Tall Skinny Kiwi

Family update

We are all enjoying good weather and are preparing for our first summer in Orkney. Sam has a part time job working for one of the cafes across the road. Tamara is only 6 but she is becoming a great chef - She just made something yesterday without a recipe - just threw in all kinds of ingredients and it worked out. Tamara and Debbie took a horse and carriage ride yesterday through our town of Stromness as part of a Victorian Day at the museum. [Click thumbnails to enlarge].

Willy Wonka Party

This is a record of our Willy Wonka birthday party last week and in particular, the media, food and games we created for it in the few hours before the party. Maybe it will be helpful to others doing the same thing.

Thats me on the left, dressed up as Willy Wonka. I welcomed people at the front door with a rolled out red carpet. This was the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory themed birthday party for our daughter Elizabeth, who turned 15. It was a great time and exceeded expectations. It was done on a budget and done quite well. So . . . I thought I would blog some of the links that were helpful, the games we invented, and, for non-geeks,  some of the hacks I used to get Willy Wonka media like fonts, .mp3 and video into our home. I use a Mac, btw and cant really recommend the best tools and programs to PC users.

Video
There are plenty of Willy Wonka video clips out there (youtube, etc) but importing and reusing can be a challenge. I download them with the Video Downloader 2.0 which is an add on to my Firefox browser. Then I open them up with MPEG Streamclip as a Quick Time movie, or, as DV footage for iMovie. If you can find some movies in .mov or .mpg format, (I search for them on Google) then you can download them directly as QT movies and use them as fodder for your video wallpaper. Some of my downloads needed editing to get the credits and words out of them which i did in Quicktime Pro (costs a little but its worth it). When you are all done, make sure the movie is in "loop" mode and play it on your TV or, if you have a projector, shoot it on the ceiling or a wall.

Technorati Tags: willy wonka

Technorati Tags: willy wonka

We gotta BOAT!

Our first boat. My father always said "Dont buy a boat. Just have a friend that owns a boat" which was good advice at the time. But this one came up and we couldnt resist. We live a stones throw from the ocean. All our friends sail. The family have sailed a little but always in borrowed boats. So . . we picked it up yesterday from George who gave us the boat for a £50 donation to Cancer Research.

The boat is a Mirror 16 Dinghy. Mirrors were the small sailing boats that kicked off the DIY boating movement in the 60's. This one is a little bigger and was probably built in the early 70's. James B. came with us to pick it up. As it turned out, George helped rescue James from getting swept out to sea eleven years ago. Co-incidence?

Easter weekend in London

We are in London at the moment, staying with Shannon Hopkins near the Tower of London. Easter celebration for 20 people tomorrow. Anita Roach from LA is here with us - havent seen her since Greenbelt 4 years ago.

Wales was great. Saw the house my grandad was born in. We also spent a night in Oxford at the big house that is on its way to becoming a new monastery under the care of Church Missionary Society. Jim Barker spent the evening meal with us. He will be heading up the community and he is already building relationships with the various monasteries and communities in that area.

Sam's Birthday

The last of the January birthdays. That makes 3. Samuel is our eldest and he turned 16 today.

Hannah

Our dauughter Hannah celebrated her 9th birthday on the 13th. A noisy happy party with lots of girls. Hannah told us today what she wants to do when she grows up:

She says she wants "to travel to other countries to tell people about God."

We figured she was headed in that direction. Isnt that cool? I have a feeling she will find this blog post one day. Hi Hannah in the future! We are very proud of you whatever you decide.

15 Year Old Binge-Drinkers Need a Happy Hour

Young people need a happy hour at the dinner table with their family. Let me explain what i am thinking.

I saw some stuff on TV a few weeks ago that got me thinking. UK has a serious problem with badly behaved, foul-mouthed, binge-drinking youth. [Sounds like they interviewed that church youth group I visited in London]. According to a recent study by the Institute for Public Policy Research called Freedom's Orphans, British youth are worse in most areas of behaviour compared to their counterparts on the continent.
"Measured against German, French and Italian youngsters, British 15-year-olds are drunk more often and involved in more fights, and a higher proportion have had sex". Link

The only countries with worse binge-drinking youth are Ireland [who woudda thunk??] and Denmark. As fate would have it, I will be in Denmark in a few days and will probably rub this statistic in their Danish faces to make me feel a little better about the country I live in.

