Missional Motherhood (6)

I was going to publish a post today about what I've learned about 'missional motherhood' this year. But I've decided to publish that one next week (even though it will be December then!), because I discovered this quote yesterday when I was reading a book called Miniskirts, Mothers and Muslims (yes, interesting title!).

I'll probably review the book properly soon, because I am REALLY enjoying it, but for today I'll just share this part of the book that is relevant to 'missional motherhood'. The author, Christine A. Mallouhi is an Australian Christian who married an Arab Christian (from a Muslim family). They have lived in a number of Arab countries. In the book she does a lot of thinking about how to live an Arab culture in a way that glorifies Christ. In this section of the book, she is thinking about motherhood and the opportunities it creates to obey the great commission.

The recent pattern of daily life where the woman is alone in the house with young screaming children to care for, while the man is out all day earning a wage, is not a common model of the family in world history. Missionary marriages also crack under the stress of this behaviour - quite apart from the stresses of cross-cultural living. A common factor is the unhappiness of the women. "Who am I?" and "What can I do that counts?" are painful questions for many young Christian mothers. Whether women are living overseas or at home in the West, many spend years feeling frustrated that they can't be "out ministering" because they have young children at home to care for.
...

If the real way to serve Christ is only street-evangelism and teaching the Bible, then Christians should get full-time help for the house and the children. But, since God made motherhood and desires responsible parenthood, as well as the fulfilment of the Great Commission, God must have a plan for mothers.

...

The home and children are not in the way, keeping women from "ministry". They are the ideal vehicle for a ministry to families and every woman in the church has the opportunity for this kind of full-time work. Family ministry is so badly needed in the West with the breakdown of the family unit. So many young people have never experienced a loving family and have no models.

In Arab culture. raising children is not something you do in your own home away from the community. There are many Western full-time mothers caring for young children at home all day and struggling with depression because they lack adult conversation. Let's not transplant unhealthy Western patterns. Mothers don't need to be alone and depressed. This is one area Western Christians can really celebrate in Muslim societies. Local women don't stay home alone with their small children. They raise their children with other women's children. They send the day with their sisters or friends, and while the children all play together, the women spend hours talking. Let's celebrate this wonderful advantage in cultures that love babies and small children. Children are a perfect bonding mechanism. If you have small children you should never be lonely. (pp. 120-122)

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Advent calendars (5)

Another entry. This time from Meredith:

In my preparations for Advent this year I made a wonderful discovery about the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones. For those not familiar with this children’s Bible, it covers key stories from the Old and New Testament and each one a has paragraph or two explaining how that part of the Bible points to Jesus. So what’s the discovery? There are twenty one stories presented from the Old Testament that will paint on Old Testament backdrop to the birth of Jesus and then the Christmas story is presented in three episodes. That makes twenty four superb readings to do with our children during Advent.

These would make great readings for an Advent calendar! Just pop a note in each day’s pocket directing the children to the reading for the day. And if you have older children maybe you could also nominate who is going to do the reading for the day.

We do our Advent calendar activities after dinner in our household and we won’t actually be using the Jesus Storybook Bible readings at that time. Instead we’re planning to do these readings in the morning after breakfast each day. We don’t usually manage to do Bible reading at breakfast in this house but we are going to put in a big effort for Advent. We think this will be fun and hope that it will be the beginning of an Advent tradition in our family. In a year or two we will graduate to some other text when our boys are older.

So why aren’t we going to make use of my big discovery in our Advent calendar?

Well, here is another wonderful Advent calendar idea. We aren’t using these readings because we don’t put our Advent calendar together. Every year we receive readings, activities and treats for our calendar from our children’s godparents. They gave our first son the actual physical calendar for his first Christmas and every year they supply the goods for the pockets – their gift to their godchildren. So if you have godchildren, nieces and nephews, grandchildren or some other special child in your life who needs to hear the gospel, this is a beautiful gift to give them every Christmas.

Four more days to go to enter the competition. You can still email me your entries until Monday morning (winners announced Monday night).

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How to encourage your kids’ Sunday school teachers

On Sunday mornings, I come to church wearing two hats: parent and Sunday school teacher. Drawing on my experiences from both roles, I thought I'd put together a few thoughts about how parents can encourage our children's secondary ‘disciplers’ (in this case, their Sunday school teachers) to keep doing the job with perseverance, diligence and joy. It's a somewhat random list based mainly on my own frustrations and joys over the years. I'd love to hear your additions to the list...

You can read the list at The Sola Panel today....

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Missional Motherhood (6)

Back in August I got an email from Rachel who was thinking about ways she and her friends could get involved together in evangelism in the local community and wanted input. There were some great suggestions that were given in the comment thread which I summed up in this post. Rachel and her friends also met together and put a list together of ways they could evangelise their local community together. In this missional motherhood post she shares what they came up with:

Before I share the list, I thought I'd give a bit of background about the meeting. We gathered a group of women who have pre-school age children and who recognise that this particular season of life presents particular opportunities for evangelism to other women with pre-school age children. We also see the value in working together to do this. In order to be more effective at doing evangelism together we recognised that we need to make changes in the way we currently build relationships with non-Christians. We could see that we need to structure our lives in ways that promote building relationships with non-Christians and work together to do this as well as provided structured activities or groups for building relationships with non-Christians. The ideas we came up with are grouped together below:

Relational Changes

• Evangelism prayer triplet. Christians meet together to pray for non-Christians friends and be intentional about meeting each others' non-Christian friends - ie. if you are going to the park you invite your non-Christian friends as well as your prayer triplet buddies and they invite their non-Christian friends;
• Meet your neighbours and invite them over;
• Deliberate relationships and get-togethers - similar to prayer triplet, but not as structured;
• Small groups working together - similar to prayer triplet;
• Living near each other - Get in the same Mum's group, Kinder, School as other Christians from church;
• Meet in a child-friendly cafe once a month - good for meeting with kinder or school mums;
• Family Picnic - to incorporate dads as well, do on a weekend, easier than having people in your home.

