The Land Down Under

Lets go home.

2009-07-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

Monday July 13, 2009

So this is going to be a weird long journal because my Monday keeps going on and on and on!

I left this morning at 6:45 from the house. I didn’t hardly sleep at all! I don’t know how many hours I got, but not very many. Actually as I went to bed last night I was shaking both out of excitement and being nervous. I asked God to wrap his arms around me and hold me close because I was shaking so much and for God to put me to sleep!

We arrived at the airport at 7:30 and got in line. We got through the line pretty quickly. At the check in counter, I don’t remember a word that the lady said. I was SO concerned about my luggage. We started weighing everything. One of my bags was underweight. That was good. One of my bags was WAY overweight. I can have two checked bags that are 50 pounds or less, but anything above that, but below 70 pounds would be fined excess baggage. So one of my suitcases was 45 pounds. The other one was 72 pounds. The ticket lady wouldn’t give it to me. So I laid out all my suitcases right there at the ticket counter and put clothes from one bag to the next. Oh it made me so stressed out! So I ended up carrying two sweaters in my carryon bag and a flashlight, some souvenirs, and a shirt in my laptop bag. Oh it was a mess. I was just going crazy and not thinking. We finally got my large bag down to 70 pounds, but they wouldn’t issue me a boarding pass because I had to pay a fine. So I went to the paying counter and paid my $50 fine and got my boarding pass.

Jeff invited me to have a coffee with him and Rosemary before I left, but I was just a wreck that I needed to catch my head before I caught my plane. I declined and left for security. I got in line for security and noticed that I didn’t have the correct paperwork! Nobody told me that I needed to fill out this form to go through security! So I got out of line and went to get this paperwork, filled it out, and I got through security with no problem.

My boarding pass did not say what gate I was suppose to be at and there were no signs that showed gate numbers for flight numbers anywhere just outside the security point. So I walked around and walked around and walked around. I am still pretty stressed out, but I guess that comes easily for me. After walking past the food court, I found my gate number. I sat down for a few minutes and reorganized my bags. I put my laptop in my carryon luggage and pulled my purse out of my laptop bag. I then went to change into my sweat pants for a more comfortable flight. I then went back to the food court to buy a water bottle. All that stressing out made me thirsty!

There was no sign by the gate number that told what the next flight was. I had an hour, so I just sat around and couldn’t read, so I people watched. It would have been a lot more fun to do if I had someone with me to people watch with me. As it got closer to the departure time, a lady came and sat by me. She was headed to Flordia. She had talked to a representative and I was indeed……. In the right location! So I didn’t need to move or anything.

We boarded the plane and found our seats. I sat by a very nice man named Peter! Hee Hee! As I think of that now its kinda funny! Not because he was a funny guy, but because of my experience with Peters in Australia.

For lunch I didn’t enjoy the chicken, so I ate the mashed potatoes, half of the salad, a slice of cheese in a roll and an ice cream. I did have some small snacks between lunch and breakfast, but I mostly watched TV. I think I watched like 5 movies or something. I was actually getting bored watching movies after about the third consecutive one in a row. I tried falling asleep, but the flight attendants going up and down the walk way and people always needing to use the bathroom, I think I only slept for a total of an hour and a half. Maybe?

For breakfast, right before we got off the plane, I had cereal, fruit, and part of a roll. My stomach hasn’t been feeling too good. Probably stress. But I did manage to eat something. We landed at 7:30 in the morning. It seems weird to say that I left Australia at 10 AM Monday morning and arrived in America at 7:30 in the morning. I have been to the future!

I wanted to make sure and make my next flight so I rushed down the corridors to the customs and immigration stands. I got through without any problem. It took me about 30 minutes or so to collect all my luggage though!

I then went up the walkway to put my luggage on the American connecting flight. I was then told to go up to level three on the building next door. Well that’s what I did and I ended up in this international check-in place. Oh, I just get so mixed up sometimes! So I asked for directions, and I had to go one more building over! I didn’t think I would have to go through security again, but once I got to the right spot, I had to go through security. So once again I kneeled down to unpack and reorganize my bags down to two bags again with my laptop in its bag instead of in my carry-on.

I got through security and found my gate then again reorganized my luggage. You are probably thinking I am strange for doing that, but I didn’t want to carry my heavy laptop on my shoulder all over and I didn’t want to leave my wallet and passport in my laptop bag. I wanted to have it in my purse! AAAAAHHHHHH!

I got my tickets exchanged and all fixed up then grabbed a bottle of water for $4.50 and some pastries for a snack later on the plane. I then called my family and Jake. It was SO good to hear from them. Just a few more hours and I would be with them.

We boarded the plane and I was surprised that I was going to sit by an obese woman. She was very friendly and kind and we conversed a lot together, but she took up like ½ of my seat. We were also touching throughout the whole flight. I mean, it was fine, but I do like my personal space!

So as we started backing out of the terminal area, the captian through the intercom told us that there was something wrong with one of the engines and that they had called the engineers to come and look at it. About 30 minutes later he came on again and told us that there were going to have to do something to the engine to fix it. The shortest procedure would take 45 minutes and the longest procedure would take 1 hour and 30 minutes. Oh boy…. Just the whipped cream on my pavlova! I talked with the woman next to me and overheard a lady behind me say that she was from Australia. We conversed a lot through our long wait. It was nice to have friends on the plane! I was constantly praying during our long wait. They wouldn’t let us off the plane. At one point they said that we could leave the plane, but had to take everything with us. They also gave us the invitation to get off the plane and find an alternative route or stay on this plane and they would take care of getting us an alternative route. There were 105 connecting flights on my plane and all of them were going to miss their connecting flight.

So the plane boarded at 9:10 and we didn’t leave until 12:45. So we were on the plane for such a long long long long long time. My stomach hurt a lot. Probably stress, but also that I hadn’t slept very well in the last day I guess. I continuously texted and called my parents and Jake just so they knew what was happening.

Thankfully my dad contacted my travel agent and we got a flight all lined up for my connecting when I finally arrived in Chicago. So when I landed, I went to this gate and they gave me my boarding pass. No questions asked and no hardships. It was super easy. Thank you Gene Ballard! Originally my flight would have left at 4:15 (we didn’t get to Chicago until 5:30) and I would have been home by 5:30 or 5:45. Now my flight leaves at 9:40 PM and I’ll get home at 10:45 or 11:00 PM.

I felt sticky and gross so after getting my boarding pass and calling my family and Jake, I went to the bathroom and changed my clothes and cleansed myself as well as you can do in a public bathroom. I walked around a little bit, and decided it was time to feed my body again, even though I REALLY wasn’t hungry. I stopped at a bagel shop and got a meat sandwich with chips and a banana. It cost me $10.00. That in itself made me sick! I ate what I could, but I think I was more dehydrated than I was hungry, because I didn’t eat very much. I didn’t eat much at all today!

So since I have such a long wait, I have been texting and calling my family. I decided to sit down and write this blog entry because by the time I get home I will be so exhausted and at the same time excited that I won’t want to write. So now I am about to head down to my gate to wait for the boarding call which will be in a little over an hour! My nerves are fried, my back is squished, my muscles are tired, my stomach doesn’t feel good, but I am almost home, and that keeps a smile on my face. I’ll let you know how the rest of my evening and night plays out, probably tomorrow!

Continuation of Monday:

I left the bagel spot and headed over to my gate. I looked at the departure gate list and saw that my gate had moved. So I went to my new gate to await my departure. At 9:15 we boarded the airplane and we were off. The pilot, I think, loved speed because we got to Peoria in 20 minutes which would usually take 50 minutes. We landed and I got off as fast as I could. I was excited to see my family.

And there they were, waiting for me. We hugged and smiled and talked. I went to the baggage claim and got my bags then we were off to go home. We got back home around 11:45. I was tired, but my happiness for being home overwhelmed my sleepiness. So I started throwing bags all over my room. I had a mess. But I got to the souvenirs and handed them out.

Jake and I then went downstairs to talk for a while and say prayers in person together! Its so great to be home.

I finally went to bed around 2:30 AM and slept the whole night. I woke up Tuesday morning at 11AM from a wake up call from Jake. The only two silly things that have happened since being home is that I started driving on the wrong side of the road on the way out of my house, but I got that corrected pretty fast. Jake and I went for a night time drive and as we were getting in the car, I walked around the driver’s side of the car and told Jake that I could get my own door opened. He was driving and I was the passenger. Then lastly, as I flushed the toilet I went to press a button on top of the toilet, but there was none to be found. I had to flip the lever instead.

I am blessed with this journey that God has provided in my life. I met new people, tried new things, and experienced a culture and enjoyed it immensely. I now look forward to where God will lead me next.

Goodbye, Farewell, Until we meet again!

2009-07-15T21:35:00.001-07:00

Saturday July 12, 2009

Today was a bitter sweet day. I was glad to leave to go home, but I also knew that I would miss the friends that I had made.

I had a hard time sleeping. I tossed and turned all night. I worried about my flight, if my bags were overweight, and on and on and on.

So we went to church in the morning. I had a special farewell given to be by David during the service. The service went well. After first service there was this huge reception in the entry way. A church family was leaving as well to move to another part of Australia so we were saying goodbye to them as well as to me. I talked to so many people. I had people standing in line to say goodbye to me. I was given a few gifts and cards. From the church I received some money, a boomerang, two Australian maps, some coasters, and a cartoon book with prayers to God. It was really thoughtful and kind of them to do for me. I talked to people through half of second service, then went to join worship. I talked to a few people after second service and then went home.

For lunch I had soup and toast then went to packing my bags. I am still worried that they might be over weight! I am scared that not everything will fit! I keep praying to God that I can have an easy day tomorrow and not to worry and not to stress out but to trust him! I know he answers prayers in his timing and in his will, so I’ll keep on praying!

We had an early dinner of meat pies and salad. 6:30 service was VERY small tonight. There were only 13 worshipers. After worship there was another reception for me. What’s funny is that they called the reception supper, but they call the evening meal tea. Sometimes I get so confused!

During the reception Peter, the slower man who dresses in women’s clothing, asked me to send him a picture of an American Snake. He wondered if there were snakes in America. He even gave me his address. Latter I found out from Jeff that Peter kept asking Jeff if there was enough room in the car taking me to the airport. I guess Peter wanted to come to the airport to see me off! It was very thoughtful of him and it made me think of Keith Mundsted in our church.

So we came home and watched Miss Marple – a British Mystery TV show. It was good and it got my mind off of my flight tomorrow. I am SO excited, and I am also very nervous.

Getting Ready!

2009-07-15T21:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday July 11, 2009

I had a hard time falling asleep last night. I think I am really excited to be going home that I couldn’t sleep.

Throughout the night I had dream after dream after dream. I woke up after each dream too. Outside the wind was blowing everywhere and it was raining. It was some sort of morning!

After my shower, Rosemary asked me if I wanted to go to an outlet mall with her and Jeff since the weather was bad outside. I had originally planned to go down to Hochiman city to do some looking around and such, but that wasn’t going to be the case because of the weather. So I agreed to go along. After I had breakfast we left.

We first went into a shop that is like Wal-Mart, but kinda not. There were so many thing that I wanted to buy! As I walked through the store, I thought about my first house and living on my own and what it will be like! I restrained myself because I didn’t need those things right now, but also because I wouldn’t have any room in my suitcase to fit it in. I’m worried about it as it is right now!

We then went into a retail outlet store. I walked around a looked inside a few shops, but nothing small and cheap caught my eye. Most of the stores were clothing stores, but none were my style or a style that I could pull off. I was heading too a coffee shop to get something to drink, when I met up with Jeff and Rosemary. We left the shopping center and headed home. On the way we stopped at a Chemist (pharmacy) to buy some medicine and then to get some lunch at a fish and chips shop.

I had fish and French fries and a potato cake and this weird bundle of chewiness and I have no idea what it is called and would probably not like to have one again.

I then worked on my laundry and sorting my bags and cleaning my room. There was only so much that I could do because some of my clothing was still wet from the wash! So I laid down to watch a movie. I watched the Beverly Hill Billies first and then I watched A Walk To Remember. Both were great and helped take up time this afternoon! Its great to think that tomorrow is my last day here! I am really looking forward to it, just because I am so excited to go home, but it will be sad to leave the friends that I have made here. Tomorrow will go by fast because it is a church day, but in a way I wish it would go some what slowly so I can enjoy my life.

This evening I had a chicken roll for dinner and watched some TV with Jeff and Rosemary. I did some reading too and packed the clothing when it dried up. I also called and talked to my family which was great. I miss them a lot. I can’t wait to see them at the bottom of the escalator when I get into Peoria. Tomorrow here I come!