One of the solutions, according to researchers, is the family meal.

"Some 93% of Italian teenagers eat regularly with their families; in the UK just 64% of 15-year-olds do the same. . . Nick Pearce, director of the IPPR, told the BBC last night the figures pointed to an "increasing disconnect" between children and adults, with young people learning how to behave from each other. He said: "Because they don't have that structured interaction with adults, it damages their life chances. They are not learning how to behave - how to get on in life - as they need to." link

The answer for our family?
Well, we live in the UK and our oldest kid is now 15 [what a co-incidence!!!!] and he runs off from meal times as fast as he can. I think an extended dinner table experience might be a good start. What I am working on right now is a one hour interactive meal hosted each week at our dinner table. I was thinking of calling it "Happy Hour" [although the origin of the term 'happy hour' might call for a different name ] and it should include
- A well thought out menu
- A spectacular and ostentatious dessert.
- Some table games or quizzes that lead to "structured interaction".
- A prayer before the meal (grace) and maybe extended grace to cover the events of the moment.
- A higher level of table manners
- Conversation about issues and relevant stuff.
- No running off until the ENTIRE HOUR has passed.

We are thinking about Tuesday night at 6pm. Any ideas out there? Any veterans? Any other families that want to hook up with us and swap war stories?

Related:
IPPR Report (Freedom's Orphans),
[executive summary PDF]
UK Youths 'Among Worst in Europe', BBC
Revolting Youth [YouthNet blog]
UK Youths Top European Bad Behaviour League
Youth Behavior, Guardian, May 2006

Technorati Tags: uk, youth

YIKES!! My Wife Is Gone For Over 2 Weeks

They say you should never send a woman to do a man's work. But the fact is, Debbie and i have been partnering in this funny thing called ministry (which is co-ed, btw) for about 20 years so I guess I can trust her to represent the Jones concerns. Actually, she often does better than me at networking and is more sociable than her geek-bookworm other half. And so we are sending her off. One hour ago we said goodbye to her at the ferry terminal outside our house.

Debbie will be in Aberdeen for a day with Whitney and Brian (8lb baby boy Oct 22, no name yet) and then fly to
- Austin, TX to work on an artists prophetic gathering event for 2007
- Portland, Oregon to help her parents move up from California.
- Houston, Texas to participate in a strategic meeting regarding pilgrimage/new-monastic/training-trail/ leadership development/rule-the-world type issues with the Baptists (UBA) and other friends including Karen Campbell,  Doug Pagitt, Shannon Hopkins, Julie Blick, the Seminext people, Ken Shuman (the poker-playing pastor), Mark Thames, Trish Taylor, Larry Jay,  Mark Berry (UK), Bjoern Wagner (Germany) E.B. Brooks (a HUGE mentor of mine) and others. Actually - its a follow on from our London meeting where we started this discussion and pretty much the same people will be there - EXCEPT MY BETTER HALF WILL BE STANDING IN FOR ME. I will be sending a presentation for Debbie to work with for the Houston meetings. And hopefully she will be meeting with some churches in Texas, Oregon and Washington who might be able to help support our projects overseas.

Family Update: school holidays and foster kitten

This is our family yesterday.

School holidays starts today and the house is NOISY with our kids and their friends.

Technorati Tags: beer, kitten

Happy Birthday Abigail

My daughter Abigail turns 11 today. She blogs at gabigail95.bebo.com. Go to her bebo powered BLOG at Gabigail95.bebo.com [bebo rocks and totally blows off Myspace!] Leave a comment or even better, take the quiz "How Well Do You Know Abigail" and see if you do better than I did.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABIGAIL!!!!!

In case you were wondering, other daughters of mine have bebo:
Elizabeth is 13 and she has a bebo - littleliz93.bebo.com
Hannah is 7 and she has a bebo - hanbanj.bebo.com
Even tall skinny dad has a bebo, much to the disgust of his children who think he is too old to be beboing. tallskinnykiwi.bebo.com
Oh yeah. And my son Sam is Mr-Spam.bebo.com

A Day at Alton Towers

Biggest treat of the year for my kids - we took them to Alton Towers on Saturday.

