Dear Grandma, Grandpa, and Katy

Since I didn’t write you an airplane note before you left. (you probably realised that that is a bit of a tradition for us, with T and B both writing you letters. We like to give last letters to read on the plane, and to re-read over and over again to remember the good times, and just because it is nice to have something to hold onto when the visit has come to an end) so, I wanted to write you a letter. So here it goes:

Dear Grandma, Grandpa, and Katy,

Thank you so much for coming to Australia. Thank you for taking the time, and spending the money, and leaving behind many things for those 5 weeks to come and visit us. I’ve never had the chance to spend that amount of time with you all especially in such a close way, and I am grateful for that time more than words can say.

I am so thankful that you were able to experience our life here in Australia. I’m glad that you got to meet our friends, see where we live, come to our church, and experience our life here.

I am glad that I was able to get to know you better over these 5 weeks. I’m glad for the things that I learnt about you, about Grandma and Grandpa’s childhoods, about Dad moving in with you, about your foster and adopted children, and just to know you all better

Grandpa, thanks for helping me with the veggie garden, for doing all the hard work, sorry you don’t get to enjoy the fruit of your labours, but I think all of us will be thankful for the home grown veggies J

I’m thankful that in this five weeks, I got to experience great things with you, and I will miss Katy’s hugs, late night talks with Grandma, one on one talks and walks with Grandpa, your prayers, so many times I heard and was so grateful for all 3 of your prayers, teaching Katy in my children’s bible class, hearing her tell me the catechism questions, lunch with Grandpa and Katy, outings with Grandma. I will miss it, but mostly I will miss you all!

Lord Willing I will see you again next year!

Love Always,

Maria 

Looking forward to...

• My Grandparents Visit
• Thanksgiving
• School Holidays
• Pleasure Reading
• Long days
• Evenings outdoors
• Home Grown Veggies
• Cool Ocean Water
• Sleepovers with Friends 
• Lord's day morning prayer meetings
• More evenings free to have people over for dinner 
• Traveling and Exploring
• Working Bee Camp
• New Years Day Picnic 
  

Junior Camp 2014

In the car on the way home from camp, we were all sharing our top 5 things that we loved about camp (it started out as 1, but we had too many, great things, so we made it 5). When it got to my turn, I started by saying "Okay, my top favourite 25 things are..." I was sort of joking, but deep down I was actually serious because I really really loved camp so much that I couldn't even limit myself to 5 things that I loved about camp, I didn't actually share 25 things, but I think it was at least 10. So here are actually my top 25 favourite things about Junior Camp 2014 (in no particular order)

The Whole Gang

1. Cooking - it is always fun to cook at camp, and it's kinda the one job that really you can't have camp without, so it's nice to be able to serve in that way
2. Having LOTS of offers from the kids to come help in the kitchen. We decided that duty teams were a thing of the past for Junior Camp because we just always had some many lovely and eager volunteers it was great! One day we had to turn away 7 kids who asked if there was anything they could do to help because there just weren't any jobs to do
3. Telling the girls bedtime stories in the girls dorm. Some made up, some real stories from my life or the lives of people I know, some a combination of both (a bit o, shall we say, historical fiction..?)
4. Singing lullabies to the girls to get them to sleep
5. Having a bonfire and bush dance in the rain!
6. Rob's talks on Survival - making David's life seam so real and truly seeing the amazingness of it!
7. The total flexibility of the schedule, just changing times to fit around things whenever
8. The BEAUTIFUL weather that God blessed us with (only a little bit of rain)
9. Staying up late and talking with the other leaders after all the kids had gone to bed, and pretty much all other times of chatting with the leaders, especially Melissa and Allison!
10. Getting to know the kids better, some I'd never met before.
11. Sharing meals with the kids, talking about life.
12. Having 2 of the smallest 8 years olds I can imagine come along, they just made it so much fun!
13. Ten ping pong - it will soon make an appearance in the Olympics I'm sure
14. Of course a princess skit in the concert with Harry playing the princess :)
15. The leaders taking the kids team rope challenge and getting a finishing time of 10:34 (When the slowest kids time had been 6 minutes!)

