We’ve been in Australia since the end of September 2010.  We’ve been helping one church the whole time — Faith Baptist Church in Regents Park (www.faithbaptist.org.au).  They moved in to their new church building in the middle of November.  We’ve been helping with preaching (James), teaching (Suzanne), music (both), nursery, cleaning, youth, etc.  On their website, under “Sermons,” James has a good one entitled “Reconciled to God” (Suzanne is highly recommending this one).  The other sermons on the site are good, too.

I thought you might enjoy seeing some pictures we’ve taken recently.  If you have a minute and feel like dropping us a note, please do.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s a typical school day at our dining room table in the trailer.  Caleb (grade 2) and Ruth (K4) are both enjoying school; so is Mommie!

Here’s a typical day after school.  They both enjoy that, too.

Tabitha is now nearly 2 years old.  It’s amazing how time flies!  We’ve found out that she’s just as sinful as the other two — put together!

We found a new pet — a blue-tongued lizard we named “Lightning” — about a month ago.  Last week, he escaped, but we just today saw the he has relocated to be our next-door neighbor.

Here, Caleb is reading to Lightning.  He has a towel on because he was cold. (Caleb doesn’t understand what “cold-blooded” means).

A favorite Australian cookie is a Tim-Tam.  They’re wonderful!  They’re made of two cookies put together with chocolate in the middle and covered on the outside with chocolate.  Tabitha had licked off the chocolate, and wasn’t sure what to do with the cookie.

Both girls enjoy dressing up and carrying bags.  The white undergarment was a newly-discovered addition to her wardrobe.

One of the ministries of the church is playgroup.  It’s a time for mothers and their children to get together to play and talk.  We have enjoyed going to playgroup each month.  The theme for the last playgroup was “A Child of the King.”  The kids really enjoyed making and wearing their crowns.

We took a couple of friends into the city to see the bridge and Opera House.  We had a good time, and took a few pictures while we were there.

Thanks for your prayers and communication.  It’s always good to hear from home and to know people are praying for us.  We continue to pray for our family and friends, as well.

This morning, our Visas for Australia were delivered to our front door!  Praise the Lord!  That means it took less than four weeks for them to process them, from the day we sent in our application.  We are so thankful for answered prayer all the way along.

Please continue to pray with us as we prepare.

We were reminded of God’s promise this week in Psalm 32:8 — “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.”  What a blessing to be led by the tender “eye” of God!

And we’re still in the USA.  We had planned to return to Australia on Monday, July 26th, but since our Visas have not yet come, we had to postpone the trip.  Please pray with us about God’s timing on the Visas.  We are still working towards going, and it seems that it may be sometime in September.

We’re really enjoying Tabitha.  She is 12 weeks old now!  She can smile and laugh, and it seems that she’s discovered her hands recently.

As you can see, she can hold her head up very well.

This is a lower perspective shot of our budding photographer.  Notice the lens cap on the right side.

This is the upper perspective.  Even though it looks like shrimp feet growing out the right side of his head, it’s not.  Just an illusion.

And here’s Ruthless … I mean, Rufus … I mean, Ruth

She’s a beauty!  It’s amazing how, regardless of the time spent fixing hair and beautifying a two-year-old, she still seems to have this look.

Concerning the ministry here, it’s been going very well.  We’ve been working with three churches here in Sydney for the past two months.  One mainly Chinese, one mainly Lebanese, and one mainly Filipino.  We have helped with music ministry, evangelism, preaching, piano tuning, prayer, music teaching at a school, and many other things.  It’s been a lot of fun serving the Lord here.  As I’ve gone through the picture files, I have realized that we didn’t take very many pictures of our ministry here, so we’ll have to start on that today.  We have another week here, and then we head down to Melbourne for a VBS for a week.  Then we move after that to a town in the southern part of Melbourne.  We’ll be there until we leave, Lord willing, on December 1st.

They’re so helpful!

Two peas in a pod!

And here’s the newest addition . . . at about seven weeks old.

It seems that people always ask us if we see kangaroos while we’re in Australia.  We took this picture in April in Mt. Gambier, South Australia, after we had finished packing up to leave a youth camp we were helping with.  This kangaroo wasn’t in any hurry to leave.  We usually tell people that they’re just like white-tailed deer, pretty much.  Similar grazing habits, etc.  So as often as you think you might see a deer (especially at the edge of the forest at dusk) is about as often as we see kangaroos.  No, we’ve never seen a koala in the wild.  We don’t really expect to.

Caleb and Ruth love to read together.

This is a man from the church we’ve been helping.  He and another girl were baptized a couple of weeks ago.  Please pray for spiritual growth for Attila and Jill.

These are two university students from Nepal.  They came to the church looking for someone to tell them about Christ.  Someone from this church had given them a tract in the city, and they had come one Sunday to try to find the church, but couldn’t.  So they tried again the next week, and James was able to talk to them.  They both understood salvation, and both of them trusted Christ.  James has kept up with both of them, and they are enjoying reading the Bible together.  Please pray for Suraj (Soo-rej’) and Subash (Soo-bash’).

Ruth enjoys caring for her bunny and surrogate dolls.

She’s full of mischief.  We’ve discovered lately that she really is a sinner . . . takes after Caleb.

We thought it was cute that he thought a porti-potty was a cubby house.

After our walk, we went to a little park and swung a little on the swings and slid on the slide.  Suzanne looked up from helping the kids with the swings and saw a sewing machine in the garbage.  So she took it home and cleaned it up.  It works!  It’s a 1953 Singer “Style-O-Matic” and there was a free downloadable manual for it online.  We’ll have to send a picture later.

James’ class went well on Tuesday, and he’s had several opportunities to visit with different people.  Suzanne taught a flute lesson on Friday, and that went very well.  We all took part in a Bible study on Friday night, and it was exciting to see about 20 people attend.  We’ll give more information on these things later, Lord willing.

We’re enjoying the cool weather here in Melbourne.  We have been staying at Calvary for about a week now, and it’s been very good.  We had ministry with Melbourne Bible Baptist Church on Sunday morning, and they had a luncheon to follow and a baptism at the beach.  We enjoyed being a part of that.

In the evening, we went to Calvary Baptist Church and enjoyed good fellowship with our friends there.  It’s been good to be around people that we’ve had ministry with before and whom we know.  A missionary from the Philippines spoke and showed his presentation.  His three daughters sang “I Am Happy in the Service of the King” in both English and the dialect of where they’ve been ministering.  It was a blessing.

This coming week, we have James teaching Apologetics on Tuesday, prayer meeting Wednesday night with Melbourne Bible Baptist, check-up with the midwife on Thursday and a couple of piano lessons in the evening (James going out on visitation during that time), a flute lesson on Friday afternoon, and witnessing in the city on Saturday night.  Please pray for each of these things as you remember them.