Cyclone in Aus! We are safe, pray for Cairns and Townsville and all QLD

playgroup & driving cars

Heya!! (as they say here...but I think only in emails?) Aubrey and I had playgroup today with our friends here....I finally brought along my camera, but really only snapped a few of the adorable babies! People always ask me what my favourite photography subject is....I think I am leaning more and more towards maternity, newborns and babies!

Here is just a peek....you'll have to go to my website for the rest :)

aubrey : coal miner's daughter

Aubrey is 15 months and loving it....well for the most part anyway. We tend to have a lot of fun together, she is social (but on her own terms....she can take a few minutes to warm up to people). She loves to wear her shoes, mommy's shoes, & occasionally daddy's shoes. She makes me laugh with her big cheeky grin, no matter how tired I am getting after a long day. When I am kneeling on the floor for the hundredth time , picking up discarded food from her meal that she mostly just picked at, feeling very much exhausted, I feel these little arms wrap around my back in a big hug. All my frustrations melt away. When she is whiny and clinging onto my legs while i try and clean, she makes up for it when I finally give her my attention and she giggles when I tickle her, then looks up at me with her gorgeous blue eyes when i stop , nods and says "yep" matter-of-factly to inform me she would like some more tickles please.

Thank the Lord for making a mother's job so worth it every day with all of these rewards!

My First Pony Tail



A good teeth shot with Daddy's headlamp on.



Working the "fake" laugh



Pretty Eyes



We bought her a new skirt today at Cotton On Kids. Doesn't it match the headlamp perfectly?



PeeEss: you would think it was Mother's Day! Two girls that I love just posted about their mom's, prepare to be moved.

http://littlemrsmason.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-mom-kicks-serious-butt.html

http://weenophotography.blogspot.com/2011/01/mum-love-india.html

aubrey : 15 months old

Wow! Bree is growing so fast! Turning from a baby girl into a little girl before our eyes. For more of her 15 month photos check out my photography blog .

I haven't posted many pictures because she is getting so hard to photograph! She sees the camera and runs the other way. Cheeky little thing!





After a little play in the rain, time to shower off!


One of her favourite things to do is to sit in the front and play with the steering wheel and buttons. Notice the carpet (aka "mustache") on our dashboard?

Ben is in the 3rd week of his 2nd semester here at www.ywamsbs.com on the Sunny Coast. This week he is working on the book of John. I try and study the same books each week, of course in a lot less depth. It is pretty hard for me to watch Aubrey and sit through any lectures, but something i have really enjoyed is listening to SBS lectures on podcast. They aren't the same speakers Ben's school has, but they are really good teachers, so knowledgeable. Check out thesbspodcast.com - or type that into the search bar of your iTunes. These are not sermons, they are lectures on books of the Bible. In order to properly study the Word, you need to understand who the Author is, who the Original Reader is, and historical context of the date of the letter. VERY cool stuff!! For me, it makes the Bible come alive and proves is validity and authority.

Thankfully this week has been full of sunshine!

Australia Flooding

Hey Family!

Quick update that we are doing great and where we are living isn't expected to flood. 1000s of others are much less fortunate. For the past several months Queensland has been inundated with rain. After nearly 10 years of drought, the ground simply can't hold anymore water. We've been witnessing the affects of that over the last several days and will continue to do so over the days ahead.

In our area most of the rain has caused roads and agricultural land to flood, not so much the homes(although there are a few). As you can see from the attached video that isn't the case in many parts of the state.
Despite the sun being out today, tomorrow is expected to bring flood levels higher than the previous big flood of 1974. In Brisbane alone they are evacuating well over 10,000 homes despite little to no rain on some parts of the coast. The tides mixing in with the draining rain water is causing most of the problem along the coast. In-land it is simply the quantity of rain.

All of that to say Australians need new houses, cars, businesses, food, clean water, a massive clean up effort, and prayer. Most of us probably won't be providing houses and cars, but at the very least we can pray.
If you were planning a visit to the Sunny Coast, we are expected to maintain a steady drop of rain for the next 8-10 weeks so you may want to rethink your plans!

Love to you All!

