Happy Birthday to my amazing wife

Happy Birthday Dimitra,

Georgeous

Firstly I just want to say that you are the best person I know, You are the most considerate and kindest person, your love for your family and others amazes me.
If it wasnt for you id be completely lost. You are the one that holds our family together.
I am so proud of the strong, bold yet loving and caring person you have become.
I am truly blessed to call you my wife, and I'm definitely punching above my weight.

                                                                     Love you


Your love for God and his Righteousness is amazing. I hope and pray that this next year of your life brings you so much joy and favour. You deserve all the blessings God has for you.

I love the mother you are to our beautiful daughters, you never cease to amaze me. Our girls are good, respectful kind hearted Godly kids because of your hard and consistent work.

Mum of the year

Wife of the year

Thank you for being the wife you are to me I hope you know how much I appreciate you. 

Happy birthday my amazing wife 

We all love you to the moon and back.

Love Shane , Elissa and Serena.

I Hope You Had A Good One...

Hi Everyone 😊
I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. We celebrated Jesus and what HE did for us through HIS death and resurrection. On Good Friday we made a chocolate cake and watched a dvd called son of God with our girls. 

On Easter Sunday we went to church, then had a BBQ lunch at the park, and like every year Shane read the Easter story to our girls.
Over the weekend we also watched God's not dead and God's not dead 2 (nope, we don't usually watch this many dvds) and the 4 of us were so pumped at the end of each of the dvds, we were all singing the song God's not dead His surely alive, living on the inside roaring like a lion, Haha, I LOVE It!

While we were at the park enjoying our Easter bbq lunch, as usual the girls made some friends with a few local kids and now they catch up with them every couple of days after school.
                                       
I hope all is well in your world xo
We've had many ups and a few downs this last week, however, we always make the best of it, even when we are confronted with difficulties, we get through them and God NEVER fails to help us out (more about this in a future post).

Take care and Enjoy your day, week, life...Life is far to short too focus on the negatives, far too short to worry about everything...Focus on the positive and try and create sunshine even on a cloudy day...Live life to the Fullest xox

Love Dimi xo

Happy Easter

The lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world

Hi everyone. Happy Easter to all. While many people enjoy Easter to have some time off work and spend it with their loved ones, I'd like to remind us all why we actually celebrate this wonderful occasion. As the stores fill their shelves with Easter eggs and bunnies, remember that Easter is all about Jesus Christ, its about his sacrifice for all our sin. its about the love that God has for each and every one of us. 

Good Friday is the day where we remember that Jesus died a brutal death on a cross so you and I would have the opportunity to be reconciled to God. Its a time to reflect that we all need a savior because we cant do it on our own, salvation is only found in Jesus. It is through His death that we are forgiven.

And on the third day He rose again.
Jesus is alive forever. 

Easter Sunday we rejoice in the risen Lord. Jesus is alive.  Its through His Resurrection that we have eternal life. It is through His resurrected life that we have power to overcome the enemy and the things of this world.

I absolutely love Easter, It truly reminds me that Jesus is Lord and without Him I am nothing and without Him ill never have an eternity with God my Heavenly Father.

So as you celebrate Easter this weekend remember the true purpose of why you are celebrating.

For those that don't believe, just because you don't, doesn't make it not true.

Enjoy your Easter weekend God bless you all in Jesus name.

Shane, Dimi, Elissa and Serena.

Would You Do It For One?

I'm excited to share the outcome of our Testimony night we had on Sunday just gone.
Shane and I and our beautiful girls planned the night from A to Z. We prayed over it each night with the girls and on Sunday with the Church. We kept it simple and hoped and prayed for the best. The purpose of the night was that new people would come and hear about God and what He has done in peoples lives, and that these people would feel a pull on their hearts towards God and His beautiful LOVE, Grace, Forgiveness, and also that we may encourage and fire up the church with their own relationship with God, and so that they will be encouraged to reach out to the local community...so that is what we hoped for!

Our Greeting Team...

Well we planned this event weeks in advance, and the week before the Testimony night on Sunday, myself and Shane found that it seemed the church wasn't really on board with us. When chatting with the already limited members of the church, we found that about half of them weren't coming to the testimony evening and it seemed no one new was going to come to the event.
Well...Shane and I felt a little discouraged, and so we did what we do best...We Prayed! We had a chat with God! 
You know what we felt God put on our hearts...We felt Him say these words..."Would you do it for one?"
So we thought..."would we do it for one?" and we shared this with the church. We asked them if they would minister to 10 people so that 1 person might come to the testimony night, would they just try for that one person? Would they reach out for that ONE hurting person?

We thanked God for always being the ultimate WISE ONE :-) and always being there for us, backing us and anointing the work of our hands and we said 
"YES God, we will do it for ONE. 100% without a doubt, we will do it for 1."
That is what our journey has been about, the one lost sheep here, and the one lost sheep there! I LOVE IT!