Structured programs

• Playgroup - pre-schoolers do activities and craft together at the same venue each week;
• Playground group - similar to playgroup but you meet at indoor and outdoor playgrounds instead of doing craft inside. This could suit older or more active children;
• Mainly Music - similar to playgroup but structured activities involve singing and music;
• Book Group
• Craft Group

One-offs (events, courses)

• Winter dinner
• Parenting courses – Focus on the Family (general), Raising Boys course, toddler seminars - self-care, marriage tune-up
• Church Family Picnic
• Outings
• Pool Party
• MOLDI dinners - Meaning of Life Discussed Intelligently (Ben Pfahlert developed this idea) - go out to dinner together (without kids!) with group of Christians and non-Christians who know each other (ie, school or kinder parents) and have a facilitator who facilitates a meaning of life discussion. Different to a dialogue dinner in that it is neutral territory and the conversation is not lead by anyone.
• Why Baptise/Christen? Course

Some families (mine included) are deliberately going to the same school so that they can get to know each others' friends. One of the mums is going to be an RE (scripture) teacher too which may provide extra opportunity for spiritual discussions. We are also getting the playgroup leaders together for a Bible study at a different time to playgroup. We are hoping then that if any of the playgroup mums are interested in reading the bible we could invite them to a group where they already know a number of the women from playgroup.

Thanks Rachel for encouraging the rest of us to think deliberately about the opportunities we have to share the gospel in the communities we live.

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The Book Thief

I just finished reading The Book Thief. Everyone I had spoken to who had read it had raved about it so I considered it a 'must read'. And I found when I read it that it is beautifully written, and it attempts to tackle some pretty important themes and looks at some major events in world history.

But would I be a complete Philistine if I admitted to you that I didn't really enjoy it very much? I had to make myself persevere with it, when normally I can't put a good book down. For 3/4 of the book, I struggled to explain to myself (or whoever else cared to listen!) the reason why. It wasn't because of the book's troubling subject matter - I love depressing novels. And, as I said, it was beautifully written, so it wasn't the quality of the writing. In the end, I think it was all to do with the tone of the novel, which is set very decidedly by the narrator, who is Death. I couldn't get beyond the fact that the 'voice' in the novel was 'Death' which bothered me on two levels - 1) it attempted to turn an abstraction into a speaking subject; and 2) in personifying death, it humanised it. It seemed to me that death's power was kind of trivialised. In giving Death human qualities, Death became less abhorrent. Here's an example:

Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their French words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear. (p. 373)

Great writing, and I can I see what he's trying to do by using Death as narrator, but it just made it hard for me to empathise with the characters. The other thing that bothered me was the 'need' of the main character had to steal books in order to deal with the (very real) pain in her life, but maybe I'm just getting a little petty now!

Having said that, by the end, I was pleased I had persevered. I did feel that I had a glimpse into what life might have been like in Nazi Germany for ordinary German citizens. This is a story that has not been told much, and I appreciated hearing it for that reason.

Have you read it? What did you think?

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Advent calendars (4)

I'll be announcing the winners of the Christmas giveaway next Monday night, so you have until next Sunday to enter the competition! All you have to do is send me a photo of your advent calendar/Jesse tree /or whatever else you do, and tell me a little bit about how you use it in your family. The idea is pool our ideas so that we gain a bit of inspiration from each other. Every person who sends me something goes in the draw to win a Christmas decoration (pictured) from harrysdesk.

Today's entry is from Wendy, who has also blogged about her advent traditions on her blog. Her idea of using noodle boxes is simple, but very effective. You can still do something like this even with a week to go! Here's an edited version of what Wendy has written about her advent traditions (for the full version, check out her blog).

We started out having a cardboard Christmas tree with numbers attached to it, which each had a verse on the back, which matched up with the special verses in the Advent Tree material in Disciplines of a Godly Family, by Kent and Barbara Hughes. Last year, I got more detailed with little numbered boxes each containing a bible verse and a special treat, still using a form of the Advent Tree, although quite edited by me. This year we are still going with the boxes - they were a big hit last year - and they can fit enough in them (but not too much!).


I have written my own material this year - for the last three years we have done a biblical theology of Christmas, a 'Genesis to Jesus' if you will. This year, we are focusing on the events around the birth of Jesus. We have 25 readings mainly from Luke and Matthew's gospels, so we can really spend time thinking about when Jesus was born and what it means for us today. Each day there is a bible reading, some questions to think about, a special verse and some optional extras - something to draw, a song to listen to, a craft to do, etc.

In each box there is a verse for each of our 3 children. The verse in full is written out for M (aged 6 and a confident reader), then a simplified version for Z (age 4) which she should be able to remember bits of, and the same for A (age 2 - she will remember nothing, but we have to include her!).

Thank you Wendy! And don't forget, there are 6 more days to go before I announce the winner. I would love to hear from more of you before then. The idea doesn't have to be complicated, and it can be something that's already been shared. It's just nice to hear what other people do at the time of year!

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Missional Motherhood (5)

This post is from Ruth who shares a story about an opportunity she had recently to talk about Jesus with her hairdresser. She originally published this on her own (private) blog and I was so encouraged by it, I got her permission to re-publish it here. While her blog is private, she is happy to have more readers join in. If you're interested, you can email me and I'll pass your details on.

I had a haircut yesterday. I only have about two haircuts a year. I very much enjoy them. I just don't like spending money on things like that - and I go to a very cheap hair dressers!!

So, I've been going, twice a year, to the same place since we moved - and they all know me there - because, apparently having five kids makes you known in hairdressers! The women there are all positive about the five kid thing. My husband has gone there a few times too - so they like that they've met the minister with five kids too!

