Our church organised a PINK pampering session for the ladies a couple of weeks ago. About 50 ladies turned up from all over Matamata! It was held in a really pretty family ran restaurant down the road from town.

They invited a professional make up artist, manicurist, hairdresser and masseuse and we could pay a minimum fee to sign up and enjoy the services! It was great!

I was actually really exhausted by evening time and wasn't up to going but so glad I did! I enjoyed the food, drinks and company. Although I didn't sign up for anything, I was blessed with a manicure!

Happy happy :)

Since we returned, we've been going to a playgroup at church on Monday mornings. It's called Monsters! :) It's a bit like our church's mums group back home.

We are only a very small church with about 50-60 people on a regular Sunday plus 10-20 kids. So, our very creative Pastor's wife Stace plans most of these gatherings. The best part about this playgroup is that most of the people that come are not from the church! What amazing place for outreach and just hanging out with people from the community. It's not just for mums and kids, dads that are free also come along!

This week we had a special theme party called Rainbow Monday. Sophie won the best dressed award! Haha she looked most like a rainbow thanks to the top that Mama sent last week. She didn't even realise what was going on and why she got a prize. She was too busy decorating cookies, eating rainbow fruit and candy sticks and playing!

It was really great fun. I'm so thankful for the effort that Stace and the others put in to make it such a wonderful time for the kids!

I'm very pleased to annouce that after being here for almost 1 and a half years, we finally found a church that we enjoy going to! Occasionally we go to the Baptist Church in town but it's really big (ok not as big as SJSM) and full of old people. The teaching is good but just a very foreign feel to it, not very intimate. With the amount of teaching and ministry we get on the base, there really wasn't a really desire to go to church on Sundays so we normally just stay in.

James found out about Soul Church through a doctor in town and we decided to go check it out with the Freestones. It's on Sunday at 6pm.

When we arrived, the kids were eating fish and chips for dinner and Sophie happily joined in with Toby and Eli. Little Soul (the kids' church) start at 5.45pm and they serve fish and chips for the kids! Woo hoo! That's a real draw. :) It's not a big thing for Sophie because she's not into fried fish or chips BUT I thought it was such a cool idea! We had a good chat with the pastor's wife who was also in charge of the children's ministry. She was really enthusiatic and very nice. Sophie was fine for a while and when dinner ended and they went for dancing and worship time, she came to get me. So I joined in for a bit. It was SO FUN! We danced to some cool bible verse music with cool actions (no hillsongs here, yey!). After that they did some craft and then watched TV. When Soph was more settled, I went back to the main service which was just next door. The following week, she was totally fine on her own which was great.

Soul Church starts at 6pm - extremely seeker friendly timing. It's great for us because after a long week, we can sleep in on a Sunday and spend some family time. Service is short, ended by 7/7.30pm and very simple preaching. In fact, they are in their Commitment series and the pastor was challenging the congregation to commit. Soul is a part of the Mosaic church in the US. They started as a home church, a church plant and grew. They just started meeting as a service recently. The pastor has a full time job but he and his wife took the challenge and planted the church in Matamata. It really reminded me of early HeartBeat days where everyone knew everyone. Lotsa youths and young adults. Prob only about 60 people each week. So much potential for growth here. Just felt like God gave me a burden to pray for the staff and leaders and a passion to serve in anyway possible in this growing church. We like the family atmosphere.

We're looking forward to spend more time to get to know the people here and grow with them over the next year. In fact, I know I really like it because I'm going to miss it when we're away and Sophie keeps asking when we're going back.

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!

Right outside the church we attended on Sunday

Sophie attended Sunday School at our church for the first time yesterday!

Our church has a Sunday school class for those turning 3 years old. Previously she would sit with us in the service or hang out in the toddlers room with us but this year, she can go to Sunday school! Since we've been away the past few months, we weren't sure if she would fit in or feel comfortable since the rest of the class have been together from the beginning of the year.

