My weeny friend and I

Walking...

Last week, we introduced Angelina to a walker and she very cutely started walking backwards. Over the next couple of days, that’s all she did, just short little steps backwards. However, yesterday, she took her first few steps forwards and today again I was really encouraged to see her going forwards a few times. I have been trying to get her to come towards me when I call, but she just stands and grins at me and sometimes takes a few steps backwards. The only time she walks forwards is if I am busy doing my hair or makeup in the bathroom or praying in my room and then she quietly makes her way across the room to me – well, not very far, like we’re talking about 1.5 metres. That’s cool though. It’s very exciting seeing progress.

My strength renewed like the eagle

I spent the whole day babysitting Angelina today - well I left my house at 6:40 am to collect her at just after 7.00 am and then drive her back to my house. Then at 12.00 pm, I took her to Ali's BBQ birthday picnic in Heathcote Reserve, where we spent three hours making idle chit chat with Alli, Relle (who left about half an hour after she arrived), Clayton, Cate (who arrived really late) and then Alli's teacher friends who I had just met. They all seemed really lovely, outgoing and fun and Angelina sure enjoyed their company.

Then Angelina had a snooze in the car while I drove her back to my house. Then she slept about ten minutes more, before watching Jonah - the vegetale movie on DVD. Then at 5.45 pm, Julz came to collect her to take her to her house. Now I am getting ready to go and do night-fill tonight from 8.00 pm to 12.00 am. Pretty kewl. I am looking forward to another prayer session - singing in tongues, my Heavenly language, for four hours. Long working hours today, huh. Good thing my body is fit and healthy and I more resemble a person at least ten years younger :-) haha Praise God

Hospitality

Had an amazing night last Thursday that is worth blogging about. Earlier, I picked up Annette from the airport and drove her to the house where her little four year old princess, Gabby, had stayed while she was in New Zealand doing a job interview.

The family Gabby stayed with is a beautiful African family from Kenya. The parents are Hans and Leah and they have six children, one of whom did Bible college with me this year (23yr old Dominic shown in the piccy). Hans actually recognised me from a few years ago when I did a sole unit at Riverview Bible College. He told me I recited a Scritpure form Isaiah to him ... (no doubt my favourite Scripture from Isaiah 54:8-17). That really surprised me. What a small world.

Anyway, Leah's hospitality overwhelmed me and touched me very deeply. There were about 14 other African people at her house, including three little baby boys - one was ten months, the others were about 12 months each (two were half black, half white - so gorgeous!). While we were there, she served some dishes of food on the table and asked that I join them for dinner. I was so touched by the way they just welcomed me in and made me feel so loved and included in their family. I could see they didn't have much (from the small 3-bedroom place, odd chairs, cutlery, plates and cups they used) and yet there was just such a deep peace and love about the place. It was such a beautiful refreshing warmth. The presence of God was all in that tiny place.

The meal was simple - yellow curried rice, bean salad, some soup with what looked like ox-tail, maybe???, and some curried chicken and I don't usually eat curry, but somehow the company and the presence of God made it alright and I ate and was satisfied.

I lay awake for hours afterwards, just feeling so blessed and touched by God. It was like Leah showed me God's love through her actions, her warmth, her hospitality. In the morning I woke up and took communion. Then I just felt like the Holy Spirit was saying to bless Leah with my babysitting money and some communion. I also remembered Julz had given me a whole pile of socks, and I just felt led to give them to Leah as well. So I picked up Angelina, stopped by the shops, bought some fresh turkish bread, some apple & blackcurrent juice (cos there was no grape juice), wrote in a card and put $150 in the card for Leah. Then I drove to her house and hung it on their front door because it didn't look like anyone was awake.

Later, I texted Annette and asked her to let Leah know. Apparently, Leah had already been to the front door and when she saw the things, she thought God had left her those gifts! Hahaha, now that really cracked me up hearing that. Later she rang me and kept saying thanks so many times. What a blessing. She blessed me so much more.

Leah's son Dominic is the tallest guy at college ...

Could this be Angel's real dad?

Wolfy is apparently doing a dna test this week.... hmmmm, things could get very interesting

Freedom

This is my beautiful niece, with the not-so-beautiful guy that Julz has lied to and pretended is the father of my niece. What a mess. I pray oh Lord Jesus that you will deliver Julz' soul from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue [Psalm 120:2] and that You will grant her repentence that she will know the truth [2 Timothy 2:24-25]. It's the truth that will set her free and he who is free is truly free indeed.

Early start

This morning I got up at 2:45 am because Annette (shown in piccy) had booked an early flight to New Zealand for a job interview and I had said I would take her. Then I got dressed and phoned her at 3.00 am, only to hear her say she didn't want to leave as early as we had planned because she said her Itinery only stated that she had to be there one hour early. So, I spent the next half hour in prayer and scoffed down some breaky, before leaving home to pick her up. Then, we missed the turning for the international airport, but upon a quick check, I discovered she was going to the domestic airport because her plane was going to Sydney first....oh what a clown, what would she do without me!

Anyways, after I dropped her home, I drove myself home, ate some more breaky, and then went back to bed for a few hours. At 10.30am, I got a phone call from Jennifer at VLC asking me why I wasn't at work. It turned ou that I was meant to be there at 10.00 am, not 1.00pm, as I thought! So I hurriedly threw on some clothes and headed out the door. Fortunately, I had written out all the Chrissy cards that I had intended to the night before, so I was able to give them to Ps' David, Eunice, Rhonda, Ginny and Judy, Margaret, Gail, Jen and Stephane.

