We Love You Guys!!

This is a special message to our other cousins in America. I was just talking to Lisa and we decided it would be good to get our kids in touch. By the way Lisa, if you check further down you will see the kids e-mail addresses, if your guys are into writing!! So to all the American Masris', we miss you lots and love you even more.

John, Jessie, Wadih and Lindy.

We got mail

Yesterday I received a letter from Rural Solutions, the group we work with as part of our cropping group in Orroroo. I thought the letter would be advising us as to when our next meeting would be held; instead it said, Dear John, Congratulations-- You are one of the winners of a nights accommodation for two at Quality Hotel Tiffins on the Park.
We are to receive A romantic Spa Suite Accommodation including chocolates in the room, a two course a la carte dinner for two with a bottle of wine. What did I do to deserve such a gift?
I simply filled in an evaluation form early in the year. Must confess I had forgotten all about it.
So it looks like a trip to Adelaide sometime before the end of Sept. Looks like your mother will get some chocolates after all.

Debbie turns ???????????????????????????

As you already know we made a trip over to Whyalla with Grandma Jean to help Debbie celebrate her birthday. We all enjoyed the celebration and as the photo shows Debbie got stuck into the chocolate in a big way. The little drama at the shopping centre, the battery decided that it had had enough and refused to workThe RAA were very efficient and we were on our way home in less than half an hour. This is the second time thast we have had battery trouble in Whyalla. Must be something in the air. Grandma Jeanie although a little tired managed the trip very well and was glad that she went.

Jessies' Photos

Jessie was concerned that maybe you didn't know what our house looked like, so she decided to take some photos of the front of the flat and our beautiful sunsets. Here they are!

By the way Kezza, any news of Jakki and Agus??

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEBBIE!!!!!!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Deeebbieeeeeeeeeeee, Happy Birthday tooooo Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
Just imagine that was melodious and tuneful okay :)
We hope you have a lovely, lovely day and that you are well looked after, loved and listened to! Take lots of hugs from people and imagine that a few of them are from us. We love you loads and lots and leaps and lumps and lots of other 'l' things!!
Wadih, Lindy, John and Jessie XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

P.S. I am currently working my way through a giant block of Cadburys in your honour, but I am also about to do a few rounds of Eyetoy Groove to work it off, so it's okay!!

Jessie in concert

Following in her parents footsteps, Jessie hit the stage this weekend in Beirut Childrens' Choir Festival. There were 8 schools involved and she was GREAT! One of the shots is an action shot, so sorry for the fuzzies. She enjoyed it and we were very proud!!

Goyder line article

We now have a family blog site that has been set up on the internet to help members of our family to keep in touch with each other on a daily basis. I must confess that I was not very excited about the idea when it first started, but now if I am able, the first thing I do in the morning is go on-line and check out what has been happening in their lives. The fact that it is easy to include photos makes it all the more pleasing because, as they say, one picture is worth a thousand words. With Lindy living in Lebanon to be able to communicate with her at least once a day, sometimes more, has been especially good as it helps her feel that she is at least in touch with what is happening in our lives on a more regular basis.

To put a new twist on an old saying I could say that “The family that communicates together, stays together.” So much pain and misunderstanding between families comes about so often because there has been a break down in communications somewhere along the way. So many hurtful incidents could be avoided if there was regular and frequent communication between family members. God also longs for us to keep in communication with him, and the more often we do it the more pleasing it is to Him and he has given to all of us the best tool possible to achieve this and that is the gift of prayer. The good thing about prayer is that you don’t have to be at a computer and go on-line, we are able to share with God in any situation at any time. I trust that you are enjoying good communications both with family and God, but if not, there is no better time to change it than right now.

No, your mother did not get these for mothers day. Last week was Volunteers Week and it was
a thank you gift from the State Ambulance service. I guess I will have to share them with the rest of the team.

You are syndicated now Dad!

Hi Dad, I hope you don't mind but I am including your article in this months copy of The Net!, our church newsletter that I produce. It just seems so relevant to so many at the moment, that I thought it was good to give people "A Glimpse of the Fathers' Heart". Your message has ripples and the circles are getting wider. Hope that is okay with you.

