Christmas Blessings

Our church rang and offered us a Christmas hamper (A basket of Christmas treats and food).  In Australia churches will often get together several laundry baskets and fill them with food to give to families in need.  They are decorated with clear plastic wrap and tied with a pretty Christmas bow.  At first my husband and I did not want to take it.  Surely there are other families out there who need it more, we are not poor, we have savings and no debt.  We may not have a job but we have figured out we can survive for another few months on our savings.  So we talked it over and rang the church back and told them to put us on the very bottom of the list and to give it to more needy families 1st.  They agreed but rang back a few days later and asked if they could bring over the hamper the next week.  They told us it was to encourage us.  Which I thought honestly we could use encouragement and we could use some food for Christmas.  Food in a pretty basket would be such a blessing right now in our season of life!  We have no car and shopping trips are kinda tricky trying to fit groceries into the bottom of a double stroller.  I mean nappies (diapers) alone take up almost all the room!  We can borrow a friend's car but that is also tricky when you are working around another family who need the car too and it is hard to go and get the car when it is rainy or really hot.  The loan of a car was a huge blessing as well as many different members of our new church picking us up to take us to church, to take us to the man made beach at South Bank, or to take us to their house for lunch.   

Our local shops that we walk to, Arana Hills Plaza

We found a short cut in our neighbourhood

Jeremy pushed a double stroller up this hill with our 2 kids, thanks to this hill he is losing weight

Our double stroller, our main mode of transportation

Occasionally we took the train, esp. when Jeremy had a meeting with a recruiter in the city

It is hard to believe that about 6 years ago Jeremy was delivering Thanksgiving meals, with the turkey and all the fixings to the chronically ill with our young adults friends and Pastor Kim.  Now here we are about to receive a hamper for Christmas because we are in need.  I guess it is good for us to remember we all need help in some way along life's path.  We all need encouragement no matter what we face.

So I just got the hamper and it is beautiful!  The basket it came in is lovely too which will also be a blessing as we are still in need of stuff like a basket that size to fill our new home.  We are so grateful for it and for our new church!  

So I took a video of Jeremy and the kids opening the hamper.  It was heaps of fun, just like Christmas!