On weekends, we normally collect our lunch in the morning – veggies and ham and sometimes hard boiled eggs that we can make sandwiches with. A simple lunch. This allows the base to close the dining hall during lunch and the staff can rest.

But last Sunday, a few of us (the meat lovers!) decided to have a bring your own meat BBQ. Oooooo it was SO GOOD! The weather was perfect! One couple brought mussels and sausages and the rest of us brought real steak. You see, most days we eat minced meat – e.g in pasta or casseroles but no real meat/steak. Sooooooooo it was such a treat to have steak! And it’s sooooooooo cheap! We paid like NZ$15 for James and I to have 2-3 pieces of steaks each! Duh!

Ok James and I have discovered since we’ve been here that we are such foodies. It’s a Singaporean thing I think.

Over the weekend, our family was on weekend duty. What that meant was, we were part of a team to prepare dinner for the base as well as do all the clean up in the kitchen and main hall. There is a rotation for all the families and we only have to do it for two weekends throughout the lecture phase. It’s really not that frequent at all.

Last weekend, James and I decided that we would take the initiative to cook Chinese food! Most times it’s the school staff that will initiate the menu and we just help out in the preparation but this time, our school leader let us choose the menu. OF COURSE WE CHOSE RICE coz we only have rice once a week! Hahaha…

So together with 3 other girls, we cooked garlic oyster sauce chicken in the oven and stir-fried veggies served with rice. YUMS!

It was CRAZY! So stress! Never done it before. But my super husband is amazing. He never fails to surprise me with what he can do.

We followed a recipe book for the chicken. For the veggies, he just mixed a whole jar of black stuff that included oyster sauce and peanut butter (!). I had no idea what went into it because I was busy frying the veggies while he did the sauce. Oh… but so shiok to smell the fried garlic and onions, plus the smell of sesame oil that we took for granted back home. I loved doing the frying. I so miss that!

Well, it turned out to be a winner! We had great reviews, thank God! For us, we were just glad that it turned out edible! Hahaha…

P/s OH! Forgot to mention where Sophie was coz she is not allowed in the kitchen. We arranged with another family to babysit her and we would babysit their kids when it was their turn to cook. Worked out really well.

The weather is turning cold but still there is lots of sunshine. We spent Sunday afternoon at a nearby lake (about 20 mins from our base) on a boat! It was lovely! We got to fish and our friend got to water ski.

Sophie and Micha were a little scared when the boat went really fast but they really enjoyed it when we slowed down and went into a little inlet. The inlet was beautiful, almost magical. James even caught a trout when we stopped for a little while in the inlet but it got away. So sad……

There are more photos of our weekend on flickr. Check it out!

There’s a big problem that we have here – both of us don’t drive so we didn’t get a car. That makes us pretty much stuck on the base most of the time. There’s a weekly van run into town so we take turns to go. And on Sundays, the van also takes us to church.

What we’ve been doing sometimes is, we follow the van to town on Sun and instead of going to church, we spend some family time in town. It’s been really good for us. Last Sunday, we spent the morning at the cafe. Sophie had a little blueberry tart and her usual babycino with chocolate powder and a marshmallow by the side. That’s how they serve hot drinks here, with a little marshmallow by the side. Sweet.

She loved it and she’s been "upgraded" to sit on an adult chair, no need to sit on the high chair anymore.

The weather is turning and it’s really getting cold! It’s 9 degrees at the moment! Eeeks. It was just summer a few days ago.

It’s super cold today and I’m just happy to stay indoors.

Anyways it’s my first time witnessing the turning of weather. I’ve travelled lots but I’ve never experienced the turn of the weather before. Nice.

Sorry we’ve been so inconsistent in updating our blog. School has just been really busy!

But I’ve just uploaded more photos on flickr. Just click thru this picture to get to them. Enjoy!

Here’s a nice picture of Sophie and her daycare friends and teachers! Don’t they look lovely????? Hee.

They took a picture in front of the lovely sunflowers the day before a storm came by and swept away all the flowers!

Our classroom

We’ve really been enjoying school here. It’s even better than DTS* actually. DTS was fun as a single but I really think that it’s more fun experiencing this together as a family. It’s like going on a very very meaningful long family holiday.

This is our 7th week, more than halfway through our lecture phase. We had a week on Communication and Conflict Resolution (super siong, a lot of things to sort out between James and I), Parenting and Marriage and Pre-Marital Counselling. It’s been so good. I’ve learnt so many things at a deeper level. The good thing about it is that it’s so practical and we can put into practice all that we learn almost immediately. Ok that’s the hard part but….. it’s good.

I’m really enjoying watching 70 year old couples teaching together and blissfully married. That thrills me to bits! We just had the privilege of the founders of Family Ministries School in NZ teach us on Marriage and Pre-Marital Counselling over this week. They just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Oooo they are so sweet……. They shared with us how they blessed each child together as a family before they got married, how they handled the situation when their eldest child dated a non-Christian (the boy eventually accepted Christ on his own accord, wow! and he’s now a pastor!), and even their thoughts on sex so candidly.

I think we so much so much need to see that God’s word and God’s principles about marriage and family life transcends the generations, cultures and is true. I see it lived out in the lives of these couples who have been teaching us and it works.

*DTS is Discipleship Training School which is the foundation course that YWAM (Youth With A Mission) conducts. James and I met on the DTS in Singapore.