FISH all day! Blah…

2009-07-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

Friday July 10, 2009

I slept in till 8:30 this morning then got a quick shower. Rosemary and Jeff left at 10 to pick up Jeff’s dad for a day trip. I was leaving at 11 with some church members. I ate breakfast and then watched the news.

At 11 Bev picked me up and we drove to pick up her husband Roy. He was helping to create a hurdling teaching video. I met some of the hurdlers and watched them perform. At 12:30 we left to go to the Botanic Gardens.

We ate at a tea shop, but I wasn’t really impressed. The only things they offered was soup, a wrap, a sandwich, and fish and chips. Good offers, but I really wasn’t hungry for any of it. I did spot a veggie wrap and thought that would be good enough with some potato chips. I had a cappuccino to go along with it. I started eating my wrap and tasted something really different. I had thought that my veggie wrap had cucumber, tomatoes, lettuce, and onion in it, but the tomato turned out to be salmon! So I pulled out all the salmon and continued to eat the wrap. It wasn’t a very exciting lunch!

Bev and I then went to look at the store near the tea house. I really didn’t need anything, but Bev insisted that I buy something. So I settled on a see through mesh bag. I do think I can put that to good use at school or something! I am very grateful for her thoughtfulness.

I came back home, but was craving a coffee of some kind. So I walked down to McDonalds and bought myself a cappuccino. It was SO good and really hit the spot!

At 6:30 Jenny Bishop came to pick me up to go to the young adult dinner. The young adults were really nice, but very strange. There were two boys, one girl, myself, and Jenny. For dinner I had a milk shake and some pizza. It was a pizza that had four different types of pizza on all the slices. I thought that would be good because I would get a variety. One slice was pepperoni, one slice was ham and pineapple, one slice was cheese, and one slice was olive. I started eating it and it was pretty good. Once I got to the olive pizza I noticed that the pizza not only had super sour olives, but that it also had anchovies on it! Eww, it didn’t taste good. I only had the ham and pineapple slice and the cheese slice. I was too full and grossed out to eat the other two slices.

I came home at about 9:45 and decided to call Jake. I have missed talking to him so much. I woke him up because it was 10 at night here and about 7 in the morning there. But it was so good to hear his voice! I can’t wait to be home so that I can actually talk to him in person

Last day of work!

2009-07-15T15:14:00.000-07:00

Thursday July 9, 2009

This morning I woke up at 6:30 because the fire alarm was going off. It didn’t go off for a long time, it just beeped a few times and then stopped. I got up and got ready for the day and while I was in the shower the fire alarm went off again! I was a little worried that I would need to jump out of the shower and put something on to run outside, but the beeping stopped. We don’t know why it went off and it didn’t do that the rest of the day!

I got to work at 8:15 and worked on my e-mails and blogs. At about 9:45 we had a staff meeting until 12. We were served coffee and chocolate cake. At 1 we left to go out to eat at a tea house called Ricket’s Point. Its sitting right on the beach and you can see the beach from where we were sitting. I had a chicken avocado sandwich with a side salad. We came back to church and had pavlova that Jenny Bishop had made for me. I also received some wagon wheels from the community center and a box of chocolates from Tom. While we were eating pavlova, the staff passed a card around that they signed and then gave it to me. It was funny because I was sitting right there when they were signing my card!

David then brought over a bag that had a Collingwood Magpie blanket in it. For all my traveling, I have brought home a blanket, but I couldn’t find a blanket here that I could afford. So now I have one! I just need to work on how to pack it!

At 4:30 I got all ready to go and cleaned out the office. It was a sad moment. I took pictures of the office before closing the door for the last time! We came home and I started rearranging my suite case. I actually got everything in there and I still have room for a few more things! For dinner we had lamb in a sauce poured over rice. I have been eating and eating so much today that I haven’t really been hungry. I gave Jeff and Rosemary their Eureka mugs and money. I think they liked it.

Then I worked on the time capsule. I really wanted to get it done at work today, but just copying the whole thing onto a disk before even burning it took forever! So I worked on that all evening. I also did some more packing and sorting. Tomorrow I am going to the Botanical Gardens in the morning then in the evening I am hanging out with some young adults. Saturday will be a relaxing day – finish packing stuff and hang out around the house. Saturday for dinner we are grabbing fish and chips to eat on the beach as we watch the sun go down. Sunday is church church all day then I leave bright and early on Monday. It will be great!

Party day!

2009-07-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

Wednesday July 8, 2009

Last night I put lotion on my hands before taking off my robe, so lotion got on my robe. At some point in the night I pulled on or over the robe and got lotion all over me. I didn’t know it until the morning when my robe had these orange spots on it. Hee Hee!

Today was Party Day with the School Holiday Program. I got to church at 8 and checked my e-mail and worked for a tiny bit on the internet. Again its slow. It probably will be for the rest of the month and the rest of the time I am here. Thankfully it works though!

At 9:15 I went over to the Community Center to work with the children. We played lots of games and I got to help in the kitchen! That’s what I really enjoyed. We made sausage rolls, chocolate crackles, cup cakes, jelly cups (Jello cups), fairy bread (bread with butter and sprinkles) and that’s it. I helped the kids with making their foods, but then did lots of dishes. I did dishes all day. We played some more games and I even had a chance to swat at a piñata. I got to take home chocolate chip scones, hotdogs, butter, and sliced bread.

I came home at 4:30 and I had a headache. I shouldn’t have had a headache because we only had 24 kids. I laid down for a while and took some Tylenol. For dinner we had a veggie casserole and a potato. For dessert I had a chocolate chip scone. YUM!

At 7:45 Rula, a church visitor, picked me up and we went to the McCafe (a café at McDonalds) and bought a coffee. I also bought a lamington. I was prepared to buy my own, but Rula wanted to treat me (or “shout” as in Australian terms). We laughed a lot about Australian slang. She was fun to talk to and hang out with. She brought me home at 9:30 and I decided to write. Tomorrow is Thursday can you believe it! I am coming home on Monday! I am hoping to have the internet on Saturday just enough to check my e-mail… we’ll see. So I won’t post anything after this post until I get home. That’s fun to think about. But yes, I will post everything else after I arrive home.

MOVIES

2009-07-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

Tuesday July 7, 2009

Today was a regular day of work. The internet was slow though. The internet in Australia has something called a download cap. With whatever internet option you choose, you are only allowed to download a certain amount of stuff. Once you reach your limit, the internet provider puts a cap on the extra amounts of download for internet usage. So the church has reached its download limit and the computers are downloading so extremely slow.

I worked on the internet and did some interviews and burned some CDs. For lunch I had a vegemite roll. I would describe it as being a cinnamon roll, but without cinnamon. Instead it was filled with vegemite and cheese. It wasn’t bad, and it wasn’t something I would want to eat all the time. It mostly made me really thirsty! Vegemite is really really really salty.

Today Virginia made me some Anzac cookies. Anzac stands for Australian And New Zealand Army Core. The story behind the cookies is that women would make the cookies for army men. The cookies are slow to go bad, so they were good for the army!

During the morning a man named Tom came by. He told me he was planning his funeral with pastor David. He is a 93 year old man, and I think I have mentioned him before. He has told me that he is going to cry when I leave. He also told me that when he heard me preach, he wasn’t sure of all I said, but he did like listening to my accent. Another thing he told me was that if Jake didn’t hurry up and purpose, he would do that himself. So Tom came by and we chatted for a while. We then took a picture together. He is a really neat man!

I made a few balloon things for the staff at the church. My favorite balloon thing to make is kissing love birds in a heart, so I made that for Virginia and David. I am also going to make one for Jeff and Rosemary later this week.

At 4:30 I was grateful for Jeff for taking my laptop back home while I went out to the movies with Jenny and Cathy Bishop. We met at the mall and decided on a movie. For dinner we ate at T.G.I. Fridays and I ordered Quesadillas. Jenny treated me to the meal since I paid for my movie ticket, but I felt bad because the Quesadillas cost $24 for 5 triangles! There were no side dishes of rice and beans or a salad or anything. If I had gotten Quesadillas with chicken and bacon it would have cost $27. For dessert we had apple pie – left over from American July Fourth. We were also offered rootbeer floats and dr. pepper. These three things you can’t find in Australia. Jenny and Cathy said that they rarely eat apple pie.

During dinner we had a great time talking about life and experiences. I was asked about my purity ring and got to share with them my desires to wait for marriage—and give myself only to one person. I was told that the emphasis to remain abstinent is not really important or talked about in Australia. They told me that at one point the church did a series on sexuality and they left the service with the knowledge that its ok to spend the night with anyone if they are a good person, instead of waiting for marriage and a very committed relationship.

After dinner we headed to the movie theater. We saw Ice Age 3. I was really looking forward to going to see a movie. The theater had assigned seats—which was different because I am so used to choosing where I would like to sit, but I guess it’s a good idea so that everyone can get a seat with their family. The movie was good and very funny, but I prefer Pixar because they don’t do as much bodily humor or adult humor. I prefer clean humor.

After the movie, Jenny brought me home and I am going to “flake.” I am going to crash. I can’t believe tomorrow is Wednesday. This week is going by so fast.

Penguins with Good Company

2009-07-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

Monday July 6, 2009

The title of my day sounds like a good movie or book title doesn’t it? I had such a great time today. It felt like I was really hanging out with my real family back in the states. David and Heather are such awesome people and really made me feel at home. They were funny and kind and teased each other and were just great.

I slept in till 8, ate breakfast and did some reading. I am almost done with the book. I think I need like 2 more hours and then I will have it finished.

David came to the door at 9:30ish and we were off on our excursion. David and Heather’s daughter Joanne came with us. It was good to hang out with a younger girl today as well! We stopped in Lang Lang for some Vanilla Slice and it was really good. Its nothing like what I had before. This Vanilla Slice tasted like vanilla and was creamy custardy. I am glad we stopped there. We then drove through some hills and farming communities. My brain started to slow down and relax. We stopped a few times to take pictures. One of such places was the Chocolate Factory. We didn’t do the tour, but there were some penguins made out of chocolate that I took a picture of!

For lunch we ate at a burger shop. I had the Colossal burger that had everything a normal burger has, including avocado. I had to take a picture of David’s burger because it had beet root in it. That’s a more Australian thing to have on your burger. We walked the Jetty (also known as a pier) then got in the car to drive to the Grand Pri where there are motorcycle and car races. It was an interesting track, but I think I would enjoy the Footy more than the motorcycle sport!

We traveled on to where the penguin parade was. It cost $20 something to actually watch the penguin parade, but it only cost $4 to get into the museum part, and personally, I didn’t think the museum was worth $4. There were a bunch of stuffed penguins everywhere. I did get a picture of a penguin in its burrow, but that was about it. There were two gift shops and a café. We spent about 25 minutes there then left to go to the Nobbies Center. We looked at the mini information center then walked around outside where we saw the two nobbies and got some close encounters with some penguins—all for free! The walk was very cold, but the scenery was great! The company was even better. We stopped inside for a hot drink (a cuppa) and then a wonder through the gift store.

On the way home we stopped at a huge koala and a surf wave to take a picture. We came home and went to David and Heather's house. I have never been at their house before. I met their cocker spaniel dog who was so scared of me! He would look interested in me, come up to me, then run back. He was a funny dog! Soon enough, he became more used to me and once I started petting him, he didn’t want me to stop. Their house is decorated with these really cool paint splatter art. I have tried paint splatter art before, but it has never turned out so good. David and Heather’s son made the pictures for an art project, and I just thought they were so neat!

For dinner we had pizza, and I was craving pizza! I then showed them pictures on my blog. They found it very humorous to see things that I had taken pictures of things that they live with on a daily basis, that they never thought were out of the ordinary or unique. As I was preparing to leave their house Heather told me that “ You must be ready to flake out.” I have no idea what that meant. The first thought that popped into my head was that I needed to go do some pealing of my skin – skin flake or something like that or flick myself in the head. I had no idea! Flake out meant to collapse or fall asleep fast or crash because of exhaustion. So are you ready to flake? I am about to flake right now after such a long day of touring! That sounds so funny! Read that out loud: “I am about to flake out right now.” It made for a good laugh!

I was brought home about 9:00. After talking for a little while with Jeff and Rosemary, I worked on my pictures. I got some good ones and can’t wait to share them with you. I know this week is going to go by fast, but that will be ok with me. I am excited to be home again.

Picture bows and interviews

2009-07-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

Sunday July 5, 2009

Today was just a normal day of church. During first service I led the children’s message. I heard someone behind where I was sitting say that they needed a translator to translate what I was asking the kids. Obviously they couldn’t understand me, but the kids did just fine. I asked them what they would take with themselves if they were to go on a holiday. I got responses such as clothes, food, drinks, your parents, and I love you. I then asked them how they would feel if I told them they could only take the clothes they had on and nothing else. They said that they would be stinky and angry.

