A Week in the Life of a Mummy & a Minister’s Wife

I recently posted an insight into my life as the wife of a minister. Since that was a popular post I thought I would open the doors of my life a little more and give you an idea of what a regular week is like for me and my family.

I will start the week with Sunday (because that’s where all the action happens).

Sunday: The crazy starts early on Sundays. My hubby leaves at 8am to set up the church leaving me to get the three kids to church by 9am. I generally finish my cup of tea, then fight with the kids to get their hair brushed, teeth brushed, shoes on and into the car by 8.45am. If I don’t scream at the kids, it has been a good morning.

Church is fun but busy. I don’t generally get to sit and listen to a sermon at church as I am either serving on (or filling in for someone else) the children’s or crèche program. I love our church family and I especially love having a cup of tea with them after the service finishes.

The little girls have been grabbing a Bible lately and pretending to read it. Awwwww!

After church we often have people over for lunch or a meeting (or both). Late afternoons are mostly free but they are frequently meetings that occur at that time.

Dinner is rushed and hubby puts the kids to bed just in time for me to open the door to the girls in my Bible study group. As well as reading the Bible, the giggling and D&M’s go on well into the night.

Monday: Monday is hubby’s day off and this is the last year we will be able to spend it as a family without at least one child in school. We often visit parks or kid friendly attractions around Canberra or just relax at home and do errands.

Family time!

 Because hubby and I don’t hear sermons we take the time to get together on a Monday night and listen to a sermon together. We have listened to sermons from SMBC (where Tim studied) and we are currently going through a Mark Driscoll series on marriage called The Peasant Princess.

Tuesday:  After getting up early to go to the gym, I often spend Tuesdays at home with the kids. That way we can recover from the weekend and clean the house and it means hubby can take the car to work (we only have one car).

Tuesday nights hubby is out at his own Bible study so I take the time to study or write blog posts (depending on which is more pressing at the time).

Wednesday: Wednesday is our playgroup day. It is often stressful to get the kids there but once we arrive I really enjoy catching up with the other mums. I was initially invited by a friend but this year I have started to form my own friendships and just love meeting with these ladies each week.

Wednesday nights hubby is home but he frequently heads to the study to work. He may also be avoiding having to watch “The Bachelor” and “Wonderland”. I consider Wednesday my “night off”. It is basically the only night I watch TV and I generally have a glass of wine and watch rubbish TV.

Thursday: Thursday starts with the gym again. Thursdays are lovely because I only have Ali with my because the older girls go to preschool and childcare.  When Ali slept in the mornings I would do study, prepare for my Bible study or children’s program and whatever else I could fit in. Now I meet up with friends or do groceries and try to fit the other things in when she goes to sleep in the afternoon.

Thursdays with Ali

Thursday nights I meet up with two friends from church to catch up and pray together. Even though we are all exhausted by Thursday night, it is great. We share the hard things and the great things going on in our lives over a glass of red wine. Then we talk to God together.

Friday: Fridays I have two of my three and so we generally try to visit with friends and get ready for whatever is on the weekend.

Friday nights we are generally at home together but one of us usually has something pressing that needs to get done or there is something social on.

Saturday: We could sleep in and have a relaxing morning but recently we have been heading to the local park for the Parkrun. It is a 5km run that happens every week and hubby and I will take turns running it. I recently completed the run in 29 mins 25 seconds!

Yay! Under 30 minutes

We then rush home for a shower and head to a party, or a lunch, or a meeting or something else.

Having kids means Saturday nights are pretty relaxed for us. We may watch a movie or just hang out together. There is the occasional social event of course. Saturdays nights are also often used to get ready for church the next day.

Then it all starts again.....

Here's a random photo of my kitchen while I am giving you a peek into my life.

  

The Mummy & The Minister's Wife

This week on my Mummy's Undeserved Blessings Facebook Page, I asked what it was people wanted to read about on my blog. The answer really didn't surprise me because it is the theme of my blog. A couple of people wanted to know more about my life as the wife of a minister.  I haven't been sharing all that much about that area of my life, mainly because I really want to take the time to write well about it. I have also been a little hesitant because I have a responsibility to those in my church to keep anything that relates to them private. However there is lots and lots I can share on the topic that is just about me and my family.

