Flame of God

From prayer that ask that I may be

Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee

From fearing when I should aspire

From faltering when I should climb higher

From silken self, O Captain, free

Thy soldier who would follow Thee.



From subtle love of softening things

From easy choices weakenings

(Not thus are spirits fortified

Not this way went the crucified)

From all that dims thy Calvary

O Lamb of God deliver me.



Give me the love that leads the way

The faith that nothing can dismay

The hope no disappointments tire

The passion that will burn like fire

Let me not sink to be a clod

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.


By Amy Carmichael

Jesus says...

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matt 11:28-30

Zephaniah 3:17

"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

he will quiet you with his love,

he will rejoice over you with singing.”

The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?-
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of today?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been and may be again?
Whate’er the theme the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending:-
I listened motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

William Wordsworth (1807)

Cloth vs Disposable Nappies - Environmental Footprint

I have heard many people say that there is no difference in the environmental impact of disposable vs cloth nappies - I found this fairly hard to believe so I did some research (read "googling") and found this very scientific study, click here.

In the opening "Summary" this study says: "there was no significant difference between any of the environmental impacts" of the different types of nappies. I wonder if this is where people are getting their information from? It seems to me that there are some serious misunderstandings happening here with regards this study, and there are also some problems with the study itself.

Keep reading if you're interested...

Firstly, there being "no significant difference" is not the same as being "no difference". The first is a technical statistical term, the second is a laymans term. What you need to find a "significant difference" is big enough numbers of people using both cloth and disposable nappies. This study had heaps of people using dispoable, but very small numbers of people using cloth - this lowered its chances of getting a significant result at the start.

Looking at the results graphs at the end, I bet that if they had studied large numbers of people using cloth then the results would have been, on almost every measure, that cloth nappies are better than disposable.

I read the whole report and throughout I found that they weren't trying to find out how environmentally friendly you could be when using cloth, but how they thought people in the UK actually did clean their cloth nappies.

They had a whole lot of assumptions, many of which did not match with how I clean my son's cloth nappies.

They assumed that:

• Cloth nappies were produced in the US, and disposables were produced within Europe (so the environmental costs of transport were larger for cloth, per nappy).
  
• 80 of people using cloth will soak and 100% of them will use a nappy soaking solution. The chemical composition has been assumed the be the highest level indicated on the label.
  some people will use a detergent when they wash (after using a sanitiser)
  
• 49% of people will use fabric softener in their wash (and that the softener contains the maximum level of chemicals indicated on the packet).
  
• 19% of nappy wash loads are tumble dried, then they adjusted the data to assume it was 60% (based on how many people own tumble driers even though only 19% of people said they used them). A tumble drier uses about 15 times as much energy as a cold water wash - so this is a significant amount of energy.
  
• 10% of people iron their nappies (who could be bothered!)
  
• 86% of people used one nappy liner per change (though no evidence for this - I reuse my nappy liners)
  
• they argue that the number of cloth nappies bought over the 2.5 year period is 47 per child, though they have only evidence that people buy 43, and they do not take into consideration reusing some nappies on subsequent children - something that can't be done with disposables.

Even with these assumptions cloth nappies perform better than disposables on most of the measures that they calculated.

I don't recall any mention of where the energy that you use in the house is coming from: if you have a green energy provider, wash in cold water and dry your nappies in the sun (like I do) - your total environmental footprint for your nappies must be many times lower than for disposables. Considering that each disposable you use needs to be grown, harvested, produced, transported, and disposed of, each with their costs to the environment.

People can make the choice to use disposables, if they like, for whatever reason. But it shouldn't be because they think there is "no difference" in the environmental footprint between cloth and disposable nappies.

By the way, I think that cloth nappies should be called "reusable" and disposable should be called "land-fillable" nappies. Do you think that would go down well? :-)

By popular demand...

Here are some more pictures of Oscar, lying on the ground, and heading out for a walk with his new blue hat on.

Often he only goes to sleep (when there is a bit of light in the room) with a hand over his eyes. As you can see he's getting too big for the bassinette, he's 7.3kg and 64cm long! We're getting a cot very soon.

Matt loves reading to him, here he's reading the rhyming bible that we were given - which we love reading, and Oscar likes hearing. He's just learned how to smile in the last few weeks, and so so whenever we chat to him, he gives us a big smile and starts "chatting" back. So far his "talking" consist of lots of strange and not-so-strange vowel sounds, and the odd "ga".

Oscar relaxing

Oscar!

Our baby son Oscar was born on Tuesday the 13th March by casarian section after a long labor.



The three of us meeting for the first time on the operating table.



Leaving the hospital after a three day / two night stay.



Some quality father son time. 

It's a foot! This one of our ultrasound pictures - we're expecting a baby in early March! We've had a great time studying in Sydney in 2006 and we look forward to more study next year, in preparation for going back to South Asia. And of course we look forward to meeting our little one as well! We don't know if it's a boy or a girl, we'll keep it a suprise.

This is Matt and a church elder handing out sweets on our last day of church - we also gave them our guitar which they were glad to receive since they didn't have one. 

This is the day we said goodbye to our house help. She and Donna were both very sad - we had seen her six days a week when we were at home. 

Up close with a baby elephant

Yes, this elephant was a baby, it was only about 5 feet high! It shakes the grass around first before putting it into its mouth. 

Getting some language survey work done

Matt getting some survey work done with some of our colleagues. They actually just finished about three weeks of hard work - hence the big smiles!

The lighter side

I am yet to find out if this cow paid the two rupees for the parking space. 

The Himalayas

This was taken from near our house, on one of the few days in the year that you can see the mountain from the plains. And no they're not clouds . . .

This is me in front of the Himalayas - we were in Darjeeling for 3 days, and it was fogged in the first two days, but on the third it was very exciting to look out the window and see this!
On the way up the hills, there were various warnings of the dangers of driving too fast along the winding road. This was one of our favorites.

 

The view that some never got to see. . .

This is the view from the youth hostel that sells the really yummy Tibetan Bread. Mmmmm.... Mike, Kate, Liz, Clare and "Auntie" this is the view that you never got to see.

The festival of Diwali

During Diwali festival, people light firecrackers all over the place. On night I went outside to see what all the noise was, and to watch the firecrackers and I found that three candles had been lit outside my door, one on the doorstep and two on the fence, on either side of the gate. I was unknowingly joining in the celebrations as well. It must have been my landlady . . .

Holiday

Jo, Penny and I, with very pretty mountains in the background.