This is the class that James is teaching this week! Everything is going great and God is moving in amazing ways. Praise God!

Keep on praying pls, two more days!

I'm finally driving after more than 10 years of getting my license!

I've had a phobia of driving after getting my license coz I was horned at by a police car (!) and almost reversed into a drain with a group of youths in the car. And I'm generally a scaredy cat. Driving was just too stressful a thing for me. There was never a real pressing reason for me to drive since transportation was so easily available in Singapore and it was too expensive to own a car anyways.

But here in Matamata, we can't go anywhere without a car! Plus James doesn't have a driving license although I think he can prob drive better than me.

You ask, how did we survive the past 1 and a half years? The first school we did, we thought we were just staying for 3 months and it wasn't so important that we couldn't get to places. There was a van run to town every week and if we needed to go into town, we could just get a lift from someone.

When we returned in July last year, Gin was here too and we decided to buy a car together. I thought I'll try driving then but still, the inertia was just too strong. She drove most of the time so I didn't feel like I really needed to.

BUT NOW! We have a car (7 seater at that!) and no one to drive us around anymore! So…………….. I decided to just get on with it. Turns out, it's really not that bad. Funny how fear can grip us so tightly that we can't see past anything and everything is an excuse to why I can't do it. But I believe God answered my prayer and gave me a breakthrough. I felt so at ease the first time behind the wheels and today, I actually drove into town and back with Claire as my coach. Sophie even fell asleep on the way home!

I'm SO thrilled!!!!! For those who know me well prob know what a breakthrough it is for me! I am so looking forward to driving into town on my own soon…. yay!

We're back in New Zealand! It's really cold! It ranges from 4 to 16 degrees celsius through the day. This morning was frosty and our car was covered with frost! Apparently it was snowing further south in the North Island!

We are very grateful to have had the past 5 weeks of holidays (1 week in Brisbane and 4 in Singapore).

It was a really good break for us. We got to see our family whom we missed very much. Sophie is much older now and she can better appreciate the family relationships. She really enjoyed going daily to Jurong Point Mall with Mama and Yeye and being blessed with lotsa toys, books and clothes. She also enjoyed spending time with her cousin Janice and was so happy to finally see Grandpa after a year and a half and of course Grandma too. She got to eat almost whatever she wanted and slept as late as she wanted.

With the grandparents around, James and I actually had quite a bit of time to ourselves! We went shopping, met up with friends, ran errands, watched late night movies, went out for supper etc, things that we hardly get to do here.

It was such a good trip although we do regret that we didn't get to meet up with everyone we wanted to and could not really go deep in conversations as we wanted to but we hope you understand and you all mean so much to us.

We feel refreshed and recharged with fresh words from God and just filled with amazing grace.

We are carrying this grace into this week as we resettled on the base. Everything has slowed down here.

- The FMS outreach team is almost done with their local (NZ) outreach.
- Base duties are limited. We're just cleaning up the base in between schools.
- I'm back to homeschooling Sophie. The other big thing is I'm starting to drive again! And this time, I'm actually enjoying it! And I'm really enjoying the space and quiet.
- James is preparing to go to Vanuatu this Saturday for a week to teach in the DTS on the Lordship of Christ and Father Heart of God. His sensitive nose is reacting to the weather change so he's having a cold but praying that with rest, that'll soon past.
- Sophie's doing great. She spent 2 nights asking for me just before midnight and crying for her friends Evan and Eli but she's alright now. She's now back to sleeping 8pm – 8am. She's totally enjoying the outdoors once again but I have to keep reminding her to put on her coat and shoes.

We thank God for the rest we had and are ready for the year ahead here. We're going to be on base staff from July – Dec and after that we're staffing the next FMS from Jan 2011 onwards.

Thanks for supporting us in so many ways. We feel really blessed. This morning I am reminded that we need to abide in Him (John 15). I think that's going to be our focus for the year ahead – to really learn to abide in Christ and allowing Him to prune us to bear fruit for His glory.

Please continue to pray for us.

While the little one is entertained by Toby, her best guy friend on the base, I'm going to just blog about my crazy amazing cake making friend Wanz.

Wanz just started her own baking blog and it's so great!! You should see it for yourself. It always makes me drool. In case you wonder how this amazing woman keeps her shape, she is also a marathon runner. I guess it all works out ya Wanz?

Go to A Spoonful of Sugah and drool away…

I’m not sure if it’s just the heat but I’ve been feeling really tired.

Past few nights I’ve been in bed by 9ish, which is super rare for me. In fact, I’ve been falling asleep faster than Sophie! Swollen feet, eczema flaring up, stretchy tummy and achy back, all part and parcel of this pregnancy. I think Baby No. 2 is a little bigger than Sophie was coz I don’t remember being so heavy until the last month with Sophie.

But all in all, I thank God that it has been a pretty smooth pregnancy so far and real thankful for all the good food that my in laws have been cooking the past few days!

