Back and somewhat refreshed :)

It was important for the two of us to get away for a week and a bit. Over this past year we've been learning to guard our time off and seek to creatively rest from the work of ministry. This hasn't been easy, but we're beginning to get the hang of it at last!

Getting away also helps. Mt Tambourine was a great couple of days away. We spent a good deal of out time with a great book, a fireplace, and a warm cup of tea. And we ended up going for a horse riding experience - which you'll have to ask us in person for more details!

Last Sunday we returned from the Hunter Valley in NSW. We hired a car and braved the pretty rough roads (with potholes the size of small dams) to enjoy some of the valley's finest wines and celebrate the wedding union of Steph's cousin. You can see some of the wedding photos here.

Now we're back to work and getting back into things. RICE is upon us very soon, so keep praying for that as the first event - the RICE Big Day Out - is happening this Saturday!

P.S - our newsletter is overdue, we know! So keep an eye out for that soon!

We'll be right back :)

Steph and I are heading away for a week for a much needed break. We'll be spending a couple of nights in Mt Tambourine reflecting on our 2 years of marriage together - praying with each other and deepening our relationship further.

Then we'll be heading down to the Hunter Valley for Steph's cousin's wedding. We'll be back soon (and hopefully there will be plenty of photos to share!)

Sapporo short-term mission blog up and running :)

The absence of blogs here and at Salteee are not a reflection on my busyness this time! Instead I've been working on getting another blog (yes...I know!) up and running to share more of our recent short-term missions trip to Sapporo.

So without further delay I present to you my 'Sapporo Short Term Mission (Dec 2007)' blog.

On this particular blog you will find:

• Unseen photos from the trip
• My daily journal entries with thoughts and reflections on our activities and the people we met

Drop by and leave a comment or two :)
Steven

Most embarrasing moments whilst chairing!

I recently read a blog competition requesting submissions for the most embarrassing moments of leading Sunday services. Some of the entries were pretty funny and as I reflected there have been a few moments I’m not overly proud of either:

• Once time I was chairing for Pastor Mun and as he finished I got up and thanked him for his message. I then attempted to summarise his message in a sentence or two to lead into the final song of response. I said something like, “Thanks Pastor for your message this morning. As Pastor has reminded us… umm… what did you say again Pastor?” I totally zoned out and forgot what he had just preached on!
• One time I gave the guitar intro for ‘No Other Name’. I started much too quickly but didn’t realise and also stuffed up the chord progression. To add further insult to injury it was a relatively new song and nobody sang :P It wasn’t my best musical moment.
• This one time, not whilst leading but whilst a musician, I was asked to do an intro for ‘How Deep The Father’s Love’ – my guitar had suffered greatly under the heat that morning and all of a sudden I was *incredibly* out of tune. Not only that but the pianist had not communicated to me earlier that he intended to play the song in a lower key – so I had an out of tune intro in the wrong key!

Thankfully things have been a lot smoother!

Finally!

After two and half weeks the coriander breaks through...

!!!

I love coriander :)

Picking up yet another hobby!

I was thinking recently that these blogs have been very neglected. This is in part due to our pretty busy schedule in the last few months and the growing tiredness which has crept upon us.

Next week we'll be flying down to Adelaide for a short break to visit my old home-town (first time back since I moved to Queensland!) as well as visit friends and...the Barossa Valley!

In the meantime I thought that I could update you on our newest hobby together - gardening!

Ever since moving into our new place in Kuraby we've been frequently encouraged/hassled by my in-laws to start up something in the garden. After the busy period of BLT finished we set ourselves to working the soil...and here are some of the results:

Pak Choy @ 2 weeks

Pak Choy @ 4 weeks

Rocket @ 2 weeks

Rocket @ 4 weeks

Roma Tomatoes @ 1 month

Roma Tomatoes @ 1 month and 3 weeks

As you can see, things are growing nicely! Praise God for all the rain we've had over the past few months. It's made this new venture more exciting than I originally anticipated!

We also have two types of basil growing nicely (English Basil and Thai Basil) as well as Vietnamese Coriander/Mint, Chives, Spring Onion, Cherry Tomatoes and Mint. We planted some Coriander seeds earlier this week but they have yet to sprout.

We've had one nice harvest of Basil so far which I turned into two types of pesto - Basil Pesto and a Sundried Tomato Pesto (with store bought sundried tomatoes). Recipes will be up shortly on my 'Wine, Food, Photos' blog! We also had a great first harvest of Rocket which intensely flavoursome. My mouth waters at the thought of our second harvest!

Oh, and one thing I noticed also - all sprouts look the same no matter what you've planted. They all come up with two rounded leaves and then spring into action afterwards. There's got to be a sermon illustration in that somewhere...

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and all that...!

Wow it's been a long time. Since arriving back from Japan there have been many things happening, most of which revolved around illness and BLT!

Watch this space as I'll be updating very shortly on all that's happened since we left for Japan until the present day.