The Leaders

16. Playing Yahtzee with Helen
17. The amazing rope things that Joel put up
18. Team hopping (since I wasn't on any particular team, I just chose different teams for different activities)
19. Reading stories in the hall on Thursday morning as people were waking up
20. Melissa's girls dorm devotions
21. Dorm inspections, and the girls talent shown in that!
22. Luke's stories in the evening with hot chocolate and supper
23. Bonding over washing and drying dishes
24. All the leaders willingness to just join in with the kids in all the different activities
25. Doing 10-13 girls hair in the mornings

Highlights from Gartmore, RP International Conference

Youth plus Group 

• Meeting so many amazing a lovely people 
• Catching up with my friends from Senior Camp
• Psalm singing with everyone and in the youth plus group especially (better acoustics)
• Being a 'yellow person' (aka, helping the parents with young children at meal times)
• Family Worship 
• Highland games
• All age group activities in the evening
• Getting excited about saying the alphabet backwards the quickest, but not being able to do it in 4 seconds
• Collecting people's life stories
• Playing the 'Intriguing questions' game with people
• Going to the prayer meeting in the mornings and speaking with the older people afterwards
• Late night chats with my roommate
• The CRAZY games in the youth rise program
• Kenneth Stewart's talks, especially Implications for Faith (Peter) 
• Meeting people's families
• Hanging out at the cabins and playing games there
• D&M's with people
• Learning how to play rounders
• Sitting with and meeting different  people at mealtimes
• Worshipping with RP's from all over the world

It was a blessed week filled with many grand things, good craic, deep and meaningful conversations, meeting people from all over the world, and being blessed. Already making plans to come back in 2018 Lord Willing!!

"From all that dwell below the skies, O let Jehovah's praise arise! And let His glorious name be sung in every land by every tongue! Great are mercies of the LORD, and truth eternal is His word; ye nations, sound from shore to shore Jehovah's praise forevermore!"

Highlights from Senior Camp

I really enjoyed the Senior Camp that is organised by the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland. I was really blessed by the people that I met, the things that I did, and the fun times had. Here are just some of the highlights

- Meeting new people
- Getting to know my room-mates

Best Room-mates EVER!

- Eating meals with different people and getting to talk to them
- Worshipping together with RP's from a different part of the world
- McCollum's Madness - messy and somewhat disgusting gamres
- Learning to play bucketball
- Teaching people how to play Ultimate Frisbee and ARF (Australian Rules Frisbee, otherwise known as the triangle frisbee game)
- Phillip Moffett's talks: Christ and His people - identified with Christ, Organised by Christ, Worshippers of Christ, Growing in the Sacraments of Christ, Witnesses to Christ, Living for Christ, and Looking to Christ. Each day I thought the one we did was the best, but the 3 that I found most challenging and helpful were: Growing in the Sacraments of Christ, Living for Christ, and Looking to Christ.
- Psalm Singing on the Lord's Day evening. Robert McCollum explaining the psalms (taking off the apple tagline: there's an app for that) as there's a psalm for that. For every situation in life there is a psalm.
- Making up a cheerleading routine in our teams as part of the Monday evening Game Show
- Having everyone sing along to the song that I wrote during the concert on Thursday evening
- The party - especially learning new dances
- Bus rides to and from camp and to and from activities/outings, getting to talk to people
- Staying up late chatting and laughing with several of the girls
- DMC (or as we in Australia say D&M's) with people, especially on the night walks and the long walk on the Lord's day
And there were so many more fun and exciting times, but overall I was just glad to meet a group of lovely young people, and spend a week getting to know some of them better. I am looking forward to seeing many of them again at RP International at Gartmore in a week and a half!

