Make sure you catch up with the first Update of this series: click here to open it.
*warning* this is the long post! There are pictures along the way, but I highly recommend pausing here so you can grab yourself a cuppa and a biscuit. Then, settle in, and enjoy the ride!
Last time I wrote, we were still in Adelaide, having driven over on 21 November.
1 December
On this day, Trinity Bay ran their annual Gingerbread event. This is an outreach opportunity for the church. Kids invite their friends along to make a gingerbread house and gorge themselves on lollies. While they're there, Stephen & the mission team gave a presentation of the Christmas story, and all the kids get invited to the Trinity Bay Carols evening.
We had to have a practice run first, to make sure we could then help the kids with their own houses.
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| These things take concentration... |
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| A work of art! |
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| Like I said...a LOT of lollies... Photo credit: Colin Taylor. Stolen from his Facebook album. Thanks Colin! |
On Monday 3 December, we had our final school presentation. Following that, we had a team 'We did it!' celebration lunch at the distinguished Fasta Pasta establishment in Brighton. Then it was time for the Sydney team to head back to the airport and for home.
The next day, on Tuesday 4 December Stephen and I headed home ourselves, by car, back to Melbourne.
On the way, we saw a beautiful rainbow.
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| Rainbow, in Ararat. |
The rainbow also inspired us to pass the rest of the time in the car listening to the musical stylings of David Meece. He's got this amazing song about rainbows right here.
The most amazing thing about the drive home (apart from David Meece) was the fact that, despite the incredibly busy and tiring week we just experienced, our alertness levels on the drive were ridiculously good. Praise God! We thought it would be a bit of a difficult drive, fighting fatigue and tiredness, but God answered our prayers for safety, and gave us an energy that could only have come from him!
We arrived home on the Tuesday night at about 10pm.
A couple days later on Friday 7 December, we caught a plane to Canberra, for the National Training Event (NTE) conference. You might remember me talking about NTE here. To refresh; NTE is an event that draws Christian uni students (and some not-yet Christians) from all over Australia together for a week of training and equipping, praising, serving and learning. Stephen and I led a study on Biblical Theology, taking our group from Micah 5:1-5a to the wider Old Testament story, showing how it fits. It was a great opportunity to take what we'd learnt during our year at Ridley and pass it on to the students.
Here's what we did with the group:
And here's the lovely bunch of students we taught. For all of them, this was their second time attending NTE:
As well as leading a Strand group, Stephen also gave a seminar on Creatively Sharing the Gospel with Children. It was really well attended and enjoyed by all 120+ students:
We flew back from NTE on Wednesday 12 December, arriving in the late-ish evening.
Two days later, on Friday 14 December, we were back on the road to Adelaide! This time, for a wedding! On Saturday, Stephen & I headed to Tea Tree Plaza to do some Christmas shopping using the inspiration method. The inspiration method is: go the shops. Be inspired. Buy presents. By lunchtime, Stephen left me to my devices and went across the road to Modbury Primary School, where he was presenting a puppet talk at Trinity North East Church's own Gingerbread event (yes, another one!). After the shopping was mostly done, I went and met Stephen and we then drove to Glengowrie, to our friend Carolyn's 50th birthday party. Here's me & Carolyn:
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| In this photo, Carolyn is still a spritely 49 years of age (+ a few days). |
On Sunday 16 December, our friends Cassie & Shane got married! It was a beautiful ceremony, a highlight being the gorgeous primary school choir, consisting of the children Cassie has taught previously. A night of fun followed at the reception, at the Stamford Grand in Glenelg.
Here's me & Stephen all dressed up:
And myself & the beautiful bride:
On Monday 17 December, after a quick sleep in, Stephen and I headed to Westfield Marion, braving the hordes of Christmas shoppers (indeed, becoming one of the throng) to get the last of the gifts. That evening, the Lieschke family celebrated Christmas together, while we were all in the same state at once.
On Tuesday 18 December, a little tired and wearier, we headed back to Melbourne for a brief rest before our next adventures...
Later in the week, on 21 December, we Urmstons decided to do Christmas presents a little earlier. We had gone in with Stephen's sisters to purchase a lovely outdoor setting for Mum & Dad Urmston, and arranged to pick it up on the Friday. Another one of those days we were thankful to own a station wagon!! It was a lovely, relaxed afternoon & evening with the family.
The next day, (Saturday 22 December) we headed to Healesville for a big family gathering of Mum Urmston's brothers & sisters, and their children, and their children too! My head was spinning, trying to remember names and which cousins I'd met before....!! We got to travel on the old train that was there. Here's a family snap from the afternoon:
Not long after that, the Day arrived - Christmas! I led the service at our local church, St Jude's Parkville, and had a great time incorporating a kids' song and a puppet talk with Stephen. We also got the slime illustration in there too! Stephen's mum joined us for a classy lunch at home of mini-hot dogs and we watched Trinity City's 2006 Carols dvd. Later on, we headed to Sunbury for a family dinner with everyone there, in the 2 hours when one shiftworker got home, and the other woke up before heading to night shift.
Phew! Are you tired yet? Yep...so we were we.....BUT, it wasn't over!!
26 December: We hopped on a plane to Queensland. "Yes, you needed a holiday," I hear you say. Alas, the holiday would come later....instead, we were to help out a Beach Mission team first, for ten days, before kicking back and relaxing on the Sunshine Coast until 12 January.
Unfortunately, things didn't quite pan out as we'd planned. Upon arriving in Brisbane together, I made the decision to head back home to Melbourne and managed to grab a flight the next day, without too much hassle. Stephen stayed on to do the Beach Mission, and would arrange to fly back on 5 January, once it was all done. Thus, our longest period of being apart since being married, had begun.
27 December I flew home, and spent time relaxing, and helping some friends move house (Wagon wins again!). Some lovely friends suggested coming back to Adelaide to celebrate the New Year, so I took them up on the offer, and flew to Adelaide on 30 December, staying until Wednesday 2 January.
Which leads me to finish this post, and the rest shall be revealed in the next instalment: January!
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