So with a bit of encouragement to the church, Shane and I worked hard and made the night happen the best we could and...
The church fired up that night, Gods BEAUTIFUL presence flowed and filled the building, worship time was AMAZING (even though we had No band, just played 3 songs we hand picked for the night), the work of our hands was anointed, tears flowed and flowed, the testimonies reached out to people, the message from Shane was evangelistic and touched peoples hearts, we prayed for people and showed them Gods LOVE...AND MOST OF ALL...people gave their lives to GOD...WAAAAHHOOOOOOO! WAAAHHOOOOOOO! PRAISE GOD xo

We had 26 people turn up to our testimony night, and this is a BIG number for our small outback church that usually gets 10 (sometimes less, sometimes a little more) attend on a weekly basis. Also, having 3 people give their lives to God may not seem like a big number, but really it is! For a church this small, 3 lives handed over to God is HUGE, HUGE I tell you, WAAHOOOO...THANK YOU GOD.
 We were able to speak with people about their hurts, we were able to offer them the Christian curriculum we offer to all people we minister to as we travel around OZ so that they can read and learn more about God, and we are also able to catch up with these beautiful people and mentor/disciple them while we are here in Cloncurry. What a privilege!

Some Prayer Time...

So would we do it for 1 person? YES, YES we would, YES we have, and YES we did throughout our whole journey and including on Sunday.
Thank YOU God for the 1 and for the bonus extra 2 people who felt the pull on their hearts and opened their hearts to you 💜😀

Some Fellowship Time...

You know what? God will never let you down, never! People might, circumstances might, life might, this world might, but God, He will NEVER let you down, choose to follow HIM and live HIS way, and HE will walk with you ALWAYS. It doesn't mean your entire life will be pain free, debt free, perfect in every way, it does mean that HE will walk with you through thick and thin. He will hold onto your hand and never let you go, He will bring peace and comfort to you in those difficult times, HE will never let go of your hand, so once you grab onto HIS beautiful hand, don't ever let go of it xo
 
I hope we've encouraged you all to step out in faith, give it your all, reach out to the hurting, even if it's just for that ONE hurting person...they need GOD and they need HIS Beautiful, REAL LOVE xo
God is SOOOOOOO Good xo 

A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who prayed for Cloncurry, for the testimony evening and for us, we appreciate it and we appreciate you and your support so VERY much...THANK YOU xoxox

Also a VERY special mention to these two beauties...Our two daughters helped plan this night from the begining till the end. Our girls created the posters to advertise the evening, they were the greeting team, they organised the food on the tables, served the food and drinks, took all the photos of the night and helped clean the church up after the service, they also faithfully prayed every night for the testimony night to be a sucess. We are VERY proud of our mature, godly, helful, kind daughters, they certainly have hearts that love and want to serve God and people...Thank You Elissa xo Thank You Serena xo

Take Care and Enjoy Life,
Love Dimi, Shane, Elissa, Serena xo

A Bit Of An Update...

Hi Everyone 😊
Just thought I'd give a bit of an update with how we are all going.

We are still here in Cloncurry...It is still VERY HOT here, this week it's been in the 40's everyday...THANK GOD for air conditioning when we are indoors and the swimming pool, oh and icy cold filtered water. It should cool down here over the next month or so! So that leads me to the next thing, we have decided to stay here for another few months, not sure how long yet, at least a few more months. We are working hard saving, we are trying to support the local church (more about that in another post), we are having some impact ministering in the community and with people we meet here in the park which is GREAT!

The caravan park is getting much busier and peak season will be upon us very soon, before we know it this caravan park will have up to over 100 caravans in it everyday! We are looking forward to having a whole lot of people around us, it's going to get VERY BUSY around here.

We are still in the old house at the caravan park...It's good for us all to have a house to live in for a while longer. We are hanging to be on the road again, however, we are making the most of the space we have in the house for now. I can't believe how we have filled the house with all our STUFF...I have no idea how all our STUFF is going to fit back into our caravan when we leave, Hahaha!

Our girls are doing great! They are going well with grade 5 and year 7 and because we are in one spot, they are getting through their school work very quickly, I can barely keep up, often purchasing more new curriculum for them. The girls are enjoying our routine here in Cloncurry of school, help with some work which they get paid for, a few dips in the pool, bike rides and walks, and every week we do some different activities like..go to the dam, library, public pools, delicious bakery, Mt Isa, and every so often we have an adventure day and we visit somewhere different.

Myself and Shane enjoy working together, we are a great team. Shane has still got 3 jobs, I have the one job and so far, so good...it is exhausting, however, we keep reminding ourselves it is for a season, not forever!