The 3 Of Us

I am not 100% sure if I blogged this or not! But this last summer I was at the right place at the right time and completed a scavenge hunt in fast time in order to win us this photo session with the wonderful Kristen Shima! Check out the photos of us she posted on her blog!

Aussie Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone! We sincerely hope that your Christmas was a special time of celebration, a time where you were able to experience a reflection of God's love for us through time spent with family and friends.

We were blessed to spend time celebrating with good friends and good food here in Australia. Aussies are so hospitable and we have always felt so welcomed by them in general.

This is a longer post than normal! Feel free to just skip ahead to the pictures, but if you're curious about how we celebrated Christmas this year....read on!

Here they have somethings they call "Christmas Carols". This can actually start a couple weeks before Christmas day. It is a production put on by a band. The one we went to was at the C3 Church and it was more like rock carols! It was fun and we got to see some friends we met while playing at the park! Then we went to the "Christmas Lights" at Maroochy Baptist Church. There was a walk through the manger with lots of little baby animals to see and touch. Aubrey was very gentle with her petting. They also had a small production of "The Whole Christmas Story", a little market to buy some crafts, and then the BIG production. I think they got like 3000+ people coming every night this was on!!

When we sat down and waited for the show to start, we thought there was no way Aubrey was going to sit through this. It was already past her bedtime, she was squirmy and whiny. But alas, the Christmas rock music and dancing began and wow! Aubrey is quite the little party girl! We finally just let her loose to dance and twirl to her hearts desire in the aisle. We couldn't stop laughing - missing most of the actual show to watch her spin, arms in the air, head bobbing to the beat. She loved it!

For Christmas Eve we took on the rain and drove north out into the hinterlands past a little town called Pomona, QLD. We drove into the rainforest, following a long muddy driveway across a narrow wooden bridge (with no rails), across a creek that tends to flood when it rains, and up to a house and family that is very dear to me! The last time I lived in this part of the world I was blessed to spend some time with my Aussie Family and really get to know each of them. We had a great time catching up, and eating fabulous, FRESH food (they are the best gardeners!!). Sorry, i have no pictures of their beautiful place that has the feel of a toxic-free, rejuvinating rainforest getaway...but I will take some next time.

THEN (yes it continues!) Christmas morning...we slept in, opened a few pressies, skyped with family, and got ready to have lunch at our friend's house in Caloundra, QLD. This is a special family as well, the kind you just instantly connect with. They have two beautiful children who adore Aubrey. We met them at the park about a month ago when their daughter (5) played with Aubrey, taking her all over the playground. She had a lot of fun yesterday too! Their little boy (3) is the sweetest little guy! He is quiet, happy, and so gentle with Aubrey. Ben even saw him take Aubrey's hand and give it a little kiss...aawwwwwww!!!! We had an amazing day chatting with their family, swimming in the pool and playing with our new underwater camera, and eating really good vegetarian dishes.

We just feel so blessed to have met some really wonderful people already, and are so excited that we still have 6 more months here to hang out with them more!

Now for the pictures!












I love how she is gently squeezing the duckling's ear! So sweet.

For the BEST photo with the animals you will have to check out my photography blog-site!


Taking a little break from twirling, but not from dancing!


Mommy and Me opening pressies from Grandpa and Grandma !


Opening pressies from Nana and Gramps!


Saying hi to family in the US. Why yes we do let our child open pressies nude.


2 things : 1) Aubrey loves camera's, this is our new underwater camera!! Thanks nana and gramps! Get ready for some videos! 2) Aubrey is not one of those children who loves the paper more than the present. Notice all of the clips in her hair? She wanted each and every last one clipped on. She also tried to wear mommy's new flip flops. And loved her new pjs!

More photos on my blog-site! www.chelsaschaefer.com

Block Stacker

Our neighbors found a big bucket of blocks and brought them over last week for Aubrey. Block stacking reminds me of the Modern Family episode where Cam and Mitchell bring Lily to the playgroup, and Mitchell sees a little boy stacking a tower of blocks. Now Lily hasn't learned to do this yet, so he fakes it, builds one, and tells everyone to look at what Lily did! The playgroup leader is so proud and asks Mitchell if they would like to take home a video of it, since the playgroups are videoed. They never returned.

