It's a bit personal about family life here, but anyway this is a catch-up letter for the Christmas season from the Ratawa family - in Geelong.
Hello
Greetings
for the Holy Season of Christmas as we once again welcome the Christ Child. The
year 2013 has been mainly a good year. We seniors are slowing down a lot though with
a few health issues to attend to, but God continues to keep us safe and
optimistic. Our church connection is still East Geelong Uniting. we have an excellent minister who is
originally from Tonga. I play the music
most Sundays – piano or organ, and the grandsons are in the Sunday School.
Peceli is still connected with Altona Meadows/Laverton and now the small Fijian
group have joined the morning (English language) congregation. Peceli and I
enjoyed some weekends early in the year at Colac when Peceli helped there with
pastoral visits and Sunday services. Lovely meeting with the country people
there.
Our house
is still full with Peceli, me, George, Bale when she’s not working at Lorne,
grandsons Jordan (16) and Andrew (14) who go to Geelong High School, Epa pops
in occasionally and Andrew Senior who normally lives in Nukualova with his wife
Eka and daughter Linlay, came over for
the Masters and throwing events and has stayed on a couple of months. We take
turns in cooking and tidying up. There
are two guinea pigs as well, Izzie named after the Hawaiian guitar player, and Fuzzie who has a white ruff like
Geelong’s new mayor. Our Fiji Friendship Club continues to meet in the homes of
members – and this means kava drinking, a delicious shared meal, stories and
music.
We don’t
see much of my extended Lay/Collins families though we did get together at
Bacchus Marsh for the scattering of the ashes – a year since Auntie Mary
Collins had passed away. In Swan Hill the City Council there put up a plaque to
honour Dad in the George Lay Park.
Early in
the year we went to Airey’s Inlet for five days – a Rotary dinner silent
auction treat. A beautiful quiet place
where I took photos and made some
drawings. Our second holiday for the
year was to Fiji and Tonga – one week for a family wedding in Nadi, where it was a delight to have one to one
talks with younger relatives that I hadn’t seen for a long time. Then we flew
to Tonga to stay with Andrew, Eka and Linlay in Nukualofa. That week was
relaxed and with perfect weather.
Regarding sports
and hobbies – most of our family play tennis nearly every day. Andrew plays Aussie Rules footie also and
Jordan has recovered very well from his second surgery regarding his knee
problem at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne - crutches for about four months. He’s allowed
to play tennis, swim, and touch but not footie yet.
We are
still volunteers at the Rotary Donation in Kind but containers to Fiji are
fraught with difficulties at the other end.
There’s more stories and pictures about our family and concerns on facebook
and two blogs. We are disappointed with the Uniting Church in Victoria which
meant the loss of our church tennis courts to help pay a huge debt caused by
incompetence in Melbourne. But life goes on with good surprises and grace.
Loloma levu
yani and best wishes,
Wendy and Peceli Ratawa
December 10
2013
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