Tag Archives: Gideons

GOOD MORNING MONDAYS LINK PARTY

GOOD MORNING MONDAYS #20

38 Comments

Hi there everyone, welcome  back to another Good Morning Mondays. I hope you all had a great week.

Last week we finally caught up with our daughter and her husband and daughters. Oh it was so wonderful to finally see them and hear about all their news from their big trip and see their photos.

DSC_0927[1]We all had a great time together and all the children young and old enjoyed this time.

They did come with some exciting news but I will leave her to tell you all about it – so pop over here.

Their visit did put my week out a bit, (but it didn’t matter one bit) they came on Monday night instead of the weekend because we had some sickness in the house and we didn’t want them to get it, but praise God no one else got sick.

So when they left on Wednesday I had to catch up on my house cleaning and my washing and all that got left so that we could enjoy our time together.

On Thursday my friend and I finally got our girls together for a sewing day.  We had a great time and the girls have started on a raggy quilt. I am glad my girlfriends maths is better than mine otherwise my daughters quilt would be very small. I had a great time with my friend and always enjoying spending time with her and chatting away about our lives in general.

The girls worked for over an hour sewing the three layers together and then they went and had a play.  I took our youngest son too but we didn’t really see him too much as he was having a great time playing with my friends boys.  They have 7 boys and 1 girl and they are just lovely children.

We will hopefully  meet again next week and continue on with the quilt.  We were also discussing other things we can do and we may do some crochetting and some needle felting but we will finish the quilts first.

Then it was some school work and some piano (but not enough) and then music lessons and so forth.  No 1 son has been home all week so he was able to get stuff done around the farm and I enjoy having him around too.

Graeme and him are in Melbourne now getting ready to start the Gideons International Bible Blitz in Melbourne.  They have already attended training and were having tea when I spoke to them earlier. The Gideons attending and helping at this Blitz have an enormous task in front of them, so please pray for them all and the work they are doing.

They have over 4500 placements and around 230 Gideons actually attending to do all this work.  They will go out in teams to try and get it all done.  A placement could be a hospital or doctors surgery, universities or motels.

Please pray for open hearts, minds and hands as they pass out scriptures and open doors at all the placements. Please also pray for their safety and well being, it is going to be a tiring week.

My men will be home on Wednesday night and the younger children and myself are keeping the home fires burning (so to speak).  I have pigs and fish to feed and I need to keep an eye on things, that I don’t normally have to do.  The cows are having a milking break for a few days and were looking very content out in the paddock when I looked earlier.

Our corn has started to come in and the children and I had BBQ corn for tea. I will need to be a bit more nourishing tomorrow so I have a roast in the slow cooker for lunch and tea.  I tend to be a bit slack on meals when it is just the three of us but I am determined to be more organised this time.

I have purchased one more box of Roma tomatoes from our produce store and will process them this week.  Our Romas are just staring to ripen so hopefully we will get some more of them.  We have heaps of corn coming on and I am hoping to get over 60 bottles this year. We haven’t had a corn crop like this for over 5 years so it is very exciting. It is not all coming in at once so once I’ve processed the tomatoes I will get into the corn.

My dear friend who we went sewing with gave me some zucchinis so I think that I will make some soup and can that for the winter.  My husband really enjoyed it for his lunches last year and I am nearly out.

This week we have our Revelation Bible Study on Tuesday night and I hope to go to that.  Lenten service on Wednesday night and then the usual, schooling and piano practice.

My sister in law is coming to stay on Thursday night and the children are really looking forward to that. She is especially good with them and No 2 son is looking forward to playing lego with her.

No 1 son has a wedding on Saturday so he and No 2 daughter are going to spend the weekend at their sisters house.  Our son will go to the wedding and hopefully our daughter will help her sister with her work around the house and I am sure she will get plenty of time to play with her little nieces.

She really misses her big sister and enjoys spending time with her without me around.  I don’t take this as a bad thing, when I am around her sister and I are always talking and this gives her some one on one time.

Well I have rambled on enough so onto our link up.

Our top 3 posts this week were…

thmb54ea70d7def40Church Unity by The Farmers Wife at Growing In His Grace

thmb54e9cfab24337Are You In A Tough Spot by Laura at Harvest Lane Cottage

thmb54e9d479607f4

Who’s Up For A Retro Meal Plan by Jayne at Tiny Toadstool Cottage

And my personal favourite was…

thmb54eb05a627153She Loved You Well  by Barbara at My Life As An Adventure

This is a beautiful post about a woman’s love and care for her ailing husband, may we all care for our men like she did.