Alton Towers, unlike its American counterparts, does not have a cool fake castle facade made of stucco so they have to put up with a real 17th Century castle instead. You can see it in the background.

8 rides at the Alton Towers Theme Park are considered extremely fun and scary. We did all of them. Here are the photos of the photos taken from the rides themselves that we could not afford to buy. This me and my 3 oldest kids - Sam, Elizabeth and Abigail. I wasnt scared . . . . honest.

Oblivion

Rita, Queen of Speed

Sam's birthday

Samuel turned 15 on Saturday. He's doing well. Getting taller by the minute. Thats a screenshot of Sam on the left enjoying his birthday inside the online Runescape world. You know you have a geek for a son when you have to take screenshots to get a good image of him. Happy birthday, dude!!

Elizabeth Turns 13

We had a Chinese theme last night, since Elizabeth (my daughter) is so interested in all things Chinese. I managed to buy some things from Chinese store in Sheffield last week - calligraphy paper, brushes, lanterns, ink, slippers and cooking utensils for her Chinese dinners that will be happening every Saturday night in our house.
Happy birthday Elizabeth!
We also had a parents night at the school for Elizabeth and they all said she is settling in very well and tries her very best.

Hannah's Birthday Today

Our daughter Hannah turns 7 today. She has 2 friends coming over for pizza and we are all going off to see Narnia at the movies. Hannah was born in Humbolt County, California, Jan 13, 1998. Cant remember if that was Friday the 13th or not.

Family at the End of 2005

Half the family is sick right now so New Years Celebrations will be a dampened celebration compared to last years loud partying on the streets of Stromness. And no . . I am not going to compete in the local New Years Ba' like I did last year.

We are renting this apartment above a restaurant. Its smaller than we are used to and one toilet for a family of 7 can be a lesson in patience, but its warm and cosy and conveniently located in the middle of our town.

That's our cat Bubbles in the window. Her sister Squeak is missing again - bad sense of direction.

Christmas was a good family time. We ate a local goose. Hate to show off . . but it was fantastic.

Anyway, thanks for being a part of our lives in 2005. God go with you into the New Year.

25 Years Away from NZ

Our family left New Zealand on December 5, 1980. Mum and Dad were together then, and we kids were 4 teenagers. None of us had ever left NZ. We flew across to Perth, West Australia to settle in a place with more sun and a new life. VERY exciting. Everything was new. I still remember the music we listened to on the plane (Kenny Rogers) and the warm wind hitting our face as we walked onto the runway. There was a patch of grass next to the plane and my dad I walked over to put our feet on it . . . to really TOUCH it.
Its one of the best memories I have. There have been many times when I bring my family into a new country and I hype it up right before we enter and make it a big deal. Maybe sometimes I am trying to renew my own memory of Dec 5th. Or helping my kids to make a memory like mine.

Technorati Tags: family

Thanksgiving

We are celebrating the USA Thanksgiving on Thursday - I will be in the kitchen and I refuse to blog. Our kids, most of whom were born in USA, are really excited about it. Normally we throw a big party and invite the whole town, but since our apartment above a restaurant doesnt have the room, we are just having a few families and some young people. I will be wearing my apron and tasting the goods. -  free range turkey, sweet potato and cranberries.

Blessings on all you Americans - both white and Native - thinking of you today and eating your food.

Tonight - Abigail's party

Abigail's birthday party tonight - belated due to a traveling daddy - but on tonight with pizza and movies and 8 giggling girls. I am making the pizza and hosting some games. And when it is over, I leave at 11pm on a ferry to attend a strategic meeting tomorrow in Kinross with Mission Scotland.

We survived 10 Years of Emerging Church!

Our family are working on a book that captures the moments of our last 10 years of trekking around the world, seeing what God is doing, and sometimes being involved with building foundations for new things. The book will be handmade and will have much of our poetry, stories, recipes (pizza) and our best images.
Want to buy the book? It will be around $10 - send me an email

Last night we were ripping up old boarding tickets and receipts from all kinds of countries, to be mashed up into a rough pulp and used for the cover of the book. My kids are really into it. They started immediately after we talked about it last night - writing songs and collecting the best of their poems.