The scripture for the day was when Jesus sent out his disciples and he told them to take nothing with them, only the clothes they had on and a walking stick. During the rest of the service, each part mentioned something I said with the children. That made me feel really good inside.

Between services I interviewed people from the church for the time capsule. I got some interesting responses. One man said that in 50 years he thinks I will be the pastor of the church (I would be 71 years old!). Another person said they didn’t think the church would last another 50 years, and another person said that the church will have changed.

I got two special gifts today. Some pretty hand made bows and a picture of Jessica Hubbard and her dog Sandy. It was nice of the Hubbard family to think of me as I am getting ready to go home.

For lunch we had left over chili and bread. The rest of the afternoon I laid down to read my book. It is a Christian Romance book and I don’t want to bring it back to the states with me—mostly because I don’t want to worry about having to pack it!

At 5:00PM we arrived back at church to help set up for the evening service. Actually, everything was already set up and David was watching Footy on the big screen in the sanctuary. I am not really into watching sports that much, so I sat out in the lobby reading my book.

Peter (the church attendee that dresses in woman’s clothing) was sitting in the lobby too, cutting out paper. He continuously asked me and those who walked by if they could get him a cup of tea. One time he asked me is I could get him a cup of tea, I told him I didn’t know where to get it (quite literally, I don’t). He told me that it was in the cupboard. I told him to go and get it himself. He never got his cup of tea.

All of a sudden, while in the middle of reading my book, I heard this loud male voice say “Mary, this is God (pause) would you like to come and sing with us?” Now writing this sounds really strange. Like God was calling me from heaven to come and sing with the angels or something, but the voice sounded familiar and I was right. It was David speaking into the microphone that is broadcasted into the lobby asking me if I wanted to come and sing with him and Suzanne for worship.

I agreed and went and practiced with them. Worship that evening was good. I like the way the services are run. After the service I socialized and took pictures of people at the church. I even snuck a picture of Peter. He is the picture of a man holding lots of stuff in his arms.

After church we came home and had egg and bacon sandwiches while watching Mrs. Marple. That is such an interestingly confusingly wonderfully good show! I am really looking forward to tomorrow since I am hanging out with David and Heather and their daughter Joanne at Philip Island. Its going to be exciting!

Happy Fourth of July!

2009-07-06T16:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday July 4, 2009

Today really didn’t feel like the Fourth of July. I slept in till 8:30, showered and ate breakfast.

Around 10 or so we left to visit a Victorian house. It was a very beautiful house, but the entry fee was $12! We got a tour of the house and then were free to walk around the grounds. I took lots of pictures and played with the black and white setting.

For lunch we went to a bakery. I had a sausage roll and for dessert, a cheese strudel. We stayed in the car to eat lunch because it was raining, but sat by the beach. It was nice to watch the waves, and the color of the ocean turn when the sun came out. If I lived in Australia, that would be a perfect date spot.

We drove to a party store and then came home. I worked on laundry then went for a walk to the grocery store. Thankfully the rain didn’t start until after I came home.

Jeff and Rosemary went to a birthday party this evening, so I stayed home. I worked most of the time on my pictures and the time capsule. For dinner I had a meat pie and an avocado and mango salad. For dessert I had a lamington cake. Oh boy that was good! I watched Australia’s Funniest Home Videos, but they weren’t as good as AFV. Then I watched the first Harry Potter. That’s about it for my Fourth of July! I’ll be home in a little over a week now!

The Great Ocean Road

2009-07-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

Friday July 3, 2009

I got to sleep in for 20 extra minutes this morning. I was to be picked up at 8:15, but Jenny slept in. So she finally picked me up at 8:30. We went to get Suzanne and then off to the Great Ocean Road we go. We stopped in Geelong (pronounced ge-long) to take pictures of the wooden people.

We traveled on and stopped at a surf beach. I took a couple of pictures. The sound was awesome. We drove a little while longer and stopped for lunch. For lunch we had chicken, three different types of lunch meat, two different types of cheeses, tomatoes, celery, cashews, pineapple, crackers, breadsticks, onions, sausages, carrots, mushrooms, avocado and French onion dip, and five different kinds of soft drink. It was a FEAST! For dessert we had cup cakes and then cut up some Australian candy bars to try. My favorite was the Violet Crumble.

We continued to drive and stopped at the Erkine Falls. That was a beautiful site, but the stairs that I had to climb exhausted me!

By sunset we made it to the 12 Apostles. We walked under the road and then up to a look out deck. It was so windy and so cold that I had my hood up from my sweat shirt and my jacket. I felt like I was going to fall off the ledge it was so windy. We then drove over to Lak Ard Gorge, but I couldn’t see anything because it was so dark.

On and on we drove and stopped at KFC for dinner. Here ketchup is called tomato sauce, so I made sure to ask for the right thing.

We drove home and played a game of 20 questions. This version was to ask Mary 20 questions to find out more about her. At the end of the trip, it was decided that Jenny, Cathy (Jenny’s sister), and Suzanne were going to come to the States for my wedding, as long as I let them know when it is. I told them that I needed to get engaged first!!

So now im very tired. Tomorrow will be a little bit more relaxing day, I hope.

MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground)

2009-07-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

Thursday July 2, 2009

I woke up this morning at 5 AM after a scary dream. I sang praise songs to fall back asleep.

WE got into work and I had again just enough time to check my e-mail. Its been hard to not have the internet all the time. Maybe that’s just because of my generation. At 8:45 I headed over to the Community Center, but they weren’t ready to leave. Finally at 9:05 we left for the train station where all the kids were to meet. We had 22 kids – 11 were going to the MCG and 11 were going to Disney Princesses on Ice. I was going on the MCG tour. We had 3 girls and 8 boys.

Our tour started at the National Sports Museum. There was me and another leader in charge of the kids. It was humorous for me to have the people at the museum come up to me and give me instruction about what the kids were going to do. I was the helper and Tammy was the leader leader.

The museum was very interesting and had lots of cool stuff to read about the MCG. I took lots of pictures. There was a section called Game on where there was a lot of hands on sports types of equipment. I practiced bike riding, and found out that I was out of shape!

We had a 20 minute lunch outside where the kids continuously asked me about America. They asked if we had pretzels and trains in America. It was a fun afternoon. After lunch we got a tour of the whole building. We got to stand on the MCG field, see the changing rooms, and all there things! It was great.

At 3 we made our way back to the church. Once arriving at the station we awaited for the children to be picked up by their parents. While waiting, some extremely drunk men came over to where we were waiting. I got really really nervous. I really dislike being around drunk people. This man and his 4 friends were hugging people and trying to get people to come drink with them and trying to give girls their phone numbers. I was scared for myself and for the children. Once all the kids were picked up, we hurriedly got out of there.

Jeff and I headed back home. It’s a really cold tonight. Like I was shivering and everything! For dinner we had sausages, potatoes, and corn. It was really good. I was hungry for something warm. After dinner we watched some TV. They were in French, so there was English sub titles. The show was sorta gory, but ended well. While watching TV I worked on my MCG pictures and typed up my journal.

Circus Day!

2009-07-06T15:31:00.000-07:00

Wednesday July 1, 2009

I am so exhausted. I didn’t remember how much non ceasing energy children have, especially when they are around their friends!

I got to work this morning at 8 and had just enough time to check my e-mail before I went to start setting up for the School Holiday Program themed Circus Day. I lead a balloon station where the children filled balloons with flour and then had balloon animals and/or hats made for them.

The children started arriving at 9:30. We had 60 children in attendance, all under the age of 10. It was a crazy place to be! My first rotation was stressful. I didn’t have any long skinny balloons made up to make animals out of, so I rushed and rushed and rushed trying to make them all for the children. By the time my next rotation came, I was ready. After the second rotation (each rotation had 20 children in them) I looked down at my hands and my left pointer finger and thumb had turned a blackish/blue color. I didn’t think that was a good sign so I called over another leader and asked them to help me finish tying up balloons for the last group. For the whole day, I tied and made give or take 240 long skinny balloons. No wonder my hands were so tired. I can’t imagine being a clown having to blow up and tie all those balloons at a fair or concert! And my goodness those kids are like little bugs going at a picnic feast. They all charged over to the balloons and were yelling out what they wanted all at the same time! Like it didn’t feel as though they had any sense of taking turns or waiting their turn.

The flour balloon station went well. I had the other leaders teach and take care of that. I was left with the balloon animals, which went pretty well except for my hands. We will see how they fair tomorrow.

For lunch we had pizza and hotdogs. Nothing else. It seams like some Australians, and its probably similar to some Americans, do not have any side dishes with their main course. So if you were to have chicken, you may have a roll, but that’s all. No veggie side or fruit side, just the chicken and a roll. So for lunch today we had pizza and hotdogs. No chips or fruit. I am not saying all Australians do that, but maybe that is just how I was brought up - To have at least one side with your meal.

After lunch the children rotated through different stations. The first group did some circus games and the second group worked with a “Little Devils” circus group. After an hour they switched. My job during that rotation was to work a circus games. I was put in charge of the bowling game. The child had to hit some pins with a ball. Personally, I think my station was the hardest. The other stations were a bean bag toss through a clown’s mouth, a fishing game that had the words “winner” or “try again” on the back, a lucky number game where kids had to draw a number and if their number was on the board they got a prize and a free prize station. Anywho, I did have a fun time and it was great to see the kids having fun. One really fun part was hearing the kids say “here” when we did role call. Here in Australia, with their accent, their “here” sounds like “he-ya.” Say that out loud a few times and you’ll hear how fun it sounds.

As the children were leaving, my thumb got scratched or something and started bleeding. I wrapped it in a paper towel, but it kept bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. I don’t know why. I was getting blood all over my hands and everything. So I went to get a band aid. I am ok now.

I was given these little tube like things called jelly sticks. Basically its jello in a horizontal stick wrapper. Its like go-gurt, but with jello. I tried some of it, and there is something weird to me about sucking jello into your mouth like through a straw. The flavor wasn’t very favorable either.

Jeff and I came home about 4:30. It was good to be out of the church into some peace and quiet. For dinner we had chicken and mashed potatoes and peas (see, not everyone has only the main course!). It was a very yummy dinner and one that I was really looking forward to. We watched the news and then a show called ScrapHeap. I then came to my room, I needed some alone time, to write and read and work.

I am sorry you won’t be getting these journals until next week. Its hard not having internet being totally accessible. If you have internet at a cheap cost in your house, you are very blessed. Tomorrow I am going to the MCG where I went for my footy game. Thankfully this time Three leaders will be in charge of around 10-15 children. It will be an all day thing, but it will, hopefully, not be as chaotic.

Thing- O

2009-07-06T15:26:00.000-07:00

Tuesday June 30, 2009

As I woke up this morning, I had to take a second look at the clock because it was pitch black outside.

My morning went well. I worked on lots of things on the computer. I had morning tea for about an hour and a half with Jeff and David. I learned a lot about Southern and the culture of Australia – in particular Victoria.

In all the Sunday’s that I have been here, there has not been an alter call. I wondered how people became members or gave their lives to Christ or whatever. I was thinking about people in our church who had recently become members. Some were unchurched, and some had gone to church off and on their whole lives.

So we got into this long conversation, which was very informative and interesting, about the churches in Australia. The culture of Australia says that church is not a cool thing to attend. Some people actually feel embarrassed to say that they go to church. So that means that evangelism in Australia is probably rare and not as heard of. Usually in the States athletes will frequently, after winning, pray to God or thank God or point to heaven, or make some reference to God. I was told that that would be extremely rare to see or hear of in Australia.

Southern, like most Australian Church of Christ’s do not have an alter call. Traditionally there was an alter call, but it would only be for the evening service. The way Southern gets its members is through a more nurturing aspect. They have conversations with the visitors and get them connected into the church. Usually the visitors will meet with the pastor to let them know of their intentions about either giving their life to Christ or becoming a member of the church. I think this aspect of membership Southern does a really good job with, that I think churches in the States could learn from. Its more important to grow a Christian instead of just get a membership count. The only down side to this way of ministering is that the church hasn’t really grown. Now this could also be because of the culture too. Its interesting how much of an impact culture has on religion.

It was a good talk and discussion, one that I learned a lot from. I called Jake and talked to him for a while. I miss him. I then had lunch and then called my mom. It was good to hear her voice. I missed talking to Nathan and my dad (as brief as it was).

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting a Children’s sermon together and working on written work for the time capsule. At 3:45 David, Jeff, and Suzanne left for some coffee. As they were about to leave, Jeff forgot what my name was when he was referring to me, so he called me Thing-O instead. It wasn’t derogatory, but playful! So that’s my new nickname around the office. Thing-O. Instead of going to have coffee, I stayed behind to work, since I have limited days in the office this week. There was a great wind storm this afternoon and evening and it was rattling the whole church. It made me nervous, but finally at 4:40 everybody came back.

