OFF TO AUSTRALIA

This photo was taken at Janet and Thomas' Wedding last Saturday 25 July

Roger and I have been reminded several times by our lovely daughter Jocelyn that we have not posted on this blog for many a long month. Our apologies, especially if you keep checking and finding the same old, same old!! Not good at all. But I take a lot more interest in my other blog "Gaynors World" as it is more lighthearted, etc!! I can just rave on there, but don't feel I can do that here!!

It is a shame I don't keep this up to date as we have so many wonderful things to share with you all, especially about what we are doing here in this area of the world in which we live.

We have been here nearly 3 1/2 years and for the first time we are heading back to Australia for 10 weeks this coming Friday. We will get the ICE train from Basel to Frankfurt and then Malaysian Airlines to Kuala Lumpur, then on to Melbourne. It is all very exciting and it is taking its toll on me, especially in the emotional department. At least I was able to get a good nights sleep last night. Just wish I could sleep in a little bit, but I can't at the moment.

Whilst in Australia we want to be able to spend good quality time with our family - Tim and Amy, Jocelyn, Glenda and Tom. So, we will arrive in Melbourne, stay for 2 weeks then head up to Sydney for 2 weeks to catch up with family and friends there. Back to Melbourne for 1 week and then over to Adelaide for 2 weeks. Back to Melbourne and then to Perth on 2 October for 10 days. We will fly out from Perth back here to Schopfheim. Don't like to write about it like this as it feels like then the time has gone already!! And my goodness, it is going to go fast enough anyway!

So these past months we've continued to catch up with 'our boys' from the Church. When we come back they would have all gone to various studies and we probably won't see them for a long time.

Roger started up a 'Men Modelling' group at Centrepoint and this has been great to get guys together. They have started to build a model of the sailing ship 'The Albatross'. This group will go into recession until Roger gets back.

I had a lovely afternoon of Aussie baking with 2 Swiss friends and we all had so much fun. Katja and Etta want me to do Christmas baking now!! Could be interesting.

Katja and Etta ready to take home the spoils!!

Raisin Chews, Anzac Biscuits (Oatmeal biscuits) and Monte Carlo's

Last Thursday I catered for a Farewell afternoon tea and this was also lots of fun. I received good feedback and a good recommendation from the lady who I did the catering for. Must do more of it when we come back middle of October.

So, can't promise you will get anything else for the next little while. If only I could inspire Roger to do some posting. He has some great thoughts often which he shares with me, but I'd love him to be sharing it with you as well.

SUNDAY LUNCH WITH "THE BOYS"

We invited 4 of the young men from our German (FeG) Church for Sunday Aussie Roast yesterday. Johnny also came and joined in the fun. I had to get home after Church and put the chicken in the oven and cook all the lovely roast vegies - potato, pumpkin (at great expense found in Migro in Basel but actually from France !!), sweet potato, cauli cheese, parsnip, carrot and beans. Then I made a Butterscotch self saucing pudding with ice cream which was - YUM YUM and thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. Joshua had to race off early which was a shame, but we did have a great time together. Once again it made me realise how much I miss our kids and Sunday roast together. So we are going to try and do this every 6 weeks if possible. Here are a few photo's for you to enjoy.

back l - r Joshua and Peter. Matthias in wheelchair, Ruben

Admiring the scene outside our loungeroom window!!

Peter visiting the kitchen to check on things!!

EMAIL.......CONCERT........BOYD

It's amazing what can happen in 24 hours!

Yesterday morning we went to our German (FeG) Church in Loerrach. We came home, had lunch and relaxed a bit and then at around 3.00pm we opened our emails to discover an email from a Boyd Owens. I said to Rog it was probably trash, but no, it wasn't.

Boyd is a singer with the Australian group "The Ten Tenors" and they are currently touring Germany, South Africa and then the U.S.A. http://thetentenors.com/

Boyd sent us an email saying he was a Christian, had come across our Mosaic website and wondered if we were meeting Sunday 1 March. We rang his mobile number and Roger spoke to him about meeting up. He then mentioned he was with "The Ten Tenors" and would we like to go to the Concert in Loerrach. He arranged for us to pick up the tickets (which of course were free - but otherwise quite expensive!).

We had the most fabulous time and thoroughly enjoyed being entertained by "The Ten Tenors". If you ever get a chance to hear them, then grab it as they really are amazing entertainers. It was pure entertainment from the moment the concert started until it finished 2.5 hours later (with a short break).

We met up with Boyd afterwards, introduced ourselves and arranged to have lunch together today in Loerrach. What an amazing and talented young man is Boyd. He only joined the group in January and this is his first tour with them. They will be touring until June and then will return to Australia for a few Concerts before they have a break.

We ask ourselves "Why has God brought Boyd into our lives at this time?". It is such an exciting thing! He needs our prayers in what he is doing and he said he would pray for us and our ministry here. Boyd is a PK (!!) and so we will look forward to meeting him and his parents when we come back to Australia in August.

Here is Boyd Owens web address if you want to check him out.
http:// www.boydowen.com

Sorry no pictures, we didn't even get a photo of us together. That was a bit silly!!

5 DAY INTENSIVE GERMAN LEARNING

I just can't seem to keep up with 2 Blogs and Facebook!! Jocelyn keeps giving us gentle reminders to update, but it's all too much for me!! Here is a little rundown of what we have been doing these past 5 days.