Anyways we were very keen to let her try so I started telling her about it before we went to church e.g "You'll be going to Sunday School! You'll do colouring, play with toys, meet new friends etc etc..." in the super hyped up voice. When we arrived, all we had to say was "Bye!" and off she went to play with the toys and when the teacher asked for her name, she just said "Sophie". That was so easy! Unbelievable! She really enjoyed herself. They played with toys, sang songs, did some colouring, listened to stories and she even made a friend - Joshua! My friend who was the teacher told me that she asked for me a few times but she told her that we'll be back after the service ended.

Looks like we can sit in the service on our own from here onwards! Cool!

P/s Sigh... no pictures...

Day 3

We spent yesterday helping out at Christmas@Dover event which our church organised for the Dover residents. There were free food, fun and entertainment for all ages.

Prior to the event, we packed up a lot of our stuff to contribute to the flea market for this event. Some of our stuff were still in very good condition but we figured we can't keep hoarding stuff so we decided to give it away. I actually felt quite happy seeing one of my favorite shoes being bought by someone, being able to bless someone with something so pretty and so new at a low cost.

Sophie had a moment when she spotted one of her old toys in box for sale and she wanted to take it back. When we had to explain to her that it was for someone else and we can give it away, she actually said ok and put it back. We are hoping that thru this Sophie will learn to bless others in her giving and sharing.

Other than that, Sophie had a great time being showered with lotsa attention from her godma and Yiyi and everyone else. She REALLY enjoyed herself.

ML n I organised a little Christmas party at our church mums grp yesterday.

The turn out was so good! We had more than 10 mums and more than 20 kids from 7 mths to 8 years old running around. We set up three tables - 1 for craft, 1 for cookie decorating and 1 for the food and drinks. After singing some carols, everyone took turns for craft and doing the cookies coz we didn't have space for all.

Last year, we did the same activities but I had to do almost everything for Sophie but this year, she did both activities almost on her own. Cool beans!

Sophie REALLY enjoyed decorating her "gingerbread" man, with the help of Auntie SA n ML coz I was busy manning the craft table. All the kids were eating their chocolate chips, sprinkles and I caught Sophie eating off the icing that fell off even before they finished the decorations on the cookies. Sophie decorated three cookies and finished eating them all!

At the craft table, we made Christmas trees as Christmas tree decorations using foam. Some turned out very pretty but I was too busy, forgot to take pictures!

Sophie got to play a bit of football with Josh. Sharon (Josh's mum) n I prob had more of a workout than the kids! :)

Sophie n I knocked out after coming home. I took two naps along with her! It's just so wrong to have a picnic in Singapore, in July. But I'll still do it again. :) Love the space n trees lah...

This time last yr we were on stage, originally uploaded by ailingnjames.

We've been missing for a bit! Busy busy busy...

Hope everyone's had a wonderful time remembering Good Fri and Easter!

We took this pic in the baby's room on Easter Sunday coz this time last year all three of us were singing on stage! We were all pregnant n looking like whales. I took a similar picture. And this year we're all in the baby's room! Wahahah... ML's Elizabeth n S's Josh are both about 9 mths.

During the Holy week (last wk), James n I tried to take some time off our work n fasted from TV, com, shopping, fancy eating etc. Some downtime to meditate n reflect. BUT it was hard. We got addicted to Heroes instead. (BUT we're off the TV, wahahaha) So we did less of everything BUT didn't manage to avoid it together.

On Good Fri, we introduced Sophie to the cross. We told her stories about Jesus using the Walk with Jesus cloth book (yes... the book has a Jesus soft toy that can be velcroed to every page that has a miracle story... Jesus walks thru the books... heh) and finally told her about the cross. We let her play with a little wooden cross and then stuck the cross on her cot.

I pray that she'll come to know the power of the resurrection n the deep love of the Father in time. At this point i feel a bit like Mary and how the angel told her everything about Jesus' coming and she held them in her heart. Feel like there's so much to tell Sophie about but right now I can only hold them in my heart and pray them into her life.