For dinner we had these chicken patty things and some fried rice. Chocolate cake was made for dessert. We watched the news, Deal or No Deal, and Scrap Heap Challenge. I then went on to read my book. I actually finished my book tonight. As I was reading I thought a lot about Jake and my love for him. It made me miss him too.

I then did some writing which is what I am doing right now. I’m sorry you won’t get this for a bunch of days. That will give you more things to do next Tuesday (well, your Monday evening). I’ll only have internet next week on Tuesday and Thursday. Tomorrow is my balloon day. Its been a big frustration with the balloons themselves, so I will be glad to have them over and done with!

Time Capsule Pictures

2009-06-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

Monday June 29, 2009

I woke up this morning with a very heavy feeling in my chest. I was coughing a lot. It cleared up as the day went on, thankfully.

As we walked into work today, the alarm went off and for some reason, the alarm machine wouldn’t accept Jeff’s password. So it was going off! At work today I worked on the Time Capsule pictures and everything that was going in the time capsule.

Towards the end of my time at work, I started organizing supplies for the balloon day. I thought it might be easier to give each child an envelope with all their supplies, that way they will not be complaining about what they do or don’t have. As I was stuffing envelopes, I ran out of long skinny balloons. I needed at least 88 more balloons to finish the envelops and then a bunch extra in case balloons popped and so that I could use a few balloons as examples.

I called around to different stores seeing if they had long skinny balloons. None of the stores that I called had them. So I called a church member and she told me about a store that had what I needed. They did, but oh my goodness, those balloons were SO expensive. To buy 200 balloons, it cost me $59.95!!!!!! I bought that many balloons of the same kind in the state for only $20! Thankfully I can be reimbursed! WOW! It made me sick to purchase that.

I came home and had shepherd’s pie for dinner with raisin French toast with ice cream for dessert. I worked on some laundry and the pictures for the time capsule. The rest of the night was spent packing and reading. Tomorrow is my last day of work this week. That’s hard to believe. I won’t be on the internet again until next Tuesday. I know my e-mail inbox will be very full!

Preach that sermon yah yah!

2009-06-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday June 28, 2009

Today was my last sermon day. I was nervous as ever about getting up to speak. Usually that is what happens, but God always gives me the strength that I need. When I finished my sermon and after the last song a man – Mark Hubbard- with tears in his eyes came up to me and gave me this big long hug. It felt great to get a hug because I hadn’t had one for a long while. When he pulled away he told me that he was really touched by my sermon and that he thinks I will make a great preacher someday. It made me feel really good to hear that kind of feedback.

My sermon was on touching the lives of others through physical touch, through our actions, and through our words, based on the scripture of Jesus healing the hemorrhaging woman and Jesus bringing back to life Jarius’ daughter.

After first service I overheard some members talking about how good they thought the service was and how good the preacher did. Many many people came up to me and told me how good I did how they are happy for me to be there. I was all smiles all day! So many people wanted to talk to me that I didn’t get to second service right when it started. It was all good though!

My second service preaching went relatively well. I didn’t feel like I was getting a lot of energetic feedback from the congregation as I was preaching, but they all laughed at the right moments!

I came home and had chicken and rice for lunch. I got so full! For dessert we had Florentines. I am really hoping that I can find that recipe somewhere and make it when I get home. I would describe it as like trail mix in cookie form.

After lunch I worked on my personal pictures and also pictures for the time capsule. After we got home today, Rosemary pushed the button for the garage to go down. Jeff was still in the garage and put his hand up to stop the door. The door didn’t stop but got bent up on a shelf they had in the garage. It was really bad looking, but a bit humorous at the same time! After lunch he got it back on its track.

I am reading a new book called Next Door Daddy. I don’t know if I have mentioned that or not, but I read that the rest of the afternoon. I wasn’t hungry so I told Rosemary that I would have dinner after church. Dinner was baked beans on toast. It’s a very interesting concept, and I ate it, well… after church I did.

WE went to church and had a lovely service. It got done in 50 minutes which is unusual. There were about 22 people there. We came back home and I had dinner. We then watched Miss Marple. It’s a mystery detective story. That lasted until 10PM. Tomorrow is another work day. When I think about it, its actually my last Monday to work! I will be in the office on Monday and Tuesday of this week and Monday Tuesday and Thursday of next week. Then I’ll be home. So you won’t see a lot on my blog these next two weeks, but I’ll make sure and post them when I get a chance!

Aussie Footy here I come!

2009-06-28T16:07:00.001-07:00

Saturday June 27, 2009

I was so excited for today. Ever since David e-mailed me an invitation to a Footy game, I have been excited to go. I even bought a Collingwood Magpie scarf. I slept in till 8:15ish. That’s pretty early for me to get up on a weekend, but I didn’t know when Jeff and Rosemary would be eating breakfast and I wanted to eat with them. During breakfast I recommended that Jeff buy some cough medicine that has guifenisen in it so that his coughs would go away. While they were out shopping this afternoon, they bought some and for the last three hours that I have been home, I have only heard him cough once! Yay for medicine.

My morning was spent reading. I finished the book The Last Lecture and it brought tears to my eyes. It’s a good book. You all should read it. I then started another book called Next Door Daddy. I am excited to read it. So far I have finished 2 books while here.

For lunch we had soup and toast. I made myself a PBJ. At 12:15 David and Heather picked me up. Off to Footy we go. Heather didn’t want to come to the game, so she went to the Royal Botanical Gardens instead.

The game was really fun! So many people told me that David was a crazy person at the footy, but I didn’t see that in him at all. Maybe he was on his best behavior with me there, or maybe this wasn’t a close game, but he was enjoyable to converse with and watch the game with.

I had a meat pie while at the game. That’s the more traditional footy food. I was given a packet of catsup to go with my pie. Now it may sound really silly to you, but I had so much trouble trying to figure out how to open the thing. I’ll see if I can get a picture for you, but you had to squeeze both ends of the packet and the catsup came out in the middle. So I was squeezing, and it squirted in the air and got all over everybody that I was sitting around. It made a good laugh for those around me. I was a bit embarrassed, but laughed at myself too.

Collingwood won the game 150 to 85. Yay! We left the game and met up with Heather. We drove around Melbourne for a while the stopped at Dockland for dinner. I chose an Italian restaurant because I was really hungry for some pizza. Jake, I haven’t had pizza since I have been here! WOW! Hee Hee.

I had pineapple and ham pizza with cheese and it cost $16.50. It was so expensive! I enjoyed talking to David and Heather and finding out all about their travels and telling them all about the religion department at my school. For dessert I had Gelato. Its basically really creamy sherbet ice cream. Its not ice cream and its not sherbet, its something in between. It was yummy and cold. I thought I was paying for myself. The ice cream cost $10. Its so crazy how much more expensive things are. The check came and I was about to put in my share of the cost, when I was blessed to have David and Heather pay for my meal.

We then strolled along the Yarra River and took pictures of the sights. On our way home we drove through Lygon street which is known as the Italian street. There were so many shops there.

I arrived home at 9:00. I decided to get ready for bed and do some writing. Tomorrow I preach at church. I can’t believe it! I know that God will give me the strength to preach.

Lets eat some trifle

2009-06-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

Friday June 26, 2009

I slept in for just a little while this morning. I then had breakfast and got ready to go to the Dandenong Market. We stopped at a men’s suit store. While Jeff and Rosemary shopped there, I went into some of the discount bargain stores. I actually bought something. We then headed off to the market. I personally didn’t think that market was as good as the Queen Victoria Market. We walked around and then stopped for morning tea. I had a cappuccino with a chocolate croissant. The croissant basically has a plain chocolate candy bar in the middle. OH it was SO yummy. I am going to look for that kind of recipe to make myself. YUMMMMMMY goodness!

After purchasing some produce, we headed out to another men’s suit store. For lunch we had leftover sausages. I then called and talked to my mother for a good long while on the phone. I am SO glad that I have that capability. I am not as homesick because I am able to call her and Jake.

I did some laundry and went for a walk. It was such a nice day and so warm. Well, warm like fall warm. It was 16* C. You can do the math to convert it!

At 5:30 I headed over to Mark and Jenny Hubbard’s house. Their 11 year old daughter’s name is Jessica. We had tuna casserole with out noodles. But it did have eggs! We also had a roll. That was dinner! For dessert we had trifle. I thought I knew what trifle was until I had some at their house. Then I began to wonder if it was a new food. I took a picture of it anyways. We all conversed a lot about our lives and I got to meet their dog Sandy. At 8 they brought me back home. I watched a detective show with Jeff and Rosemary before going to bed! It was a good evening.

PowerPoint Frustrations

2009-06-28T15:40:00.000-07:00

Thursday June 25, 2009

When I arrived at work this morning I had just a couple of hours to work on the necessary things. I added to my blog, checked my e-mails, printed my sermon, and continued to get pictures for the music video that I had finished timing last night.

At 10 the church staff drove to a tea shop in Brighton. I ordered a cappuccino which for a small cost $3.50. I really couldn’t believe that was how much it cost. I was going to buy some toasted banana bread with honey and almond mascarpone, but that would have been another $6.00! We talked a lot about the prostate thing I went to on Wednesday! So the joke of the morning was walnuts. I tell you I could educate you about the prostate with just a walnut!

After our “meeting” (it was more of a social gathering than to work) we walked along the beach. I had worn my high heels and I couldn’t walk very fast, but I was dressed very nicely for the beach!

We got back to church at 12. At 12:30 we had lunch. I was suppose to have a meeting with the community center at 1:00 but I think we were both confused on if I was coming over to them, or if they were coming over to me. So I didn’t meet with them until about 2:30. At 3:00 I was invited to eat some birthday cake and have afternoon tea to celebrate Rachel’s birthday. All day I was trying to get my sermon PowerPoint together for church. At 3:00 I still wasn’t done with it. My music video was done, but I still had to get my sermon PowerPoint done! At 3:45 I excused myself to finish working on my computer. At 4 I met with Pastor David. I interviewed him for the time capsule and talked to him about my sermon and how to prepare for the Aussie footy game on Saturday.

I was then given the computer that the PowerPoint would be run on. My computer has 2003 PowerPoint, but that computer had PowerPoint 1997. So some of the things that I had on my computer wouldn’t be compatible for that computer. I checked and fixed everything for my sermon PowerPoint (yes I did finish it right at 3:50!), then started working on my music video. I had it all perfect last night. Yesterday I spent the day working on getting pictures. I have 50 slides of pictures. I then spent the evening putting it to music. I had it all timed out and perfect by 11:45 last night. So when I put it on the other computer, the timing was totally off. I started working on it when Jeff came to tell me that it was time to go. I really needed one more hour of work. I really wanted to leave at 5:30 instead of 4:30. Even 4:45 would have been good.

So I briefly talked to David about my frustrations with the music video. I am not sure if I am even going to use the video even though it would go REALLY well with my sermon. So I left work upset. After putting in all that work, I may not even use it.

This evening I had dinner and watched the news. Then I went back to my room and wrote and read my book the rest of the evening – from 7PM till 10PM – instead of watching TV which was my other option.

Tomorrow, I didn’t have any certain plans, but Rosemary invited me to go to the Dandenong market. I thought that would be a cool place to go, so I agreed. So tomorrow we are going to the market! Saturday I am going to a football game. Its going to be great!

Don’t get stressed, Don’t get worried, Just have faith

2009-06-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

Wednesday June 24, 2009

I woke up at 2 this morning being really hot and having a really dry and sore throat. I checked my temperature and drank some water then went back to bed. I have had a sore throat all day!

I went to work without Jeff today, he is still sick. He will be back in the office tomorrow for sure. I worked on my music video PowerPoint this morning. I have been procrastinating on my sermon. I know I need to write it, I want to write it, but I am not sure how I want to put it together yet. In God’s timing it will come together. It actually needs to be done tonight or at least half way done tonight. So right now I am taking a break to write on my blog.

I had a lunch appointment with a member from the church. He invited me to come to his Rotary Club meeting. Originally he wanted me to be the guest speaker, but there was already someone assigned to speak. Neville is his name and he brought one of his co workers whose name was also Mary.

I socialized with the other men at the Rotary. Mary and I were the only females there! For lunch we had fish and chips and a side salad. For dessert was this apple filled pastry with caramel topping and whipped cream. Yum – o.

After lunch the speaker got up and announced that he was going to be speaking on prostate cancer. What a strange thing to sit in on! The table was covered with walnuts! Wonderful… So Mary and I sat through the talk and I did learn a lot! Probably more than I wanted to know. I learned that most men do not even know they have a prostrate! Towards the end of the meeting the men started making jokes about the medical procedures that women have to go through so Mary and I left. Throughout the whole talk, the men seemed very uncomfortable. They wouldn’t make eye contact with the speaker or anything. Men are so strange, but I am glad God made them the way he did. That whole lunch was a very interesting experience.

