Hello Leah.

Today is lovely Leah's birthday! So this post is dedicated to her... (actually it's mostly dedicated to Leah because she's the only one who says 'you haven't blogged in ages')

So the past 2 weeks have been mental.
Our school was 'inspected' last Thursday and Friday. Which meant 14 people came in and inpected EVERYTHING! Of course it's meant to be an assessment of what we do every day at work... and to some degree it was - we actually do teach every day, we do ensure the safety of our kids always, we do write engaging and interesting programs... most of the time. But we had to polish everything we do to its spick and spanest. I lost count of the number of times that we practised "Good Morning Mrs S and visitors. God bless you!" (it was necessary to practise so that this sentence didn't drone on for 15 seconds). My program had to be prettified and in such detail that anyone off the street could pick it up (with two hands, cos it was really heavy) and know exactly who, what, where, when and how to teach my class. I am not actually exaggerating about the detail we had to write... my English program for this term alone is over 10,000 words & I have written over 21,000 words of Maths program so far this year. Who has time to teach? haha.
My favourite inspection requirement is to do with chemical safety. It a requirement, apparently, that every glue stick, pen and bottle of paint is marked with a blue sticker...  dangerous things like highlighters, stamps and permanent markers get a green sticker. hmmm. My kids loved finding these things in the classroom to decorate them with stickers and I'm sure that we are now a lot safer! haha.

We got a 'wow' from the inspectors. My bosses are happy. I think it's a bit of an anti-climax... Maybe if we got a 'wow' ...and a parade in our honour... and a trip to Hawaii that might be worth it. haha.

Anyway, enough of that.

In other news... I have sent in my nanny application. eeeek! I so hope I get a good family. Apparently most people are matched within 2-3 weeks. Let's see how that goes.
It was a weird process, having to collect references from different people. I think every single person (I got about 16 references I think) put that I am 'fun'. A few people told me that 'organisation' was something that was hard to judge me on, because I am super organised in my head & in paper work & logisitically, but the messiest person in the world.  My best friend wrote that I 'have the potential to be easily offended'... after getting over the offense that I felt towards that statement, I've realised that it is probably actually true. I have been heaps more aware of it lately... I do think that this is closely related to the fact that I haven't had enough sleep recently. hopefully I will be less offended in coming weeks. haha

I have been planning my first stop on my adventure overseas - a week in LA... still trying to convince my sister that she should come for the week. I don't think Disneyland could be as fun on my own. Though I am fun, so I shouldn't need another person.

Canada is getting more and more exciting and also equally as terrifying. There are so many things to think about and organise...where do I start?

Oh I have to tell you this funny quote of one of my boys...
During Art on Thursday his whole artwork got soaked with water. He brought it over to me and said "Miss F, my paper is sopping wet."
I replied, "oh no, what happened?"
His reply, "I'd rather not go into details about it." hahahaha what 9 year old says that? I was laughing so much on the inside.

Anyway back to tidying. pfft!

Happy Birthday Lovely Leah.

Pray please.

So. you may or may not remember this photo from my party 10 days ago?
Well my cute little friend on the right has been in hospital since Friday and has rapidly deteriorated since. No one knows why, but her liver has failed. They are now looking for a compatible O+ blood type liver donor, without it she has been given 2 days to live.

I can't believe how quickly this has all happened! 10 days ago she was all smiles and giggles at my party, even 5 days ago no one knew she was sick, she was her normal bubbly self.
Trusting God at times like this is hard. It's hard to remember that God is good. It's so hard to see my friends so broken and hurting... and not being able to do anything.

Please pray with us that God would perform a miracle in this girl's life.

**UPDATE** 20/7
Last night a liver, which was apparently an amazing match (Praise God!), became available and my little friend is currently undergoing an 8 hour transplant surgery. Pray that everything will go well & her body will accept the organ.

Two Came.

Earlier this week we had a staff conference, all the teachers from Christian schools got together for a day of inspiration and professional development. The speaker this year was incredible! His name was Michael Frost. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, you should.

I was challenged by a lot of the things he said. He spoke about mission and evangelism being the calling of the church "to go". There is so much need in our world and what am I doing about it? It's so easy to get comfortable in our worlds and not see the pain around us.

While I was at the conference I realised that I have lived in my house for the past 5 years and know only a few of my neighbours. So when I got home my flatmate and I hatched a plan to invite our closest (in location) 12 neighbour families over for dessert tonight. We made postcard invites and popped them in letterboxes... yes I know this isn't as effective as real-life asking, but time was limited... next time this will be our plan.

So tonight we prepared crepes, ice-cream, mini pavlovas, penguin shaped waffles, tim tams, lamingtons & fruit salads for our anticipated guests. The time came...and went. No-one showed. An hour later Little Jill and I texted/posted urgent facebook messages to our friends to help us eat all of this dessert.  But right at that moment two boys I had never met before knocked on our door.

C & D were about 13 and 15 and live across the road and up a bit. I think we probably overwhelmed them with dessert options. They stayed for a little over an hour and we had the best time getting to know them. I was amazed at how much C shared with us! He told us about recent suicides at his school, how he and his brother run away from home, how he had a liver transplant when he was five (at this point little Jill said "so were you only born with one liver?"), he told us about his father's injuries and his mother's stresses.

Such a great reminder that we all have a story to tell & just wants someone to listen. There is real need right outside my door. I loved having the opportunity to just listen to the heart of a stranger. Even if the stranger was a 13 year old... usually teenagers scare me a little bit & I could never be a high school teacher, but thess kids were sweet.

Anyway, on some levels our evening could be considered a flop, 12 invites were sent out - with a potential of almost 50 people. Instead 2 came. But it was a divinely appointed evening. Such an amazing opportunity.

And the 'PE Boys' will be happy at recess tomorrow when I feed them left over waffles and tim tams :)