Flying the Nest

There was great excitement the other day when we got to see the baby blue tits emerging from their nesting box and flying off for the first time. We had been very cautious in our hope to even see this event - but, as it turned out, not only did we see it, but we happened (providentially?) to have been videoing the parents coming and going just as it happened.

Here's the video - with the children's excitement clearly audible in the background!

Catching Up With Kids Quotes

Here's some quotes from the kids that we've been noting down over the past couple of months but haven't got round to posting yet...

Me to Sinead: "How long have we been married - 12 years?"
Kathleen (aged 8) pipes up: "It seems longer than 12 years to me"

Kathleen (aged 8): "Reading Milly Molly Mandy is the joy of life."
Mum: "Hmmmm, not sure I've read that in the Bible!?"
Kathleen: "That's because they didn't have Milly Molly Mandy then."

Lucia (aged 3): "I'm a big girl now."
Mum: "Are you? How big?"
Lucia: "Small."

Dad, looking for something: "Does anyone know where..."
...finds it as he is asking and turns towards Lucia (age 3) and continues: "... this is?"
Lucia: "No - I'm not a mother!"

Lucia (aged 3) - out of the blue one morning: "Anyway, it's tomorrow"
Dad, confused: "What's tomorrow?"
Lucia: "Today" - pause - "Is it Daddy? I'm not really sure?"

Seeing the Unseen

Another sermon - this one is in two parts due to the fact that Tangle has a limit on the length. The topic was "seeing the unseen" based on 2 Cor 4:18 - would we live our lives any differently if we were more aware of the "unseen", "eternal" things instead of being so distracted by the "visible" things around us?


Part 1:


Part 2:

A New Day

This is a poem that I wrote to go with a series of photos that I took for a photography competition - here's the poem - you can hear it read along with the photos in the video embedded below.

I ventured out at dawn's first light
Across the dewy green
Where lonely trees peer through the mist
And sleeping grasses dream.

The whispered breath of rippling waves
Sigh gently from the wake
Of one lone duck that glides where trees
Are mirrored on the lake.

Along the fringe of every reed
A million jewels of light
Watch shyly as the stirring world
Wakes softly from the night.

"Twill not be long till through our leaves,"
The silent branches say
"Will burst God's rays of sunshine's hope
To herald in the day."

- Mark H (DelightInLight.com)

Note: This is one of a number of poems that I have posted on this blog. If you want to see more of them, please have a look at this post: "Fun Poems for Kids"

You can also email a link to this post by clicking the mail icon below...

All Go with Tangle

Well, it looks like Tangle will do the job for us at Crawley Church. We've started uploading videos there - there was a bit of a problem for a while in that I couldn't get the videos to embed on our Church's website (which is on Wordpress.com), but discovered that it can be done via VOD:POD, so all is well.

Here's my latest appearance doing one of the talks in the Journey through the Bible series. Have a look at Tangle or our Church Blog for the rest of the talks in the series.

Tangle

As I mentioned previously, it seems that Google are going to be dropping Google Video so I won't be able to use that in future (after sometime in March, I think is was) - so, I've been looking for somewhere else to host my videos. I've been looking at Tangle.com (previously called GodTube.com) - it has the advantage of being a Christian site which I would like to support - however, unfortunately there are limits to the videos that you can upload (max 100MB or 30 minutes). This is better than YouTube (which has a max of 10 minutes), but it does mean that a lot of the sermon videos (like the ones in the "Open Sunday - Take a Look" series) would have to be uploaded in two parts. It's still a possibility, but would be more of a hassle (each time) than I would like, so I may keep looking for a while. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Christian T-Shirts

My niece has revived her Christian t-shirt business - called "Upstream Designs".

It's well worth having a look at the Upstream Designs website - you can buy t-shirts from a range of designs, colours, sizes, etc.