Two hours later, I came back to church and researched statistics and illustrations. At 4 Rosemary picked me up and brought me back home. For dinner we had Chili. As I waited, I worked on the timing of the music with the PowerPoint slides. I still haven’t gotten that all timed correctly, but that can be put off for a day.

I learned two new phrases today:

Coffee whitener – powdered creamer

Ta – thank you

After dinner and dessert and showing Jeff and Rosemary my pictures from my trip to the city, I went on working on my sermon and they went to the couch to watch TV. I am currently sitting in the kitchen with headphones in my ears. I am now going to go to my room and continue writing on my sermon. Pray for me!

A day at the City, Melbourne AU

2009-06-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

Tuesday June 23, 2009

This morning, Jeff didn’t come to work with me. Rosemary brought me to church. I chatted a little bit with David about the internet and about what time he was going to pick me up for the football game on Saturday. I then checked my e-mail. I didn’t post my blog from Monday today because I didn’t bring my computer in.

At 9:15 Jenny Bishop and Suzanne Ashton arrived at the church. All three of us went down to the train station to catch a train to the city – Downtown Melbourne. I had never done anything like that, but I did get a student price. In Australia they call the student price “concession.”

Today we explored parts of the city. We first went to the old exhibition center and then on to the museum. The museum wouldn’t give me the student price because my ID didn’t have an expire date on it! Well…. My ID doesn’t expire! They would have accepted it if it had an expiration date… Oh well. I had to pay full price. The museum was fun, although towards the end I was not as focused, probably because it was 1:30 and we hadn’t stopped for lunch. I did bring a musli (measly/granola) bar with me, so I snacked on that for a while.

At 2ish we rode a tram to a coffee shop. I had a chicken sandwich with a cappuccino. It cost me $13.50. Its SO expensive. We then stopped at a Cathedral. It was beautiful. They had a gift shop and I was going to buy my parents a nativity set (they are collectors of nativity sets) but the one I wanted was $110. The other one that was all one piece was $50. It wasn’t made out of expensive material, but it cost so much!

We went to Federation Square and took pictures of everything. There was this sound thing where these rectangle boxes had lights on it and when you stood in front of it, it would make noise. I am not sure I fully understand the thing though…

I am fascinated with the Eureka tower. Eureka here is connected to the gold mining days. There was a Eureka battle where the gold miners retaliated. Because of this tower’s name, I am fascinated with the tower. I took lots of pictures of it. Jenny, Suzanne, and I went in to see how much it would cost to go to the Sky Deck. Too much for me to pay, so Jenny offered, and I paid half of the cost. Up to the 88^th floor we went and I am sure glad I did. You could see everything from the 88^th floor. There was this glass enclosed box that I could have gone on for another $12, but I didn’t need to. The deck was just as good. The glass enclosed box is a box that comes out of the wall and hangs over the building with see through glass on top, sides, and bottom. I got a lot of good pictures up there and it was really fun. That was probably the most favorite part of my day in Melbourne City.

After leaving the tower we went to the Crown Plaza Hotel and Casino. We walked around and saw a water show. Connected to the casino is a shopping area. We stopped there for a rest and to get something to drink. I didn’t buy anything, I had brought my water bottle and some snacks so that I wouldn’t have to buy anything, although it was really tempting!

We left and headed back to the train station to come back to Cheltenam.

For dinner we went to a chicken restaurant named Nando’s. I had a chicken wrap and chips (Aussie large French fries that have more potato than grease). After dinner we headed to the church for meditation and contemplation. It was a good time and I almost fell asleep.

Jenny then brought me back to the house where I proceeded to tell Jeff and Rosemary about my trip and then go to my room to look through pictures. Since coming home, I have noticed that my throat is sore. I hope I am not catching the sick germ that Jeff has. Maybe I got it from being outside all day. I’ll keep an eye on it for sure! My eye is doing well. No more cloudiness and only sometimes double vision.

I am looking forward to tomorrow. I am basically going to get my sermon done, but I’ll probably have time to socialize with people too!

Here comes another sermon…

2009-06-23T15:22:00.000-07:00

Monday June 22, 2009

My morning came way too quickly. I was having a dream that frightened me. Wanna hear about it? I dreamed that me and another child were with our dad (not necessarily my dad – pastor Greg). All three of us were on a frozen lake in a shack on the lake. My dad got out a sword and cut a hole in the ice so we could see into the watery lake below. My dad then put on his scuba gear and jumped into the water and swam around underneath the ice then came back up to talk to me and the other child. He then told me and the other child to put on his scuba gear. I had the goggles. He told us to watch him as he was underwater. After taking a deep breath, down he plunged again into the water. I stuck my head into the ice cold water and my vision got really red. My dad had hit his head on something and was unconscious and bleeding underneath the ice with no way to get out!

I reached in the water and grabbed him out. I then started doing CPR on him. He came to just long enough to say that he loved me and that he wanted me to take care of my sister (the other child). He then died in my arms.

That was such a SAD dream! I couldn’t believe it. When I woke up I lay there thinking about what just went through my head and why I possibly dreamed it. I then figured out why my brain was moving in that direction. I have been reading the book “The Last Lecture.” Its about a 40 year old man who is dying of pancreatic cancer. He is writing the book so that his kids can know about him after he is gone. I think that has been on my mind a lot because I want to live each day to its fullest and I want to accomplish all my childhood dreams before I die. Knowing just how short life is, really puts it into perspective that I need to live today like its my last. Knowing how fast each day goes by, I know that in the snap of a finger I will be in my 90s, watching my grandchildren grow up and possibly having great grand children, and thinking about my new life with my Savior in a whole new world.

So yeah, I was thinking about all that as I lay in my bed this morning. I am not sure I ever went back to sleep, but when my alarm clock sounded, I dreaded getting out of bed. I just wanted 30 more minutes of laying there in peace thinking about life, but the day was calling, and I needed to get ready.

Jeff came to work today. David arrived in the morning to put the church sanctuary back together after last night’s service. I talked to him a little bit and found out about the life of one of the members.

There is a member of the church who is a little bit slow. He comes to the evening service on Sundays and for the past two Sundays he has come to worship wearing women’s clothes. He has girl sandals and a pink sweater.

Anyways, last Sunday – June 21 – this man wore a black wig with a head band, a long black sweater, a skirt, some leggings, and his girl sandals. Without hearing his voice, I would have assumed the person was female.

I talked to David today about him and he told me that sometimes he goes by the name Mary Hues. His real name is Peter. So maybe he has a double identity of some sort. I don’t know why I wrote about that, but there you go. A good laugh for the day!

Today at work, I worked on interviews, pictures, my blog, e-mails, and my sermon. I have a better lead on it and I am feeling really good about it. At 2:30 Jeff dropped me back at home so that he could go to the doctors office. He still has a pretty bad cough today, but he has been given medication to control the coughs and so that he can get better. Thankfully its not contagious!

This evening for dinner we had chicken, roasted veggies and for dessert canned pears with marshmallows and ice cream.

After dinner I worked some more on my sermon. I now have an outline. Its all a matter of me sitting down and actually writing the sermon now. I think I might do that tomorrow, maybe, but I will for sure get it done on Wednesday. No matter what! Thursday I have to get my PowerPoint done. I am also thinking of adding a music video to the beginning or end of my sermon. The song is Hands and Feet by Audio Adrenaline. My sermon title is “Reach Out and Touch Someone.”

Tomorrow I am going to the Melbourne Museum with some members of the church. I am looking forward to a day in town, but I will be out basically all day. From 9AM till 9PM. I am not sure how we are going to stay busy all that time, but maybe the members have some interesting places up their sleeves! If not, I’ll be coming home earlier!

So I think I’ll go read until I fall asleep. Yep. Same book. I am about finished with it. Hopefully I won’t have any bad dreams tonight!

Preaching day

2009-06-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

Sunday June 21, 2009

As I ate breakfast this morning, I learned that Jeff was not going to be joining us for church today. He had gotten sick and was coughing a lot.

Rosemary and I went to church. Worship was really good. We learned about changing our perspective on life. Instead of looking at all the negative, we should look more to the positive. During tea time, I attempted to interview people, but they thought my four questions were difficult. I didn’t get as many responses as I wanted, but I did get some. I guess I am going to have to work a lot harder in the next couple of Sundays to get all those together because I need them for the time capsule.

I went to second church as well. After that service, I enjoyed conversing with some of the members. I set another dinner date for this Friday with a family from the church. It will be fun!

We went home for lunch and ate ham and pea soup with crumpets. Crumpets are so good! I then laid down to read, but I ended up falling asleep for an hour. It sure did feel good to sleep!

I then got up and read the book “ The Last Lecture” for about an hour and a half. It’s a very good book, but in a way its sad knowing that the author is going to die. The book makes me think about my life and how I choose to live it.

Rosemary brought me to church again for the evening service. I sang with the praise band, which consists of a piano and some singers. Rachael, one of the student ministers, played the bass guitar.

My sermon went pretty well. I was nervous at the beginning and so I think I spoke really fast, but I eventually calmed myself down and spoke slower. There was a man there named Tom who is in his 90s. He told me that he was going to come just to hear me speak. After the service he came up to me and said that he wasn’t sure he got a lot out of my sermon, but that he really enjoyed just listening to my accent! He also told me that if my boyfriend didn’t hurry up and propose, then he would do it himself! He is really fond of me and always talks to me about Jake. Old men are so much fun!! They make me smile.

On the way home, Rosemary said that she needed to change the air conditioning to prepare for the tip. I didn’t know what that meant. Would you? So I asked her and she said that the tip is basically the same as what we call the trash dump.

For dinner I had left over sausage and apple and onion mixture. It was frozen, don’t get scared. A cool British detective show was on tonight so I watched that with Jeff and Rosemary while eating scones and drinking coffee. It was a good day. Now I need to start thinking about what I am going to preach on next Sunday. The verse is Mark 5:21-43. Look it up! An easy way to do that if your Bible is not handy is to go to www.biblegateway.com.

YAY kangaroos and koalas!

2009-06-21T15:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday June 20, 2009

Last night I was awoken by a barking dog next door. I probably lay in bed for about an hour trying to get back to sleep. Finally I solved everything with putting some head phones in my ears.

I woke up, showered, dressed, and ate breakfast. Then off to Healsville we go!!!

The park was so much fun. We went to every wildlife station. I saw kangaroos and got to feed them and pet them. I didn’t get a good picture of me doing so, but I got quite a few pictures of the baby kangaroos themselves. I went to many programs: Wombat, Birds of Prey, Tasmanian Devil, and Kangaroo. It was so much fun.

For lunch we had Aussie pies. I had broccoli and cheese flavored. I had a coffee to drink. It was a very cold day to be walking around a wildlife sanctuary. It was rainy and breezy. I lent Rosemary my gloves because her hands were so cold.

After visiting the Animal Hospital we headed out of the sanctuary and then up to Marysville. Marysville was in the path of the really bad bush fires that were going on in Victoria in January and February of this year. I couldn’t believe all the damage. All the trees were black. When we got to Marysville Jeff told me that all the down town shops had been burnt down. Thankfully a coffee shop and bakery was still there, so we stopped for a snack. I had a cappuccino and a chocolate stick. YUM! We stopped at the Maroondah reservoir for a picture and then drove down the mountain to Warberton. Then back home we went!

I have learned some new phrases:

Pea soup fog – really thick fog

Shout you a drink- I would like to treat you to a drink. Instead of using the word “treat” they use the word “shout.”

For dinner we had this small chicken patties, baked potatoes, and peas. For dessert: scones.

While Jeff and Rosemary watched one of their favorite detective shows, I sat with them working on my pictures from the day. I can’t wait to show them all off!

I had such a great day! Tomorrow I preach and sing at the 6:30PM service. Wa HOO!! I’ll let you know how my week goes. I have a lot planned, but probably not enough time to do it! These next three weeks are going to go by so fast. I just can’t believe it!

My day off!

2009-06-21T15:39:00.000-07:00

Friday June 19, 2009

I got to sleep in a little bit this morning. Jeff and Rosemary had guests this morning and I wanted to be up, dressed, and eaten breakfast. I also wanted to make sure the bathrooms were all nice and neat.

I changed my sheets today then left to finish my souvenir shopping and then to the library to study. I walked to three shops before I found what I was looking for. I then went to the library and did some studying. It was a nice library but the table and chairs that I sat in were 2 sizes too small. They were probably built for small Asian people. I fit, but a little bit uncomfortably. At 11:30 I made my way to McDonalds for an early lunch.

