‘Compelled by Love’ movie: Our church recently screened the premier of the movie ‘Compelled by Love’, a movie about the life of Heidi Baker from Iris Ministries. It was exciting to watch with the kids as we have spent three months in South Africa and Mozambique with Iris Ministries. Matey loved seeing the places and people from Pemba, Mozambique. It is amazing how watching movies like this can bring up a lot of questions.

That same afternoon, we had caught up with a lot of folk from our state who had spent time in Pemba as well. We met a lot of new people who had been there at different times to us. Everyone shared when they went and how their lives have changed since then. I love having our kids hear these stories and how lives have been changed. We met a family who have been living in Northern North Mozambique a as missionaries and were home in Australia for a few weeks. We were privileged to spend a day during this week with them, chatting about ministry, dreams, pasts, etc. This family also homeschool so it was great to compare a few schooling ideas. I encourage you to connect with families who live overseas or who are missionaries. It broadens everyone’s persective on life.

Baby shower: Saturday afternoon we went to a baby shower that a ten year old friend of Princess’ put on for her mother. This girl did a fabulous job of organising it completely on her own, with the invitations, preparations, afternoon tea, games, seating, clean up all done by this ten year old girl. There were at least twenty adults and some kids present. Princess and another ten year old girl helped her on the day by serving the food and drinks. It reinforced to me that we can expect great things of our kids at an early age.

Dog Walking: Friends have been away camping for ten days and we have been walking their dogs for them. It has been great for our kids to realise that having a dog means a lot of extra work and commitment. We no longer hear the comments about wanting a dog. Our kids have enjoyed it but are looking forward to a break, especially as it has been during the heat wave here in Victoria. The money we receive from doing this will be put towards a ministry trip to Cambodia that our family are planning to go on in July.

I was very interested to see how Matey would go with this responsibility that we took on as a family to walk the dogs and fill their water containers up etc. After Matey received the bird as a present but didn’t accept any responsibility for its care, cleaning and feeding, I wanted to see how he would go this time. We have ended up passing the bird on to an elderly neighbour who is very lonely and is appreciating the company and trying to teach it to talk.

Swimming: Princess is in swimming squad so we have been at training three times per week with a race night every Friday night. Quite a commitment. She loves her swimming, recognising that she doesn’t want to be an Olympic athlete but loves keeping fit, exercising and being with her friends. It has also highlighted to us that Princess needs goals, rewards etc to motivate her. Often she will not race her best and is content to just finish if there is no reward. A character attribute that we need to look at.

Matey has done well with his swimming lately and has gone up a level within the Kings system. He has only another level to go through before he graduates. Graduation is in September every year so hopefully he will make it and then begin swimming squad as well.

Mentoring: Princess had her first mentoring session with the beautiful girl who is mentoring her. This 17 year old shows so much maturity and had planned out a fantastic first session with Princess of getting to know each other. I encourage any of you with teenagers to actively look for a mentor for them but to also then encourage them to mentor someone younger. Hopefully this beautiful seventeen year old will gain a lot as well out of these sessions and learn some great mentoring and leadership skills. The added bonus for us is that even though this girl lives an hour’s drive away from our home, her family is top quality and it means that we can also get to know them and learn from them. The statement that ‘the proof is in the pudding’ is certainly true with this family as we look at how their kids have all turned out. They are certainly kids who are and will change the world.

David Wagner: Our church has been fortunate to have this world renowned prophet ministering this last week to all the youth and young adults within our church. Although our kids don’t fit into this category, we have been fortunate to hear him speak at both the morning and evening services. We met David when we were in Mozambique & we value the words he spoke over us then. This time we didn’t  actually receive any prophetic words personally but it was great for the kids to hear what he had to say. Hubby was helping him out up the front last Sunday evening with the prayer line and Matey also wanted to go up and copy hubby and ‘help’. This is a great part of our kids’ development and worth encouraging them whenever they want to help and it is appropriate to do so. So much more is caught than taught. When kids are actively involved in a church community, it is a lot easier to motivate them in their relationship with God.