September 2011


Jon in his St John uniform
Its been awhile since we last sent an update & photos!  It has also been a year since we left Ukraine.  It seems longer than that & we often think about Ukraine & miss our friends & house there.  Things have been plodding away here with not a lot happening except for the normal weekly routines. 
Our weeks are pretty much the same consisting of…

Teaching – Jon has 4 days as a Music teacher, I have 2 permanent days at a couple of schools, but tend to pick up at least another day each week.  
Youth groups – We have one for 11-12yrs on Wednesday afternoons & one for 13yrs onwards on Friday nights. 
Church – Jon leads the singing & I teach Sunday school every 2nd month.
Lessons – I am still learning drums – slowly but getting there.  Jon is continuing with his part-time Bible College & enjoying that. 
Tutoring – I have a few students who I help after-school in their homework or other subjects they are struggling in.  Jon teaches music lessons to a few people. 
A really old Kauri tree & our nephews
Volunteer work – Jon has completed all the courses to become a St John ambulance officer & I am a Girl Guides leader which is every Tuesday afternoon. 
Sport -- during the winter this has consisted of us watching our nephews play soccer most Saturdays.  Now the weather has started to warm we are playing touch every Sunday afternoon & hope to put a youth team into the local tournament next term.

Camps – we had a great camp in April (see www.lonsdalechildren.blogspot.com for the report) and are in the middle of planning one for these coming holidays in October.  These are definitely what we enjoy doing although a lot of hard work!

Jon's mate Joey
School Holidays -- Last holidays we enjoyed a NZ bush walk with our nephews & saw some mighty Kauri trees.  We also flew to Australia for a week or so.  It was good to catch up with Jono in Sydney & Gaven in Tasmania & see where they live etc.

Family -- Jon’s parents live just across the road & his sister 10 mins down the road on a diary farm, so we see each other often.  It is really nice to be a tangible part of our nephews growing up & developing a good relationship with them.  Our oldest nephew has just left home & joined the army so we miss him.  Every Sunday afternoon I help milk the cows on the farm which I really enjoy. 

Nickolas with our lamb
Recreation -- We have watched a few good movies lately (& some dumb ones!) enjoying some good books, (esp. the cookbooks!) keeping the vege garden going, watching the rugby, fishing (&surfing) has been on the back burner since the water went cold, but we should be looking to get the kayak back into the water very soon & some more snapper in our freezer!

Pets – Talking about the freezer…we have bought a pet lamb which we are feeding on the bottle.  The idea is to fatten her up J 
The chickens, cat & dog are yet to come…


IN OTHER NEWS:
We are in the process of purchasing a house in Kaitaia (we are currently living 30 mins north of Kaitaia) which we intend to shift into in about 3 weeks time.  It does require quite a lot of work, but will be a great project for us.  It is a huge house with potentially 4 bedrooms, so lots of room for you to come & stay & paint a section while you are here! You can see more house pics here.


Future plans?
Driving Gaven's tractor in Tasmania 
Jon has been offered a permanent job starting next year at the school he has been working in which we have accepted.  IVF starts next March, so we wait & see…

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