When I had finished work, I raced around and did the little things I meant to do before work, like dropping off Julz' clothes at community services, shopping, returning Annette's DVD at the library, collecting mail, prepaing and eating a healthy meal and reading a few more of Rick Renner's "sparkling gems". Then I went back to bed for a few hours. I only just woke up. It's now 6.43 pm and the rest of the day is before me ...

Graduation Ceremony

Well after one year of diligence, I finally graduated from Victory Life Bible Training Centre ;-) Yay! The ceremony was amazing, by far the most spectacular graduation I've been to, especially special because I had my family and friends attend, in contrast to every other graduation I have attended when I never had anyone come and support me.

My guests included my mum, sister and niece, Kristin and her praents, Marcus and Helen, Rob, June and her husband and Lilia.

All the students were asked to stay put in Room 1 after they had been clothed in splendor (royal purple gowns) and so we spent the time trying desperately to make our hats look trendy and our gowns sit well. We were all so hot and sweaty, so I am pleased to see the piccies turned out well ;-) Finally the time arrived and we all lined up in single file, sorted by year group and alphabetically. Then we proudly marched into the congregation while they were singing praise and worship songs. Then we all sang the national anthem and "How Great is Our God", before sitting down to hear Ps Maraget, Ps Judy, Rev Kong Yee and Ps David all give a message to us. Then we performed a song, to which we had to jump and dance! (which made us even more hot and sweaty), then marched to the side of the church and one by one walked on to the stage to recieve our certificates and have our photo taken. We also had to do our group photos in front of everyone too. Pretty funny :-)

Graduation dinner

Had our graduation dinner last night at the Joondalup Resort Hotel. The highlight for me was the amazing chocolate fountain which we bathed our skewered fruit in. Yummmmmmm.

Mum and I both wore some of Juliet's clothes. I wore a beautiful cream-ish dress with flowers and a gold shawl with flowers. Mum wore a very elegant brown arty-type suit. Juliet said the suit and my dress cost around $1,000 each!!! Not sure what to believe really, but you could tell they were definitely expensive clothes. I also got some pretty hair accessories and did my hair up. Funny, cos I didn't have the time or money to pay a hairdresser to do my hair, yet it looked really kewl and I had heaps of compliments.

Angelina's night out

Angelina with some of her aunts and uncles

Employment opportunities

Well, some few weeks after I was determined to change my situation, I now have three jobs and have gotten through the exam week with flying colours and am nearing graduation next week! The first job was that night fill job, at which I have now completed a couple of shifts. It is the weirdest job because people rock up wearing gloves, headphones (and IPODs), armed with a black text and stanley knife and with little, if any, desire to talk to anyone else. How strange!, so I have just sung in tongues for the entire four hour shift each time! ...sung my little heart out and had a great time.

The work is easy, we just wheel out a cage loaded with boxes into the relevant aisle, then we take a box full of goodies off the cage, use the knife to open it, have a look at the goods, find their appropiate home on the shelf, load them onto the shelf, then flatten out the box, pack it away on the cage, then select another box and the procedure begins again. When we can't find an item or there are too many of that item ont he shelf, we write "c/f" or "o/s", which stands for "can't find" or "overstock" on the box and put the box back on the cage. Then we select another box, open it, load the items on the shelf, flatten the box, then select another box, etc... like all night, that's it ;-) The great thing is it is time and a half pay.

So that's job number one. Job number two came as a total surpise. One day during monring tea, our Dean of Studies came up to me at college and asked me if I would like to accept an administration job at the church looking after the correspondence students, as well as the reception desk every now and then. Well, I prayed about it and decide to accept. They don't actually pay you, but rather, just give you a discount on your college fees. Not entirely sure how much. I don't really care, to be honest, because it wasn't the money nor the work experience that I accepted the job for. Rather, it was the opportunity to acquire some new role models.

In line with the job, I have to sit in the office with two pastors, the two oldest among the teaching staff, who are close to 70 years old. Then there are three other pastors and one p/a I also have to interact with. They scare the hell out of me, because I know they are all prophetic and can sense stuff about me, but it's cool. Interestingly, only shortly after I had accepted the position, Rinna came and congratulated me. I hadn't told her, I think the girl doing the job told her, and as soon as she said that, it was like I could sense that she wasn't genuinely happy for me. I realise in hindsight that she had her eyes on the job.

Seeing she had publicly told people I got the job, I decided to tell a few people and instead of them being happy for me, I could sense a bit of jealousy. It actually stole my joy and made me feel really awful about it because I knew others are more needy with regard to the financial side than I am. So after a few days of feeling really down and condemned and all, I went to talk to then Dean of Studies about it. She told me that the pastors had prayed and my name came to mind. The Holy Spirit apparently recommended me. She said that the other name that came to their minds was Rinna, so if I had declined their offer, whe would have received the offer. Instead, she apparently will be offered a cleaning job. Interesting. So anyway, after hearing that, I felt a real peace about accepting the job.

Then job number three is my babysitting of Angelina job ;-)

Me beautiful niece

My beautiful little niece at five months. Oh she is by far the cutest baby ;-)