Week Eight

Just one week to holidays!
Capernwray spoiled us with (dare I say) the best lecturer yet! Ken Legg is a Pastor of a church in Queensland and runs small group programs, Check out www.small-groups-ministries/ken-legg This week we did 'The Identity Driven Life'. It is a 10 session course which uncovers all the lies you have been taught in life about were to find your worth and value eg. through other people, through achievement etc. And also what has developed in your "filter" because of these lies and hence why you react to things the way you do. I learned sooooo much about myself and the need to believe God's truths over mans lies. I am the person God created and He loves me. With God all things are possible and His Spirit lies within me, teaching me and growing me to be all I can be in Christ. This all sounds very familiar hey? But do you act on your faith? I was really challenged over the course of the week and I look forward to shedding my old warped ideas that the world feeds you and living in the truth found in God's word.
On Tuesday we had the pleasure of having 3 of the students around for dinner and we even ate the first of our garden grown vegetable's... well we had some silver beet but it was yummy. Unfortunately, the next thing growing in our patch was this zucchini (pictured) who, even after so much love and attention as the first fruits, stayed this size for over a week and eventually got eaten by our enemies (grubs)! And after picking off a gallery of green caterpillars and little yellow eggs from the white butterflies, I invested in some Yates Garden Dust and relished in see the little attackers squirm! Here, Here to their impending deaths!
Garth's week was... actually, see if you can guess what his week was like: It started with girls having High temps, he attended lots of night calls from screaming girls, went through boxes of tissues hoping to save clothes and carpet from "Number 11's" (runny noses) for days on end, feeling exhausted from wearing one in particular child on his hip all day, and his ears hurt from all the whinging and crying that resulted from their conditions. To top it off, Friday produced the worst shopping trip in existence as he cruised the isles with not 1 but 2 tantruming girls attracting all the typical undesired looks from onlookers. And if you think it can't get much worse, today he has developed his re-occurring eye condition AGAIN, just weeks after the last flair up (usually they are months to a year apart). So, needless to say, Garth had the worst week ever!
Yet hope is on the wind with holidays in grabbing distance and he enjoyed a evening at the movies with Kael seeing "How to train your dragon" - apparently it was awesome. Thankfully he has had plenty of opportunities to zone out and play the computer this week (because I have needed to do lots of study) thus filling his 'coping skills' tank!
Our boys are going REALLY well with school and participated in the cross country this week. Both of them were tired but enjoy themselves. Homework is not the saga it use to be although still not easy but oh, so much better! They have both received Encouragement Award Certificates from their teachers - the fine young man in them is emerging.
I also enjoyed a brief farewell party to our dear friend Amanda - her smiling face and positive witness will be greatly missed in the Southern Highlands - actually her whole family will be missed. Praise God for them and may they know His faithfullness all the more as they embark on a new journey for Him.
And we had more carpert laid upstairs on Saturday by our great mate, Brent King - What a servant heart he has! Sometimes I have to stop and remember that Garth and I have only earned less than $500 since December the 10th last year and we are still here! Only in God could we have the security we have and the blessings that have come from stepping out in faith.

Week Seven

So, what happened this week..... Garth went gallivanting with the rest of the house wives to the park coming back truly feeling like one of the girls. He shared in the "shopping and washing" conversation but doesn't doesn't quite fit in by letting our 18 month old daughter climb a 2 story high slide by herself without adult supervision; the legacy of having 2 sons! Garth's biggest moment this week was preaching this last Sunday, first time at this church - and all went awesomely! Although he was nervous, he received lots of conformation from God before hand that what he had chosen to speak about was spot-on : Fasting! Although, it was a brief time spent behind the pulpit, Garth enjoyed the experience and even came home quoting that he would do that again! The subject lead a some good conversations among the congregation and hopefully God has inspired some more people to look further into the subject themselves.

Midweek, we hosted a dinner for my family group from Capernwray and by request, we dinned on the sorts of foods you would expect to get for breakfast. I was pleased to see that I had over catered and when I brought out the 'Mud and Worms' cake for one of the student's birthday, I got the thumbs up that it was just like his mum's - high praise indeed! We spent time around the pool table and lots of laughs playing 'Buzz' on the PlayStation. From being a bit tentative about how I was going to entertain a whole heap of teenagers, the night went without a hitch!

Capernwray brought us Geoff Hobson this week (previous principle of the school) and he spoke to us about the Gospel of John. Another great week of learning so much more about our amazing Saviour and the life that He lead. What a man! What a God!

I spent time learning the PowerPoint system up the back with the sound man and even organised the what was needed for the SNAC songs on Sunday. I was pleased that all went smoothly - nothing like having the wrong song words up during worship! My highlight was the oral presentation I had on Friday - a 10 minute talk on a subject of your choice with spiritual relevance. I chose Parenthood and.... I ..... got.... an.... A+!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!

Our week finished on a great note by taking our boys and our friends (a thank you for the carpet) to Jamberoo Recreation Park and "it just happened to be" that our great friends Dan and Leah, gave us a voucher that reduced the cost amazingly. It was perfect weather and we came home exhausted from enjoying all the activities they offer: water slides, water rides, tobogganing, racing cars etc. My dearest parents looked after the girls that day since Ezri was unwell with a temp and the poor thing didn't get much better the next day either. Oh well....

That was another God-granted week in the Sabben household - Praise God for His blessings!

Week Six

We have new (old) carpet! Yay! Let's tell the story....