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to link up, once again I have laughed and cried and I have made new friends and I really appreciate you all.

I am looking forward to seeing what you all have for me this week, and may you all be blessed by what others link up as well.

After reading and linking up at Front Porch Conversations I was really challenged over my prayer life regarding the ever increasing issue of ISIS and persecuted Christians.

Please, if you can, take the time to pop over and have a look.  (Click here to go over and have a look).

I sit here in Australia in my little corner and wonder what I can do about it.  Well I can pray, I can intercede for those that are being persecuted and I have been challenged by this.

May you all have a good week and I pray that whatever path the Lord has you on, that you will be blessed but also challenged to walk a life closer to Him.

Blessings to you all dear friends.


GOOD MORNING MONDAYS LINK PARTY

GOOD MORNING MONDAYS #19

35 Comments

Hi everyone, and welcome back to another Good Morning Mondays.

I hope you have all had a good week and a restful weekend and that you are all ready to start the new week with gusto!!!

Our week has been good and we have schooled and done piano – just the usual.

We went to our Revelation Bible Study on Tuesday night and we are all enjoying this and it is great for our younger children to learn to listen and sit still.

Wednesday night was Ash Wednesday and we went to church.  We don’t usually do this but we have decided to this year and to teach the children about Lent and what it means. We don’t want them to see it as a time where we “give up” chocolate, but we want them to understand the lead up to Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We have instigated nightly bible readings with our No 2 daughter reading a Psalm and No 1 son reading a chapter of Proverbs.  We usually read bible stories but have decided that the children are getting older and are ready for more.

We have also instigated a weekly prayer list and have asked them to choose who they want to pray for, our only stipulation is that there be Christians and non-Christians on that list.  We want to get past the thank you Lord for our good day and onto a more meaningful prayer time.

Sometimes at tea time we are just tired and want the children to go to bed, but they are quick to remind us of our prayer time and who they are praying for.

The children did a great job with some cleaning during the week, so after No 2 daughter mopped the floor and it was drying I took them to our local park for some hot chips and a play on the swings. This park is in a small town about 12 kms away, our nearest shopping town is 40 kms.

DSC_0909[1]

This doesn’t happen very often so it was a treat for them and they had done a great job.

Unfortunately No 2 son was sick with gastro on Saturday morning so we had to cancel a visit from our No 1 daughter and family.  I must admit I had a good cry over this, as we haven’t seen them since Christmas and they have been travelling around part of Australia and we were keen to get together with them.

My husband also decided that we couldn’t go to the 1 year old dedication and birthday party this afternoon in case we infected anyone else. This was very sad also but the right decision due to the amount of young children attending and we didn’t want anyone else to get sick.

This party was for the youngest son of our friends.  He is number 8 and a real cutie.  He has downs syndrome but he is such a blessing and we so wanted to show our support for them all. God doesn’t make mistakes and he has placed this beautiful little boy into a lovely home with supportive siblings and parents.  If you have time I would love you to pray for him – let’s name him little J.  Please pray also for his parents for wisdom in how they teach and train him.

So there has been good and sad this week.  I spent most of Saturday feeling sorry for myself and then Saturday night feeling bad about that. I guess I had a pity party – and I am definitely not proud of the fact, I really needed to build a bridge and get over it.

Our youngest two children made me these beautiful cards for my birthday and they made me feel so loved.  It is amazing how forgiving and loving they are, I am really blessed to be their mother.

DSC_0917[1]

My husband has put in a special prayer request and asks that if you have time to prayer for the following:

Sunday night starts the week of the Melbourne Bible Blitz for the Gideons International in Australia.  They will spend the week handing out Bibles at the universities in Melbourne and going around the hospitals, doctors surgeries, police academy, prisons, and on street witnessing. Their hope is to hand out 200,000 scriptures (Proverbs, Psalms and New Testament in one) and 18 tonnes of Bibles.

My husband and No 1 son will spend from Sunday afternoon until Wednesday evening in Melbourne (300 kms away) handing out, witnessing and transporting scriptures.

Please pray for open hearts and minds as they do this and please pray for all attending to be kept safe and well.

Thank you.

Okay, enough about us.

Here are our top 3 posts this week…

thmb54e0a231a684b

 Meal Plan and A Homemaking Routine Update by Jayne at Tiny Toadstool Cottage

thmb54e11822c4886

Too Much Stuff by Latisha at Ask Latisha

thmb54e225d3535fd

Living on His Income a book review by Laura at Harvest Lane Cottage

My personal favourite this week is…thmb54e11a71dbbf4Grocery No Spend Challenge by Taylor Made Ranch

Imagine not going grocery shopping for a whole month. Pop over and have a look at this post if you want to see how it goes.