Yesterday, the woman cutting my hair asked me - are you the minister's wife with five kids or the one with seven? Apparently she cant tell us apart!! (I have no idea who the minister's wife with seven is - but apparently she's pregnant with her eighth!)

Anyway - I seemed to have asked the right questions yesterday, because this lady pretty much told me her life story, and my hair kept getting shorter and shorter as she told me about her husband walking out on her when she had a one week old baby, her trying to understand why he did that, her turning to God for help and answers, and her realising she needed to forgive her ex husband regardless of getting answers to his behaviour.

It was a sad and fascinating conversation.

And my hair was getting shorter and shorter...

She asked all sorts of questions about God.

Then she told me that her younger child (she had a two yr old when the baby was born), told her she wished her dad were dead so that they wouldn't feel like he rejected them - and because then they wouldn't be wrong in divorce - or something like that - I assumed they were catholic, later she affirmed that.

Towards the end she just stopped cutting my hair, was crying as she was pouring out her worries to me, and we chatted for an hour!

On the way out she told me she reads the Bible everyday, and her children read theirs too. She just flips it open to any page and expects God to speak to her, and apparently he always does.

I told her about my boys waking up this week to read their Bibles, and how I'm reading through Matthew because I felt like it was good to keep reminding myself of Jesus - as he is God. This seemed to astound her - reading systematically through a Bible book?!?! Novel idea to her. I should have suggested she give it a try, but I didn't think of it. And basically I wanted to encourage her to keep reading her Bible, cause that's great, even if she's using a flip method. Then she asked me about what Bibles the kids use etc - and was quite keen to find answers. I was thinking I might drop by an XtB book for her now 9 year old, and maybe 'The Big Picture Story Bible' for her 6 yr old..... I think she'd appreciate that.

So, now I have very short hair, won't need another haircut for quite some time, but it was worth it.

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'At Castlewood' by Emily Bronte

Like a number of other poems by Emily Bronte, this one is about death. The speaker views the prospect with a kind of sullen defiance. Death is 'eternal rest' - not in the Rev 14:13 sense, or in the sense that the phrase carries in the Catholic requiem mass - simply in the sense of blackness, extinction, oblivion.

It's a powerful reminder of the complicated mix of despair and pride into which the message of Jesus' resurrection comes as both a promise of deliverance and a command to repentance.

At Castlewood

The day is done, the winter sun
Is setting in its sullen sky;
And drear the course that has been run,
And dim the hearts that slowly die.

No star will light my coming night;
No morn of hope for me will shine;
I mourn not heaven would blast my sight,
And I ne'er longed for joys divine.

Through life's hard task I did not ask
Celestial aid, celestial cheer;
I saw my fate without its mask,
And met it too without a tear.

The grief that pressed my aching breast
Was heavier far than earth can be;
And who would dread eternal rest
When labour's hour was agony?

Dark falls the fear of this despair
On spirits born of happiness;
But I was bred the mate of care,
The foster-child of sore distress.

No sighs for me, no sympathy,
No wish to keep my soul below;
The heart is dead in infancy,
Unwept-for let the body go.

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Book of the Week: 'Safari Adventure', by Willard Price

I only chose Safari Adventure as 'book of the week' (as opposed to one of the other 14 adventure books written by Willard Price) because this happens to be the one Jacob has been devouring this week. On previous weeks he has also worked his way through Amazon Adventure, African Adventure and quite a few others at a feverish pace.

I actually haven't read any of them - but they were favourites of Dave's when he was a boy. He thought to borrow one for Jacob at the library a little while ago and we haven't looked back - in fact we've run out of Willard Price books to borrow now!

Willard Price was a naturalist who worked for National Geographic and wrote a number of non-fiction books before writing his adventure series for kids. The series for kids is all about teenage zoologists, Hal and Roger Hunt.

The books alternate between racy, boys-own adventure-story prose and gobbets of non-fiction information about all sorts of wild creatures and exotic places. The language and perspective are both somewhat dated at points (and the attitudes to people of other cultures can be a bit condescending) but there is still a lot to like about the books, some good conversations to be had, and a whole lot of stimulus to further learning and discovery.

Willard Price wrote, shortly before his death:

My aim in writing the Adventure series for young people was to lead them to read by making reading exciting and full of adventure. At the same time I want to inspire an interest in wild animals and their behavior. Judging from the letters I have received from boys and girls around the world, I believe I have helped open to them the worlds of books and natural history.

Admittedly, Jacob was already quite interested in animals and reading before he read these books, but Price has definitely succeeded in capturing his imagination lately. Last Saturday, he and his sisters planned a 'safari adventure' of their own to our local creek with Dave. They came back full of excitement and proudly listed off for me the various animal sightings they had made: some ducks and ducklings, four large skink lizards, some galahs, some noisy mynahs, a wolf spider, some tadpoles, some fish and a dragonfly.

setting off - with their backpacks all packed

team botanist...

and artist...

and team photographer

whoops, lost one of the team - oh there he is (if you look carefully you can see a hand waving)

All this is a long way of saying I really recommend these books - particularly (though not exclusively) for boys aged 7-12 (depending on how confidently they can read).

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Advent calendars (3)

Those of you who are not so keen on craft will be relieved to find out that today's entry in the Christmas giveaway is not 'crafty'. And those of you who feel that an every day advent commitment is a bit much will like this too. Here's what my friend my Amy Butler has to say about her advent plans:

Each year I am inspired by all the advent calendar ideas. As simple as many of you promise them to be, I am just not the crafty type. I also struggle with doing something everyday. So I wanted to share with you this year’s advent program in the Butler household. My husband’s birthday is exactly six weeks from Christmas Day so this is a good signal for us to start doing something in preparation for Christmas. Every year we listen to Handel’s Messiah around Christmas. I love introducing my kids to the classics and love the theological richness of the lyrics. So I have chosen six Bible verses which are sung in the Messiah. We are doing a simple A4 page each week where I write the Bible verse and Ella, my four year old, decorates it. We have then placed it on the mantle piece along with a few of our favourite Christmas books (The Nativity, illustrated by Julie Vivas & Wombat Divine by Mem Fox). We are memorising the Bible verses together and reading the Christmas books. When we listen to the Messiah, we get really excited when we hear our memory verse in the lyrics. We talk about the context of the Bible verses and how they relate to the Christmas story. It is working for my family. Here are the Bible verses I’m using.

1. Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight (Matthew 3.3)
2. For unto us a child is born... (Isaiah 9:6)
3. Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29)
4. We all like sheep have gone astray… (from Isaiah 53)
5. I know that my redeemer lives… (Job 19:25)
6. And of course… Hallelujah (Revelation 19:6)

I love it Amy - thanks for sharing your Advent plans with us!

We've had some wonderful entries already, but I would love to see some more. Remember next week is the last week of November, so time is running out to both prepare your Advent calendar/readings or enter the competition. Please email me if you'd like to share your ideas with the rest of us and be in the draw to win one of these beautiful decorations made by Ally.

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Roast chicken

It was Dave's birthday last Tuesday (yes, we do have a lot of them this time of year!), and I cooked roast chicken for his 'birthday meal'. Since I was a vegetarian for many years, I still feel a little out of my depth when it comes to roasting meat - so I was pleased to find this demonstration and recipe on Gwyneth Paltrow's site - GOOP. It had a few clever little tricks that I'd never heard of before, and they worked a treat:



I didn't manage to look as glamorous as I cooked the meal, but it did taste good! I will definitely be trying this one again.

Thanks to Prue for the link to Gwyneth's site!

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Missional Motherhood Month (4)

Today's missional motherhood post has been written by Aimee, who comes from my city of Sydney, but this year has been living in the USA. The move has given her a unique opportunity to share her life with some kids from the housing commission area in her neighbourhood:

A unique opportunity

This year my family and I moved from living in an apartment in Sydney to living in a townhouse in the United States. With this came different ministry opportunities. While living in an apartment, it was difficult to get to know the neighbours. The only ‘common ground’ was at lifts and in hallways (making for fleeting conversations) and occasionally around the swimming pool, but only in the warmer months!

This year we live in a little townhouse street with half housing commission and half mid-upper class workers (we're the second group). I've been thinking and praying a lot about the uniqueness of this situation: how to be a witness to those around me and how to let God use me in looking after the poor and needy in our local area.

A number of the neighbourhood children (from the housing commission area) are upper-primary age and have taken a real liking to our 2 year old. My daughter and I (and my husband, when he is home) have had lots of opportunities to get to know these kids and to spend time with them. We have been praying for the chance to share the gospel with them and their parents. We have a small playground right out the front of our house that is for the immediate neighbourhood; this is a great communal area in which to meet other families and the neighbourhood children.

The challenges

The neighbourhood children generally play unsupervised, so this has made getting to know their parents quite challenging. We are praying that we will get to know them, but very few opportunities have arisen so far.

Due to the socio-economic differences, some of the children from the housing commission are very curious about our house and possessions. I’ve often had children do whatever they can to find a way to get inside our house to have a look around and compare their place to ours. While in itself this can be fairly harmless, I’m cautious about it for a few different reasons: (a) their parents don’t know where they are (even if they’re not down playing with them outside, they can at least look out and see they are okay, if they are inside our house they won’t see them); (b) the children keep pushing to look into more private parts of the house – our bedroom, our bathroom, etc without respecting boundaries; (c) if there are large groups of children it is difficult to keep an eye on them all and I feel I can’t be properly responsible for their actions while in our house; and (d) it fosters negative feelings of comparison and jealousy over what we have compared to what they have.

The children are at least 5 years older than our daughter and can sometimes be ‘rough’ when playing with her. They also will ring our doorbell (and not just once either!) at difficult times of the day, such as when our daughter is napping (on weekends when they’re home from school) or when I’m busy cooking dinner and can’t supervise my daughter outside, or quite late in the evening after her bedtime. They’re not always understanding or respectful of our reasons for not playing with them and will return within half an hour and try again! This can get frustrating when we’re busy.

Making the most of the opportunities and meeting the challenges

* I generally try to play with them in a common area rather than in the house. Mercifully we have the playground right in front of our house, so if the weather and the timing are appropriate, we head out there to play with them. If there is a small group (3 or less) of children we already know fairly well and the weather is poor, I’ll invite them in so long as they first ask their parents if they can play at our house.

* I aim for friendly but firm when it comes to boundaries. We have one neighbourhood girl (11 years old) who constantly tries to push the boundaries. I've learnt not to pay attention to her moods, but just to be consistent and friendly. If I say 'no' to something, I'm happy to explain why once, but I won't get into a disagreement about it. This has been paying off over time and I’ve noticed that they are now much more polite in asking to play with our daughter and not forcing their way into our house. It makes for a much more enjoyable playing time for everyone.

* If they ring our doorbell, I’ve asked them only to ring once and wait for an answer. They’re old enough to understand this ‘rule’. I also try and either give them a time to try again later in the day when we might be free, or ask them to come again another day. This stops (or at least reduces) the constant doorbell ringing throughout the day.

* I try to learn their names when I meet them so that I can pray for them specifically and say hi to them when we see them (I think it's important to initiate conversation sometimes so that for all the times I might say 'no' to them, they also know I'm also happy to see them and say 'hi'). - I often bring out some toys that they can play with together with my daughter. This helps them to focus on something other than our house (and how many rooms we have inside!) and fosters good play between a variety of ages.

* When I see their parents (usually just briefly) I make sure I say hi.

