Keeping the Aquarium

While doing research for my latest sermon I found this wonderful little illustration in my Libronix computer programme..... I found it really amusing.... I so wanted to be able to fit it into my sermon but alas...... it just will not fit no matter how much I shove it....

Keeping The Aquarium
Dr. Kermit Long says, “With all our education, our fine buildings, our image of the church, we are doing less to win people to Christ than our unschooled forefathers did. We’re no longer fishers of men, but keepers of the aquarium, and we spend most of our time swiping fish from each other’s bowl.” — Christian Victory

Just to keep the copyright people happy the book that this is in if you can find the actual item is as follows:-

Tan, P. L. (1996, c1979). Encyclopedia of 7700 illustrations : A treasury of illustrations, anecdotes, facts and quotations for pastors, teachers and Christian workers. Garland TX: Bible Communications.

Enjoy

Ooops She did it again

Corryn is really doing things hard at the moment.....

Towards the end of last year she gave Perry and I a spare key to her house because she was constantly having to ask the main building staff for access to her humble abode, as she was constantly locking herself out.

Well she has really out done herself in the past two week locking herself out a grand total of 4 times...... One time at 9pm at night.

I think that it is time for a keypad to be installed on her front door so that she does not need to have keys, she only has to remember a combination to get in..... Or maybe we need to slip into James Bond secret agent stuff and get a eye retina scanner or voice recognition thingy installed and then all she has to remember is to take her eyes and voice wherever she goes .... I'm guessing that even she will have a hard time forgetting to take these with her.....

New Kitchen

Well the week has finally arrived.....
Our kitchen is currently being replaced. ON Tuesday 'Dad's Army' arrived to pull out the old kitchen and the plumber and electrician did their thing to make the new kitchen fit in all the right places.....

Emily was adorable bringing in all her friends from on campus to see the empty kitchen..... "Look our kitchen is all gone ..... the boys came and took it away."

Tomorrow sees the new kitchen arriving and being installed.... Yeeha .....
It has been quite odd not having a kitchen although we have been well catered for in the meal department with a couple of conferences in we get to eat with the conferences and experience some of Murray's yummy dinners..... For those who have ever been on campus and had a Murray meal your mouths are currently watering I know this....... The best thing is that I do not have to cook and the dishes are pretty much done for us..

Although I must say that having dinner and lunch with the Territorial Executive Leaders was a bit of a daunting thought.... So much so that I ended up eating lunch in the kitchen and then Emily was not very well so we took dinner home.... Phewww that was a narrow escape ....

All I can now say is bring on Thursday night when all should be returned to much better than its former glory.

Children's Day activities

One of the more interesting things we did as part of our outtraining was to go to things that were going on in the community to try and raise the profile of The Salvation Army Kilbirnie in its area. One the things we went to was the Children's Day 'festival' that was held at Kilbirnie park. By the time we got there after church and lunch it had more or less finished even though according to advertising it still had 2 hours to go..... We did manage to get some cool photos though... Here they are..... I have to say at the moment most of the photos that we have taken lately are of the youngest member of the family.... We may have to do some things to fix that in future days......

We found this funny looking train thing... I

think that it is called Henry... I assume all you

Thomas the Tank Engine fans will correct me if

I am wrong..... Perry looks thrilled to be

aboard... Not....

Emily had a blast on this merry go round thingy.. I thought that she would be frightened but no actually she had a blast...

One of the better things for your child to drink when they are at a festival.... Maybe not but that was about all that was available.... Emily certainly enjoyed it.....

And then there was the River

When we were not playing with the water slide on campus there was always the river to go for a swim in. Freezing cold but refreshing. The only thing I found was that it was not too pleasant if you got a mouthful....

Christina ready for action
The water was very clear and also quite fast moving in some places. Further upstream from here it was deep enough for the boys and some of the girls to jump off the cliff....

Emily decides that the best way to get everybody wet is by throwing stones into the water





Emily enjoying the sun shine on the edge of the river.. I think that the swift current may have been a little to challenging for her.





Patrick building a wall to create a nice sitting place in the river... Where current is no problem.




Patrick the builder.... Still having a great time in the water.... Fully dressed and all.


Go on jump in the water is great.... At this point in time this is our water baby. Emily comes a close second.




The river was definitely a great place to cool down and relax... I had wondered why we never did this at the beginning of last year and then remembered that there was the issue of some sort of toxic algae in the river and so a swim was somewhat ill advised..... We however made the most of it over the summer.

The Hazy Days of Summer

During the first couple of months of Summer quite a lot of fun was has at the college with a great big black plastic, lots of water and dishwashing liquid..... To put it clearly a giant water slide.... Here are some pics




Christina getting up steam to make a dash down the slide....




Christina trying to
'encourage' Sarah to get wet

Christina towing Naomi down the water slide... mmm... a little too much soap by the looks... all those bubbles... Some dishes won't be getting done tonight.


Look out 3 year old with the hose










At the starting line ready to race down the slide... Christina, Kate, Hannah, Tiko, Simeon and Rueben


Patrick hiding out from all the wet stuff..... He did have the excuse of having had heat stroke during the day at school and was avoiding the sun and heat........ Playstation was his adventure of choice.
A group shot...... from left
Christina, Naomi (sitting in front) Hannah behind Naomi, Louis and Ethan.....


Sad to say those days are now over.... The weather has turned cold and not much chance of getting this slide out until December , maybe November if the weather heats up soon enough, but going on this past year there is not much hope considering in Nov 2006 we were still getting snow on them there hills.....

And finally ...... Some pictures

I have finally worked out how to get the photos off my camera.... so for you pleasure and delight some of Emily's 3rd Birthday.... Enjoy.

This is all very exciting for the one getting to open the pressies. Christina looks a little depressed..... Never mind darling your birthday will come around far too quickly..


And what is behind door number 3.

Look at me I am mobile and I want to be off right now..... This big girl bike thing is all just a bit too serious tho and besides it is far to early in the morning to be smiling.......



At last I have escaped with my bike.... Where shall I go.... Maybe just around and around the teardrop at college...... This event was planned by the creche as a fundraiser..... A bike a thon... played into my hands quite nicely really..... They planned it on my actual birthday day. So I got to try out my new bike properly..... I even got to test the helmet when I fell off.



Now I am really mobile.... hehehe. Talking to my Granny Pat when she rang me to say Happy Birthday......

Well I hope you enjoyed these. I will try to add more photos as we go along. Some of them will be a little bit older than this but I have to catch you all up some how.
Ciao