Ahhh ..... coffee!!!

The last couple of days I have really enjoyed my afternoon cup of coffee! There is just something about holding a steaming cup of java in your hands, sitting at the computer, and aimlessly checking facebook, or blogs of friends and family ... or maybe its the fact that usually when I am doing the above, Emma is having a nap!? Um, yeah okay that's maybe more the point :) Anyway, now that my coffee is finished, and Emma is still sleeping, I had an "Aha!" moment ... you know ... a moment when the proverbial (is that a word?) "light bulb" goes off in your brain ... I digress ...

My new "thought" is: why do I wait until I have new pictures before I update my blog? Some of my favourite blogs to check out are mixed with pictures and with just "life stories". So, I thought I might give this a try. You see, I just finished writing our "Autumn Newsletter" and realized that those of you who check out our blog, must be genuinely interested in what is going on with us over here, so why not try to update this more often with short stories of what we are doing, etc? I know, I know, it takes awhile for my "light bulb" to warm up and light up with an idea! Not really an earth shattering idea either when I think about it. Now, before I go any further can I just say one thing from my heart?

I love that some of you check here every day or every couple of days. I am really willing to try to update more often on here for those that would really like me to ... could I just ask that you not make this an "expectation" on me though? *Cringe - scary to write down honest, heartfelt thoughts ... The reason I say this is that I really have been struggling the last couple of months over "balance" between being a wife, mom, team member, ministry worker, family & friends & ministry correspondent" ... how do I do it all and do it well? One of the "roadblocks" for me that I've discovered, is coping with my perceived "expectations" of me by others ... yup, you guessed it ... I struggle with "people pleasing" (unless you are my Mom - right Mom? *grin). So, all this to say that I am happy to give this a go, but please, please, please don't EXPECT me to update daily (although I might sometimes ... ya never know the power of the flow of coffee - hee hee), and there may be times I end up going back to only updating the blog monthly.

Whew! It'll be interesting to see if I keep that paragraph in here! Anyway, moving on ...

Back to the thought I began above about just finishing our "Autumn Newsletter" ... We have sent it to our sending church (Hartland Baptist in Prince George, B.C.) and our wonderful ladies who volunteer to send it out for us are aiming to have it sent out this Friday. If you are on our e-mail list, you should have received it already ... if you didn't, and would like to be on that list instead of the "snail mail" list, just let us know and we will make the change.

So, September has ended and October has begun ... How did that happen and where was I when it did??? Ministries here have started up and things are going well. A huge prayer request we would have for you though is in regard to the bi-weekly children's club we would really love to start up here in Douglas. Some of you may have heard about this idea when we were back in Canada this Spring. Anyway, the short version is ... we need a PLACE to hold this club. The couple of locations we were hoping for haven't worked out. We are really "stuck" right now until we find a suitable venue. What would be suitable? Ideally, a place that would have at least two rooms (one for games and one for crafts). We would also love to be able to hold this club at the location every second Friday of each month. Would you please pray for a suitable venue? We are a bit anxious to get things started and yet we want to start this club off well and not just put it together for the sake of getting it going (does that make sense?).

Other than that, we are also getting ready for the CrossWorld Euro Conference at the end of the month in Switzerland. We are driving to Dublin on the 21st, staying overnight, and then flying to Switzerland the next day. The conference is from the 24th until the 30th of October. We will fly back to Dublin on the 2nd of November, stay overnight again, and then drive back to Cork on the 3rd. We decided to go a bit early and leave a bit later in order to get a few days "holiday" as well. With home ministry this past Spring and with getting ready for the start up of ministries, we haven't really had a chance this year to take any family holiday time ... so, Dublin & Switzerland it is :0) Yup, I will be packing AGAIN in just two short weeks (ugh).

Well, I'd say I should stop there ... Emma should be "stirring" in about 15 mins or so ... Thanks for checking in with us! We miss all of you tons! We really feel blessed to have such amazing friends and family in both Canada and here in Ireland!

Love, Christine (for the 3 of us!)