God is a Great God!

My dad is amazing ..... and my heavenly father is even more so!! My dad is a testimony of God's goodness. He went to see the cardiologist on Friday for a check up and found that 5 arteries in his heart were blocked .... a few up to 90% blocked! He had had no symptoms other than slightly laboured breathing.

The doctors said that they could do by-pass surgery on 4 of the 5 arteries, but the 5th one which was blocked 70% they could not reach because it was in an awkward location. On Monday he went in for the 6 hour operation and they were able to by-pass all 5 arteries!! Dad is in intensive care at the moment but the doctors said the operation was successful and he has already stopped bleeding, which is a good sign. Praise God for his healing! We serve a God of miracles!

This is a picture of my dad when he won discounted tickets to the musical "Wicked" in New York. Instead of paying over USD$200 each he got 2 tickets for just $26.50 each! He said that he asked God in the morning to give him a fruitful day. And then, being the amazing and generous dad he is, he gave the tickets to mum and I as he knew how much we both love musicals! He was happy, as he went to Times Square Church (the church which David Wilkinson founded) with Jono for the evening service and was ushered to the front row of the packed church.

New York New York

As I sit at my kitchen table trying to finish my reading for my theology class, I thought I would take a moment to digress from the riveting discussion about contextual Christology and reminisce about our trip to New York.

It was my first trip to New York. I now know why people so love New York - the hustle and bustle, the ease of getting around, the many sights to see and the range of food to eat! We stayed in this hotel which was perfectly situated within walking distance of Times Square and Central Park and with a subway station entrance just outside our hotel entrance.

Some of the highlights were that we saw 3 musicals for about USD$27 per ticket (you can't see Wicked, Chicago and the Wiz for that in Brissie), a sushi buffet which was nearly 1 NY block long (anyone who has been to NY can tell you how long some of those blocks are!), a yummy Malaysian restaurant called Nonya (the chilli crabs were amazing!!!), the incredible view from the top of the Empire State Building, the fantastic shopping at Century 21 and the weird and wonderful street buskers in Central Park.

Niagara Falls

We then went to Niagara Falls, and it was fortunate that Jono had been there before as he was able to plan our attack of the American and Canadian sides of the tourist activities. My favourite was the "cave of the winds" which is on the American side and is basically a walk way at the foot of the American bridal veil falls. You can go right up to the falls onto the hurricane deck! Each spring they rebuild the whole walkway and deck, as the falls freeze over. I'm glad we went in summer! It was amazing having that much water crashing down on you. Mum and dad went onto the hurricane deck twice,as you can see in the above picture!!

We did everything - the maid of the mist (which is a boat that takes you right up to horse shoe falls), the journey behind the falls, the aquarium and even the Niagara Gorge discovery centre (which had an elevator which takes you on a journey through the earth's core - it took mum and dad several minutes to work out that it was only a simulation :o)!. But the piece de resistance was that we had an awesome view of the horse shoe falls, the larger of the two falls, from our hotel room. Probably would have been a more romantic trip for Jono and I if we hadn't decided to share the room with my parents :o) But I think Jono was in photographer's paradise with all the amazing photos he took.