Ethiopian Princess

I have a little princess; a sister in Ethiopia. Her name is Date Dalcho and I have been sponsoring her for 5 years now. This morning I opened my mail to find that Date and her family are moving outside of the sponsorship zone and that I will no longer be able to support her. I feel a little bit heart-broken because it has been one of my greatest joys to see her grow into a fine young lady over the years. I loved to read her letters and especially to receive her photo each year to see that she had put on weight and could smile more easily. I understand that this is what often happens when sponsoring children but it is still hard. At the moment I am considering whether to sponsor a a 3 year old cutie from Nepal with World Vision or an Afghan child (as a large portion of my heart is connected to Afghanistan.) In the meantime, I will continue to pray for Date and her family as she will always remain my little Ethiopian Princess.

It is more of a blessing to give than to receive. Have you ever thought of blessing yourself and a community through child sponsorship? It is so easy and yet it reaps so much joy.
Check out the Compassion Australia website if you are interested. I sponsor Athira Sivakumar from India and I'm sure she has lots of friends that would love a big sister or brother!

Cruising

Let me introduce you to some of my friends. We helped Lauren, a friend from church, celebrate her 21st birthday on Saturday - cruising around the Brisbane river - one of the prettiest sights in the city. 'Twas a nice evening. I love my international friends but there's nothing quite like a whole conversation in fluent, unadulterated, no-explanation-given, down-to earth Australian English. The skippers name for the night was "Rob Treasure!" We should have recruited him for the Pirate party.

Sadquay to Shunum Jany

Chamanma, to khailly khailly khob bachaya. Sadquay to shunum. Tashakur - DU years!!!! Boobkhshi archii problems. Chaman - Jes - Yuk dil. (Dil to pagal hai!!!) Boobkhshi khailly bada hazaragi. To khob she e, sherin e, qand e janyman e.

To everyone else - Yesterday Chaman and I celebrated 2 years of our relationship. Happy days!

Wedding!

This weekend was special. One of my dear friends - Josh - got married to his beautiful bride, Faith. A huge "congratulations" to them both! I have known Josh for more than 10 years through CLW camps and the Lutheran circle so I am really glad they had such a nice (HOT) day. Chaman and I got a little lost and it was a bit more of an adventure than we hoped but we made it eventually! It was definately the most 'country' wedding I had ever attended. Most of the bridal party took off their shoes and we sang "for they are jolly good fellows" while swatting at the flies braved the sweltering heat. A beautiful time though - it's always special to witness 2 people who have decided to spend the rest of their lives together.

It's A Pirate's Life For Me!

Ahoy, me hearties! Hoist the flags, scrub the deck and bring out the rum - It's time for a Pirate Party!

Chaman had never had a kids birthday party before so we thought it would be the Richter's duty to bestow this pleasure upon him. It's 2 months since Chaman's 24th birthday but that didn't stop us from celebrating like it was 1988! Hannah had made a marvelous pass the parcel and Chaman won a book of Nursery Rhymes. (This, after answering "The Farmer's Husband" to the Trivial Pursuit question: "Who ran after the farmers wife?!")

We searched high and low for the missing treasure (buried in the sandpit of course), threw bottles over shoulders, ate with mouths open, punctuated every sentence with "Arrghhh", and even ate a pirate cake. It was such a quality day.

Highlight - Chaman sitting in the Queen seat with the knitting on his lap.

Life would be so sweet if everyone would treasure the silly moments and sing sea shanties once in a while.

Once upon a time

Ok, so I thought that I might try this Blogging thing. Thanks to my lovely sister Rach for the idea.