* I'm trying to think of ways to naturally share with these children about God but without doing so in a way that might be objectionable to their parents. Things I’ve thought of and tried so far include singing Christian songs with our daughter when outside, or having Christian music on in the house when they come around, and asking them about church (if they attend). I'd love prayer for this!!

* We’re praying for more opportunities to get to know their parents.

I feel like we have a great opportunity here, but it’s a slow ministry and I’m not always sure how to make the most of the opportunities I have to point these children and their families to Christ. So far I’ve mostly been just getting to know them and developing healthy relationships with the children we see regularly. I would love any other suggestions you have on how we can be witnessing to our neighbourhood children and their family. Please leave any ideas you have in the comments!

If you want to share a story or example, the details are in this post.

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Often rebuked, yet always back returning, by Emily Bronte

Another Emily Bronte poem. According to this site: "Harold Bloom calls this Emily Brontë's finest poem; however, C.W. Hatfield, who edited her poems, speculates that Charlotte wrote or revised this poem. It first appeared in the 1850 edition of Emily's novel and poems; no manuscript version of this poem is known."

Often rebuked, yet always back returning

Often rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.

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Missional Motherhood Month (3)

Earlier this week, Jenny Kemp shared a bit about how she's been intentional in her relationships at her kids' school this year.

Today's post is by Sarah Condie who looks back on many years of local school involvement and the opportunities that arose. I hope you find her story as encouraging as I did!

I thought I would share my story, as my children are older than Jenny Kemp’s, but we took a very similar approach. Our children are now 21, 19 and 16 and they all attended their local public school which was a wonderful mission field for all of our family. We were actively involved in the school which had a preschool for twelve years.

At the time, one third of the school consisted of Aboriginal children, many of whom had been sent to school with a can of coke and a packet of chips. A school bus would collect the children, as this was they only effective way of getting them there. The school had a breakfast room which was established to feed the children something a little more nutritional. They also had a lunch canteen during winter and a thick nourishing soup was served for $1 each day and a sausage sizzle on Fridays. I am setting this as background as on the face of it this school didn’t look like it would provide the most “Christian, nourishing environment” for our beloved children.

However, we entrusted “our darlings” to our God who loves our children even more than we do and sent them to this school. It was just around the corner, I could walk there and we wanted to meet people from our local community. It is a challenge to trust God with our children – we so want to control their environment and protect them from bad things happening to them – which is a good thing in and of itself, until we put them into such a cosseted cocoon, that our darlings don’t learn to stand on their own two feet to become independent young people.

Our time at this school was filled with numerous opportunities of “influence for good” in this community. I was the school P & C secretary for too many years to remember and helped organised three fetes. Our principal begged me to bring other “Christian” families to the school, as they had benefited from our involvement so enormously. Many friends of my children’s came to Sunday School and Holiday clubs and other special events such as Carols in the Park – all very easy to invite friends to. One girl begged her mother to buy her a bible. These are just some of the things that I can remember at the top of my head. Teachers would me that our children had talked about their church community and their faith during class. Their faith was certainly “in their face”.

As Christian parents, we want to help our children develop in their character, in bearing and producing the fruit of the spirit. Life was not always easy for my children at this school, and at times, things would happen that would upset me and want me to jump in and rescue them. For example, a stolen brand new school shirt, a stolen pencil case filled with treasures, having to sit next to “the worst boy in the class” because my child was such a positive example to him. We would use these situations as opportunities to talk with our children and help them manage the situation for themselves – and believe me they did.

Our school community saw first hand a Christian family in action and we had many opportunities for conversations about our faith, our children and how we raised them, our church and our values. We and the other Christian families at the school were “light” and “salt” to this community. As Jenny says, this is such a unique door into our local community – I still bump into Mums and Dads who I met at school - those relationships are still there. My three children all speak positively about their experience at our local public school. God certainly used their time there to shape and mould them into the fine young people they are today. One thing that has particularly struck me about my children is their lack of preoccupation with material possessions. I am sure this stems from their time at their local school where they met many children who had nothing and they realised well of they were. There were many features of our school that were not perfect, but God used all of their experiences “for good”.

My 16 year old son is at his local high school and has started up a Christian group there and had many conversations about Jesus and his faith with his friends. The group is small, but he cajoles his friends to join him and they are being challenged by Jesus each week. My other two are at uni and have a deep and vibrant faith. I thank God for them and for their experiences at their local public school. As a mother, trusting God with my children at school was one of the hardest things I did, but I certainly believe he honoured that trust and used our family for good in that community over many years.

If you want to share a story from your own life, or from the life of another woman, please email me!

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Peter Pan and Wendy party

As promised, I thought I'd give you a run down of the Peter Pan and Wendy party. It was a bit trickier than I originally thought, but I did get a few good ideas from some other sites, and with my mum's enthusiastic help and inspired ideas of her own, we managed to do it.

Decorations

For decorations, I went with the idea of making different parts of the area into different parts of Neverland. So we had Pirate Cove, the Indian Camp, Mermaids Lagoon etc. As the kids arrived they could have their faces painted at the Indian Camp and get temporary tattoos at Pirate Cove. I got a couple of girls from our church youth group (who also help out with Sunday school) to come and help with the activities and games - that was a VERY good decision as they were a wonderful help - they even helped clean up at the end!).


My favourite part of the decorations was the backdrop my mum did. She got a huge roll of black plastic from the hardware store, and stuck stars and a flying Wendy, Peter and Tinkerbell to it. It looked great!


Activities

As well as face painting and tattoos, we got the kids to do some plaster painting as they arrived. The plasters were generously given to me by another mum from school - she is the same lady I mentioned in this post. I was very grateful to her - the kids loved them.


Food

I did most of the usual food with a 'Peter Pan' twist: magic wand biscuits, fairy bread in star shapes, little tiny 'fairy' jelly cups, cupcakes with Tinkerbell and crocodiles on them, plus some 'fairy' punch (red cordial and lemonade!).