We decided if we really were going to try and improve our German it would be best to do an Intensive course AND to leave the house to do this so we didn't have any distractions!! We are fortunate to know Allen and Annette Broome who run The King's School of Languages. They teach English, German, Spanish, French and Latin. Their school is 45minutes drive from our place, but of course we got there on the train and bus. We were able to stay in a family run Pensione (B & B) for the 4 nights, which wasn't too expensive.

Roger had 3 hour (1 on 1) lessons Tuesday to Saturday and I had 2 hour lessons the same days. This worked well for us both with Allen teaching Roger and Annette being very patient with me. I must say I am feeling a lot more confident and Annette has explained quite a bit to me, which I must now put into practise.

ONE REFLECTION FROM ORIGINS '09

In the last address that Erwin McManus gave, we heard him talking about the "three places" Christ followers go, or can go. Telling us his basis for his address about places, Erwin read from the book of Acts chapter 9 about Paul's experience of relating to other Jewish and non-Jewish people in the city of Corinth.

The first place Paul was in was the Syngagogue (related today to the gathering place of Christ followers, namely the Church). His second place was the Market Square, the public space where people met and ideas were exchanged. Today it might be a pub, the beach or the coffee shop. His third place was when he was invited "led by the hand" to the meeting place of the philosophers so that they could hear more about Paul's strange teaching. Today this third place is the party, the dinner celebration or club where you need an "invite" to go.

In our 'Church without walls' ministry that we are starting, we have no first place in contrast to most Christians who only serve in the Church (the first place). Our second place is Centrepoint and other places like the Choir, Hiking group or Film/Interest group we start/join in. We spend most of our ministry in this second place.

We have been privileged to be invited to third places on a fairly regular basis. Often we are two among several invitees. We are not necessarily the Paul as shown in Acts 9, but we have some opportunity to share more deeply with people.

Where do you "hang out" in your ministry? All Christ followers are in ministry/service? Where do you have most of your in-depth conversations? Are they with fellow followers of Christ, or with those who are not yet followers of Christ?

We would love to hear your responses to this! Please leave a comment.

In the cause of Christ,
Roger

UPDATE ON MOSAIC ORIGINS CONFERENCE - GERMANY 2009

Mosaic Origins 2009 met at Eimeldingen, Germany with Erwin McManus and many of his team coming to encourage Christians who gathered together from all over Europe for this conference. The conference was in English with German and French translation. Approximately 300 people attended the conference.

It began at 9.30am on Thurs. 8 January and concluded at 5pm Saturday.
Erwin's first talk was entitled "Momentum" (Mosaic story).
Second session was Ethos - 5 Core Values (see below)
Synergy
Narrative - Apostolic Ethos

The 2 other speakers were Naeem Fazal on "Essentials of Transformational Growth"
Eric Bryant "Organizing for Innovation"

There were 6 Breakout sessions held during the conference. They were:

1. Wind - Commission
Mission is why the Church exists. "People matter most"

2. Water - Community
Love is the context of all mission "Love permeates everything"

3. Wood - Connection
Structure must always submit to Spirit "Passion fuels action"

4. Fire - Communion
Relevance to culture is not optional "Relevance communicates truth"

5. Earth - Character
Creativity is the natural result of spirituality "Character creates change"

As you can imagine, the conference was fairly full on with much to take in, process, learn. It was great to catch up with so many like minded people and we found this a great encouragement.

I've given the 'bones' of the conference and hopefully tomorrow Roger will write more in detail about what we got out of the conference.

The Bloors

Geoff, Ann and Claire Bloor arrived on Sunday 11 January and have been staying in Loerrach. They are visiting in this area for 2 weeks. It has been great to share our time with them over meals, showing them around Basel, doing a prayer walk together as we look for a location/meeting place in Basel; travelling into France, playing cards on a cold, wet Sunday afternoon. We've had lots of chatting together and they have been a great encouragement to us in our ministry here.

They also came to our German Church FeG Loerrach. Our Youth Pastor David Gut, who is currently only Pastor at the Church, gave the sermon. I think this was a great experience for them.

The Bloors will be in our area until they fly out of Basel on Sunday. Although we have a busier week this week, we plan to catch up for a few meals together and also to take them back into Centrepoint on Friday morning for coffee.

Visitors

We love having visitors from Australia here in our home. It helps us to stay connected and to work on our accent!!

It was wonderful to have Dudley Tann from Adelaide stay with us overnight back at the end of November. We had 24 hours of good chatting!! Dudley brought with him a signed copy of "The Shack" by W Paul Young which we have both enjoyed reading. Dudley was en route to visiting his new grandson in Nice.

Tim and Amy arrived in Schopfheim to a heavy snowfall on 17 December. Amy was very excited to make a snowman (and I can't believe I didn't get a photo!!). It was lots of fun. Amy named him "Crusty" and there is still a little bit of him left in our front garden! We had a wonderful Christmas celebration with Tim and Amy and then on Sat. 27 December we caught the train with them to Colmar in France where they were catching up with Amy's family. We had a special 1 day catch up again in Luzern on 3 January.

Late on Sunday night 11 January Roger's niece Anna arrived by train with her friend Hannah. They were touring around Europe with huge backpacks (oh to be young again - but I still don't think I'd like it!). They stayed a couple of nights and enjoyed a Roast Dinner with us!