I just wanted to mention that I will continue to post on my blog every week. Obviously it's not as much as I was posting when we where travelling. While we are settled here in Cloncurry I will post a few times a week, and sometimes once or twice a week...so I'll keep posting whatever we get up to and you can keep following along 😉

Side Note: I still haven't added more of our first year travelling photos, I may not get to it for some time, however, as soon as I do you will be the first to know :-)

Hoping all is well in your world 💛
Life is Good xo
Love Dimi

Another Post From Shane...

Hi guys, it's Shane here...
Here's my 3rd post in 15 months! I think I'd better calm down 😃

I don't normally share about all the people we minister to but this was another one that was truly appointed by God.

One of the great things about travelling is you meet so many people along the way, and we always get chatting. This particular day I was talking with a few couples that were staying in the park and one man in particular became interested when we were talking about God and Church. 

I met with the man later on that night to discuss God further. It turns out that this man was from Switzerland and had fallen away from God. His story is unbelievable. He was such a committed follower of Jesus. He was an elder in a church, he would preach, run the youth and studies and he had studied theology and more. However, this man had faced some issues in his life that had caused him to no longer commit to church and strained his walk with God. This was 20 years ago and he was still struggling with these same issues.

God was now working in his heart. The other night as he opened up and shared with me, he knew that God was calling him back to Him. It was no coincidence that he and I met, it was an appointment made by God Himself! We talked and prayed, it was great!
This man will be back at Switzerland soon and I pray he will continue to allow God to help him release the chains that have been holding him back from freedom over the last 20 years, and renew his relationship with God again.

I wanted to share this for 2 reasons!
1.  For people to pray for this man to be free of the chains that held him captive for so long, and pray for us, for God to continue to use us in this way, we love it!
2. To encourage anyone who may have a hindered relationship with God, don't give up on HIM. No matter how far away from God you may feel, Jesus has never left you. Allow your faith to believe. God will never leave you, nor forsake you. Don't allow the past to hold you there, let go of it and run toward God. God is waiting for you. He loves you so much. Just start talking to him again.

Read Romans 8:38.

Romans 8:38-39New Living Translation (NLT)

³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[a] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God Bless You.
Shane.

Pray For Cloncurry...

I hope everyone is well and having a great week!

We are in the middle of organizing a Testimony night at the Cloncurry Christian Church to be held in a few weeks time. We are excited about it, and also realistic about it.
Myself and Shane and our Girls have spent quite a lot of time building rapport in the community and in the local Christian church and Anglican church here in Cloncurry and our aim has been to try and light a fire for God in the hearts of the Christians in the outback Churches here and in the heart of the community.

We decided a while back we would have a simple testimony evening Church service and see what comes of it. We've planned a simple night service, with 2 testimonies and a message, worship and prayer time and a sausage sizzle and fellowship time. We hope that new people will come and hear about what God has done in peoples lives (testimony) and feel that pull on their heart towards God and His LOVE, and also that we may fire up the Church with their own relationship with God and to reach out more into the local community.

I am a very enthusiastic person, I always hope for the best...I'm also realistic! Being part of this church and Cloncurry for over 6 months now, I have been able to see how difficult it is to run Churches in these areas, it almost seems as though the outback churches are the forgotten churches, the forgotten people, the forgotten communities, and if I could hope for one thing for these communities, it would be that they would fire up for God, and not be dead dry bones.
Most weeks the church here in Cloncurry maybe has a regular attendance of between 10 and 15 people (that includes the 4 of us), maybe close to 20 if everyone was to attend on the same Sunday, but that rarely, if ever happens.
So we are hoping to change that a little..I'd like to say at the end of our testimony evening the congregation would have grown by hundreds, but I'm not so sure about that, however, I know that all things are possible with God and I will always, ALWAYS be HOPEFUL! I have hope and am hoping for many to attend our testimony night, however, we are prepared either way. We are prepared for if many turn up and we are prepared for if 1 person turns up.

Somewhere along the journey, God showed us how HE LOVES everyONE! It's about the 1's and 2's and 3's. We just want to fire this Church up so that they can reach out to Gods beautiful, hurting people and there are many hurting people here in the Curry, many lost and hurting people, so this is one way we hope to reach some of them!
God has put this simple testimony night on our hearts, so we are being obedient and seeing what comes of it...It's in His capable hands!

We ask that you pray for Cloncurry, the testimony night and pray for us as we organise, host and share on the testimony night, and reach out to this small outback community. Pray first and foremost that Gods will, will be done here. Pray for peoples hearts to be softened to God. Pray that as we make ourselves available, God will in turn make us capable to do what it is He wants us to do...show HIS people HIS beautiful Love for them!

Thank You in advance for praying for Cloncurry and for us xo
Take care,
Love Dimi