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 :)

Lost wishes.

On the weekend my twin stayed over. It was birthday weekend, so that's what you do!

Being the twin that she is, she brought with her some of those cool paper lanterns that you light and they float away... like on 'Tangled'. I have always wanted to release one of these! they look so pretty, even in cartoon form!

We wrote our wishes for the year on them (the things you do when you enter your 30th year).

Of course the matches were wet, so we had to use the car cigarette lighter & a candle... hehe (welcome to my life)!

Here are the cute pictures of us...

My twin with our lanterns...

 Me with the lanterns (yes it was already pyjama time)

 My twin's one floated away like it was supposed to...

 Mine didn't. Typical. haha. So we tried to burn it.

 But of course there was some sort of flame-retardant in the paper... so rather than hold it till the flame burned out, we pulled it apart.

This is the sad end of my 30th year wishes.

Hmmm.
So grateful that my hope isn't found in paper lantern wishes.
But one day I want to have a proper lantern that floats. Just because they are cartoon pretty!

Birthday!

Well I have now begun my 30th year of life (which means I turned 29 last weekend). Boy. Only 362 days till I reach the big 3.0. eeek! 30 is a tad scary, because it carries with it so many expectations in my mind. I should be married and a mum and have my life sorted and be mature and properly grown up and not still get insecure and upset about dumb things. Wow this is a big year.

Hmm ok enough thinking about that. I had the funnest party on Saturday. The theme was Capes, Crepes and Canapes (read it can-apes, so that it rhymes). So we wore capes and ate crepes and canapes.
Here are the photos that I like the best.

Nikki & I flying inour capes

 Cute faces :-)

 Mmmm these crepes were amazing!

 Twins!

 Ben wasn't super good at cooking crepes.

 My mum & I (I take self-portraits upside-down cos it's easier... but even though I edit them on the computer they still go upsidedown when I upload to blogger. pfft

 Morgan didn't like the flash.

 My sister dipping Hayden in the chocolate fountain.

 Cute Trinity. hehehe.

 Hayden... he was on a bit of a sugar high.

 My funny dad

It was such a fun night. I feel so blessed to have such amazing friends and family in my life! (and those crepes tasted sooooooo good!)