Now here's a secret that I will share just with you

Now here's a secret that I'll just share with you.

There's all sorts of things that you can do in the outback that you wouldn't do in the city.

I ... wait for it ... cut Cathie's hair!

And bigger surprise ... she asked me to.

And much bigger ... it isn't dreadful. She's lovely.

At the end I gave the client a kiss .... something that doesn't normally happen at the hairdressers.

(Now here's a challenge - if you are going to tell anyone my secret - you must let me know in the comment field below).

Here's an Abraham story

Sitting in the kiddy pool in Alice Springs, Abraham was very keen to play with a pretty impressive water pistol currently being used by a boy a few years younger than him.

I watched him try every possible means to persuade this boy to give him a go but to no avail. However about ten minutes later the boy was distracted by something else and put the water pistol down. Abraham immediately seized it.

He had filled it up when some older boys ran across (about 11 years old). They had been terrorising some 14 year old girls in the swimming area with splashing.

Abraham followed the example of the five year old earlier and refused to hand over the water pistol and instead joined the terrorist campaign.

I watched him as he ran through the enemy (14 year old girl) camp firing machine gun like water all over the enemy.

One 14 year old girl seized him with both hands. Picked him up whole. Ran him to the large pool and threw him in.

I waited to see if he would come to me in tears, as he doesn't like his head going below water.

But he thought it was funny - and fair.

Sin

We had a good time discussing sin as we started to listen to a Bible talk on Grace after dinner tonight. We discussed that the Bible's categories of wise and fool are more moral categories than intelectual. We'll start tomorrow's discusion on the verse from James 2:19 'even the demons believe and shudder.'

A koala called Solomon sitting in a gum tree

At the waterhole, I used Peter's pen knife to cut up tomato for the sandwiches for lunch. It was really nice but the water was too cold for me.

Solomon and Hannah competed for who is toughest by each swimming the length of the water hole and then jumping in. Abraham takes after me.

The kids listened to the AFL grand final on the car radio on the way back to the caravan park.

I also spent a bit of time listening to a talk by John Piper on distortions to the gospel from the Resurgence conference and am two chapters into Keller's book "Reason for God.'

Off road in the 4WD

On the way - free from the campervan on the back - we tried taking the 4WD off road. We only did this for a few hundred meters as it seemed a little pointless as there was a perfectly good road right next to us that could be driven on. But we did it.

Waterhole in the desert

Today we gave Cathie a day on her own. This meant that in the morning first thing I headed out to the wreckers to get a second campervan stabiliser leg repaired. It had been ruined by coming loose and then dragging along the highway at high speed.

Then Cathie took the car out shopping for an hour and a half.

Then we left her at home in the caravan while we headed out to a waterhole for a swim.

If we were in Sydney today ...

... we would be joining in the celebrations at the wedding of Nicolette Powell and Jonothan Marshall.

I remember bouncing Nicolette in her bassinette at her parents home after lunch - the first day I attended St Matthias Church in 1985.

She was flowergirl at our wedding in 1993.

We are sad to be missing their important day but will look forward to seeing photos and hearing reports when we catch up with her sister Celeste in Darwin in a fortnight.

Cathie and I stopped and prayed for them and their marriage together.