Oooo we had such fun last Friday. Our classmates raised funds by organising a banana split communal style! About 50 or more kids and adults sat together to eat a long long banana split served on a drainage pipe like thingy that they bought from the hardware store!

Sophie sat with the kids and had a ball!!!!! She was still at it even after the kids were done.

After the ice cream party, we went back to put Sophie to bed and came back to celebrate the birthdays of two girls with KTV using the Wii. It was hilarious! I’ve got a photo of the Pursuits DTS (the youth DTS) dancing to YMCA on flickr.

We are into our 4th week of school. So far we’ve had Jeff and Diane Littleton teach us on Parenting and Cross Cultural Issues, Sam and Tina Hofmann (our school leaders) teach us on Families in Missions and Ministry and this week Children’s Bible Ministries is here to teach us on how to minister to children. 

We’ve got weekly assignments, journal (weekly reflections) and we’ve just handed in our first book report (How to really love your child by Ross Campbell). We’ve got 1 more book report and a final research paper due at the end of the course.

We also have a marriage video that we watch once a week and there are exercises that we have to complete during our “Marriage Time”. Marriage time is like a special couple time that we have once a week when the kids are at daycare for about an hour. NICE.

There are many levels in which a school like that works. On one level, we have the teaching which is sometimes more head knowledge yet another level, God’s speaking thru the teaching at the heart. That takes time to process. It’s hard to pin point what exactly we’re learning here. I guess I can share about what we learn in class or thru the videos BUT God is really training us at a deeper level thru the teaching, through examples we see and just the environment we are in, to grow our relationship with Him and strengthen and sharpen our marriage and ministry as a couple.

One of the most amazing outcome so far has been how the Lord has led us to lead worship together. Twice so far. James will lead and I will support. I’m learning how to support him and it’s been great! We have been so encouraged by how the Lord ministered and moved through us. Also we’ve also started praying together more. That’s something that we’ve always struggled to do faithfully. As we see the Lord answer prayer after prayer, we have more faith to really press in.

The thing about it is that we hardly see couples teaching or ministering together back home but it’s always been a desire for us to do so. I’m greatly encouraged by what I’m seeing here.
 

I find that Sophie has been doing a lot of growing up here.

Today she queued up for her own ice cream cone after dinner! I didn’t even know they were serving ice cream! I saw her queuing up but wasn’t quite sure what she was doing coz i was busy talking to someone. When I turned round, it was so funny to see her walking around happily and obviously pleased with herself that she got her own ice cream cone!

She’s also been asking for permission to go visit her friends and hang out with their families.  She really likes that! In fact everyday she’ll be at someone else’s house at some point. The nice thing about being in community is that there’s always another kid at our place and everyone’s ok with Sophie being over at theirs too.

But more and more it seems like she doesn’t really need us! Ha! She’s growing up real fast! One time, she even ate dinner with the older kids at their table instead of sitting with us! Aiyo! I was so surprised she ate her dinner well even on her own. Like a big girl.

And finally towards the end of last week, Sophie’s settled at daycare. No more crying. In fact once, she carried her school bag and walked out of the house without us towards the school. I had to run after her!

I think she’s pretty much settled down.  Thank God for that. Thank you for all those who are praying for us and for all your encouragements. 
 

Last week was quite challenging.

Sophie caught a bug early in the week and was vomiting for a whole day. She woke up at 4.30am and started throwing up. Oh my! I’ve never experienced so much puking from Sophie before! It went on and off thru the day.  It cleared by evening and she was pretty much ok by then. 

I stayed home with her for two days just to make sure that the bug was gone before she went back to school. The second day James had a brilliant idea and we used the baby monitor on the reverse so that I could hear the lectures at home, LIVE! Super cool. Over this period of time, I’ve grown to appreciate how creative James can be! He’s set up a wireless network, created some shelves using cardboards, webcam Sophie sleeping in the room before we managed to borrow a baby monitor etc. He just built her a cafe with cardboard boxes and he’s in the midst of building a house for her. Hee.

We have been finding it very challenging with Sophie. She hasn’t been eating, sleeping or even settling well at daycare. Very trying. I think the change in structure and environment is taking a toll on her. 

Most of the time she is still only eating peanut butter sandwich, fruits, milk, yogurt, cheese and eggs. She hardly touched her main meals! But this week seems better. She’s been eating more of her food now. Woo hoo! 

Her sleep patterns have also been strange. She keeps waking up in the night and calling for us or sometimes crying. I’m not sure if they were nightmares. Last week we were attending to her through the night almost 3-4 times a night. Déjà vu of the early days! I think it’s getting better after much prayer. Apparently some of the other kids have been waking up with nightmares too so we suspect it’s a spiritual attack.

The thing that still affects me a lot is that she cries when we leave her at the daycare. After the two days at home with me, we had to resettle her again at daycare. It’s so tough. The thing about her is that she doesn’t cry for long and she’ll stop after we leave but just the thought of leaving her crying tears me apart. Argh. I’m not very good at this. But we’re praying that it’ll get better.

I think because of all these changes, she’s also been acting up a lot with us. She’s trying all sort of ways to push the boundaries with us. Some days it can get really distracting and discouraging. 

But this week, everything is getting much better and we just need to hang on and trust God that this will pass.