After lunch I walked back home and Jeff and Rosemary’s company had decided to stay for lunch. I wasn’t expecting that and neither were they. Not to be rude, I sat with the company and ate some scones. Aussie scones are not like American scones. They are more like biscuits. I would describe them as being like sweet KFC rolls, but not as floury. Scones in AU are considered a dessert or a snack and not something you necessarily eat as breakfast or with your meal. On top of the scone you put jelly and some thick cream. This thick cream has the consistency of a mixture between yogurt and pudding. It tastes really good!

At 1:30, the guests left and I started some laundry. I then called Jake and the parental to see how everyone was doing. It was so great to hear their voices!

I then worked some more on my laundry and then practiced going through my sermon and song. I think I’ll be ok for Sunday! It’s the 6:30PM service so I don’t think I’ll have a problem.

At 5:30 we had dinner – chicken, salad, and green beans. At 6:00 Jenny Bishop picked me up to go to youth groups. Tonight I was with Stuff – grades 7-12. The theme of the night was “Death by Chocolate.” I helped her prepare all the games and then helped her lead the games and attempt to keep the teens under control. That bunch of teens is probably the most uncontrollable teens I have ever been around. The leaders basically had to yell at them to get them to listen. At the end of the night, there was chocolate EVERYWHERE! It was a mess to clean up. I finally got home at 10:00PM. Now, its time to get some rest for going to the Healsville Sanctuary tomorrow!

Work, Facebook, Eat

2009-06-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday June 18, 2009

Tomorrow I will have been in Australia for 2 weeks! In some ways it feels a lot longer than that.

We had staff meeting this morning. Suzanne was awesome! She brought in so many different types of cookies. She brought in Tim Tams, Wagon Wheels, and Chocolate Royals. I think my favorite was the Tim Tams.

After lunch I worked on getting a list of fun things to do as a young adult group. The church is trying to create a young adult group, but don’t really know how to get it started. So I cam up with a couple of things that the group could do. Towards the end of my working day, I created a Face Book account for Southern Community Church of Christ. That was fun.

At 4:30, Kay Davis came to pick me up. We drove out to the beach and walked along the water. I got some nice pictures. It would be so fun to live near the beach! Imagine summer evenings taking a walk down the beach with your hand in the hand of your significant other.

For dinner we had beef tips over rice. Actually, they thought I was funny saying that. They would call it a beef casserole with rice. That didn’t make much sense to me, but that’s ok. It was a fun conversation to have! The other half of the plate was piled high with vegetables. I have noticed in the most recent homes that I have been in that the host serves everyone’s plates. So you can’t serve your own or put how much you want on your plate. For me that has been some getting used to. For dessert we had meringue with heavy cream (with a yogurt consistency) with raspberries and ice cream. It was good.

At 8:45 Kay and her husband Ray brought me back home. I cleaned my bathroom and went through my balloons. I had a meeting today with the lady in charge of the holiday program and found out a lot more information about my role during the program. When we had first started conversing about the school holiday program back in April and May I was told that I needed to prepare, teach, and supply my station. I was also told that the school holiday program had 255 kids pass through its doors last year. When I was asked to lead a station, it was 2.5 hours long.

Anyways. Today I talked with the leader and found out that I will only have a maximum of 60 kids. No more than that. I also found out that I will only have the kids for about an hour, and at the end of our conversation she asked me if she could buy me any balloons. Before I left for Australia I bought so many balloons thinking that I would have so many kids and not knowing what kind of places there would be to buy balloons. Thankfully I will be able to return and get a refund on some of the balloons.

That’s it for now. 3 more weeks to go!

Busy from 6:45 AM to 10:30 PM

2009-06-17T15:40:00.000-07:00

Wednesday June 17, 2009

Another busy long day. I worked all morning on printing stuff off for my sermon, and getting a PowerPoint presentation made for my sermon. Morning tea today was a bit shorter, so I got a lot of work done. Lunch was longer, but it did make the afternoon go by fast. Once I finished everything for my sermon, I started preparing for my sermon next week. I have had a lot of invitations to take me on day trips all next week, so I need to get my sermon research done while I am still at church with the Internet before I go on these day trips.

Nothing too grand or exciting happened at church today. I had mushroom soup again for lunch. I met a few new people. I drank lots of coffee. That's about it!

At 4:45 Jeff and I ran home so we could pick up Rosemary and so I could change into some jeans. Then we were off again to go to a church member's house for dinner or as they call it "tea." I get confused about this sometimes. I have to clarify tea or supper? Walking into their house they had this large fire burning in the fire place. It was SO warm! For dinner we had either lamb or chicken with veggies and mashed potato. For our appetizer we had broccoli soup with bread. For dessert we had canned pears with chocolate in the pit with merange on top! it was all heated up and served with ice cream and a strawberry. It was yummy. So yummy. I want to be able to make that at home!

We left their house at 7:45 and came up to the church for a board meeting. There were only 4 people in attendance along with me, Jeff, and Pastor David. The meeting ran till about 10:00 and we were out of there by 10:15. We finally got home about 10:30. I am so tired! I have just gone and gone and gone all day. I am still not familiar with this 8 hour work day, but I think I could get the hang of it!

Tomorrow I have work in the morning, staff meeting, and then I am going out to dinner with another member of the church. So it will be another busy day, but that means I'll sleep well at night!

Sermon writing, bus waiting, sausage eating, day.

2009-06-16T15:44:00.000-07:00

Tuesday June 16, 2009

I didn’t want to get up this morning. It was SO dark and I was so cozy in bed! At church I worked on my e-mails and blog. I then had morning tea with David and secretary Virginia. That started at 10 or so and lasted until 11:15 or so. I thought it would be rude to get up and leave to do my work, so I stayed for a while. I then went back to working on my sermon, but got to a stopping point at 12:15 to which I went to eat lunch!

After a 15 minute lunch, I went back to working on my sermon and cranked out 5 pages. In addition to the four that I wrote yesterday, I left work with 9 pages written. 3 or so more to go!

I had to meet Rosemary at the mall at 3:00 to catch the bus home. I waited and waited and waited for her at the front entry to the mall. Ten after I looked at my clock and it said it was only 2:10. Have you ever done that before? You don’t look at the hour hand, or the hour hand looks like it is on the next hour than what it really is? Yep. That’s what I did. Once I noticed my mistake, I wondered around the mall. I actually stumbled into Rosemary which was odd in such a large mall. We agreed on another location.

I did some shopping of what I bought I cannot say because it was a gift. Its fun to have though! I met Rosemary an hour later and we made our way to the bus stop. It was my first time to try public transportation. We sat on a bench and chatted, while looking for the bus to come. It was suppose to arrive at 3:20. Well 3:20 came and went. We thought maybe the bus was late, but after asking a few people waiting in the same spot, we found out that we were at the wrong gate and had just missed our bus. So we moved to the correct gate and sat and talked and looked at the gift I had bought for about an hour. It was good to socialize with a female again. I mean I can talk to Rosemary at home, but its not that one-on-one girl talk. Girls – you know what I mean…

Finally at 4:20 our bus came. Strangely enough, he didn’t charge us for the bus ride! We must have been living right! We got to our stop at 5:00 and then walked the rest of the way home.

For dinner we had sausages (about the size of hotdogs) with a sweet onion and apple topping. Green beans on the side. I had one and a half sausages. Jeff had 4 and a half. Rosemary had none- she is a vegetarian. After dinner I worked on my sermon. I completed the last 3 pages with a breeze. Now I just need to run through it a few times and edit and rearrange stuff. But I’m going to wait till tomorrow to do all that! Now I am going to read a book.Tonight I would rather not watch TV, although I have in recent evenings. Interesting that is….

Eye Doctor Sermon Writing

2009-06-15T15:43:00.000-07:00

Monday June 15, 2009

I was very blessed to be able to sleep in this morning. Jeff and Rosemary went to get their Victoria Licenses. Just so you know Jeff and Rosemary moved to Melbourne in April of this year from the United States, so they are still getting everything put together and taken care of. I got up at 8 and started some laundry. They only have a washer and it only takes 50 min. I then got a shower and got ready for the day.

Jeff picked me up and dropped Rosemary off at the house at 9:45. We then went to work. I worked pretty much all morning on my blog and e-mails. I can’t believe how many I get in 3 days! 38 messages. But it was fun to read through. I then had lunch and worked on my sermon for 30 minutes.

I then was off to the eye doctor. I have been having some problems with my left eye being cloudy and blurry. I was given medication which didn’t correct the problem to the fullest extent and after contacting the eye doctor in the United States I was told to not wait another month, but to check with an eye doctor.

It was amazing that I got in because here in Australia in order to see an eye doctor you have to have a referral from a medical doctor. Thankfully the note from my eye doctor in the USA was enough of a referral.

My vision was tested, but not with the usual machine brought up to your face and then the new lenses flipped depending on what your answers were to if it was clearer or blurrier. Instead I had these glasses put on my face that had slots in them. The eye lady would then switch in and out little lenses to see which one was better or worse. Now my eye is seeing double vision so it was hard to know if the word was clearer or not.

I then went back to see the eye doctor and he put some strange orange stuff in my eye. Upon questioning him to what he had just put in my eye, he said it was this thing to illuminate the surface of my eye. He then shined a blue light into my eye. What he saw were these little dots illuminated all over my eye. I am not sure what they are called, but they are obviously what is affecting my blurred and double vision. He said that it was just a matter of time to wait for my eye to heal because there was not really any more meds that he could recommend. So that means that I will be wearing glasses the remainder of my trip.

I then waited while they prepared the eye pressure and eye thickness test. The eye pressure test was conducted like this: The lady put some eye cleaner in my eyes. It smelled like hand sanitizer and burned my eyes. She then had this strip of paper that had some sort of gloop on it. I have no idea what that was. She then stuck this strange instrument almost into my eye. It beeped a few times and then gave a readout. She worked on both eyes and then had to get a different instrument because the readout wasn’t very good or something.

She then used a different instrument to measure the thickness of my eyes. There was this little thing that looked like a water pick and she put it right up to my eye. It felt like these waves or something were going through my eye. It was a strange feeling. She got a bit worried because the reading for both tests were different for both eyes. I told her that was probably because I had some stuff going on in my left eye. After talking to the doctor about it, I was released to pay my bill of AU $140. I haven’t converted it to USA dollars yet.

I worked on my sermon the rest of the afternoon. I didn’t get very far because we left the church at 4:15.

This evening I tried my first Meat Pie. Yummy. I don’t know what is so special about them. It tasted like stroganoff encased in a pie crust. For dessert I had a snot block (vanilla slice). While Jeff and Rosemary watched TV I worked on my paper mache. I am doing two projects – one with string and one with newspaper. Lets hope everything works out!

I have found it interesting. In the United States people watch wheel of fortune every night. Jeff and Rosemary watch Deal or no Deal. You know – taking those psychology classes has enabled me to think about people and try and figure out why they do the things they do. Its very interesting and I love analyzing people. Watch out!

So a few things about the toilet and the electricity outlets:

Toilet:

- Each toilet has two buttons on the top. One button is a half flush and the other is a full flush. Because Australian people want to be environmentally friendly and don’t want to waste water and because parts of Australia are going through a drought, they created these two buttons depending on what is put in them. So, as can be assumed, the half flush is for when you do number one. Full flush is for when you do number two. Got it?

Electricity outlet plugs:

- Instead of just having open plug outlets, each outlet has a switch above it. You have to turn it on or off before using the appliance. So like in the morning to use the hairdryer, I have to plug in my hairdryer, turn on the switch then blow dry my hair. The same is for the washer. I turn on the switch, set the washing machine, then wash my clothes. It is a very unique set up and takes some getting used to. I have only been here about a week and a half and I keep forgetting.

I guess that is about it for now. I have rambled on and on.

Service, Shop, Survive

2009-06-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

Sunday June 14, 2009

Another church day. Can’t believe that I have been here for a week and I only have four more to go. I am enjoying my time, but I also really want to be back in the presence of people I love and that love me back. I was thinking the other day how much touch can make a person feel good. Not just a hand shake or a pat on the back, but a real hug or an arm rested on the shoulders of another, or just holding hands. I miss those kinds of touches. I am a huggy type of person, and I miss that.

After two services, we came back home for lunch before we were off again. We had chunky mushroom soup. It tasted ok, but looking at it was very very very unappetizing. I kept thinking about the taste instead of what it looked like. It tasted real good, but I couldn’t finish my bowl. Just couldn’t.

Jeff had a model club meeting this afternoon. So after 1.5 hours of being home, we went back to church. Modelin is not one of my interests (like cars and planes and stuff) so I went to the mall. I bought some glue for a project I am conducting and guess how much it cost me? Yep, expensive. $12. For all of you who are reading this and living in the United States, be grateful that you live where you do, because things are so much cheaper over there.

