Those were the days. And these are too.

When I was home last October I started sorting out mum's massive boxes of photos and we had a treat laughing through a few together. This time home I found she had continued on and managed to sort through over 30 years of photos - impressive! The renewed order from chaos enabled me to discover these gems...

Mum - what a beauty.

Dad the stud with the chops

Lisa concentrating with biccies on hand

And me. Not much has changed. Except the thumb sucking.

I've recently been introduced to Irena Werning's work. She takes old photographs and recreates them with the subjects as they are now. Such a sweet idea, I'd love to try it sometime.

Yeeeeeeeew! (kay)

I loved spending time in England. I love England and I love my friends and I love my family so much.

My sister is due a little one in November and I couldn't be more excited for her and Dave.

Brighton with Mum and Dad is turning into a tradition - a particularly wonderful tradition.

It was an honour to be at Chris and Sophie's wedding. Chris and I have been close friends for over ten years and to see him this happy was just amazing. God is good!

Work, Rest and Pray.

Working in a ministry that is a business is hard in different ways than I expected.

I've always been one of those people who overworks. "Good enough" is never good enough for me and given a task which may take someone else an hour to get done I might take it too seriously or further than needed and turn it into a day project. Or longer. I can't leave things half finished or half arsed. And I'm not very good at delegating because my expectations are unrealistically high so I get frustrated with the way things are done and I spend more of my time needlessly redoing it. So it's easier just to do everything myself which doesn't help anyone. I know it's my fault for having high expectations but I have no idea after this many years how to make them more realistic and I don't think it's encouraging for anyone for me to have super low expectations of them.

Add to this my very poor discipline outside of work with regards to rest and bedtimes and you've got a great breeding ground for what people like to call burnout. Lately this has been manifesting itself in negative attitudes in my heart.

Our skate businesses exist soley because Rob, Boris, Lauren and Kerie heard God's purpose for them and committed to it. To create businesses that will show Christ's love in the skateboarding industry. What profit they make goes into community projects for skaters, donations and helping skaters and others out. And time and time again we have seen God move through these businesses and give us favour.

But working within a business ministry you have to ask God to get your heart and head right. Because it's a job but it's also a calling, a ministry. You're not in it for the money. Which is completely contrary to the way business is seen in the world. Business is about making money. About growing and seeing that growth reflected in your payslip and in your lifestyle. And that's the perspective that's been creeping into my mind and making its way down to my heart. Giving me a poor attitude and damaging my ability to look around and appreciate all that God's doing around me.

And I'm certain the reason is that I haven't been connecting with God. I haven't been talking to Him or reading about Him or what He's said. I haven't been thanking Him for all the good stuff or telling Him about my problems or fears or looking for His perspective. So of course when I'm not seeing things through His eyes I revert back to seeing things through the world's eyes and then everything looks broken and hopeless and I get so tired.

So I want new priorities. I want to put my relationship with God first, and I want to silence those voices in my head that tell me that's selfish. Because I know that God cares more about me spending time with Him than spending time doing stuff for Him.

Matthew 22:37-40:

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

So I'm going to focus on the first commandment because I reckon everything else comes from that.

Putting it out there

If you know me you probably know one of my favourite things to do is draw.

I find myself continually treading the line with pride. I know I'm not the best and I appreciate and admire hugely the talents God has given other people. But I also know God has given me particular abilities and I don't want to hide them away, deny them and leave them unused. I don't want to be stupid and self deprecating which is just another form of pride. I want to use them and take them wherever God wants them to take me.

So here is a new blog. claire-matthews2.blogspot.com. So you can see what I have been doing over the last however many years. And if you would like me to make something for you that would be sweet. Mainly I just hope something I do touches your spirit in some way and makes you feel better about the world or just a little less alone.