Lots of love to everyone!

Jeanie tucked in for the night

We brought Jeanie home before lunch and she settled in well. She had some visitors this afternoon and had both lunch and tea delivered. Enjoyed both. She is now tucked in for the night. We went to Jamestown this afternoon and bought her a new cordless phone which we will set up once the battery is charged. Also called in on Carmel to check on the estate and the power of attorney which she had received, Lindy. The NAB bank aren't sure how they can open
an account without the 100 personal points for you, but will look into it. Don't have any photos ready to send. Love Mum and Dad.

And then they were six!

Well our cat now has five, yes five babies. They were born yesterday and the kids missed it, much to Jessie's disgust. They were at school for Johns sports afternoon. (Photo to follow) We only have a place for one at the moment, but there is always the pet shops that are happy to take them off your hands.

Trust that Grandma Jeanie is now home safe and sound!! Lots of love to you Grandma.

That is about all the news for now. Love to you all.

Dolphin thearpy

I didnt go to bsf again today instead I went to the beach and walked along side a dolphin for about 1k! He/she spent most of the time only 2m away from the shaw line it was rather special,then I had sms from Jakki in Indo, saying she was thinking and praying for me and that was rather nice.:) Zac auditioned for a semi major roll in the next school musical and is waiting to find out how he went, and Annie wants to go shopping with friends to get a pressie for a boy party next saturday!! Our friend Jo made us very nice soup for tea and the kittens are settling in at last,thou they are still knocking things over and being major time wasters.:) love you all Kerryn. xx

Jeanie to come home tomorrow

The Dr has said that Grandma can come home tomorrow she is feeling comfortable with that saying that she is feeling lots better today
Trust everyone has had a good day.
Kerryn how long is you know who away for?

My M.A.D. kids!

As promised, here are the kids in their M.A.D. camp t-shirts, squinting in the sun and with tummies full of tea.

I just found out that John has an athletics day after school tomorrow, and yesterday I won 4 tickets to the premiere showing of RV, Robin Williams new movie, on the radio, also for tomorrow night. Fortunately Thursday is a holiday, 'Liberation of the South' day. This Saturday Jessie is singing in the Beirut Children's Choir Festival, so there should be lots more photos coming. Stu, thanks for the photo. I will try to get it printed.

Any news about Grandma?? Waiting to hear. Lots of love to all and sundry.

Printing Pictures

The pictures used on this page are probably going to be too small to print effectively. However, most of our pictures (including Debbie and her girls below) are also on www.flickr.com (and can be viewed by clicking on the little flickr badge below and to the right.)

JEANIE TO STAY IN HOSPITAL

The Locum doctor told Jeanie this morning that she could go home today but after he had left Megan Goehring, the Sister on duty said I have overriden his decesion and said she has to stay longer which made Jeanie very happy as she said "there was no way that I felt ready to go home."
They are hoping to do more tests when Dr Chhanibri sees her tomorrow. The hospital are arranging to have her assesed for a home care package so that she will be able to get daily help for showering and other things around the home.
As you can see jeanie isn't looking to bad.

What was Mad??

I realized that I was in a big rush this morning as I was putting up the blog about camp. I was getting ready for a couple of solo's at church and we had Maria stay over last night as well so things were a bit chaotic. I meant to explain that the M.A.D. was for Make A Difference. We even had a cool Hillsongs song Let Your Light Shine Whoa as one of our theme songs. The other one Mel wrote specially for camp. (She was the Brit in the photo of house group.) We made pieces for a cool camp banner which I will let you all see when I finish putting it all together. I also made t-shirts for all the kids. I will try to get a photo of the kids in theirs.

Okay, it is late and I need to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Talk to you all tomorrow.