Technorati Tags: emerging church

My Random Son Wins a T-Shirt

Sam just won a signed T-Shirt from HabboHotel for sending in the most random of random objects - a homemade loaf of blue liquid bread that dissolves metal. Sam, who is now 14, has been a regular on habbo hotel, and is responsible for setting up Suddenly Seminary each time we meet. His own rooms include a Random room, and garage-stores where he sells collectible virtual furniture. Sam is a trader - he buys and sells online, and manages to make enough virtual money to buy virtual furniture for his virtual rooms. Which is fine by me - I always seem to have an abundance of virtual objects for my seminary. Now if only he could do that in the real world!!!


Sam ('sjmj' with red hood) at the Suddenly Seminary Graduation Party where he invented the game of jumping out of the phonebooth and into the hot-tub. I was the first to jump WITHOUT spilling my coffee. Samuel, despite winning the T-Shirt, was banned from the game by accident and has not been able to play again.

Technorati Tags: new media

Elizabeth Finishes Pilgrimage

We are very proud of Elizabeth, our 12 year old daughter. She has just walked across Spain - a 5 week prayer walk on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail. Much thanks to Cindy Blick her guardian and fellow pilgrim. Cindy walked it last year.
They are in Santiago but will meet up with my wife and Cindy's sister Julie in Bilbao

This is the last time I saw Elizabeth - at the airport in Aberdeen.

18 Years of Marriage

Anniversary! Debbie and I have been married 18 years.

The big day was August 8, 1987, at First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton. And the Groom looked dazzling . . . I mean the Bride. This is our first anniversary away from each other - Debbie left yesterday to pick up our daughter Elizabeth from her pilgrimage in Spain. Debbie - I love you. Thanks for putting up with me. Thanks for 18 fantastic years of adventure together. Thanks God for bringing us together and keeping us that way. Heres to the next 18!

Samuel scores an iPod Shuffle

Samuel's birthday on the 28th. He was thrilled to death to be the first member of the Jones family to get an iPod - thanks to the release of iPod Shuffle and its affordable price. Samuel is a way cool son. He is now 14.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

She turns 12 today. And we found a very cool 1999 iMac on ebay for her present. She wants to be a writer, and publish books. We hope having her own computer (the first of our kids to have their own) will help in that.

Happy birthday Liz!!!! Sorry i cant be there today. Enjoy the moment.

Love, Dad.

Our Christmases

Merry Christmas everyone. We are having 3 Christmas celebrations up here. We celebrated Christmas with Cindy and Julie Blick from our old church in Australia (when i was a youth pastor 12 years ago). they were here for 4 days and have left now. They hope to be back here in Orkney next summer.
Christmas 2. A quiet family Christmas - the big Turkey, Bing, crackers, tree, etc. Tomorrow night is the carol service for the city of Stromness, and I have created the video loop for it.
Christmas 3. Derek and Amy Chapman and their dog will be coming up from Belgium in a weeks time for our final Christmas.
So we are finishing off the year quietly. Kids are off school now. I am working on video and the production of a multimedia book that outlines the past 10 years of emerging church history.
A little bit of snow fell today. We are all well. Hope everyone out there has a GREAT CHRISTMAS.

Abigail fine after seizure

AAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhh yyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Very scary morning for us. Abigail had a diabetic seizure and is now recovering in hospital. She will be fine, but it was very scary for us.

Just one nod

they took me dad
the bastards
took him slowly away
descending mechanically
into memory
into fire

i would have stopped them

me dad always came to me
now he goes from me
without a signal
to stop the evil kidnap
i would have stopped them
with a nod

Funeral No. 2 - Dad

Dad's funeral was on Wednesday. There were about 30 people, some of whom i hadn't seen in 25 years. My dad looked awful, but that wasnt really him. We put a 1979 photo on the coffin of him in a suit and holding a smoke (as we remember him) and the photo was accompanied with a bottle of Jonny Walker Black Label, Dunhill smokes, lotto ticket, and a cap.

Funeral No. 1 - Lewis

A wonderful funeral. Can I say that? Does it sound sacreligious? Dangit, i will say it anyway. An amazing thing happened during my brother's funeral yesterday and it brought healing and laughter into our lives. We disrupted the funeral service, not intentionally . . mind you. But the elderly Roman Catholic Priest had to stop his sermon less than a minute into it and find out why our entire row had started laughing. This is what happened.

