July Family Holiday at Bear Cottage

James and Em at Manly

James and Em

Em at Shelly Beach Lookout

James, Em and Ange at Shelly Beach Lookout

James, Greg and Em at the Botanical Gardens

Greg, Em and James at Sydney Harbour

Ange, Em and James doing some shopping!

South Heads walk

Greg and Em

Em and James

Checking out the old shelters

Manly to Spit walk

Finished!

James

We did lots of walking!

Dear all,
In two days Georgie will turn 15.
Wondering would you please pray for her as she is sick with a fluey chesty wog which all of us have also had/have. Her breathing is not the best this evening. Ange reminded me yesterday of when Georgie asked Jesus into her heart. Such a wonderful thing.
We read this morning from Malachi "but for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall".

July

Been having a bit of respite care with Georgie at Manly.Weather is wet wet wet so we are hoping for some fine weather ahead.
We went to St Matthews at Manly and heard a very interesting speaker from the centre for public Christianity talking on the value of human life. How all life is valuable no matter how limited or incapacitatedThanks.it was very interesting and refreshing to us of course in the light of ThanksGeorgie's sickness to hear this. It is amazing how often we have had to defend Georgie's right to life and  there is a lot I could say in this regard.similarly too those who say to put her in a home and get on with our lives.
Georgie is a very important part of our family and our lives.
We are continually blessed by Georgie's little circle of friends who come to see her every so often to talk and read to her and pray with her.last time these three girls led by an older sister recently had a bible study right there on the floor of Georgie's room.Some chose to not see her anymore but these few have kept coming and are all the more mature and caring and trusting.Like Jesus said of Mary she has chosen the better way.There are many things that bring pain to your heart yet we must continue to not let our heart become hard like the dried up potsherd that is useful for nothing but to remain soft and malleable to the potters hands.

Christmas Pics

Christmas at the Wilsons. Em with cousins Jonah, Eliana and Tavian

Here are some pictures from our Christmas holidays. We spent Christmas Day at Ange's parent's house in Kurrajong. Ange's brother Jono and his family visited this year. They have three children, Jonah, Tavian and Eliana. We left Kurrajong and drove down south to Narrawallee. We had a lovely and refreshing holiday.

Our family and the Hamer-Wilsons before they left for Canada

Margaret & Jim, Em and Greg at Narrawallee Inlet

Em and James at Narrawallee Inlet

James' dragon sand sculpture

Em and James at Narrawallee Inlet

Bear Cottage

Hi All,

I meant to put up some photos from our visit to Bear Cottage in November but things have been so busy that I never got the chance. Here are a couple.

Greg, Em and James at Manly Beach

Ange, Greg, James and Em at the Manly Aquarium

James and Em on the ferry as we head to the Zoo

March 2013

Hi all. I thought I'd better write and see who is out there.

Em is back at Uni now. It was lovely to have her home for 3 months break. James is into yr 12 now.
Georgie has been well really. Nothing changed much and medication-wise, she is still on all the same things.
She is still growing and will be fifteen in July.

The fund raiser for research into childhood epilepsy through Children's Medical Research Institute has gone quite well. I haven't heard the final figure but last time I spoke to them a month or so ago they had reached $120k of the $150k target.

Work for Greg has been very hard the last few months as he has watched so many good colleagues leaving the dept of Agriculture. One wonders what will happen to Agriculture.

We had a nice visit from an older fellow yesterday who came to pray for Georgie.
We still often wonder whatever went wrong.

We had some special moments with Georgie on the weekend - just giving her a cuddle and she was smiling at us and looking happy. It is nice to know that in some way at least at some times she can feel love.
Ange was reading about babies in orphanages and the ones who were shown love grew well but those who weren't could never thrive. It shows us that the capacity to feel love goes beyond cognition (I guess any mum knows that).

We had four inches of beautiful rain up here and it has transformed the country side. It was starting to look very droughty.
Farmers are happy with the dry summer because it means no weeds but then some timely autumn rain.

Well cheerio for now.
Greg

Christmas Holidays

Dear all, we have just spent two weeks down the south coast and had a great holiday and are all well rested and brown.
We escaped some of the heat but again it is warming up out west. We reckon its been just this hot before tho' (and hotter) when we lived further out west at Cobar and Nyngan.
It was really good to see some of our family at Christmas time.

Georgie handled the trip down quite well and was very settled for the whole time we were down the coast just like she was last year. We think the climate and sea air agree with her. It is much more conducive to get her outside and take her for walks etc than at Dubbo where it is often too hot, too windy or too cold. The main problem is her chest which is sensitive to low grade infections which then cause her some distress.
Georgie has also slowly developed contractures in her hands, feet and hips which may need addressing. It is a common complication of being immobile and the body growing. There are still many things which break our hearts for her.
Yesterday cleaning up I found the clinical notes from the first few days of her admission to ICU in 2007 and reading over them saw just how unprepared for what happened the hospital was. It was just such a freak thing. They were all thinking that within 24 hrs or so she would settle and improve.

The CMRI fund raising has been going very well. They reported that over $100k has been raised so far to go towards childrens severe epilepsy research. Thankyou to all who have contributed.
Some of you would remember Tom Barrett at Dubbo the retired drover who did a charity fund raiser in Dubbo to buy Georgie a wheel chair. He was battling cancer - multiple myloma and passed away in September.

Down the coast we also went to Milton Ulladulla Baptist as well where we caught up with some old friends.

Just before Christmas we went out to the Carols at Mendooran where Ange, James and Greg helped with the music and carols.
Greg spoke at the carols giving a brief testimony and encouraging people to come back to Jesus, explaining the gospel and how to come to salvation.

This year is our 20th year now out in the Central/Far west and we've made lots of friends around the region here.
Greg's work is still uncertain with the only certainty that he and 300 others will finish at the end of June. He has had quite a few job offers.

Em is home for holidays. James is working and finally finished his big bird cage and moved some of his parrots into it. James starts his yr 12 HSC this year.
Ange will pick up some casual teaching again.

Well all the best for the year ahead.
I'll post some pictures when I can.