Thinking warm thoughts

Gee you've got to give it to those Finnish folk! Such tallent!(& latex)Lindy did you watch the Eurovision song contest? Its such a time warp. Well we stayed at the airport and watched you know who fly of to Sydney,so we will all take care of eachother this week, I hope. The two gard killer kittens should ern their keep! We wish Jeanie a quick recovery.Glad to hear you had a good service at Orr. We had John Field preach a very good and challenging message as well. Great turtle Calvin! Well its getting cooler here so I thought we would look at a summer photo of Zacs summer castle inspired by Lord of the rings. Feel that sun!Take care all of you. Love Kerryn.xx

Jeanie's little adventure

Yesterday we got a call from Kerryn saying that the Community Home had just rung to say that Jeanie had had a fall and that they were waiting for an Ambulance to come from Peterborough to take her up to the hospital. The Dr's were not able to come up with any positive cause for her blackout but it may have been the result of a mini stroke. She has had a good day today and hopes to be going home tomorrow. Memories of what happened are still a bit hazey and it is not known how long she was out to it but it looks like she may have been on the floor for about an hour before the staff responded to her vital call.
We came home early from our Emmaus training day in Adelaide and were home by 6.00pm.
This morning we had a really good service with the team from Rostrevor and had a Judge, Bob Lunn speaking. He was very good and easy to listen to.
This photo of the floods is the road from the crossing heading down to the shearing shed. It has had water like this three times this year. We would love to see it like this again as it has been very dry for the last few weeks and I don't think the crops will come through until we get another rain . Nothing forecast for this week.

We had a M.A.D. camp!!

Well we survived in all the correct number of pieces. As you can see, much fun was had by all. We were 22 all up and had one night away. We only got slightly rained on Saturday morning and still ended up with pink cheeks by the afternoon. For those of you who have been to Lebanon, if the terrain looks familiar, it is because we are only about 10 minutes past Theopolis and I must say it did bring back memories of being up there, with the dogs howling at night, John's allergy playing up and some good memories as well. Well got to run. We are going to do our camp song in church this morning. Love you all lots.

The End of a Good Day

Well, my birthday is almost over and I must say I feel very spoiled. From the morning the phone was ringing with friends and family both here in Lebanon and in Australia calling. I also had a gift delivered through the window while the kids were waiting for the bus, a gift that was delivered two days ago from a friend in Tyre, a bunch of flowers brought to my door, a gift delivered by the babysitter and a gift and cake at Worship Team house group tonight, all from friends from church. Oh yes, and a gift and a visit from another friend from church. They're everywhere!! All in all it has been a lovely day. Oh, and how could I forget, I was taken out by my sisters!!

We were only a few of the team at house group tonight but I will put our photo up anyway. I was looking at it and realized we are an Australian, a Swede, a Brit and an American. The other two Brits and the Canadian were missing, and the French American Lebanese who was also having a birthday today, (but he is 60!!). An interesting mix
Talk to you all tomorrow!

We took you out!

Happy birthday to you, LINDY!

We decided that your birthday couldn't pass with out being celebrated in true Cozens girl style. So we went to ... the wee Scotish bistro (Maccas for the uneducated out there). But of course we couldn't celebrate your birthday without you so... we took you out too.
Just in case you can't remember your night out, you had a baby chino and some carrot cake, a play on the playground and a walk on the beach.

[there will be more photos coming tomorrow when we work out the technical details - like making our brains work] [ha ha ha] [he he he] [?]

Good start to the day

Hello everybody.
Well I have had a nice morning so far. Even though Wadih had left for work at 5AM, he did leave me a lovely little personal cheesecake in the fridge and John and Jessie, (after I woke them up) came in with a beautiful bunch of flowers (arranged by Jess) and a card that had been lovingly decorated. John even managed to do the dishes for me, as we had birthday special, pancakes!! Not a bad effort when you consider this all had to happen before 6:55 in the morning!! I'll put in the fuzzy photo (well, the least fuzzy of the fuzzy photo's) for your perusal. Hope you all have a good day.

The kids are on the Web!

Hi everyone. I just thought I would let you know that John and Jessie now have their own e-mail addresses and are very keen to hear from their family. (Well from anyone really, anyone nice and safe and not with evil intentions!!) You can contact Jessie at jessiemasri@hotmail.com and John at johnbmasri@hotmail.com We have started lessons in internet etiquette and safety. Hopefully the message will get through. (No pun intended)
Lots of love to everyoneXXXXXXXXXXX

trip to Pt. Augusta

Today we took Grandma Jean up to Pt augusta for a CT scan on her chest. the Xrays she had a couple of weeks ago showed a black spot in her lungs and she has been having a niggling cough (?) Hopefully these scans will give some answers. She found the scan not as stessful as she was expecting.
Hope to finish seeding barley out at Tapscotts tonight and then we will only have 150 acres to do at Trevor's house after we get a bit more rain.