Games

Dave did a great job again of doing the games on the day (SO great being married to an ex-teacher!!). We did pass the wand (like pass the parcel, but they passed the wand and chose a lucky dip when it stopped at them)...


...and we did a treasure hunt. For this one, I drew a map of Neverland (there are actually quite a lot on the internet to copy from) and printed out and coloured in a picture of each place on the map. The kids (with Dave leading), had to go and find each of the pages and bring them back to me to find the treasure. The actual treasure was some chocolate coins in a box.

Party bags

My mum was responsible for these - she made little pink felt bags with stars attached for each girl (they were inspired by these ones). For the boys, I made up some pirate ones.


Cake

The cake was the easiest one I have every made, but I was really happy with it. All I did was laminate a colour photocopied picture of Peter Pan and Wendy (Rebecca chose it). Then on the day, I iced the cake pink, placed it in the middle of a square cake and added icing stars (I bought them from a cake decorating shop).


So easy, and not a toothpick in sight!

We've decided that we'll do another 'special' one when Elsie turns 5, but future birthdays for Jacob and Rebecca will be more low key - and will only be every second year!!

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Advent calendars (2)

I have two more entries in the Christmas giveaway competition to show you. The first is from Jo Charles. As you can see, hers is more of an advent/Jesse tree:

I really like the way this one uses the ornaments as visual teaching aids - and they're really cute too! Here's what she wrote about it:

We were inspired by the instructions in Commonsense Parenting by Kent and Barbara Hughes. We do the readings out of that book too, although our discussions can sometimes go further than the questions they give. The kids take it in turns to read the readings and to hang the things up. we made them out of FIMO and cardboard and cotton wool and a white modelling material that you can buy here in Chile called white ceramic. We use the same symbols each year, although sometimes the kids add/improve on the last year's offering.

I am in the process of translating the instructions/questions into Spanish to share with families at church, as there is a good deal of Biblical Theology in the questions.

And the second entry is from Miriam English, who made her advent calendar before she and her husband had kids so they could to keep Jesus central to Christmas.

If you look closely you'll notice that she's even stitched the Bible verses on to the calendar! She explains:

There are 24 pockets, with a Bible reading on each. The Bible readings follow the story of Jesus' whole life, beginning with some prophetic teachings about him in the OT which are then quoted in the NT. My husband and I also started off giving each other a small gift alternately, which was surprisingly fun with just the two of us!

Now we have two children, aged 4 and 2, and so we all have a turn of receiving a small gift, and then read the passages together as a family (usually after dinner). After having had children, I've realised that some of the Bible passages are too long for really young children, so I'm going to try and adapt it this year - but still keep with the same idea of following Jesus' whole life over the month of December, and teaching that it was God's plan for him to come, as a present for us all, for a long, long time!

When they are old enough, I also originally had the intention of getting our kids to give some of the small gifts in the pockets, to some of their friends, just to help encourage the idea of 'giving' rather than always receiving. Still thinking about how this would work though and think I still have a couple more years to think about it before our kids would be ready for this part of it.

Thank you Miriam and Jo! And for the rest of you - if you want to enter the competition and win one of these beautiful Christmas ornaments from harrysdesk, then all the details are here.

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Missional Motherhood Month (2)

November is missional motherhood month - the idea being that you can send me examples of ideas you've had for how to live out a Great Commission mindset in your life as a mum, or ways in which you've seen other women doing it.

The second story for this year comes from Jenny Kemp, who has her own blog which I have in my reader and find very encouraging. She's written down a few reflections at the end of a year in which she and her husband decided to get a bit more serious about involving themselves involved in the local school and pre-school communities:

I would just like to say that neither myself or my husband would ever say we are great evangelists. We are pretty hopeless to be honest. But we trust that God is a big God who can work despite our weaknesses. Plus you have to be 'in it to win it' (as they say!).

We have five children and three of them currently attend our local public school. Next year we will have four kids at the same school and our fifth child will attend the local preschool.

Last year my husband and I both felt that this was the time of life to get involved with the local community and build on all the contacts we were making through our children and their friends. This window of opportunity will not be open forever.

So this year my husband became the secretary of the school P&C and I volunteered as the secretary of the community preschool (being secretary is now an area of speciality for our family!).

My husband has a busy job in full-time ministry and finds it hard to make connections with the other parents. I find it easier being there each day to pick up the kids (and manage their social lives). Entering into the school community and getting involved has meant that he has a reason to talk to the other dads. Going to the working bee on a day where the rain was pouring down, shoveling woodchips around the school gardens with five other dads, earned him lots of credibility. The parents on the P&C respect him because he's getting involved with what they care about. And if there's anything Christians can do, it is serve others. We've had lots of practice doing that!

We don't know how God is going to use our family. We trust that he will use our efforts. I strongly believe that we are to be salt and light in a dark world. I think the way we live our life is a huge witness. But we have to be involved in the world so that people can actually see that.

A few weeks ago we were invited to go camping for the weekend with three families from school. None of them know Jesus yet. We were really excited to go (even though they were a little apprehensive about how kooky we might be!). Did we have any big conversations about Jesus? No. Did we talk lots about politics, raising kids, values and juggling life and work? Yes. Did we get comments about how well our kids respected us? Yes. I count all those as small steps in those people coming to know what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus.

Do you know what the biggest tension for me has been in getting more involved with unbelievers? That we don't have as much time for church programs. But as I said at the beginning. This is a short window of opportunity. And we're keen to grab it and trust that God will use it for His purposes and glory.

If you'd like to share a story - please email me.

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"If you come across a bird's nest..."

A few people have asked me about the magpie (actually it turned out to be a currawong) and its eggs since I wrote about them in this post, a couple of months ago. The good news was that the currawong's boldness was vindicated and the nest survived.

But there was a sequel to the story, just a couple of weeks ago....

...you can read it at The Sola Panel!