I was reminded of this episode when a mom at the pool the other day mentioned that her 13 month old is stacking blocks. I felt a little like Mitchell, pulled out the blocks and showed Aubrey. She had no interest except to carry them all around the house. Until today!



Our other adventures, in between rain showers, has been some walking. Went to Buderim Forest....a little muddy but we made it to the falls. Worth a trip back for pictures and swimming!





Oh and a picture of Nana when she was here:



Check out Rain Rain Go Away on my blogsite for some puddle pictures!

Next up: Somersaults!

Playtime at the Park

I am 13 1/2 months! Cutting my first 4 teeth simultaneously. I sign : banana, milk, more please, all done, water, cereal, bedtime, bath, fan, yes, and no. I give eskimo kisses and butterfly kisses now. And all those months of Mommy & Daddy tickling me by blowing "motor boats" on my belly, well it's payback. I often catch them when they least expect it and I blow a big tickle on them! hahahahah! SO funny.

I LOVE my shoes. Because I love to walk and go play at the park.

Awwww, life is so sweet.

You can definitely find more photos of Aubrey on my photography blog-site : chelsaschaefer.com (check out "Suds in the Bucket" :)

Parables and Movies

The Bible isn't a collection of stories nor is it just a book you can read. I've come to believe that there are only two ways you can "read" the Bible, you can either study or you can meditate on it. Last week I made a comment that you should "get out of the commentaries" and get into the Bible (in an attempt to encourage study). That may have been a true statement but it doesn't make it necessarily right. If you've never been taught how to study the Bible then a commentary can be a good source of information. But with only reading a commentary your foundation for your faith is rooted in someone else's thoughts and interpretations. You run the risk of understanding theology without it actually meaning anything to you or having an affect on your life.

With that, I'm going to outline a technique, I learned on my SBS, for studying the parables found in the Gospels.
Parables were a generally accepted style of teaching in the 1st Century. They were meant to stress a particular point. They are NOT meant to be obscure or have hidden meanings. They were told to a particular audience they were NOT told in a vacuum.
There are three different types of parables; we are going to focus on one called a true parable. True parables are stories with a beginning, plot, and ending. "The Good Samaritan" would be considered a true parable (Luke 10:25).

To interpret a parable you ask a few questions; all of your answers will lead to the heart attitude of the audience.
1. Who is the audience?
2. What is the background to the story... what was Jesus doing before he told the story? What was the audience doing before Jesus told the story?
3. Who are the characters in the story?
4. What is the unexpected turn to the story? Consider this the surprise of the story. The surprise reveals the heart attitude of those surprised.
5. Who was surprised?

Once you understand who is surprised and why, you know the response Jesus is calling for. That response applies not only to the original hearer but also to us.
A quick look at The Good Samaritan:
1. 72 disciples, 12 disciples, lawyer (what is a lawyer in the 1st century? where else are lawyers mentioned in the bible? who are they often hanging around?)
2. Lawyer's questions in verses 10:25-28. Definition of who priests are, Levites, and Samaritan. What is a denarii worth?
3. priest, Levite, Samaritan, half dead man, innkeeper
4. It was the Samaritan who took care of the half dead man. (if Jesus doesn't make the surprise obvious than an additional look into the history of the characters, audience, and setting of the story should help)
5. Everyone, especially the lawyer.

The lawyer asked who his neighbor was... Jesus response, everyone. Jesus is calling for the lawyer to love everyone.
Jesus is calling us to do the same. We are to love those who may be different race, gender, social class, etc. The next logical question, what is Jesus' definition of love? I'll leave you with the opportunity to study and meditate on that.

If you remember that parables were meant to make one point you will do well. Don't over spiritualize every detail of the verse, don't assign identities or situations to the parable that the original hearer wouldn't have understood.

Now for Aubrey's 13th month movies! (note: turn off blog music at bottom of page).

Aubrey coming to understand the power of God through the waves of the ocean.



Aubrey demonstrating a few things she's learned in her first 13 months of life.