It all started 3 weeks ago when I went to the Tip-Shop to get some lace curtains (costing about $5) to use to keep the butterflies off my veggie patch. Garth sent me off with $50 "just in case". Well, while I was there I happened to spy some new light purple carpet - then I spied my lovely friend Linda, who happens to be married to a carpet layer. She rang him and he came over to the Tip shop to check out the quantity and if it would be enough for the girls room. It was, and it only cost $40!!!! So Brent throws it into his Ute, comes and measures up, drops everything and lays the carpet that very Saturday. What a generous couple! Our whole family was quite taken with our one room of soft fluffy carpet and spent the afternoon lazing around on it in awe. Now, fast forward to the following Wednesday evening when Brent and Linda come to our front door with a carpet sample and asked "Do you like this colour?" (as pictured above with Swae) I said yes, still puzzled until they lead me out to see his Ute packed to the brim of carpet he had just pulled up from a house that day - from another Christian couple at that. I was totally over whelmed (nearly to tears)! The boys got to it and before I knew it, our rumpus room was full of rolled carpet and under lay - ALL FREE! This last Saturday, Brent came and did our living room and walk way and it looks like a new house! How spoiled are we? How gorgeous are our friends? and how amazing is our God?


Garth's favourite words have become "Swae, just bugger off!" and he proposes that she was programmed incorrectly at birth, since a normal child is suppose to laugh 70 times a day - Swae whinges this amount instead.... driving everyone up the wall - the universe obviously forgot the carry the 1. However, he has done exceedingly well this week considering he has only had one eye, the other was taken over by a virus. The eye became furiously red, sore and super light sensitive. A trip to the doctors proved predictable unhelpful but we are hopeful that it is actually getting a little bit better now -time will tell.
Capernwray was a bit different this week. We had Lectures on Acts 1-8 The Early Church. It was really interesting and full of great discussions. Tuesday was our "Quiet Day" in which all students are encouraged to spend the day alone with God - in prayer, in his word, in nature etc. It really is a quite day when no one speaks and no loud activities are happening. I spent about four and half hours praying and reading the Bible while laying out in the sun on a grass over looking the fields and river. Beautiful! The sky was a brilliant blue and the birds were playful. I spend the majority of that time reading and writing Ephesians. What a great book! As I re-wrote it, I transcribed all the "your" and "we" type words with "I" and "me" type words. WOW! Now the book was speaking to me personally. And I learnt so much. Particularly about the church body and about the security we have in Christ. It was a great time and I highly recommend everyone take this kind of time even if only once a year! That evening, all the students and staff came together to sing and share our days with each other and that was a very uplifting time. How faithful is our God in our lives!
Another highlight in my week was Bible study. This time I had to write and present it. Talk about a LOT of work - I must have spent 20 hours in preparation! But it all went well and the other students got very involved. For the presentation itself I got an A- and I hopefully will find out this week what mark I received for my full manuscript. But I am truly loving my time at Capernwray this year and I feel so blessed to be supported by friends and family.
Until next time...

Week Five

WOW! What another great week!

Let's start with Capernwray this time - This weeks topic was Mark and Ivor Jones presented the lectures. He is a great man from Marysville VIC (and yes, he and his wife lost their home and everything in it to the fires on Black Saturday)and with the gospel of Mark we focused on Jesus the servant. But not just any servant. Jesus was the Divine Servant, the Obedient Servant, the Proclaiming Servant, the Conquering Servant, the Itinerant Servant, the Teaching Servant, the prophetic Servant, the Forsaken Servant, the Suffering Servant and the Triumphant Servant! All of these of course point to the verse found in Mark 10:45 "For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many." - Doesn't that just say it all?!

All of this term too, we are studying the Old Testament which has been really interesting - getting all the different interuptations of what people believe and why - mainly about Genesis plus we are spending all term doing a subject called Hermeneutics which basically means the science and art of Biblical interpretation. In this subject we are learning the tools to interpret, explain and expound what the Bible means so that we don't misinterpret scripture. We will soon be looking at exegesis and homiletics too. But this week we looked at the possbile 'gaps' which hinder our understandings of the original intended message eg. historical, cultural, religious, technological, linguistic, biological, philosophical, geographical and social. And didn't that invoke into some interesting debates! Oh, how we all are a product of the nuturing we have received - whether right or wrong!

But life outside of Cass - Rykr took a overnight excursion to Bathurst Gold Fields. He had a great time with all his friends and Mr. J his teacher. They learned a lot, ate lot but didn't sleep a lot. It was a long time on the bus (4 hours each way!) which I just can not image doing with 30+ kids. What brave school teachers we have! This picture blows me away and I really saw that my boy is becoming a teenager - I can no longer keep thinking of them as the cute little boys in kindergarten......ho humm.......

Kael started the week abit unwell, got better and returned to school only to come home of Friday night with the dreaded cough! Poor man! But he is doing so well at school and he is loved by all the teachers - using the Sabben Charm!

Garth was strong this week and decided the put his foot down with Swae not sleeping at night- something I have been far to soft to do! BUT after just 2 nights of LOTS of crying things started to get better and last night our baby girl sleep for 12 hours only waking briefly once at 4:30am. So, we are hoping (but not getting our hopes up) that this is the turning point in all our lives for the possibility to sleeping like normal people again!

On Friday Garth and the girls were spoiled and were shouted to go to soft play with our friends and their children. He was a bit unsure about hanging out with all the mums but came home happy because he had a great time and enjoyed the morning totally. What great friends we have!

And speaking of GREAT friends - this week we had a ute full of free carpet dropped off at our house! I was so excited and overwhelmed I almost cried! What a huge change that will make to our home when it gets laid - we will have a nice floor!

But I have to present a Bible study that I have to write this week - So I better go get to work!