I hope this photo is not in poor taste. I mean, of course it's poor taste, but I hope you'll excuse me.

I just wanted to share this little problem we have. It seems the frogs don't have enough water outside, and now they want to share ours. I am writing this at 1am because I was woken first by a frog leaping out of our toilet, and then not long after by one smacking the lid of the kid's toilet. I went in there and there were three in the toilet, on the wall, on the floor. Nice. Marcus, Daniel Forrer's brother (who has been here for several weeks and is leaving tomorrow) put a couple of big heavy rocks on his toilet lid and they still got in! Please disregard any previous photos of my children handling these creatures. Eeeiiwww!

And a bit further up the food chain... the kids found a baby snake in the garden the other day. They were terrible excited and I was too, as you can probably imagine. Not sure what type it was but it was black and sinister looking - about 15 cm long and no doubt with lots of brothers and sisters nearby. The kids were not nearly afraid enough of it - I found out later that Jasmine had picked it up... Praise God she wasn't bitten and please pray for our children's common sense and safety!

One of the things that is done at HCJB to earn a little money is to sell hay. In the picture is Maurie, a volunteer (this is his third year he has come here with his wife Marilyn) with the hay baler. He was very kind and stopped to show the kids how it works. The machine is 50 years old and quite intriguing! Maurie was saying that the new machines only make round bales now. Where does that leave the future of straw bale houses??

This is the tractor with the rake, outside the hay shed.
Haven't seen that in action yet, but hopefully we'll get a chance!

This is Chris Webb, a member of staff here, treating our kids to a motorbike ride.

Ben was almost beside himself and said it was the best feeling he's ever had!

Not what I wanted to hear - I am not even a little bit happy about the thought of my kids becoming adrenalin junkies.

But there's another side - here is Ben with a chocolate pudding that he made. Yum!

I got woken up at 6am last week with a tall stack of pikelets drizzled with golden syrup, made by Ben and Lex.

Don has been unwell all week, with tummy bugs, ear/nose/throat problems and general viral symptoms. He had a day and a half off, and is on antibiotics. I'm thankful that it's a long weekend which will hopefully give him enough time to rest and recover. We appreciate prayer for him !

If any of you read this on Sunday, then you will probably have met Daniel and Rachel with their boys Sadoc and Nicholas before the day is out. And if you go to church in the evening, you may meet Markus, Daniel's brother. He has spent some time at HCJB but leaves in the morning to head home to Switzerland. For various reasons, we didn't get to spend much time with Markus until tonight when we shared a meal with him. We were left wishing we had more time with him!

Interestingly, Daniel and Markus's mum has been able to pick up our broadcast from Kununurra in Switzerland. It's exciting to think that HCJB might be working in places and touching lives that we don't even know about!

Well, I think the frogs have gone to bed so I guess I will too.