Oh My It's Been One AMAZING Year...

Well December 14th marks our one year travelling and living on the road anniversary, WOW, WOW, WOW!
Over one year ago we made a decision, a decision that has seriously and completely changed our lives.
Leading up to our life changing decision, we had been praying and seeking God for what was the next step to take in our lives. We knew what we wanted, we wanted more family time, we wanted to enjoy each other, we wanted to create more memories, we wanted to experience more, we wanted to be in the direct will of God, we wanted to minister to people and show them the love of GOD, we wanted to show them Love through random acts of kindness and ministering to them. We wanted to step out in faith in a huge way and say to GOD here we are, our hands are YOURS, our feet are YOURS, our hearts are YOURS, our voice, eyes and ears are YOURS, our family is YOURS, our life is YOURS, now do as YOU will with us. WELL, as we were praying and seeking GOD for direction He led us, HE spoke to us and HE directed us, GOD is SOOOOO GOOD! 
We then took a HUGE step of faith...NO!...We took a HUUGGE leap of faith and basically threw ourselves off a cliff edge, haha, hoping and praying that God would catch us, and HE 100% did :-) Once we took our leap of faith, everything quickly started falling into place and GOD started to place more and more things on our hearts and that's how our faith led journey began :-) :-) :-)

We kept praying and started working towards making our faith led journey happen. (If you want to know more about how our journey began you can check out earlier posts, I actually started posting a couple months (October 2015) before we left our home in Sunbury, Victoria.)

We knew with every part of ourselves that our journey was led by God and it was our massive leap of Faith. Our trip was and has ALWAYS been about 3 main aspects and so we started praying about it. The 3 main aspects of our journey were to strengthen and lay a strong foundation in our family life and our relationship with each other, the 2nd aspect of this trip was to enjoy travelling around Australia together, enjoying the beauty of this country of ours and create marvelous memories and have new experiences together, the 3rd main aspect was to meet and minister to people as we travelled Australia, connect with people and churches and pastors, help where we can, share the LOVE of God by chatting with people. God told us to go where HE wanted us to go, and say what HE wanted us to say, and so we did...we stood at the edge of the cliff and we JUMPED and GOD was right there to catch us.

Our step of faith has been FAR more of everything than we ever imagined. We have had MANY ups and some hard, challenging times throughout this journey, yet GOD has walked with us the entire time. God has used EVERYTHING in this journey to grow and strengthen us individually and as a family, HE has led us to the right people who have encouraged and supported us, and HE has led us to those HE has wanted us to both encourage and support. We have been able to minister to many, many people. We have shared about God, Church, Christian life and we have given out many, many resources (THANKS to Pastor Shane at Portland church who on 2 occasions provided us with over 150 resources of books and discs). We have prayed for people, brought people to church, some people have given their lives to GOD right there and then, others we know that we have given a helping hand to direct them onto the right path in building a relationship with God. We have had the privilege of sharing Gods beautiful love with others while enjoying sooo much wonderful family time, strengthening our bonds, and meeting many people along the way, whilst enjoying exploring this beautiful, beautiful country of ours...What a JOY, What a Privilege, What a Life, I LOVE it :-)

We have spent a FANTASTICALLY, WONDERFUL year beach hopping, book reading, people ministering, ice cream eating, church hopping, homeschooling, library hopping, people meeting, pool dipping, sunset/sunrise watching, people loving, sight seeing, photo taking, national park walking, waterfall hopping, star gazing, B.B.Qing and so, so, so many other wonderful experiences have filled our days and nights all over our beautiful Australia. We have made a heap of new friends, and met so many different kinds of people, we have made many connections with many churches, this experience has so far truly given us far more than we had ever given up...that reminds me, before we left Sunbury, Victoria I remember thinking about all the things we were giving up to make this journey possible and I clearly remember hearing God tell my heart...What lies ahead is far greater than what you leave behind, WAAAHHOOOOOOO...I wholeheartedly, 100% agree...Thank You God, I LOVE YOU xoxox

Life is SOOOOOOO GOOOD...I LOVE it, I LOVE God, I LOVE my Family...We are happy, we are content, we are full with Love from God and others...Life is so, so, so Good xo

Thank you to everyone who has followed our faith led journey for the last 12 months. Thank You to everyone who has prayed for us, and supported our journey, we THANK YOU and LOVE YOU xox
As we continue on this journey, as different doors continue to open, as we minister and share Gods LOVE, as we enjoy ourselves and this wonderful country of ours, I hope you continue to follow our journey and feel even a little inspired to love your loved ones more, seek God wholeheartedly, live the life you want to live, SMILE and have a Laugh...LIFE is GOOD, Live it to the fullest...I DARE YOU xoxox 
Love Dimi, Shane, Elissa, Serena xoxoxoxox
Side note: This is part 1 of a 2 part post...Part 2 will follow with many pics :-)

Cloncurry Community Christmas Festival...