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'Hope', by Emily Bronte

Here's another Emily Bronte poem. Despite what the name might imply, it's actually quite a bleak one!





Hope

HOPE was but a timid friend;
She sat without the grated den,
Watching how my fate would tend,
Even as selfish-hearted men.

She was cruel in her fear;
Through the bars one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
And she turned her face away!

Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
If I listened, she would cease.

False she was, and unrelenting;
When my last joys strewed the ground,
Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
Those sad relics scattered round;

Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
Went, and ne'er returned again!

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Rebecca's birthday

It was Rebecca's birthday today - and her Peter Pan and Wendy party yesterday. It all went really well and she's had a lovely time. I'm trying hard not to think too much about the fact she is now a 5 year old! Here are some photos from her party yesterday, and if I get a chance I'll share a bit more about the party later in the week:

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Advent calendars (1)

I am very excited that I have already been sent two entries for the Christmas giveaway (see yesterday's post for details). Cat has sent me this photo of hers from last year, which I think sounds quite simple, but looks really effective:


And here is her explanation:

I made my first ever advent calendar last year, after being inspired by some other mums. It was really simple - I just covered an existing picture frame with wrapping paper, stuck some numbered envelopes on and filled them as we went. Each envelope had a little note for dinner and something else. The notes either had a Christmas joke or a mini-Bible study on some Christmas themes like 'joy', 'peace', 'hope', etc, and my daughter had the opportunity to look up a short passage and then we talked about how Jesus' birth relates to these ideas.

The something else ranged from little gifts (a bag of marbles, a 'Happy Birthday Jesus' colouring kit, etc), to home-made decoration activities (we decorated the tree, made paper-chains, made snowflakes for our windows), other activities (making jelly, getting both of our hair-cut, going to the beach, often the first clue in a treasure hunt around the house to find a special Christmassy dessert (like mince pies). We had so much fun and it made advent a really special family time, while also giving me more opportunity to include Jesus in our celebrations.

Janiel is going to use one like this and is going to paint/decorate it:

And this is what she writes about last year:

I put verses (from Disciplines of a Godly Family by Kent and Barbara Hughes) into each box - some longer and some shorter. This year they can all read so I'll work on similar passages but expanded. In each box there was also a small treat or something to do to create a family memory. One was going out in pyjamas for McDonald's ice-creams, one was watching a movie together, one was a special supper, one was making Christmas cards for friends and family far away. None were complicated or expensive but all 4 of our children have asked if we are doing it again.

Thanks Cat and Janiel, you're both in the draw to win one of the decorations from harrydesk. If you want to enter, all you need to do is email me with your photo and explanation - you have until the end of November.

And I would also love to hear your missional motherhood stories too - again, until the end of November.

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Christmas giveaway!

I don't normally do giveaways on this blog, but inspired by my friend Ally, and because it's almost Christmas, I am going to have a 168 hours giveaway.

Since I've just spent a whole month writing about traditions at EQUIP book club, I thought that I would ask to hear about your Christmas traditions this year. So here's the idea: I thought we could share ideas for advent calendars and/or Jesse trees. I know there are a lot of creative ways of doing these things, and it would be good to pool ideas. And since it's already November, it might give you a bit of an extra bit of motivation to get started before December sneaks up on us (if you're stuck for ideas, you can find some in this post).

All you need to do is to send me a photo of your advent calendar/Jesse tree and tell me a little bit about how you use it in your family - do you do readings - if so, which ones? Do you include chocolates or gifts? The advent calendars do not have to be fancy - you can even make them out of toilet rolls I'm told, so anyone can do it!

I'll publish all of them over the month of November, and at the end, I'll pick a winner out of a hat (it's not a competition for the best advent calendar, it will be random!).

The winner will receive one of these Christmas decorations handmade by my friend, Ally, who as well as being the inspiration for this giveaway, is the designer behind harrysdesk. Aren't they gorgeous? Come to think of it, I think I'm going to buy two, so I can keep one for myself!!

Pics by Ally at harrysdesk.

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Marriage: what it is for

I've written a post about what I think marriage is for, over at in tandem.

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Rebecca's party planning

Rebecca is turning 5 on the weekend and I am very busy preparing for her 'Peter Pan and Wendy' party. We chose it because we read the book earlier this year and enjoyed it, and I thought with all the pirates and fairies and Indians and mermaids, it would work well for both boys and girls. But I've found it's been more complicated to plan this one than I originally thought. For one thing, there are 'Tinkerbell' themed ideas everywhere and none involving Peter Pan or Wendy, but Rebecca doesn't even like Tinkerbell very much - especially since in the book version, she actually tried to kill Wendy (who is her favourite character!).

So, I'm trying to be creative and think up some of my own ideas for cakes, games etc - I've come up with a few already, but I would love some suggestions. Has anyone ever been to or hosted a Peter Pan and Wendy party? What did you do?

And, yes, you can expect some photos and a rundown of how it went next week!

Pic: 'Peter Pan and Wendy Float Away Over the City', by Alice Woodward, from art.com

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Missional Motherhood Month (1)

Last week, I announced that November was going to be 'missional motherhood month' again. It's a chance for you to share stories of ways you, or other women you know have sought to live out the Great Commission in the context of everyday life as a mum.

Our first story comes from Clare Weary, who, with her mothers' group has started visiting the local nursing home with her baby. Here's her story:

Our ‘Mums ‘n’ Bubs Club’ was formed earlier this year by a small group of mums with very young babies. We were prompted by awareness of the fondness that most elderly people feel for little children, and a desire to provide care and relationship to nursing home residents. Memories of our own grandparents and their experiences in aged care added impetus to the idea. As Christians, honouring the elderly and caring for others is a worthwhile activity in its own right.