Kingdom Builders 2011

When I was in the Philippines in 2009 we went on a camp for the kids there, run by our new friends at Grace Covenant church. The young leaders there who call themselves The Upright Generation were far and away the most amazing, inspirational, full throttle, sold out for Jesus group of young people I've ever met. They were an inspiration in every way. Their faith, their fearlessness, their boldness and their love for the kids on that camp still motivates me, two years on.

At the weekend Des put together this brilliant promotional video for the camp this year that Upright Gen can use over there to encourage more kids to go on the camp and meet with God. It featuresa few of my friends here, all have been involved with skate ministry and all have been to the camp either last year or the year before with me. So click below and check out what happened when Dan, Cheets, Des, Shannon, JC, Wolfie and myself went to Kingdom Builders.

Kingdom Builders 3 Promo from Des Rountree on Vimeo.

Stunt Wooding in Cambodia

Since moving to Cambodia from Australia, my friend Luc had become really involved with Pour un Sourire d'Enfant (For a Child's Smile), a youth skate project there teaching kids how to skate and there were plans afoot to build Cambodia's first ever skatepark.

Meanwhile Munners from ThreeSixty Project had been in touch with Skateistan, a project bringing skateboarding to youth in Afganistan, offering them ThreeSixty decks. They then put him in touch with the project in Cambodia which coincidentally is the same project Luc is working with!

So earlier this month Kodan and Dubsy headed out to join Luc in Cambodia. Dubsy had thirty decks from ThreeSixty and Boris and Rob hooked them up with ten sets of trucks, wheels, bearings and heaps of protective pad sets to take too.

The first week of their trip they spent skitching tuktuks, telling locals it was all called "stunt wooding" and building ramps with the locals getting ready for the big opening. 2500 kids turned up to the park launch and watched a skate demo and music and dance acts. 2500! The massive interest in the project led to local and national companies lending their financial support to the programme.

Before they left the boys built more ramps and heard that Skateistan have said they want to get more involved, providing financial support and even a salary for Luc! Amazing.

Please do pray for the project there and for Luc as he doesn't have any Christian brothers on the project there to work with and I know that can be a really hard place to be.

Cambodia Daily's article on the project (and Kodan's second ever full page!)

The presentation of the goods

A Boardstore deck being put to good use!

ThreeSixty Yeuw!

Thanks to ThreeSixtyProject and PSE for photos.

Dubsalicious

This is Dubsy.

Dubsy has been my housemate now for over a year and he's become my best friend in Australia. He is far and away the most generous person I have had the blessing to know. He's helped me out with rent, bought me breakfasts, lunches, dinners, Mcflurries and if I've ever tried to refuse a cash gift he'll just go and put it in my bank account and threaten me not to return it. He drove me to the pharmacy when my eyes were swollen and made me laugh about it. He lent me his car when I needed it. He gave me a wakeskate. He let me and my family ride the cable for free. He bought us a lawnmower and a strimmer and used them regularly. He's dropped me off and picked me up at Brisbane airport at very unsociable times. He pays for people to come to Zumba. He paid for the rent of our extra room when my sister came to stay. When he went to buy a push bike, he bought two so he could give one away. He buys me tissues when I'm sick and chooses the Aloe Vera ones not the cheapies. And he never ever makes me feel in his debt although I know for everything he's done for me I always will be.

In short, his genuine serving heart is incredible and he blesses everyone around him.

Well a few weeks ago Dubsy left for a six month adventure. He started with a two week trip to Cambodia (more about that later) and is now at the start of his Discipleship Training School with YWAM in Costa Rica. He's having an awesome time and I know everyone there will be frothing on knowing him by now. Please pray for him as he continues to talk to, listen to and get to know God. And please pray for his safety in Costa Rica and wherever he goes on outreach.

Before he left we threw him a kick ass going away party complete with Dubsy moustaches for everyone to rock plus we sold Dubsy memorabilia to raise money to support his travels. If you want to buy a Dubsarica mug for $10 let me know! Derek's got a sweet moustache montage from photos he took over on his blog: Derek's Aus'ome Adventures (he's a dab hand with his camera that boy).