Myself and the girls went to the Cloncurry community Christmas festival. Shane was at work but joined us at the park across the road from woolworths (Shane works for woolworths) for his dinner break.

Merry Christmas...

One of the Christmas stalls...

Lots of Laughs...

We only found out about this event the afternoon before it was to take place, it wasn't very well advertised or planned, however, we didn't mind, we just all really enjoy being part of community events whether big or small, so it was great to be able to go and enjoy the evening!

There were some market stalls on in the community hall a short walk from the park in the same main street. We had a look around and had a chat with the locals. We went back and forth from the market stalls and the park. The elves entertained people, and there were some Christmas carols on. We were also pleasantly surprised when we went to purchase some sausages in bread, steak sandwich and drinks to find that they were all for free, bonus!

Shane went back to work after his 1 hour break and myself and the girls stayed and enjoyed the small community event until 9pm when we had to pick Shane up from work. It was a small event, yet we managed to remain and have a good time for over 5 hours. The girls made some friends and spent quite some time running around with them and playing hide and seek.
We went back the next morning so Shane could also check out the market stalls. The girls caught up with their new friends for a few hours while Shane and I chatted with some locals and met an Anglican Pastor who we had a chat with and who invited us to another combined Christmas event, YAY!
I love community events and meeting the locals :-)

Hoping all is well in your world...Take care xo
Dimi xo

Cloncurry Art Gallery...

The girls wanted to check out the art gallery here in Cloncurry, Queensland. It is right beside the Cloncurry Library. We were able to check out the artwork of the local high school students. The girls found some of the artwork very interesting.
Check it out...

It was quite interesting to see the artwork and read about some of the meanings of the artworks. The girls enjoyed it :-)

I hope everyone is well xo Take Care xo

Yabbying...

We went down to the dam, this time we went in an attempt to catch some red claw yabbies. We purchased these cheap yabby/crab pots, spoke with the locals and were told to try catching them with some potato in the pot, sardines or cat food, we tried the potato approach.

Preparing the Yabby pots...

We hoped they liked the Potato...

Here we go...throw them in...

Beautiful Dam...

We returned much later that day. The Girls and Shane pulled the pots out and........Nothing, Haha! No yabbies, no nothing!

We put the pots back in, and left them there overnight. The next morning after church we returned and yet again, found nothing! Oh well, that won't stop us...while we are living here we will return to the dam with our yabby pots every week or so, and I'm sure we will eventually have a yummy red claw yabby meal :-)

I Hope Everyone is Well and Having a GREAT Week xo
Love Dimi xo

My Type of Homeschooling Fun..Life Skills...

The Yummy end result...Thanks Serena is was Delicious...

I brought home some woolworths catalogues and told both my girls they would have an imaginary $50 each to look through the woolworths catalogues and make up at least 2 family meals each. They could be any 2 family meals, all ingredients needed to be purchased from the catalogue alone, they couldn't go over the allocated amount, however some change would be a bonus.

 Elissa managed to purchase breakfast, lunch and dinner. Serena managed to purchase, breakfast, lunch and a snack. They both did VERY well, I was impressed!

We all agreed that Serena's lunch meal was our type of lunch, it looked delicious, so we went to woolworths, and Serena went around with the catalogue and purchased all her ingredients for her lunch meal.
We then went home and Serena prepared most of (Shane cut the tasty cheese) our yummy meal for us, and it was DELICIOUS.

I love these type of fun homeschooling lessons, and so do the girls, they aren't even aware most of the time that they are lessons. They are usually just a simple fun way of learning different things like budgeting, adding up, writing out a list, planning, purchasing and preparing a meal.