My Dad also

My dad died on Friday night. He was told that I was on my way to Australia and that means a lot. He went quite suddenly - his time had come and it wasnt a surprise. I am glad he didnt have to attend his youngest son's funeral - "No father should have to bury his son" (LOTR)
So tomorrow we have Lewis's funeral and the day after we have dad's. Who would have thought they would go out together?

In the Land of the Living

Thanks everyone for your comments and prayers over the loss of my brother this week. I hope I can be there for you also in your dark valleys. Your comments on the last post are like flowers on his grave - much appreciated!
Well I have had some phone calls with the family in Australia. Here are pieces of news;
- Lewis, apparently, died of an accidental drug overdose. His body was found in a public toilet at a railway station. There were syringes, etc found with him. no reason to suspect suicide or foul play.
- Lewis's son is Alex, born in March this year, and the spitting image of Lewis. He is cared for by the mother of Lewis's ex-girlfriend, a lovely caring lady named Sue. Sue and her sister are organising the funeral. I guess i have more family than I knew about.

Passing of my brother

We found out today that my little brother Lewis died in Sydney, Australia, 2 days ago. He was 34 years old.
Latest Update is the next blog post called "In the Land of the Living.
Update: Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. My family is meeting tomorrow to discuss who will go over to Sydney for the funeral, and when the funeral will be. i am looking into flights myself. Very hard news for my mum. And my dad is not in good health right now, but he was the one who received the news.
A few words about Lewis. . .

Hope for USA?

Big hat tip for USA. I love that country. It is partly mine. I am a resident of USA (resident alien) and have spent a quarter of my life there. My wife is American and all my kids. Its a great country, and the world was watching today as Dubya was reelected.
I'm glad that America has a leader that believes his leadership is a "mandate" and believes that God has placed him there for a reason.
His acceptance speech a few minutes ago talked of a "season of hope" and "reconciliation" for the country, as well as helping to develop democracy in countries like Iraq and Afganistan.  OK - we all know it has been really messy so far - please dont complain here on my blog post. Putting the mistakes behind us, I am hoping that George will use his power to bring peace for the gospel in the Middle East . . . that he might follow in the footsteps of the last two-term Republican presiden, Ronald Reagan, It was Reagan that helped open up a door for Eastern Europe, a door that our family walked through and helped the people there take advantage of the new freedom. If George W. is able to do the same thing, then in 15 years time, we might be blogging from Bagdad, or Saudi Arabia, or Istanbul.
Anyway, we all give pause today, we stop what we are doing, and look at America, and acknowledge that it has huge potential for making the world a better place, not just for Americans but for everyone.

All is well

Our house is great!!!! bigger than we thought. Just right for us. And it overlooks the harbour. Debbie and I get a bedroom to ourselves for the first time in over a year. It even has more than one toilet which is a bonus. We are unpacking and making sense of the furniture. Its a rental house, but it feels warm and solid and loved. We are overjoyed, happy, and looking forward to see what God is about to do up here and around Europe.
Hope you all have a great weekend.

Moving to Orkney (updated)

UPDATE: ahhhhhhhh . . .we be here . . . at last. what a long and exhausting trip!!! Thanks for your prayers and thoughts - we felt God's covering the whole time.

We couldnt get back in the country at the border. They told us to go to Lille, France and apply there for a missionary visa. Which we did. The consulate people in Lille could not issue visas, so we went to Brussels. YES! BRUSSELLS, BELGUIM. And they could not help us either. So we went back to Calais and they let us in on a 6 month tourist visa. We were exhausted by the time we returned to our house in London. We picked up our caravan, thankful that it was still there on the road, with all our stuff, and we drove up north a bit and spent the night in a rest area. Surprising how all 7 of us can sleep in our van. We drove all day and stayed the following night in a rest area near Perth. Next day we took a ferry from Aberdeen. A 6 hour trip and very rough. Most people were sick. Vomit City! And we eventually arrived at our new house at 2 in the morning.

Having said all that, the house is great, orkney is great. We were welcomed by our neighbors and some new friends. And we are very excited about being here.

