Playing with cousins & Youth Club begins!

Yesterday morning, Emma and I were excited to have Abi over for the morning. We (Abi and I) watch Veggie Tales: The Wizard of Ha's on the big screen, had a snack of waffles, made a couple of jigsaws, and played with "Baby Emma". Abi is really good with her little cousin as you can see from the picture above. She smiles at her, and kisses her, and tells her "It's okay baby Emma" when Emma cries :0) It is hard to live so far away from family in Canada, but it is nice that Emma will have 2 cousins and an aunt and uncle close by to play with occasionally. I know people must think that we spend loads of time with Bryce, Carolyn, Nathan, and Abigail, but working together in ministry isn't the same as spending "quality family time". In fact, a few weeks ago we had our first family dinner all together since before they left for home ministry in Canada last December! Anyway, we are looking forward to this Christmas when my parents, and Joel's parents will be here and then Uncle Shaun, Auntie Sondi, Kelen and David will be coming for a few days after Christmas as well ... A Carlaw Christmas Celebration! These are the moments we treasure as a family living overseas. Its also a chance for us to introduce our families to our friends and church family here in Ireland.

Nathan is now in playschool just up the road from us. He came to pick up his sister and Emma had a chance to play with him as well. Nathan is a fantastic older cousin! He is very protective of Emma and is always so excited to see her! She smiles at him when she sees him and can't take her eyes off him when he is playing in front of her :0)

Last Sunday was the Annual "Joint Service" where all the baptist churches in Cork get together for a Sunday morning service. This year, Douglas Baptist was hosting the event. Joel and I ran the children's program. We did actions songs all together and then split into two groups for the bible story, game time, and memory verse. I took the 4-8 year olds (38 children in total!) and Joel took the 9-12 year olds (about 28 children in total!). We had a great time and it reminded us of doing VBS in the summer at Hartland when we lived in Canada :0)

Youth club has now begun again! We have had two nights with them so far. The first event we did was a "Back to School Bash" and then last Saturday we did a "Mexican Night". Both nights were alot of fun and we are so excited to have Steven and Melissa O'Neill helping us lead youth club this year! We also have Johnny Bruton, a "former youth", helping us out when he is able. Well, I need to give the computer back to Joel now. He is preparing to preach the next two Sundays and he is also speaking again at the October Intermediate camp. Emma and I are planning to go with him. Please pray that Emma will do well there. She is a very "social" girl who doesn't like to miss out when there is a "party". So, please pray that she will sleep even when the campers aren't :0) We will be sending out a prayer letter soon with more updates on our financial situation as well as our Spring return to Canada for home ministry. Please contact us if you have not been getting these updates and would like to. You can e-mail us at joel.carlaw@crossworld.org and we will add you to our list. Also, if you have changed your e-mail or "snail mail" address since signing up to receive our letters, please let us know your new one.