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.

We’ve been kinda busy the past couple of weeks. James is busy finishing up the base website (almost done and it looks great!!) and I donno what I’ve been doing but just takes up loads of time!

But we thought we’d like to share with all you friends and readers our upcoming plans.

We originally committed last July that we’ll stay and serve here on the base for 1 year and staff in two schools. Our term is almost up! The second school has come fast and is almost over! We are only left with one more week of lectures and one week of graduation and commissioning!

We are planning to come back to serve in NZ for one more year. We are not leading a mission team this time so we’ll return to Singapore via Brissy in May for a short break and then return to Matamata after. We have deliberated and prayed hard the past few months and finally came to the decision to give birth here and to continue to serve here. I struggled lots in the beginning because during the early part of the pregnancy, being hormornal and all, I just wanted to go home, rest and enjoy the comforts of home, friends and familiar food. But one night when James and I sat down to talk and pray, God showed me what I was truly struggling with – that I wanted it predictable and I wanted it comfortable my way but I forgot that God is the great comforter and He knew what I needed more than I did. When I began to surrender and allow myself to trust Him, I found myself becoming very peaceful about staying and even brave and excited to some extent! I discovered that at the heart of surrender is great joy.

I still have no clue how I’m going to manage two kids on my own while James continues to work on the base, give birth naturally in the small town hospital, and so on but I’ve got a strange peace about it or maybe I’m just in denial!!

Well, we’ll be back in Brisbane and Singapore in May and can’t wait to meet up with all our friends and I’m going to write a list of food that I wanna eat!!!

I chopped off my hair last weekend.

Got a bit tired of the long hair. My hair wasn’t so long since my wedding! I just haven’t had time or the opportunity to go for a haircut since before we left for Vanuatu. Ya! My last haircut was before October! With the pregnancy, my hair was dropping like crazy so I thought I better cut it before I go bald!

Can’t say I really like it… I would have preferred it a little longer but my hair grows really fast so no complains! Feels so much lighter… and much easier to dry in the mornings.

Funny thing was WL cut her hair the day after without knowing that I cut mine! So now we look alike from a far . People must think that we Singaporeans are really strange, always doing things together. Ha!

Thank you all for praying for us and the vote of confidence.
 

The Pre-Marital Counseling training went pretty smoothly and we even had some good feedback! Some actually liked our personal and relaxed teaching style. It’s not easy teaching on the topic of marriage to people who are married esp people who have been in ministry much longer than us.
 

But in the end, I realised that we actually have a lot more pastoral experience than we give ourselves credit for. So, thanks youth leaders and all our friends who having been getting married in the past few years and allowing us to be part of your journey. (Hee, we actually showed some of your photos and talked about you guys!)
 

Thank you for being part of our growing journey. We are excited and are looking forward to more opportunities to teach together!

From Babycentre: If you could hold your baby’s hand this week, you’d notice the swirling lines that make up his unique fingerprints. You’d also see the veins and vital organs beneath his tissue-thin skin. He’s growing… Are your long-lost energy making a comeback? If so, you may soon find out why many women call this the honeymoon trimester. For other women, the discomforts last a while longer yet. Every pregnancy is individual  even women who have been pregnant before find that the second or third are different.

We had a baby scan this week and saw the baby! He was so cute and the scan was extremely clear. Sophie came with us and she got to see it too. She was really amazed and I think we were too. It’s been a long time, more than three years ago since we saw a baby scan! Seeing the baby just makes it more real.

From Left: James, Esther, Eli, Gin, Evan and Sophie. The table was full of food!

Last year, Chinese New Year just passed us by! This year I was DETERMINED with a capital "D" to do something about it! And when I’m determined, I’m determined! Hiak!

Two weeks before, I started planning the menu and hyping it up with friends (Asian friends that is. I tried telling a non-asian friend about it and he was like huh?. ) I got down with Sophie and made her make some semblance of firecrackers, lanterns and Chinese fans with me… ok we tried. Then I went to the library and borrow a kids’ book on Chinese festivals and menus and I looked at it every night to drool… Finally, it wouldn’t have been complete if James didn’t make a trip to Auckland to buy all the foodstuff.

Left: We made these firecrackers with toilet rolls and crepe paper. Sophie made them on her own, very simple. I just showed her a couple samples.

Right: CNY is not CNY if the kitchen is not FILLED with food. Just looking at it made me so happy. Felt like home…

So on Chinese New Year eve, here was what we had:- steamboat dinner with chicken stock I made, hot pot mix, waxed duck, roast duck, stir-fry veg with chinese mushrooms, prawn mix chicken wings and dumplings! We even had durian after dinner! We ate till we had to roll out of our seats! It’s not a CNY meal if we didn’t eat till we dropped and have leftovers.

