy and also because I wanted to spend the day with Danelle and the kids.

We were both right about the weather. This morning there were light offshores and it was very nice, but by 1.00 the rain was coming in and the wind was kicking up. It would have been a fun trip home from 80 kms out, not to mention very very cold!

So instead we took the kids to the model railway exhibition an event I expected to be fairly sparsely attended and hosted in a back room somewhere. I was wrong on that one!

It seemed every man and his kids were out to see the trains today and it was a big gig. We finally found a parking space and hustled into the show area where we spent the next hour jostling for a close up spot in front of the train displays.

They were very good and the kids were fascinated, but I had no idea it was such a popular pursuit. A guy standing next to me at one point said it well ‘its a whole little subculture all of its own isn’t it?’

mmmm hmmm…