I want you all to know that I find it very hard to pick a favourite post each week.  I would love to be able to feature you all.

Congratulations to everyone for being featured and thank you to all of you who took the time and linked up.

I hope you are all learning as much as I am.  I am so blessed by you all and the relationship that we are building.

This week coming up is looking at being cooler (we had a hot weekend) so I will be very motivated to get heaps done (and praying that none of the rest of us get sick).

We have a Lenten church service on Wednesday and hopefully a sewing day with my friend.  We have had to cancel the last two due to them being sick, hopefully it won’t be us this week.  We will also be catching up with our daughter and family sometime soon and we are all looking forward to that.

I have been challenged this week to allow my younger two children to do more and take on more responsibilities.  It is amazing what they can do and how they respond with praise.

So I pray that you all will have a blessed week and I want to encourage you all to keep on keeping on and stay close to God, and He will guide you.

Blessings.


GOOD MORNING MONDAYS LINK PARTY

GOOD MORNING MONDAYS #17

30 Comments

Hi everyone, welcome back to another Good Morning Mondays Link Up. Is anyone else surprised about how quickly the weeks go???

Our eldest daughter and her family have been away now for 5 1/2 weeks.  They have been through Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and across to the Northern Territory.  At the moment they are in Darwin and are looking at starting on their homeward journey today.  We are so looking forward to seeing them all again and to see how much our beautiful granddaughters have grown and whether their father has shaved off his beard or not :-).

TERRIS CAMERA 2 226TERRIS CAMERA 2 227

This week I have been bottling tomatoes and baking with my sour dough.  We have done school and music practice and housework.  It finally got hot on Friday so we took the children to the beach in the afternoon.

We go to the beach at Port Fairy.  This is a lovely little town on the coast that becomes the tourist capital during our summer holidays. We like to go once the schools go back and there is usually only a few people on the beach.

It is just lovely, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt the water warm enough to go swimming.  It’s not like the water on the Gold Coast or North Queensland it is straight off the South Pole.  Of course the kids love it, because I don’t think they feel the cold.

TERRIS CAMERA 2 416Here are the boys enjoying the waves with their boogie boards.

TERRIS CAMERA 2 426There were heaps of shells on the beach this time, I’m not sure why, but they are really pretty. We grabbed a big bag to bring home.  No 2 son has been busy making necklaces for his older sister.  I think it’s great the way they already have holes in them for string to go through.

After their swim we went and got hot chips to go with our pizza and headed to the play ground to have some tea and a play on the equipment.

TERRIS CAMERA 2 435Here they all are getting ready to have tea.  They weren’t really hungry though because I think they swallowed a heap of sea water.

TERRIS CAMERA 2 436After tea they finally wore themselves out on the play ground equipment.

We drove home quite tired but very satisfied after having a lovely afternoon out.  We were surprised at how warm it still was when we got home, so I think summer has finally arrived.

The past few mornings I have been getting up before everyone else and I must say that it is great to look at the posts that you have linked up before everyone is up and everything is quiet.

Thanks again to everyone who takes the time to link up.  I know I have said it before but it really is a blessing to me to read your posts and to get to know you all.

So onto our link up.

Our top three posts this week were…

thmb54ce5f08091d0

January – Out With The Old by The Farmers Wife at Growing In His Grace
thmb54ce41858eaba

Christians and Civil Disobedience by Alli at Awedbody

thmb54cf7ff3b2d84 I’m Wearing Down by Sharon Sharing God

My personal favourite…

thmb54cf8af536184

What we didn’t know before Sabrina by Cheryl from Treasures from a Shoebox

What a wonderful story of love, acceptance and fitting into a forever family.

If you didn’t get a chance to read these posts take time and pop over you will be blessed.

Well done everyone for being featured and I can’t wait to see what you have for us this week.

This week I have a catering function – sounds grand doesn’t it.  I cook for our local Gideon Branch Dinner Meeting once a month.  It isn’t a huge affair, only about 10 people but we have it in our Church hall and it is a great opportunity for the children to learn how to serve and help clear up.  This week will be cold meats and salad and I think Lemon Sago and some slicey thing to have with coffee.

Then the rest of the week will be spent doing school and music and we are meant to have a sewing get together with my friend so hopefully all is well and that can go ahead.  I’m not mentioning it to the children just yet.

I pray that you all have a great, productive, God focused week and that you see His handiwork in you and your families lives.

Blessings to you all.