Among the other things the girls need to learn like maths, English, Christian studies, geography and the rest, I am determined to teach my children all types of life skills...I want my girls to have the life skills they need in their day to day life, sometimes we can forget to teach them these simple life skills.

So I put some emphasis on some of these life skills. I don't just tell them to do it, I show them over and over how to do them correctly. Usually these are the lessons they enjoy learning and take pride in....
Grocery shopping for a family, Preparing and cooking meals, Saving and Budgeting, Clothes washing/drying/folding, Self Hygiene, Communicating well with others and Communicating well on the phone, the list goes on.
I know many of these lessons are simple lessons, however, simple or not, I believe they are all very important skills that we all should teach and encourage our children in on a regular basis :-)

Take Care,
Dimi  

Great People...

We had some work men staying beside our site for the second time since we've been here.
As usual Shane had another chat with them and that was that.
The next morning when we woke we found a big foam box with a note on the top of that, it was full of food...Sausages, mince, chops, meat pies, pasties, butter, cheeses...all of it frozen and good quality :-)
The work men no longer needed the food because they were finishing up for a week, however, they could have kept the food for themselves, but they decided to give it to us...What a blessing! Thank You!

We were also offered 2 fridges from 2 different people from Shane's work mate and boss, wowsa! Shane had only mentioned to me it might be a good idea if we could get our hands on a fridge/freezer because we only have a small fridge (tiny freezer) in the caravan and another small engels fridge out in the annexe (the engels fridge was struggling in this Cloncurry heat) and most of our freezer food was kept down at the camp kitchen, so it would make life easier if we had a full size fridge/freezer while we stayed here in Cloncurry. What a blessing when that very day Shane goes to work and is offered not one but two fridge/freezer combos. Within a couple of days one of them was dropped off at our home, just like that :-) It feels so strange to have such a large fridge/freezer after so long with a small one, it actually feels we are putting our roots down here in Cloncurry, Haha, how strange!

However, we feel blessed and thankful for the food and fridge/freezer. We are truly grateful and thankful for peoples kindness and Gods blessings xoxox 

I LOVE random acts of kindness, I LOVE showing others random acts of kindness, and it is lovely to be on the other end of the random acts of kindness. Australia really is full of GREAT People, I Love it :-)

The BEST Part of Our Journey...

                                                        Great times, great friends

Here we go again. Shane here, my third blog in 12months. 
I just wanted to share quickly of more good news that we have encountered on this faith led journey of ours. Well as you all know we had not planned to stay in Cloncurry for more than one night, and with the car trouble we had to stay at least 6 weeks til it was fixed. We also decided to stay for 3-6months as we felt that God had some work for us to do. Now our whole journey is all about having a great family experience while seeing our great country but it has always been about preaching the gospel wherever we go. We have ministered to a lot of people, more than we share on this blog, but I am so excited to share about this lovely young couple from Germany.

These Guys came to the caravan park to work as cleaners for 6 weeks so they could continue there own trip down the east coast. We became quite close with them in this time, hang out at the pool and camp kitchen with them, sharing our travel stories and our cultural differences. We also had many conversations about God and Jesus and they were very keen to hear more about this awesome relationship with the Father in heaven. 

The awesome thing is, on their last Sunday here we had a bbq lunch together and had more discussion about the Lord, and these guys decided to make a commitment and ask Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. They were so happy and even as we prayed for them they could feel the presence of God over them. How awesome.

God is so good. What are the chances that we know one person in Germany. A lady from our home church in Sunbury, Victoria had only gone back to Germany a year or so ago and has found a church for them to go to when they get back home. Gods plans a higher than ours. I love watching the way Gods plans unfold, He is awesome.

In all this excitement I truly believe that we have made some long life friends, these guys are such a beautiful couple and I believe God is going to raise them up and use them to impact their home town in a mighty way. Germany watch out!
I pray that we will see them again in the future and that God will keep them in his arms.

God you are truly a loving Father who loves unconditionally and wants his children to come to know Him.

If you would like to know how to have this relationship with God our Father in heaven you can comment on this post and we will get back to you or you could find a local Christian church and get in touch with a Pastor there. Remember God loves you so much He Gave His only son to die on the cross and take yours and mine sins and punishment that whosoever believes on Him shall not perish but have eternal life. A life with God is the best decision you can ever make.

God bless you all.

 

                                         We are so proud of you guys Ben and Teresa