Hope everyone had a wonderful lunar New Year celebration with friends and family. We missed everyone back home and it’s really not the same without you guys.

From Babycenter:

Your fetus now looks like a baby, with tiny but fully formed fingers and toes. As his body grows and becomes more developed and functional, he’ll start twisting and turning like an acrobat, cushioned and protected by your amniotic fluid. You, on the other hand, are probably feeling less like a gymnast every day. Leg cramps, which can sometimes be a sign of calcium deficiency, and heartburn (caused by pregnancy hormones that relax the valve which separates the oesophagus from the stomach) may be annoying you during the day and keeping you up at night. Just remember, all this suffering is temporary and it’s all in a good cause you’re having a baby!

This week has been amazing! I feel like I’m in the 2nd trimester already. Energy level is up and I’m feeling pretty upbeat most of the time. Which is super cool because school is in full swing now and we have been really busy! I still need that little lie down in the afternoon but generally I’m good. I’m eating every 2 hrs and feel really greedy most of the time. The cravings are really bad this time. I’ve been thinking of eating that pink triangular steamed thingy with glutinous rice (what is that called!?!), duck porridge (Vic/Dan, the Maggi packs you sent are now coming to use! It’s my supper now.), fish noodles etc etc… HELP!

I’ve been reading this book by the Usborne called Flip-Flap Body Book to Sophie. It talks and shows how a baby grows in the mother’s womb, stage by stage. Pretty cool! A bit cheem for her but she enjoys looking at the pictures. Now she says baby is in the womb, not tummy.

YES! We’re expecting!!!!!!!! Woo hoo!!! Sophie and James are super excited. Sophie kisses my tummy every day. James started thinking about where the baby was going to sleep etc once we found out we were pregnant.

We really feel so blessed. It’s really God’s timing. We kinda told ourselves we’ll start trying end of last year and within a couple of months we were expecting. We found out on New Year’s Day. It was such a great start to a new year.

This pregnancy has been a bit more happening than when I had Sophie. I actually threw up for the first time! Like serious throw up. When I had Sophie, I hardly had any of the symptoms that people talk about – no morning sickness, no cravings (I was really hoping for some so I can make James do something ridiculous for me! HAHA!), no nothing.

But this time, WAH! it comes in full force.

I am hungry like ALL the time and when I look at food, esp dairy, I wanna throw up! Even writing about it makes me feel a bit queasy.

And I’ve been having cravings. Serious cravings. Like chilli crabs. HELP!

And I’m only in wk 9 and I can’t fit into my Miss Sixties jeans anymore. Ya ya the one pair I wear almost everyday. (Rem the Miss Sixties jeans that I kept trying on after giving birth to Sophie to make sure I could fit into it? It finally fit again when Sophie was 6 mths old. Sigh… have to wait long long this time.) Of course if I can’t fit into my Miss Sixties jeans there is no way I can fit into my skinnys. And that means, no clothes to wear! Have to ask my MIL to send the maternity clothes soon. So fast!

Complains aside………… WE ARE SUPER HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Baby’s due date is approximately 25th Aug 2010. We went to the local midwife on Sunday and had a chat with her. I think we’re quite comfortable giving birth here if we need to. We haven’t quite decided if we’re staying or going home, still praying. But whatever it is, we’re coming back to Singapore in Apr/May for a break and I’m seriously going to eat myself silly.

The Family Ministries School (FMS) begins tomorrow! I’m really looking forward to staffing it. 

We’ve got John Rush teaching on Worldviews on family (he did a great teaching of Biblical Worldviews during the last DTS), Ian Hooker back to teach on Parenting, Jono on Communication, Sheryll will be teaching on Learning Styles Multiple Intellegiences (understanding how we learn and how our kids learn, very interesting), Bruce Thompson on Family Counselling and much more.

This time all the school staff have also been invited to share on different topics so James and I will be teaching in a school for the first time. Guess what our topic is? Pre-marital counselling. Funny coz we’ve never done that in a formal way before BUT realised we’ve always done that with our young adult friends in some way or another. So pls pray that the Lord will show us what on His heart for this new generation of counselling couples who are preparing for marriage.

So what would you have wished someone told you about marriage before you got married? Or if you are single, what questions do you have about relationships or marriage?

Btw, if you have some thoughts about this topic, I’d love love to hear your thoughts. Doesn’t have to be a Christian viewpoint. 

I hope that being on staff this time will give me a bit more time to summarise some of the teaching and post them here. The last time the school was so intense mentally and emotionally. I mean there’s no way you can go through a school like that and not have to deal with inherent issues in your own marriage with God and your spouse. So James and I had lots to deal with. Plus all the level 2 homework, intense! So hopefully hopefully, will be able to condense the teaching because it’s been SO good.