One reason I don't blog very often is that I've just been lazy.  Every time I have seen the "Blogger:Dashboard" bookmark on my bookmarks bar, I have told myself "nah, I'll do it another day".  I guess that "other day" has come.

We've just started a new year, and a new year of homeschooling.  The year-end holidays were a good break.  Our family went to Phnom Penh with a few other members of our church.  It was a busy time.  There were relationships to cement with Pastor Narin Chey and his family, the boys at the Alpha-Gamma-Omega-Dormitory, and the lovely folk from Mission To The World. 
(Photos to insert from other laptop)

All in all, the experience was one of great humility for us, to see the fervor shown by these Cambodian Christians whose history had been so fractured.  Their simple faith in our Lord to provide all their needs made us realise that we have too much here, and thus we fail to depend fully on God for everything.  I made many new friends.  We should go back again soon.

Another event took place before this mission trip.  It happened right at home, in Sarah's bedroom.  Her tiles exploded one Saturday morning with a frightening noise and tile chips flying.  It has made me somewhat paranoid about those hollow tiles that are everywhere in our home.  Anyway, HDB replaced Sarah's tiles for free, since they had laid the original ones in the first place.  In the meantime, all 3 beds plus 2 wardrobes managed to fit into the boys' room, and they lived in this 'dormitory' for over a month.

We have been fighting many fires lately.  In summary, besides the tiles, there was the leaky toilet, the fried router and its replacement, terrible coughs and colds, the passing of a friend in a horrific car accident in Tasmania, as well as difficulties in character training for our children.  Some changes for 2013 - Sarah's great gym coach Nicole Tolhurst returned home to Perth, so now she has an ex-SEA games Philippines gymnast Coach Ronnie.  I want to teach her Composition in a more systematic way, so I'm ordering a book "Writing Strands".  Our family started on a new guide for Family Worship - Long Story Short.  I started on a new Bible Reading plan "Discipleship Journal".

I'll promise (again) to blog more regularly.