Last school days of 2007

Chris spend most of last week preparing for the Mosgiel youth group camp on St Martin Island, also known as Quarantine Island. This is a much loved event, hideous to get ready for but a real escape from the business of December for those lucky enough to go. The trip over on Friday night was 'interesting' with high winds and choppy seas, and small boats rather than the usual large launch but they made the short trip safely. Anna our neice very kindly agreed to come and help us out as we were short a leader, and endeared herself to everyone by organizing the kitchen.

I had a big week as well with the final celebration for Kidzone at Mosgiel - it was a terrific service about the four gifts of Christmas that everyone was able to get involved in. Then there was the Columba carol service on Monday, the prizegiving on Thursday and Janine was MC at the DNI end of year concert, an extra session meeting - did I miss anything? Oh yes, the church BBQ yesterday and an unexpected trip to Portebello to pick up some campers as travel arrangements were a bit fluid.

Zach was unwell last night and is home today with a tummy bug and Chris is working on getting the Myth box operating. This is a computer run system using a satellite feed for the TV signal so we can access the new freeview channels, but it allows us to record lots of programs, even if they are playing at the same time and watch them without the ads. It is a bit like a DVD recorder, but with a huge hard drive to store lots of movies, and will also play music. It is a new system so there are lots of bugs to sort out.

Details of December

It has been a week of pleasant surprises, two excellent reports from Hannah and Zachary, and we attended the inaugural Dunedin North Intermediate sports awards; where Janine received the "Coach's Choice" award for her team! It took me a day or two to get over the shock, not being all that sporty myself. Pretty cool.
Katarina has been doing much better in her exams than mid-year, which is very pleasing. And the weather is very pleasant in Dunedin thank you, looks like one of those long hot summers...
I've nearly finished working on my contribution to the new PCANZ resource on youth wellness which will be published over the summer and the new edition of "Fuel", a youth leaders resource that I have a short article arrived in the mail this week. Chris is making good progress on my new office in the front of the house, and I had a lovely time at the Mosgiel Ladies Brunch, hosted by the blokes at Mosgiel church.
We are heading into the last full week of school for the children, lots of nights out this week with prizegiving and so on.

The arrival of Advent

The inaugural Great Gnome hunt had a wet but successful start this weekend. Mosgiel was by far the largest group with three (3!!!) teams entered, and a reasonable representation from Prezzy youth groups around the city plus a token Baptist team. Janine was pleased to be part of the team that officially won although I gather there was some dispute with another team which finished earlier but hadn't completed all the set tasks. Imagine a cross between the Amazing Race and a giant treasure hunt - they had fun.
I took the children down to see the Santa Parade which was all good fun; each year we know more people actually in the parade! Zach had a birthday part beforehand and Katarina had one on Saturday. Plus Opoho School had their fair as well, plus the normal music and sport routine with Zach's team notching up their first win in cricket. Chris preached on Sunday out at North Taieri, MJ did her thing with the children... it was all good.
This week we see the start of the silly season, with end of year functions, a special Ladies Breakfast out at Mosgiel (yay for that) and looking forward to prize-givings and concerts. At this point it looks like we have no employment for next year and no prospect of any until much later in the year, given the way the church moves. However, we continue to trust that the Lord will provide. Watch this space - we'll keep you updated!