The great thing about this particular YWAM base is that we try our best to involve the kids in all that we do. I’m finding myself leading quite a bit of the family events e.g games, intercession, worship etc. I’ve not really done these things before with children coz I used to work with youths more. It’s really quite different working with young children and some don’t even speak English well. But I’m really enjoying it – singing Who’s the King of the Jungle?, pretending to be able to play the guitar (hiak!) and being silly… secretly loving it!

Last week, we had class intercession and we made prayer posters (making collages of prayer items) for our outreach locations and had a time of popcorn prayer (one sentence prayer).

If anyone has more ideas of how to involve the families in prayer and worship, I’d really like to learn more! Pls email me!

We had quite a crazy day today.

In the morning, James caught an eel using a self-made eel trap and he made unagi! Check out the process on our flickr site. I’ve uploaded the pictures of the trap and stuff!

Later at night, he found a calf stranded by the river (later we found out that the calf was two days old and it had slipped down the slope towards the river when the mother cow gave birth to it. poor thing!). After dinner (we had a massive Chinese food feast at our home and invited some friends over), he went back with our friend Stuart to rescue the calf and brought it back! We got the farm next door to come over to collect the poor calf. The kids were kinda sad that they couldn’t keep it as a pet. Hiak!

What a day, what a day!

It’s been two months since we’ve been here and I’m proud to say, we’re pretty much lived in!

Now our kitchen looks like a typical Chinese household kitchen! Woo hoo! We’ve been doing lotsa cooking over the weekend, at least one meal.

So far we’ve had Chicken Curry, Prawn Fried Hokkien Mee, BBq chicken, pig & cow innards (so cheap lah!) ala yakitori style (James’ idea), Chicken Rice etc…

Note to Prima Taste: YOU ARE A LIFE SAVER.

P/s James said he wanted to write a thank you note to Prima Taste so there it goes.

We witnessed the birth of a calf last Sat at Ross & Sheryll’s farm!

3 things I learned talking to Ross (who btw is also our school director):
1. If the calf comes out wrongly, sometimes they cut it up piece by piece so that it’ll come out fully! Yeeks!
2. If the calf is a bull, it’s useless to them and they will sell it away and they’ll only earn $25-$30 bucks. Er… almost the same as 2 pieces of beef for bbqing. Hmmm….
3. Er… the cow ate up the placenta after the birth. Ok, maybe it does have some health benefits. Double yeeks!

It was so amazing to see it live. City girls like Soph and I never seen anything like it before! James was the "nat geo" photographer who dared go up close in the middle of the delivery to take pics. I stood a mile away coz I was so scared. Never go near a lady giving birth. Been there, done that!

We’re back on the base!!!! Yipeee!

We had a great flight from Brisbane to Auckland. As usual, our little one soaked up 3 hours of Playhouse Disney. I’m so happy that Air NZ shows Playhouse Disney as compared to SIA that shows Nickalodean. But still prefer the service on SIA. Ok short flight, can’t complain!

Actually, after 3 hrs of tv, Sophie knocked out when we were collecting our bags. Not a bad thing considering we had to get 9 pieces of lugguges through the declarations etc… We managed to bring in everything and we also didn’t pay for extra baggage on route to Auckland, phew!

Our base registrar Malcolm came to pick us up at the airport. So nice to see a familiar face. We decided we had enough travelling and living out of suitcases so we did not stay a few days in Auckland this time round and came directly to the base. The ride was only 2 hrs and Sophie slept thru.

This is our new home for the next year. More photos to come…. check flickr.

It’s amazing how China picks up some things so fast…. all the shopping places charge for their paper bags (ya… no more plastic bags!) and also no sign of styrofoam boxes, all paper now.

We need to learn.

Btw, that’s my fav foldable shopping bag that I bought from HV for $12. It’s ex but it looks great and it’s been one of my fav travelling tools so far. Aus and NZ also charge for shopping bags now.

We finally found some worthy shopping spots in Auckland. This time round we managed to check out Ponsenby and Parnell. A little similar to Brunswick in Melbourne. Quaint lifestyle shops in Victorian restored buildings, cool local design and some inde art galleries. Here’s Sophie checking out some font art…… right.