This is the roadway into the black Rock farm taken from the main road. It flooded like this twice, about a month apart.

A lovely normal day

Hello all. You will all be tucked up safe in bed at the moment, (or if you aren't you should be!!), and I love that thought for some reason.
My goodness Kez, what a day you had. We had a very nice day with the kids in school, Wadih at work somewhere, and I had a training day at the orphanage. Very interesting stuff, not that I use the subjects they were talking about (self-esteem, listening to children and sex education) in regard to sponsorship, but it is useful stuff all the same, particularly when I think about John and Jess.
Dad, I can't believe you didn't know we had a cat. We have had her since last autumn, (that's November for you) and I was sure I had sent a photo of Bella (that's the cat) and Jessie before now. Jessie took enough.
I am off to Tyre again tomorrow for another day of teaching lovely little boys. Not sure why I ended up with only boys, but I was so excited last week, as one of the Grade One boys actually GOT IT. Something clicked in his little brain and he started to read, after five months!! That's what makes it all worthwhile, that and the coffee with Annette after school:) Well, I have things to do beside sitting on the computer for hours on end checking blogs, which is what happens quite a lot these days I might add.
Okay I just uploaded a weird photo of John and Jessie with Khalto Rahme, Doha's sister. The things on the kids heads were made by Rahme's maid from plastic bags, 7-Up bottles and straws, just for the fun of it!! Hope it makes you smile.
Lots of love to you all.

so much for kitten therapy!

I know we all have those days that didnt go to plan and I'm no exception. :) We have been waiting waiting waiting for the new Tabor uniforms to arrive and I understood they would be in H.Scarfs by today, so, I thought that the kids could have a day off and get fitted out with their new clothes and get some kitten acessories then have lunch with dad and have a lovely day together and wouldent that be nice:)!So they sleep in a little and get the good news when they get up and Annie looks horrified!Noooo I want to go to school! (my friends are there!) ok get dressesd we'll drop you of on the way. Meanwhile Mike looses trak of S.S. and P.P. and eventualy works out that they have mutated into puddles or sand or some squishy form and squeezed under the dish- washer and entoomed themselves under the built in kitchen cupbords!
We left them there to go and have our "nice day"and Zac somehow thought it would be a day where if he winged a lot he would be able to buy lots of things! Not my plan!Then we get to H.S. and the uniforms still arn't there! Now I'm feeling the effects of not being healthy and realy want to go home to rest before picking up Annie and the Evs and coaching Annies b-ball team but we had planned to meet Mike for lunch at 12:30 and he forgot to take his ph.so I couldnt tell him to meet us sooner so I could give him his ph and go home...more waiting waiting.We get home and the kittens are not happy about their predicament and verbalise their complaints,so after lugging out numourus draws we find the one under the oven has a little space at the back for the gass pipe and if they 'wanted to' they could get out there! Oh this is taking too long! eventually they came out (only after Isaac was in tears thinking that they had snuffed it!)and we have shoved a folded pillow under the dishwasher(as you do) and now I'm going to bed and Mike (at elders meeting)will have to work out where they are now so he can shut them in the laundry for the night! (I know where they ended up this time, they whent throught the little circle hole in the side of the old kitchen cabinet and snuggled down with the dvds! night night! (ps I pushed spell check and it didnt do anything! so to all you teachers, sorry I tried!)

Hooray! It worked

Okay, it kind of worked, because the picture wasn't there. But all the times I had tried to post something before and it told me I couldn't are now up there for all the world to see and I feel like a wally. Oh well, nothing new. I will try again to put the picture up. Live and learn, right.

Try and Try again!