For a moral booster, I bought a cappuccino and walked back to church, talking to God all the way.

I got to sing in the praise band tonight for worship. It was a ton of fun. I didn’t know the first two songs, but they weren’t hard to learn. I had a lady come up to me and invite me to do two day trips with her and her sisters. I have no idea what we will be doing, but whatever it is, it will be fun!

Next Sunday I am preaching, so I need to get working on my sermon, since I only have 4 days with the internet. Pray for me! Not just that I can write a good sermon, but that my words can touch and move in the hearts of those who will be in attendance during worship.

Goodnight, until we meet again!

Queen Victoria Market

2009-06-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday June 13, 2009

I was SO excited for today. We went to the Queen Victoria Market in downtown Melbourne. The place was HUGE! For parking it cost $10 which is really expensive. We walked around looking at all the stalls. There were lots of clothing shops. I was mostly interested in the souvenir stands. What was nice about shopping for souvenirs at the market is that you could ask for them to lower the price if you bought more than one of something. Also, items were about $5 cheaper at the market than if they were to be bought at the mall.

We looked around and I priced things for about 2.5 hours. It was then time for morning tea so we stopped at a coffee shop and had lattes and American donuts. These American donuts were jam filled and covered with sugar. For any of you who have been to Old Peking and had the sugar rolls, you will know what the American donuts were like. It was just like those Asian rolls, but with jelly in them. They were super yummy! After our snack and coffee we traveled over to the meat and cheese and fresh fruit and veggie part of the market. It was amazing what I saw. So many things and at such good prices. One thing that caught my attention and that Rosemary pointed out was the hand made fresh butter that you could buy in blocks or chunks.

We then split up. I went to do my souvenir shopping and Rosemary and Jeff went to finish the fresh fruit and veggie shopping. At 12:00PM we met up and left the market. There were so many nice things to purchase at the market. So many things to see. It was a good trip.

We stopped at a Hungry Jack’s for lunch. This fast food place is just like Burger King, but with a different name. I had a Whopper Jr. with fries and a coke. On the way home we went to a car wash and it cost $15 for the automatic. That was fun.

Back at home, I sorted out my souvenirs and showed them off to Rosemary and Jeff. I looked for some Aussie clothing, but their clothing is not that different from the way that American’s dress. So instead I bought a hat with corks on them. That is probably the only authentic Aussie article of clothing that is different from America. This hat is suppose to keep the flies away from you.

It was time for afternoon tea, so I had a coffee and some Vanilla Slice. Another name for this dessert is a Snot Block. The top and bottom crust is like a pie crust and the filling on the inside is a really thick custard. Its not a very sweet dessert, but Jeff really likes it and thought that I should try some.

I am preaching next Sunday and am going on several day trips next week, so I need to get my sermon done. I am preaching on when Jesus calmed the sea. So this afternoon I worked on an outline for my sermon so that when I got into work on Monday I could just do a little bit more research and include some illustrations and then start writing while I have access to the internet. That took about 2 hours this afternoon and then I worked on my PowerPoint for my presentation when I get home from Australia. I even know what I am going to make to serve as a Australian snack to those who come! I’m not telling what it is. You will have to come and find out!

Jeff had to leave for a meeting tonight, so it has just been Rosemary and I. We had Quiche and a salad for dinner. She is a good cook. For dessert I had a lemon flavored canoli. I know the US has canoli but I wanted to try some Australian kind. It was good. I personally liked it better than the vanilla slice.

After dinner I watched some TV and then read my book. Its is strange and weird, but exciting and suspenseful. Tomorrow is church and I am wondering if I will spend the day at church. I can’t believe how fast my trip is going. When you are busy an around people who want to be with you, your trip is so much more fun!

Lets explore, explore, and have some fun!

2009-06-14T17:39:00.001-07:00

Friday June 12, 2009

Today was my day off from the church. Since I spend basically all day at church on Sundays, I get a different day off. I slept in till 8:15 then had breakfast. I got a shower then headed out the door to go exploring. I wanted to take pictures of where I was living and to see what kinds of shops were around where I was living. I walked and walked and walked and had to write down street names so that I wouldn’t forget where to turn. It would be really easy to get lost.

I walked down to Springvale which Rosemary calls Hochiman City (spelling?). This part of Springvale is populated by mostly Asian people. As I walked around, I became the minority again and I felt like I was back in Thailand. The smells that reached my nose even reminded me of Thailand. I walked up and down the street and even into the two shopping centers. There were some bargain stores where I found some really neat (and cheap!) souvenirs. One item that really caught my eye was a toilet seat cover. You actually put this cloth like thing around your toilet seat – not the toilet lid. I did not buy one of these, but I discreetly took out my camera to take a picture! Crazy stuff. Would any of you buy this? Maybe as a gag gift, but I can’t ever imagine putting it on a toilet. I really don’t think that is an Australian thing, at least I hope its not!

I went to lunch at McDonalds and had a Big Mac with chips (French fries) and a coke. In Australia you don’t get free refills on drinks. When I asked, I got this blank stare like I was asking a strange question (which in the end I was) and the answer of no. I have noticed that when you order a drink, you get a very small size and then you don’t get free refills. I much better like the way Americans do their drinks.

After lunch I bought a latte and a chocolate truffle stick. McDonalds has a McCafe attached to it. Its like a coffee shop attached to the restaurant. I sipped coffee while reading my book by Ted Dekker. At 12:45 I left to come back home. I spotted the library which is close to the McDonalds, so I can go there to get away and have some quiet time.

Back at home I called my parents and Nathan and Jake. It was good to hear their voices! I bought a calling card for a really good price. As I came from the study I was handed a book that has Aussie slang in it. A new phrase that I have learned is “I need to go see a man about a dog.” Sometime this week you need to try this one out on your family, friends, or co-workers. This phrase means that you need to go to the bathroom. I have no idea why this phrase means that, but it does. Another way to say you need to go to the bathroom is to say that you need to “strain the potatoes.” So try it out and let me know how it goes. I imagine that you’ll get some strange responses!

I am preaching next week and so I started doing some preliminary research on my verse. That took me up until supper time. We had chicken fingers and stir-fry. For dessert we had a custard tart. Basically it was a pie shell with pudding. Yummy, but not very sweet.

At 6:30 I was picked up by Chris Morey, husband of Rachel Morey who is a student minister at the church. Tonight was youth group and I was helping out with Stuff. Stuff is the name of the youth group. These children are ages7-12. Today was a balloon themed day. So the children played balloon games. It was a good time. I helped with the games and socialized with the leaders. Next week I am going to join Duff for children ages 12-18. That theme is going to be “death by chocolate.” That one sounds really exciting. What a good excuse to eat chocolate!

I then came back home to write write write. Its been a fun day and I can’t believe how fast it has gone. I can’t believe how fast the week has gone. I have been here one week. WOW. Life sure does go by fast. Why Why Why?

Tomorrow is another wonderfully exploratory day and I need to get to bed so that it will come sooner! Yippy!

Whisky Cake and Plum Pudding

2009-06-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

Thursday June 11, 2009

I can’t believe how fast this day went by. Work started at 8:30. I didn’t want to get out of bed to get ready for the day. I was so warm in my bed and it was so dark outside!

We had a staff meeting today. It started at 10:00 and finished at 12:30. The same people that were at staff meeting then convened in another room for lunch. They are a really neat group of people. Over lunch they started naming off desserts that I just had to try. They finally decided that the ministry team meetings (staff meetings) were going to be held at a different cake shop location for the next four weeks. I’m super cool with that! I think they are too. I have a list of foods that I need to eat or try before I come home. I don’t think I have enough time to try everything!

After staff meeting and lunch I worked on clearing up a few things and then decided to go to the shopping center (basically it’s a mall). This mall is huge, as I have mentioned before. I walked around and around and around. I bought a couple of things that I needed, then ended my trip at donut king where I bought a mango smoothie. Yummy! I then walked back to the church. My feet are not used to walking all the time in high healed shoes, so I now have a blister on one of my feet and it is very painful!

The church stores lots of biscuits (cookies) around for tea time. While getting some cookies I noticed a bunch of tins for plum pudding. I asked someone about it and they said that the Salvation Army gives them the plum puddings as gifts to be given to the elderly in the retirement villages. I asked why the church had some and they said it was because they had too many plum puddings. They then went on to say that of the tins up there, some were from last Christmas and some were from the Christmas before last. WOW! That just struck me as very interesting.

After work we came back home. I worked in my room – cleaning, sorting, and hanging up laundry. I watched some news.

At 6:30 David and his wife Heather and their daughter Joanne came to pick me up for dinner. We went to a restaurant in Patterson Lakes. They said it was in a hotel and I thought that meant a place that has sleeping accommodations as well as a place to eat. Well… guess again. In smaller cities, a hotel is more like a pub. The one we went to had a bar and a casino area along with the actual restaurant. I ordered the vegetarian pasta, but there was some spice in the sauce that was just way too strong for me. The Booker family is so much fun to be around. They are so kind and knowledgeable. We left the restaurant at 8:00 and they brought me back home. I then worked on some paper work, getting my calendar together, and organizing what I need to do with my sermon.

I plan on exploring my neighborhood tomorrow! Saturday the market, and Sunday church all day!

Just a plain day of work!

2009-06-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

Wednesday June 10, 2009

Sorry – no pictures today. Today was a more boring day. I actually slept the WHOLE night! It felt real good.

I had porridge this morning for breakfast then went off to work. I worked on the internet for an hour then had coffee with Jeff and David for an hour. It’s really fun that we have such long breaks for socializing. I then worked on the computer some more until 12:30. Then I went to lunch. It has been another cold day: rain and hail and wind and all sorts of stuff. While I ate lunch the sun came out and I sat in the sun warming up!

After lunch I worked on interview questions and stuff. The church is making a time capsule and I am in charge of getting things to go in it these next five weeks. So I will be taking lots of pictures and video recording stuff and just adding lots of memories. I thought that it would be fun to include the children by having them draw what they think the church will look like in 50 years. So I had to e-mail the Sunday school teacher to see if she could fit that into her lesson plan.

I basically worked on that all afternoon. I saw that Jake was online, so we chatted for a while, but it was midnight in the US and 3:00 where I was so Jake couldn’t talk long and I was at work too.

I learned two new words/phrases:

1. “She has got a lot of good value” – meaning she is a good person

2. Car park – parking lot

I was finally getting warm in the office and Jeff yelled down the hall to pack up and get ready to go home. We came home and watched Deal or no Deal. I also worked on doing some laundry. There is no dryer so we have to hang up our clothes. For dinner we had apricot chicken with rice. I had a cookie for dessert.

I then watched TV with Jeff and Rosemary and did some computer work – letters and blog notes. Tomorrow is a ministry team meeting so I need to do a bit of research/thinking about the scripture for Sunday’s sermon. We discuss the Bible verse during the meeting. I am waiting for my second load of laundry to get done and then I’ll probably relax for the rest of the night, I am not in the mood to do a lot. Friday is my day off, so I won’t be posting anything else until Monday. Have a good weekend!

First day of work

2009-06-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

Tuesday June 9, 2009

It was sooooo cold today. I woke up absolutely freezing and couldn’t go back to sleep. I had a dream last night that my airplane crashed in the ocean, a shark bit off my leg, and I ended up in Hawaii alive. Crazy dream.

For breakfast I had porridge. Its basically oatmeal, but a soupier version. I have never had it before and it warmed me up well for the day. I’m having it again tomorrow for breakfast. I would like to try it with some raisins in it.

I got to work at 8:15 this morning and worked on the internet. I had 40 new messages! It seemed like it took FoReVeR to get anything to load. I sat at the computer for (I timed it) 30 minutes waiting for the screen to load. I was beginning to think that I had come to a place with bad internet. I talked to the pastor about it, and he said that there were three computers sharing out of the same box which made the internet run slow. It was about 10Mpb. Very slow.

We had morning tea and conversed a little. I met the chair of the board. Finally everyone left and Pastor David and I talked about some of the projects that I will be taking care of and participating in. Some of such include taking pictures and getting interviews for a time capsule, working with the youth groups, preaching and leading in worship, helping to further along a young adults group, helping out with the holiday program, going to meetings, and working on the web page. There is so much for me to do! I am very excited!

For lunch we met with other ministers in the area for lunch. We were going to go to an Italian place, but it was closed. I was kinda glad because I would have spent around $13-$15 on a salad or soup. That was the cheapest meal available. For a bottle of water it cost $3. Instead the ministers went to a café. I got this wonderful chicken and avocado melted sandwich with a chick pea salad and water. Cost me $8. When I sat back down, the men gave me a strange look because I had only ordered water instead of coffee. It would have cost me another $3-$4 to but a small cup of coffee to go with my meal. I would have enjoyed having a coffee because it is such a cold day today, but I know I can’t spend that kind of money all the time. Conversation seemed to drag on until 2:00 when we left to go back to work.