No internet access in our house right now so i will be visiting this internet cafe until we get things figured out.

This is it. All our possessions are being loaded up. We are cleaning the house and getting ready to leave today to Orkney Islands, north of Scotland. And we are traveling by way of France (have to get new visas). You can read why here, although we probably wont know why God is sending us up here until much later.
Appreciate prayers for FAVOUR at the border so we can get a missionary visa for UK - Americans can pray for FAVOR.
And pray for safety in driving, for us to stay awake all night, and for our tires to hold up with all the weight. Our £150 caravan is our moving truck, along with roof-space on our van. Not as bad as this picture though . . .

Happy birthday Sarah

Happy birthday to my sister Sarah, who is almost as OLD as me. Although she never manages to catch up. Sarah and Bruce and their kids were with us in Prague last year but are now back in Australia. They made the newspapers a few months ago with their new mission - bringing godly counsel to people in the business world. Good for them. Too often those with pastoral gifts are stuck in the church. Now they are released to bring God's healing to everyone. Good one on ya Sarah!

Mothers Day 04

Happy Mothers Day to my dear OLD Mum. Here she is painting at North Beach, Perth, West Australia. Her paintings are really good. She's a good one, my Mum. Thanks for everything!!!

As for my wife Debbie, she is a Mum also, and she had a special Mothers Day breakfast in bed, a day off from working, and basically anything she wanted. Flowers too! Shes a excellent Mum, I mean Mom (shes American) and is doing a great job with our 5 kids.

Arwen, Pipi and Snow White

My girls - Arwen, Pipi Longstocking and Snow White, as they looked this morning, going off to school dressed up as movie characters. The other kids are dressing up also. Debbie saw a 2 foot high Incredible Hulk when she dropped the girls off.

home

made it! finally. moving in. unpacking. feeling at home. the girls walked to school this morning and i am setting up the office. FEELS GOOD!

Moving in today

We got our rental contract signed and are moving in today. A little 3 bedroom terrace house all squished up to the flats next to it - very english. Bea from moogaloo blog is with us from Sheffield and is staying the weekend. Thanks all for your prayers and cheers. Consider me on a 2-3 day blog fast while we get moved in and get on line. Have a great weekend everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lent

We have decided as a family to give up chocolate for Lent. We have to shift the chocolate Horlicks to the back of the shelf and replace it with some original malt Horlicks.

Vree vroughts on accents

Good news! Our application to rent in Walthamstow, London was just accepted and we should be moving in within a week. We have already got the phone number and i will order broadband. Who cares about water, heat and electricity? I just need broadband internet access. And coffee. Broadband and coffee.

Kids in London

Feeling better after the flu. We went into London yesterday with the kids who are on a week's holiday from school. London is a great city to be in.
The couple on the right just got engaged. Phuoc-Tan Diep. (pronounced Foo-tan) proposed to Maggie Blick and they will be married in May. Maggie was in my youth group when i was a pastor in Australia. Phuoc-Tan Diep, who came to England as one of the Vietnamese boat people when he was a kid, is now a doctor and has a hankering to start a church in Cambridge. He will be moving in with us as soon as we all get in our house.
I will get to all the questions and comments in a few days. Hope thats OK.

Flu in the house

We are all sick with the flu. Tamara hurled on my robe last night and Abigail hit her target today (the toilet). Samuel is next. I am not feeling too good either . . . so ., . . consider me on a blog fast for a few days.
Otherwise, we are all in good spirits and upbeat about life.
I am really really really excited about the writing project that should start in a few weeks - an online hypertexted resource for emerging church.
yeah!!!!!!!
Have a great week everyone.

Family news - school

First day at a new school today for our three eldest girls, who are now 11, 9 and 6. They are really excited. The teachers are nice and the students friendly. We have found a house next to the school and are applying to rent it. I am working on the references today to quicken the process. Its a 3 bedroom flat that needs painting so we are getting it a little cheaper. But still, with the weak US dollar, every exchange in English pounds is a slap in the face.
One third of England watched the final of "I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here", and the Jones family were included. In fact we started tracking it a week ago. We were all very upset to see Jonny Rotten walk off the set, and happy that Kerry got to be Queen of the Jungle.