In a sense, any ‘evangelistic’ or ‘missional’ purposes were secondary to the basic aim of doing something positive for the elderly. However, we did hope that our contact with the residents and staff might lead them to think about and perhaps inquire about our motivation for bringing our children to the nursing home. Furthermore, we hoped to model for our children the importance of caring for others in the community, and involve them in this from an early age. It’s easy as parents to feel that we want to protect our children from discomfort, but we were keen to teach them that there are more important things than comfort (so sometimes missing out on some of morning sleep-time, or having lunch a little later, is OK!).

To get the group going, we made contact with a local nursing home with which our church already had links (through visiting residents and running Bible study groups). The proposal to have a group of mothers and babies visit once a month was met with almost overwhelming enthusiasm! Nursing home staff are always delighted with anything which will add to the care and entertainment of their residents.

So how does it work? The ‘Mums’n’Bubs Club’ runs for an hour once a month. We spend most of our time in the home’s common area, with the children either playing on the floor or spending some one-on-one time with the residents. We are also able to visit the rooms of some residents who are unable to come to the common room. It’s lovely to see these two age groups together, and the children bring great delight to the residents.

An initial hurdle in setting up this kind of activity is the amount of paperwork and administration required (identity checks, police checks, statutory declarations, orientation meetings.) It’s great to know, however, that our country has such terrific systems in place to protect those who might otherwise be vulnerable to exploitation. So, for example, there are guidelines about being accompanied by staff when visiting residents in their rooms, not bringing food to share with the residents, and so on.

We have found many opportunities to show Christ’s love to others through the ‘Mums’n’Bubs Club’. Even being patient and cheerful through the tedious process of completing forms says something about our commitment to caring for the residents and staff. Then, we can try to be flexible when programs change, ensure we inform staff if we are unable to come, and show understanding and patience when things go wrong. And of course the time spent talking with residents and giving them contact with the children is (we hope) a positive experience for them. One unexpected outcome has been the opportunity to meet and include new mums and bubs who have other connections with the nursing home, and have been able to join us in our visits.

We are hopeful that our ongoing contact with the nursing home staff and residents will continue to provide such opportunities to reflect Christ.

If you have any stories or examples you'd like to share, please email me!

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'Last lines', by Emily Bronte

Inspired by the TV version of Wuthering Heights that's been screening over the past two weeks, I've chosen to spend a bit of time reading Emily Bronte's poems this month. I must admit I haven't really read them before, and I'm still trying to work out all the dimensions of this one. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Last lines

No coward soul is mine,

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:

I see Heaven's glories shine,

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,

Almighty, ever-present Deity!

Life--that in me has rest,

As I--undying Life--have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds

That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;

Worthless as wither'd weeds,

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one

Holding so fast by Thine Infinity;

So surely anchor'd on

The steadfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love

Thy Spirit animates eternal years,

Pervades and broods above,

Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,

And suns and universes ceased to be,

And Thou were left alone,

Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,

Nor atom that his might could render void:

Thou--Thou art Being and Breath,

And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

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Happy Reformation Day (for yesterday!)

Yesterday was Reformation Day. It is 492 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of Castle Church, Wittenburg. This event is now considered to be the start of the protestant Reformation (though its roots go further back than that). The truths for which the Reformers contended were bitterly contested from the very beginning, and in the centuries that followed thousands of men and women suffered imprisonment, torture and execution for their faithfulness to those truths. This is a re-post of a post I wrote last year in honour of the occasion...

In honour of Reformation Day I want to tell the story of one of these. Her name was Marie Durand.

Born in 1715, Marie Durand was a Huguenot (a member of the Protestant church in France). Huguenots were fiercely critical of the Catholic church, and as a result, faced persecution from the time of the Reformation. The most significant event was the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, in August 1572, when between 30,000 and 100,000 Huguenots were killed across France. By the time Marie Durand was born, the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685 made it illegal to be a Huguenot, and persecution was once again increasing.

Marie Durand's brother brother Pierre was a Protestant minister and the Protestant church held meetings in their home. Because of this, in 1728, the authorities turned their sights on the Durand family. At first, because they were unable to arrest Pierre, they imprisoned her father. Before he was taken, he married her to a man named Matthew Serres in the hope she would be safe with him. The plan failed. In 1730, at the age of 15, Marie Durand was arrested, and soon after Matthew was taken too.

Marie was taken to The Tower of Constance. There, the female prisoners were kept in the upper room with little light and air. It was a place where heretics were kept and tortured and many died. The only thing the authorities asked her to do in order to be released was to abjure her Huguenot faith. All she needed to do was to say the word “J’abjure.” But she couldn't bring herself to do it. Instead, she inscribed the word Register (Occitan for Resist) on the walls of her prison cell.

An article in Glimpses of Christian history describes the life she led during the years she spent in the tower:

Although just fifteen, she became the tireless Christian focus of the Tower, and remained the spiritual leader of the prisoners for thirty-eight years. She nursed the ailing, wrote letters for those who could not write, and (after a psalter was allowed) read psalms aloud each evening. She encouraged her fellow-prisoners to sing Huguenot hymns. Not all the women were Christians. Some were crude. But the prisoners knew her family; they sympathized with her youth and they respected her for her piety. All were blessed through her.

In 1767, after 38 years in the tower, she was released. Her father, brother and husband were dead.

The life of Marie Durand, and her commitment to the truths of the Reformation, remind me of the preciousness of what I believe. Her one word slogan - Resist! - is not only a stubborn assertion of the individual conscience in the face of religious persecution, but also (and far more importantly) a hymn to the praise of Christ. When we defend the gospel of grace we are bearing witness to the truth that our salvation is to the glory of God alone. When we suffer for that gospel we are suffering not merely for an idea but for Christ himself, and showing that he is worthy not only of our words but of our lives.

Sources:
The Wonder of Idiotic Perserverance;
Marie Durand;
Marie Durand Released at Last
Marie Durand - Wikipedia
Images from Wikipedia.

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