Living Out The Faith

Praise God for the opportunity for our Little Disciples to do good on a windy Sat morning!

Galatians 6: 10 says: Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

This started out as an idea by Jane - doing some work in the garden for an older member of the church family who would otherwise not be able to do the work herself - and grew into a SS project that will surely bless the givers as much as the beneficiary.

We had children aged 3 to 14 digging, planting, bedding down Virginian Stock and Alpine daisies and forget-me-nots. The flower bed was soon complete with rings of seeds and saplings and the kids turned their attention to the grass next, weeding and tidying.

Then it was indoors for hot Milo, Kit Kats and fruit bars and a prayer for the new garden.

Can't wait to see what the garden looks like when spring comes! There's another opportunity to teach what God has to say about gardening (Parable of the Sower? Parable of the Mustard Seed?) and personal growth.

Craft Day

Highlight of the week for Beth: Craft Day at her friend A's.

The invitation was very cleverly worded: not a birthday party but a craft day. Nevertheless,we thought it appropriate - as A's birthday is in July - to have Beth pick her a present. Beth chose a Go Girl gift pack: 2 books in a bowling bag. Nice.

After mediating between the squabbling parties in the backseat and trying to memorize the Melways directions to A's house, I was really relieved to actually reach my destination, a lovely house in Rose Grange estate.

RG is huge. It starts at the corner of Morris Rd next to Wyndham Village and goes all the way up north till Leakes Rd, which is the last road before the freeway to Melbourne. Despite my best efforts, I managed to miss the sign for the entrance to Baden Powell Drive (why must street names be so tiny and so obscurely placed?) and had to divert into the next available left, which unfortunately led straight to a Road Closed sign - and a construction site. One illegal U-turn later, I finally found BPD, when I was actually close enough to read the street sign. It's actually opposite the Reserve estate and is at a traffic junction.

Another milestone for the nervous driver.

Beth and her four friends spent the morning assembling aliens out of felt material, cutting, sewing (!), stuffing and finally sticking on decorative buttons and pom-poms.

To A's mother who organized for everyone to be fed and entertained for 5 1/2 hours (they were supposed to finish at 2 but the 'party' went on till 3.30) AND supervised the craft project AND made the cupcakes for the birthday party afterward, I take my beanie off. An absolutely outstanding, hard-to-top effort. Mind you, she has two other kids, both boys, and she had to think of how to keep everyone happy. So she sent her eldest off to visit Nana around the corner, while the younger stayed. No way will you talk me into doing anything remotely hands-on involving kids, except in the Sunday School context.

Maybe.

The Desk Swap

After a huge team effort, we have finally swapped our computer table for Beth's study desk.

Now everyone's happy. Beth has a table that gives her enough elbow room for doing homework. Hopefully, that encourages her to do some real work in her room, which she and CA enthusiastically painted in her favorite purple...which has since been demoted to her third favorite colour! (*slap hand to forehead...shang nao jing*)

And our study nook gains a nice contemporary-looking desk with plenty of shelves for my career and writing reference books. Yay.

Thank you God, for little things that make life joyful and manageable.

Where do young readers find others like themselves?

We stumbled on the Dromkeen Dragons while looking for places to go during the Queen's birthday long weekend.

The Dromkeen Homestead at Riddells Creek, an hour's drive on the M8 from Werribee, houses a fantastic collection of Australian literature and picture book art collection. It is funded by Scholastic Australia and exhibits original artwork, manuscripts and other pre-publication material from Australian children's books. It hosts school groups and conducts professional development workshops for teachers and librarians.

We visited on 14 June and Beth immediately fell in love with the pencil sketches by Quentin Blake, illustrator of Roald Dahl's books. There was also a display of paintings based on Ethel Turner's Seven Little Australians. The exhibitions and displays are periodically updated. The whole place feels so homey, like you've just stepped into someone's house for a visit. I loved the sun room overlooking the front garden where peacocks stroll majestically and noisy white cockatoos cascade through the sky. Placed strategically throughout the garden and verandah are bronze sculptures of well-known storybook characters from Australian classics: Possum Magic, The Man from Ironbark, Mr Lizard and Gumnut Baby, and The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek.

One of the best things about Dromkeen is that book-and-art-loving children aged 7 to 14 can join the Dromkeen Dragons, a kids' club that meets four times a year during school holidays. Beth attended her first DD session on Thu. We were expecting maybe a handful of kids - it's winter after all, and Dromkeen is not exactly in a central location - but there must have been 50 kids there! Many of them looked like regulars, as they knew exactly what to do as they came through the door of the sun room. One even wore a Dromkeen Dragon cape which she'd illustrated herself!

The adminstrator Jane explained to newcomers and parents the programme for the day, and gave out badges to newcomers. Beth already had hers, which had been mailed to her soon after she enrolled, and she wore it proudly on her hoodie. The pomp and pageantry as the outgoing Grand Dragon (a local author or illustrator) handed over her orb of knowledge, staff of power, cape and crown to her successor, was just magical. The kids loved it, especially the drawing workshop by the new Grand Dragon (Mark Wilson) and the Dragon Feast that was the climax of the day's activity.

Another reason why we love living in AUS.