Finding a home in london

We are looking for houses in London today, hoping to find one this weekend. Then i can get a phone line, broadband, and be connected. Of course the family would also like to get into a house again, and start the local school, etc, but all this is secondary to my internet connection.
We have just had 2 weeks of being really really really broke, which has been tiring for us. But now our money has come through and we are able to celebrate the birthdays of Samuel and Elizabeth. And find a home. Have a good weekend everyone!!

Family at the Tate modern

We were trying to create the letter "J" but did not succeed. The Tate modern in London is the worlds largest art gallery, and most of it is FREE. They recently put a mirrored ceiling in the main room, which is where we were.

saturday, in the park

. . i think it is the 24th of january
saturday, in the park,
a park next to an internet cafe

people typing
people blogging
a man aggregating . . .

Made it!!!!!!

Wow - we arrived. All safe and sane. Thank you all for your prayers and your kind comments.
When we left Prague, it was minus 7 degrees. We had lots of moments:
Moment 1. The van got a bit stuck on the ice outside our house and i had to sprinkle salt on the road until it melted.
Moment 2. While still in Prague, the van started spluttering and then died, right outside a Honda dealership. (its a Mercedes 100D, not a Honda). 9 Czech mechanics looked at our van went straight to work. In the meantime, we called up Derek and Amy who were also leaving to drive across the continent - either to Belgium or Berlin. They turned up with 11 cheeseburgers from MacDonalds and we had a great time together. The mechanics fixed the van - with a new filter and another unnamed, untranslateable part, and it only cost US$35 for parts and labor - thanks God, and thanks that it did not break down on the journey.
Moment 3. Driving through Czech Republic was something. The temperature dropped further and we had snow drifting on the roads in a ghostly fashion, but nice to look at.
Germany was uneventful, in a good way. We drove through the night.
France was great. I got lost again in the place I usually get lost at. But only 1 hour lost.
We arrived in Calais 2 hours before the ferry left. Enough time to go to Carrefour and buy pate, cheese, bread and red wine.
Moment 4. Eating French food on the ferry. Ferry trips are always fun. This one cost us £48 for the van and all 7 passengers. Not bad!
We arrived in London last night. We are renting a 2 bedroom flat for a while - week by week. Small and pokey, but it is in an Indian area and we LOVE Indians and their food.
We slept well last night and spent today at home, unpacking, cleaning, food shopping, rolling out our carpets to make the place more like home. We dont have phone yet nor internet so you may not hear from me for a while - I am writing this at the public library.
Again, thanks for tracking with us. Love you all. Love being in London!! Thanks God for everything.
More photos here.

Moving to England today

I was hoping for a warm winter day to pack up and move but instead i got FREEZING ARTIC TEMPERATURES AND WALLS OF SNOW EVERYWHERE. This morning our windows are so iced up that we cant even see outside. Never mind. At least it is pretty.
We leave frost bitten Prague this afternoon and drive to Calais, France to get our white van and our family on the ferry to Dover. We will drive all night and arrive in England tomorrow. God willing.
Appreciate prayer for safety on the roads.

Stuarts go to Australia

Bruce and Sarah Stuart and family will be returning to Australia today. We will miss them, especially our kids. Its been great for us to get to know each other again over the past 4 months. It has not been easy for them in a foreign culture, as you know if you follow their blog - atableinthewilderness, but they really made a difference.

Peach with snow

Its snowing over here in Prague, and the Giant Peach (our house) is covered in the stuff.
We are all very busy packing and throwing things in a big dumpster outside.
New Years Eve was fun. We lit fireworks in the frozen back yard and everyone watched from the top balcony. Nobody got burned (thats for my mum who worries a lot).

official family photo

Here it is . . the family at the end of 2003.

Snow today

yeaaahhhhhh!. our kids were sledding on the fresh snow. We have friends from England here (Mark and Tamsin Carter) and their three kids were having a great time in the snow with our kids and the Stuarts.

Reading LOTR Script

We downloaded the script for Lord of The Rings and were reading through it for home schooling this week. Lots of fun for the kids and good reading exercise. We are homeschooling our kids in a way that uses unschooling and guided resources at the same time. I think there are a lot of similarities between "unschooling" and alt. worship - both are involved in creating environments conducive to learning/worship and honoring the moment.