The recent question about my life was how do I balance it all. The honest truth is... I don't. We have a very busy life and it bounces between crazy busy and normal busy. Our weeks generally involve my hubby being out (for meetings/Bible studies) a few times a week, then me being out a couple of nights a week, with a couple of nights left to spend with each other. Sundays as you can imagine are often busy from 8am - 11pm with a few breaks in between. We survive the week by having my hubby's day off on Monday as a family day. Mondays are great as hardly anyone is around so we just spend time together (although we are happy to catch up with friends/church family socially sometimes. We don't have a strict rule about family only time).



My role at the church isn't huge mainly because we have a very capable and motivated church family who take on lots of the responsibilities. I co-lead the kid's program, help out with the creche (under 3's) and sometimes bring morning tea. I also co-lead a Bible study for young women (which is what keeps me up til 11pm on a Sunday night). There are also the occasional women's events that I help organise, but my real role is to firstly be a support to my hubby in his ministry and to care for my girls.

As my family is my priority, and as a stay at home mum I make sure that I don't do "work" (whether that is Uni study, blogging or church related things) during the day. Although I do check facebook a little too often, I make sure that I do things with the kids like meeting up with friends for playdates, going to playgroup, going to the park etc.

I also try really hard to maintain friendships outside the church. Since being in Canberra, I have made some lovely friends both inside and outside the church. My friends that don't come to church know that I am a Christian and even though I am sure they think I am a bit odd, it hasn't hindered our friendship at all. They know that I won't Bible bash them but that they can come and chat to me about what I believe at any time. It has been exciting to see two of my friends come along to church this year and a couple of others asking me about why I believe.

So there you have it, a little more about my role as a Mummy and a Minister's wife. Of course I also throw in blogging and study but that might have to be the topic of another blog post.


Please feel free to ask any other burning questions about being a minister's wife :) 

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Instant Family

As most of you know my husband is a minister of a church, so that makes me the minister's wife. Of course that means we basically have to go to church every week, but even when we weren't getting paid to go church was an important part of my life. Today I wanted to share with those of you who may not go to church (and those that do) the many great things I experience by being part of a church community.  There are many misconceptions about what goes on at a church so I wanted to share a little of what I have experienced since becoming a Christian (when I was 18 ..you can read my story on the Life on a Hill blog) and joining a church.

Having moved four times in the last 12 years, I have experienced what it is like to have to build a new network of friends in a new area. It can be quite difficult establishing a social network of people who you can turn to if you ever need help. In our Australian culture it takes time to build relationships with people, and even longer until we have a relationship where we can rely on each other for help in times of need. Thankfully I have been able to find an "Instant Family" each time I have moved. It isn't because I am such an amazing person that people cannot help but be drawn to me. No, it is the friends and family I find whenever I join a new church.

Image credit

Of course friendships don't form instantly, they still take time but in my experience joining a church allows you to meet with a wide range of people who you can begin to form relationships with. Whenever we have started at a new church, people we have never met before have taken the time to get to know us, often by inviting us around to their homes for a meal.

Recently our daughter Alicia was in hospital and it really couldn't have happened at a worse time for our family. My husband was due to preach at the Easter services on the following weekend and we had a house inspection coming up (not to mention the fact that she was only two weeks old and we were still adjusting to being a family of five). I stayed at the hospital with Alicia for six days, leaving my husband to look after the two girls and the normal household tasks.

For a lot people, when times like this occur, family can help with meals, cleaning and babysitting. However our families are a minimum of three hours away and we could have been facing a very difficult time.

Instead, our wonderful church family stepped in with baby sitting, cleaning the house before the house inspection, more meals then we could accept (we still have some in the freezer), grocery shopping, and my husband was given the week off work and and his two sermons were covered at short notice by our other minister. I even had some lovely friends come out of their way to keep me company at the hospital. They made sure that all we had to worry about was getting our little girl better.

Of course, not everyone in a church experiences this support. We are working for the church, and everyone knows our needs. We are very connected to lots of people. What I have come to realise is that to really experience true community and to enjoy the benefits of this community we need to be connected to people. We need to spend time with each other throughout the week, not just for a brief conversation on a Sunday over a cup of tea. If you want people to open their homes and lives  to us, we need to be willing to open ours to them also. 

You don't have to go to a church to find community,but in our culture this type of community and support is difficult to find outside of families. I love that as a Christian I can go almost anywhere and there will be a group of people meeting together as a church where I can experience this type of community. It won't be a perfect community but it will be a community whose values are based on love and forgiveness.

Church is not about a building, or hearing a sermon each week. Church is a family and like every family there are ups and downs but when it comes to the crunch that family will be there for you.