I seem to have forgotten my blog since March! Life has changed a great deal since then. Sophie and Claudia have grown so much. Claudia is now sitting up and started eating real food last week. She has bright eyes and loves her big sister. Sophie turned two at the end of August and she loves her litle sister a lot too! We had Sophie for 2 days while Anna, Matt and Claudia went to the conference 'Engage' at Katoomba. When Claudia and Sophie reunited after 2 days apart they were like a little pair of birds - cooing and patting each other. It was a very sweet thing to watch! We all gave Sophie a bike for her birthday and you can see Claudia trying it out! Sophie loved it and had to be bribed to get off it at one stage. I have posted a picture of Claudia's cot quilt too - Matt drew the pictures on it.
In 46 days, Ian and I will leave the congregation here to begin a new ministry for several years. Ian is to be Archdeacon of Liverpool (St. George area) from 1st December. We will miss the people here of course, though we hope to be living somewhere nearby. One of my friends here prayed in Bible study today that we would find a house nearby so that we can visit each other and I can keep on coming to Bible study. It was heartwarming to hear her pray. The women in my Bible study are wonderful friends. At the moment we are looking for a house to buy (that may be wishful thinking) or rent. I had forgotten how time consuming and depressing house hunting is! The descriptions in the real estate sound so good - but don't always match the actual house itself. Neverthless, we are very excited about the new opportunities that seem to be on the horizon. The idea of having options on weekends is absolutely mindblowing to me! I'm not sure what an Archdeacon's wife does, but I presume it will be to help and encourage the Bishop's wife and find other opportunities and I am very interested to see what comes of that.
Rachel and Andrew arrived in New York today and I can picture them enjoying that great city! Meg joins them in a few weeks when they will visit Istanbul, then do a Biblelands tour with Boak Jobbins and others - then visit Egypt together. It all sounds wonderful. As I wrote that, a message came in from Rachel in New York - they are safely there. Oh to be able to walk the streets with them! Ian and I would like to have a little break from things before we start in December, but at this stage are waiting to settle the house situation before we plan a break somewhere. I have a sinus infection and a bung knee at the moment. I had the knee X rayed this morning and am hoping it is just a temporary problem. It keeps locking and giving way when I kneel or walk for any distance. Just when I was getting back to walking again!