Okay I am going to attempt again, to post something up here, as I am sure that there will be many facsinating things happening in my life that you will all be so keen to hear about. If I can just get this to work! I will also try to find an interesting picture of something to post as well. Here goes! If this has worked there should be a lovely picture of John and Jessie with their friends Nadine and Maria by the sea in Tyre.

trying to add photos

Lost the first effort thought Lindy you might like to see some photos of the floods back in Feb.
The photo of the road damage is down at Ron Harris's coener on corner of the back road and the road to pekina.

The road was cut to a depth of ten feet and is still to be fixed the council says it will cost over $40000.00 to repair.

Was not succesful in getter mutiply photos on better luck next time.

Try and Try again!

I am still trying to get this thing to work.

This thing doesn't like me!!

Okay, now I'm getting paranoid. It tells me I am forbidden to view this page. Why not!! I shall persist until I get it.

We have a cat too!

Okay this is me playing around and trying to figure this out with Dad on the phone. Here is a picture of our cat, Bella. She is about to pop out babies any day now, if anyone is interested!!!

ok! ok! the pressure!

See... well... I dont know what to say.Thanks Stu for setting this up and Hello everybody!I guss the best thing to do would be to introduce Murphy and Smoky Sam aka Scaredy cat and Piddle puss. so that will mean working out how to attach a photo so here goes.
I did it! With some help from Mike. (surprise surprise). we had a lovely service and yummy noodles for lunch and now its time to watch the footy with one eye shut! love you all see you soon. Kerryn

Community thought for May

Each month I write a article in the local Goyders Line paper. Will now include it on the blogg so the family will know what we have been thinking.


The other week I went through one of the hardest periods any parent could go through as I watched the pain and suffering of our daughter and son in law as they went through the birth of their precious little daughter only to watch her die in their arms less than three hours later. I could feel their pain and I wanted to take it away from them but I knew I couldn’t, all I could do was walk the journey with them and be by their side when they needed me.

The last six months have been a challenging time for Debbie and Stuart and their extended families as various tests showed that Isabelle had little chance of surviving beyond the first day, but as Debbie and Stuart shared their journey on an Internet Blog Site they were able to draw around them an incredible band of support that spread over seven countries around the world. Although the prayer that many prayed was not answered in the birth of a healthy little girl, the hand of God was felt in many different ways and only time will reveal the blessing that I believe God has for those who were close to Isabelle.

As a father I couldn’t but feel in a very limited way what our Heavenly Father must have felt as he allowed Jesus to go to the cross and take all the pain and suffering of this world upon himself. I am sure God would have wanted to intervene and take away some of the pain that Jesus endured but He knew it was a journey that Jesus had to walk alone. God has given us the great gift of being family, and in families when one member suffers the whole family suffers. As you go through a difficult time and you have family and friends by your side, the burdens can be lightened by the knowledge that others are journeying with you in prayer and practical support.
My prayer is that if you go through a challenging or painful time may you know the comforting prayerful support that we as family have experienced over the last six months.

God bless, John Cozens

We have made it on line

This is my first attempt to add a message
trust that as time goes by it will all come naturally and we can keep you up to date with our activities.

This is our new front Endloader which has been a big help moving the big bales of hay and loading the super into the Seed and super unit on the truck.

Lindy asked why she couldn't see her post:

Lindy asked why she couldn't see her post, even after she had clicked the "Publish Post" button below. The answer: I'm not quite sure. It worked fine for me. I clicked "Publish Post", then went to "View Blog in New Window" and it was there.

If that hadn't worked, I would have clicked "Republish Index Only" and then tried "View Blog in New Window."

Is that and help Lindy?

Here I am!!

Okay if this works, then I will have posted my first ever blog. I just hope that the rest of the Cozens clan will take up their keyboards and join us!! I hope this is not a precedent that these postings will take place in the early hours of the morning. So here goes. Now I just have to figure out how to get this thing up....there.

Who said putting up a trampoline is half the fun?

It certainly wasn't me. It took quite a while to set up the trampoline the other week. (Mind you, it probably wouldn't have taken as long if Calvin wasn't helping for the first half hour.) (This is an example of telling us about the boring day to day things that we do, that are actually quite interesting.) (Like Kittens!)