Amanda’s Musings

At around 11.45pm we went for a walk and ended up on the children’s playground area chatting away. We’d known each other for at least 3 years and in that time we had been a couple once (very short lived) but apart from that just friends.

Where we started ‘going out’ at Adventure world (taken a year later)

At 2 mins to midnight Michael asked me if I would ‘go out with him’ (be his girlfriend) and I said yes. We were 16 and 17 at the time. Within 3 years we were engaged (1994) and got married in 1996.

In two days time I would have achieved one of my goals for 2006. At the start of the year, about this time last year in fact my parents flew off to Papua New Guinea where they live as missionaries. So they wouldn’t miss out on my darling daughter growing up over this first year I promised to send a photo to them every single night. I did this until they had to return to Australia for family reasons in October.

I also planned on taking at least one photo of Keziah every day to keep as a record of the year. I had visions of a photography exhibit where 365 photos were displayed alongside each other in date order (maybe one day I’ll just do that). I have managed to achieve this goal so far and I’m looking forward to putting together a really long power point presentation with these photos in, maybe as a gift for family. Here is Keziah exactly one year apart, amazing the difference a year makes!

Now I need a new project. I was wondering if any of you out there have a suggestion or two for me. I was thinking that I could continue to record something each day, either written, drawn or photographed. I’ve got a few ideas tucked away in my head but I’m really interested in any you may suggest. Go ahead and fill up the ol’ comments box below!

Just thought I’d mention that my hubby Michael now has a blog. He’s likely to talk about sport, theology and probably computer geek type stuff BUT he’s pretty good at putting words to ‘paper’ so have a peek even if these aren’t your types of topics. Michael’s blog

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Michael has graduated from Trinity Theological College with a BA Theology - CONGRATULATIONS HONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This of course means that we can focus more of our joint time on mobilsing for mission as is our role with SIM. We have been spending a lot of time planning and catching up with the pile of work that always manages to creep up on you when you go away for a few weeks but we are enjoying it. The more we do it the more enthusiastic we get but at the same time the task is quite overwhelming.

If you are interested in talking about missions and how you can become involved either here in Perth (or Australia wide) or overseas, please contact us, we’d love to journey with you.

I have finally had the chance to start listing some of my hand made items on Etsy.

So far there are just 7 items available which is all I can handle for the moment but there will be more to come as I plan for a properly stocked shop in the future.

The items for sale so far are all pins but look out for my beads, pendants and miniatures in the near future. One day I might even get brave enough to list some knitted items or paintings!

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Michael and I on Green Island, just off the coast of Queensland near Cairns

Yesterday morning at 2.30am Perth time we arrived home after 3 weeks away over east. What a busy three weeks we had. The first thing I noticed when we got out of the terminal was that there was no humidity. It was quite refreshing after living with low humidity in Sydney and then quite full on humidity in Cairns. Good ol’ Perth, it was 36C yesterday (that’s almost 99F) but with no humidity!!

This has been the first ‘real’ holdiay we’ve had in quite a long time (probably years). We go down south of Perth a few times each year but usually it involves an aspect of our ministry. SIM flew the three of us over to NSW for the training week and then they flew us back to Perth but we were able to use frequent flyer points mostly for the rest of the flights. Most of the activities we did were free which was wonderful, didn’t take much to enjoy the tropics, just drive to a rainforets, gardens or beach. We do feel refreshed and ready to go into 2007 which will bring new challenges and changes.

Anyway, Cairns was really lovely. I tried to do a post the other day about our trip to the botanical gardens but I lost the whole post due to a computer freeze! Don’t you hate that. Here’s some of the shots I was going to share with you. I’ve discovered two things about God while at those gardens - he’s an abstract artist and I reckon he had a ball of a time creating those tropical plants!!

Keziah got to have a great time too. She got to experience a lot of new things including meeting her cousin Malachi who is 6 months older than her. They’ve only met once before, when she was 2 weeks old. She also went in the pool for the first time ever and was able to run around on a beach for the first time. She absolutely loved both as you can see from the photos below!

Now that we’re back we’ve got a lot of SIM work to get onto as well as Christmas so we’ll be busy. Michael’s already preaching this morning at a church here in Perth so he’s right back into it. So, here’s some photos, thank you to everyone for my birthday greetings in the comments below too, I appreciated them.