Why the airport was my favourite part of Paris

So before you read my reasons, you have to understand  something. Vietnam and Paris for me were just a means to an end. Kind of like Dallas and L.A. when we head back to the states, I'm sure they are great places, but I just REALLY WANT TO GET TO INDIANA! So, I really wanted to get to Belfast, that was my destination, the places in-between were just a means to an end, just places to stop to make the journey the cheapest way possible. So with that introduction, here are 8 reasons why the airport was my favourite part of Paris: (in no particular order)

1. I got free WiFi for 15 minutes when I first got there so I could update my family and friends on my travels
2. It doesn't cost anything to use the airport toilets.
3. There was a red piano to play
4. All the staff were VERY friendly and helpful
5. I got to eat a real fresh chocolate croissant and drink coffee
6. As I was boarding my flight to Belfast I heard the Irish accent which finally made me excited as I thought about my Northern Irish friends
7. The above cafe had free unlimited WiFi so I got to see everyone's comments on my 6 hours in Paris facebook post.
8. I found out that on my flight to Belfast I would have a window seat, my first window seat of the journey, and it means I can see Northern Ireland from the air!

Just so you all know, I did visit Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower - just the outside, I didn't go up it, I walked around A LOT! I wanted to hire a bike, but my bank cards didn't work, so I took a train into and out of the city and walked a lot. I wanted to go to a cafe for lunch, but in the end I wasn't hungry and I just ate back at the airport, a fresh chocolate croissant and coffee were the only things I ate in all of Paris. Unfortunately I didn't buy a souvenir :( because I kept thinking I would find a cheaper option, but in the end I ran out of time. It was a bit lonely with no one to share it with, and no one to help me find my way around (which was fine, I had a great map, but things were further away than I thought) So overall, I am glad to say that I've seen the Eiffel Tower, but it would have been better with a travelling friend.

Praying at all times...

I would rather have taken a long shower, and snuggled up with a good book and a hot cup of tea. I would rather have gone to bed early...but I didn't. Not because I wanted to feel "holier-than-thou" or because "I'm a Blackwood and that's what we do". I could even have made the excise that "I've already been to one prayer meeting this week". But... instead, I went. I went because God tells us to, and there is power when God's people come together to pray.

" Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert in this with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints." Ephesians 6: 18

The last 2 prayer meetings we've listened to 2 of John McCarther's Sermons on Prayer. I would commend both of them to you if you want to hear powerful sermons about the power of prayer The Necessities for Effective Prayer  and Praying at All Times 

As I was at prayer meeting, standing during both the message, and the prayer time (so I wouldn't fall asleep) I was encouraged just by being with the saints, crying to our One True God and heavenly Father together, singing God's Word together, hearing His Word preached, and of course Praying with and for one another and for our church. I was especially challenged from Ephesians 6:10-20 to pray for Unity, for God's Will to be done, for the Spirit to move in us, for Fruitfulness, and for Holiness. Our prayer time was so encouraging, I was overcome with weeping for those hurting in our congregation, I was humbled by the simple prayers of people, I was filled with Joy to hear about God's wondrous work in us and the people we know, and I was encouraged with the prayers of so many, and challenged have a better prayer life, not just once a fortnight during a prayer meeting, but to pray at all times, with all kinds of prayers, with all perseverance, for all the saints. What a Great and Awesome God we have, and one who Delights to hear our prayers.

"The prayer of the upright is [the LORD's] delight" Proverbs 15:8

Motivation!!

Last year at some point my Dad, Tamara, and I started race walking together a couple times a week. For me I enjoyed it, but I always wanted to go faster because the faster you go the faster you finish. 

So then I took up running. I've heard that the more you run, eventually your body craves running, and you enjoy getting up early and going for a run. Some might even get excited about it. Well...I am far from that point. I'm currently at the point that I know that I should go running because it is good for me, but I don't relish it. So, I had to find a good way to motivate myself. 

So...I started listening to audio books when I exercise. I signed up for Christian Audio's free audio book of the month: http://christianaudio.com/free

So 2 mornings a week, I plug in my headphones, and go out for a run listening to my book. 3 mornings a week I go out with my sister and we do our Pull-up/Push-up/Sit-up workout, and one day we do a skipping workout, and the day left is the Lord's Day, our day of rest. 

It's been a pretty great motivator. I get excited to find out what is going to happen next in the book, or the story. 

Today, I actually got excited about my run. I rode my bike down to the beach, went for a 40 minute run, then swam out in the bay to the buoy and biked home in my wet clothes, which kept me cool. It was actually really lovely.