I know I say this after every trip. Nothing really beats traveling on SIA. Seriously. They are actually nice and concerned. Esp if we travel with kids.

Here’s Sophie giving them a thumbs up, esp for the fact that they have a screen for her and lovely food and toys. She was SO excited about the TV screen because we flew Qantas from Auckland to Brisbane and she was really disappointed that there wasn’t one. Actually…. I was even more disappointed haha coz I thought she’ll be entertained throughout. But thank God she was happily eating and playing with her toys for the first part and slept the rest of the 2 hrs. Phew!

We’re home!

We just spent a week in Brisbane with my sis, Rach and some other friends. And now we’re back in Singapore for the next 4 weeks. It’s so good to be back. Will blog more soon!

I’m very pleased to annouce that after being here for almost 1 and a half years, we finally found a church that we enjoy going to! Occasionally we go to the Baptist Church in town but it’s really big (ok not as big as SJSM) and full of old people. The teaching is good but just a very foreign feel to it, not very intimate. With the amount of teaching and ministry we get on the base, there really wasn’t a really desire to go to church on Sundays so we normally just stay in.

James found out about Soul Church through a doctor in town and we decided to go check it out with the Freestones. It’s on Sunday at 6pm.

When we arrived, the kids were eating fish and chips for dinner and Sophie happily joined in with Toby and Eli. Little Soul (the kids’ church) start at 5.45pm and they serve fish and chips for the kids! Woo hoo! That’s a real draw. It’s not a big thing for Sophie because she’s not into fried fish or chips BUT I thought it was such a cool idea! We had a good chat with the pastor’s wife who was also in charge of the children’s ministry. She was really enthusiatic and very nice. Sophie was fine for a while and when dinner ended and they went for dancing and worship time, she came to get me. So I joined in for a bit. It was SO FUN! We danced to some cool bible verse music with cool actions (no hillsongs here, yey!). After that they did some craft and then watched TV. When Soph was more settled, I went back to the main service which was just next door. The following week, she was totally fine on her own which was great.

Soul Church starts at 6pm – extremely seeker friendly timing. It’s great for us because after a long week, we can sleep in on a Sunday and spend some family time. Service is short, ended by 7/7.30pm and very simple preaching. In fact, they are in their Commitment series and the pastor was challenging the congregation to commit. Soul is a part of the Mosaic church in the US. They started as a home church, a church plant and grew. They just started meeting as a service recently. The pastor has a full time job but he and his wife took the challenge and planted the church in Matamata. It really reminded me of early HeartBeat days where everyone knew everyone. Lotsa youths and young adults. Prob only about 60 people each week. So much potential for growth here. Just felt like God gave me a burden to pray for the staff and leaders and a passion to serve in anyway possible in this growing church. We like the family atmosphere.

We’re looking forward to spend more time to get to know the people here and grow with them over the next year. In fact, I know I really like it because I’m going to miss it when we’re away and Sophie keeps asking when we’re going back.

Oh yes! Our wonderful tenants are moving out at the end of June! They have been just GREAT!

So our beautiful 3- Room flat at HV (right next to Cold Storage) is up for rental. Pls pass the word around.

We would love to have someone we know or at least known by our friends to rent it. We prefer to rent it to a married couple OR a family with one young child. One year or more rental period.

For more information, pls email us.

School has ended!!! Today is our first day back to being base staff. The workload is a lot lighter when the school is not functioning. Just a couple of work duties and other adhoc things to clear up. Once I get my act together, will blog more.

Meanwhile, here our homecoming dates: –

2 May – 8 May – Brisbane, Australia

8 May – 5 June – Singapore

We’d love to meet up with as many of you as possible, esp those flying in and out during this time! After that we’ll be gone again for another year. Really hope to catch up during this trip home. See you all real soon!

Oh yes! And I’m so pleased to announce the launch of the new Family Ministries NZ website!!!

James has been working so hard on it over the past two schools on the side. While everyone does base maintenance, he’s been working with Dave, another student, to develop the new site that is fully wordpress based and very customisable and easy to maintain (= even I can maintain it ).

It comes complete with a blog, photo gallery (linked to Flickr) and Facebook link! Ooooo and even iPhone compatible! Wah my hub is so smarty pants.

It’s so shiok to look at it. If you note closely, you can see Sophie’s drawings on it too!

If you wanna find out more about the schools that we’re staffing in and look at our base pictures, the website is the best resource. Pls pass the word on!!

Top from left: The Class of FMS 2010, James and I all dressed up. Me in my Hansel dress with lovely handmade brooch by Sue (I finally found an occasion to wear it!)
Bottom from left: Sophie’s creche teachers, Sophie and Evan dresses as princesses on their own special kids’ banquet table.

I can’t believe we’re done staffing our second school!

The students graduated last night and we had a "Banquet with the King" celebration dinner with lotsa good food, great fun and dancing! Congrats Class of FMS 2010! It’s been such a pleasure serving all of you and growing with you.

Sophie and her little classmates did some songs too. SO CUTE! Hope to upload a video real soon.