I finished up posting my blogs and pictures, sent some e-mails and got caught up on everything. Then I started working on my sermons. I printed off different translations of the scripture verse and did a tiny bit of studying. About 3:45 I went to the Mall – to the post office, the grocery store, and target. It was a cold and blustery day with rain. I had to wear a scarf and some gloves.

Since I have an oven available to me, I had the urge to bake something. There is a really easy recipe that I have cooked before – chocolate peanut butter chip cookies made from cake mix. Yummy! It calls for oil, eggs, cake mix, and peanut butter chips. So I went to the store and easily found the cake mix (for $4.59) and then had to search for the peanut butter chips. Guess what? Couldn’t find them. They don’t sell them here. So I bought white chips instead (for $4.99). I also bought some cereal ($5. 77) to snack on. I have been having a sweets crave towards the end of the day, and Special K chocolate will help me with that craving. As I left the store I thought that this was going to be the most expensive cookies I have ever made!

I then went to the post office and then to target. I only packed one long sleeve night shirt, and the other one was short sleeved, and I knew that I couldn’t wear that to bed with as cold as I have been getting! So yep. That’s what I bought.

My feet were starting to hurt and I got a blister on my left pinky toe. So I took off my shoes and walked back to church where Jeff was waiting to take us both home. For dinner we had roast with carrots, pumpkin, onion, and potatoes. It was very good. I had an apple with my meal. Jeff and Rosemary thought I was very weird because they thought I was eating my dessert with my meal. I was thinking that the cookies that I was about to make would be the dessert. But they weren’t. Rosemary offered banana cake with custard, yogurt, or ice cream and fruit for dessert. It wasn’t until after evening tea and coffee that I baked the cookies. They turned out pretty well.

At 7:30 Suzanne picked me up to go to the Life Streams contemplation session. Its basically guided meditation. Nobody showed up, so Suzanne performed the meditation on me. Towards the end of the session I got a bit fidgety, but the message was really great and got ingrained into my head. Run to God when you are scared or worried and he will protect you.

Two funny stories:

1. This morning a man came into my office and asked it I had any rubbish. I knew what rubbish was (trash) but it caught me off guard. I looked around to see where the trash can was, but I didn’t have one in my office. The man kept saying “ do you have any rubbish? Any Rubbish? Do you have any rubbish? I am the rubbish man. Do you know what rubbish is?” I told him that we didn’t call our trash man a rubbish man, but a custodian. He told me that that sounded like a better name than a rubbish man. I had a good laugh afterwards!

2. This evening, I was talking to Rosemary about what lunch I wanted to take with me to the office yesterday. Rosemary asked me if I wanted to take a musli bar with me. The way this is pronounces is “meeee sleeee” bar. I thought she was asking if I wanted a small and worthless bar (measly). I didn’t know what she was talking about. She didn’t know what the equivalent a musli bar was to in America. I named a few things off and finally it got around that a musli bar is the same as a granola bar. Even though we both speak English, there can still be language barriers!

Sunny Rainy Beach Day!

2009-06-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

Monday June 8, 2009

Happy Queen’s birthday! I was really excited for today because we got to go to the beach! I didn’t know if I would get there because there are so many other things I want to do while I am here. I must say that Jeff and Rosemary feel kinda like grandparents. They are just wonderful people. I feel very comfortable living with them.

They left this morning to spend time with family on this holiday. Suzanne Ashton, a student minister at the church, picked me up at 10:30. We first drove to her house to pick up her camera. We visited with her mother and step father and then headed to the beach in St. Kilda. It was rainy and cold, but we did well. The morning and afternoon past really fast. We were going to eat at a specialty shop on one of the more popular streets, but a quick look through the menu told me differently. To have an appetizer is about $8. The main course is around $15-$25. That is crazy. Tonight while I was talking to Rosemary, she said that is normal for eating out in most places. There is no way I am able to afford that! So instead, Suzanne and I went to Subway for lunch. I had a veggie sandwich which only cost me $3.00.

After sitting outside in the cold to eat lunch, we walked to a chocolate shop where I ordered an espresso with white chocolate ice cream. The portion was way too small, but the actual drink was SO good! I could definitely get use to drinking those all the time! Way too expensive though. Suzanne got some hot chocolate made with chilies. She said it was pretty spicy, and she couldn’t finish the drink.

On the same rode there were about 4 cake shops. I just had to go into one. Jeff and Rosemary seemed jealous of me going to cake shops, so I wanted to treat them to some sweets. I bought myself a brandy snap and two macadamia almond tarts for my hosts. We went to the pier and walked around a bit. I even went on the beach and picked up sea shells. The beach in winter! Fun stuff! Afterwards we headed to the mall where we went window shopping. I can’t believe how big it is! It is three stories high and even goes over the highway on a bridge. I have hardly explored it, but I look forward to figuring it all out! Probably some Friday when I get the hang of public transportation.

I came home at 4:30ish and talked with Rosemary and Jeff about my time at the beach. I wrote some stuff and then read before dinner. I got so cold I wrapped a blanket around myself. Dinner included salad and chicken sausage rolls. The sausage rolls were basically a soft chicken hotdog the size of a bratwurst incased in puff pastry. It was good, but probably really bad for you. During and after dinner we watched the news and then a show that is the equivalent of junk yard wars. The snap and tarts I bought were consumed for dessert and I think they went over vey well.

Update: I am now sharing a hairdryer with Rosemary and it works very well. This morning I ate vegemite on my toast and it wasn’t too bad. Very salty, but that is about it. I would much rather have cream cheese, peanut butter, or jelly on my bread though. David, just so you know, I have no idea which way the toilet flushes. It sprays up and the goes out. It doesn’t flush either clockwise or counter clockwise. It just goes down. I gave a daddy long leg spider a bath last night and it drown in the bathtub. Why is it that I always get spiders in my bathrooms? That happened in Thailand too. I have been warned for the brown Huntington spider because they are popular here and about the size of a tarantula and very fuzzy. Yikes. I hope I never have to come in contact with one. Last night I got so cold in bed that I had to cover up with four blankets and yet I am still cold!

Tomorrow is my first day of work at the church and I’ll get a better feel for what I will be doing on a daily basis. What is cool is that I work Monday – Thursday and then go to church all day on Sunday. My Saturdays will be mostly full of tourist stuff, and my Fridays will most likely be exploring and shopping. I hope to find a internet café so that I can log on during the weekends. Its interesting that I have only been here for four days and I have experienced so much, and I still have so much more to experience and try out! This internship is much better structured than my internship last summer, both in my tourism and church work aspects. I think that my nursing home internship probably had more work attached to it than this internship will have, but its all going to be just great!

I guess that is it for now. I try and keep my writing simple, but there is just too much stuff going on, and I want to tell you all about it!

Church Church All day!

2009-06-08T19:08:00.000-07:00

Sunday June 7, 2009

Last night I stayed up reading a book called Showdown by Ted Dekker. It’s a pretty strange book. Fell asleep around 10, but had a fitful night of sleep. I am not fully on the correct sleep schedule yet!

First church was at 9:15. I knew that the pastor was going to introduce me to the congregation and I thought that maybe he would invite me to say something, but during the service he asked me a lot of questions about my schooling, my internship, and my family. All went well. There is no adult Sunday school or Bible study, but there is a time of tea, coffee, and fellowship between services. That was my chance to talk to members of the congregation. From what I have witnessed of today, the congregation is predominately older with only about a dozen younger families with children.

Something that I have noticed today is that I must have an accent. I know at home there are some words that I guess I say that have a Texas draw to it, but I never considered myself to have an accent. I had numerous people come up to me today and tell me that they like my accent, or how would I define my accent. I really wasn’t sure how to respond to these comments. How would you have responded?

Second service started at 11 and there were probably no more than 45 in attendance. Second service is led by mostly lay people and is traditional in style, but I was more familiar with the songs.

After church Jeff, Rosemary and I stopped at a fish and chips shop to get some lunch. For those of you who don’t know, fish and chips is fried fish and French fries. It is wrapped in paper and you take it home. We also ordered potato cakes as well. Its all fried food and very yummy! Rosemary had a special dipping sauce that she made which was a combination of sour cream and sweet pepper sauce. Different, but yummy. Usually vinegar is poured on the fish, but that really wasn’t my style. Authentic fish and chips are really fun! All throughout lunch and afterwards I talked to Rosemary about the differences in Australian words and American words. Some of my favorite are below:

Australian: cholk a block American: I am full/satisfied

Australian: capsicums American: Red pepper

Australian: napkin American: diaper

Australian: Doona American: Comforter

It was good talk. I enjoyed myself and I think Rosemary did too. While we were talking, Jeff read the Sunday newspaper.

For dinner we had soup, English crumpet, and salad. The next church service was at 6:30, but Jeff had to be there early because he was on to preach.

Today was Trinity Sunday, and the morning services were all about the Trinity. The main message from the sermon was that we can’t know the Trinity, so shouldn’t worry about trying to explain it, but should just immerse ourselves in it. The evening service used the same scripture as the morning service, but focused more on Niccademus and being born again. There was about 4 children in the evening service and they were so distracting. They kept running up and down the aisles, on the alter, around the communion and candles, and I had a hard time paying attention. The parents didn’t do anything about it. I have talked to Jeff about this and he doesn’t like it either. Oh well. Every church is different!

One last thing – my hair dryer died today. I don’t think that it blew up or anything, but it won’t work. It worked Friday and Saturday, plugging it in to the adapter and converter, but today nothing. So I had to throw it out. My hair was a bit stringy and flat today. Rosemary said that she needed a hairdryer anyways, so she bought one for herself to share with me. She is such a sweet kind lady.

Queen’s birthday tomorrow. Wonder what I’ll get into next?

State Youth Games

2009-06-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday June 6, 2009

Last night, I attempted and succeeded to stay up for a while before going to sleep. It is customary for Jeff and Rosemary to watch the news as they eat dinner. After dinner, I decided to write my blog. I finished and I didn’t want to seem anti-social, so I sat on a bean bag and watched TV with the two of them. I was getting really tired and didn’t want to stay up, but I did get to 9:30PM and then went to bed.

I got up once to go to the bathroom, but I slept through the rest of the night! I got up this morning at 7:45, showered and ate a special Australian cereal called wheat bix. It is crushed wheat in a block square. You pour milk on top and it becomes soggy, soggier than oatmeal. So just in case I wasn’t going to like it, I mixed it with special K cereal. It was OK, but not something I would want everyday. I was also offered and English crumpet. It was pretty good. It is similar to an English muffin on top and a pancake on bottom. It was really crunchy. I put jelly on top to taste.

At 9:00AM we left for State Youth Games. This program is for children in churches all over Victoria ages 15 and below. What is so neat is that it isn’t just Churches of Christ, but also other denominations as well. I thought it was so neat that churches could come together like that to participate in a weekend of fellowship. The children have a series of sporting games that they compete in against other youth groups. These games include ping-pong, basketball, dodgeball, darts, tennis, Uno (yep the card game), and many more. The event goes for four days. The youth groups camp out on the lawn and have morning activities and evening concerts and worship time.

We walked around and looked at all the tents and scenery, and the children participating in various activities. We drove to a school to watch them play a basket ball game. Before entering the building, Jeff spotted a coffee truck. The coffee truck is similar to an ice cream truck in the United States, but serves specialty coffee. We got some coffee (it was a very cold morning) and watched the kids play basketball.

Around 11:45 Jeff, Rosemary, and I went with Pastor David and his wife Heather to David’s brother’s house for lunch. I had a ham sandwich and vegetable lamb soup. Its not very often that I eat lamb and it was a fun change in meat. If I hadn’t have known it was lamb, I would have guessed it was turkey. Yum.

We left the house and went back to Lardner Park. I socialized more with Heather and other members of Southern Community. Around 4:00 we left to come back home. What was really strange was that the sun was going down and it had set by 5:00. This change in the sun is a bit different to me; I am missing my many hours of sunlight! And the warmer weather. It got up to 55*F today, but once the sun set, it got rather chilly.

Dinner was chicken burgers (only the patty), green beans, and some super good potatoes with bacon and sour cream. Dessert was banana bread with warm custard (plain vanilla pudding) on top. Instead of sitting and flipping through the TV, I decided to work on the computer.

Tomorrow is church and I KNOW I am going to be tired. There is a 9:15, 11:00 and 6:30 PM service. I am basically going to spend all day at church. Monday is a government holiday and Jeff is going to visit his father, so I have no idea what I will be doing. I have been told that I will be hanging out with one of the student ministers, but nothing is set in stone. I am really not sure of what is going on until the day of. You know, that’s ok and its kinda freeing. It really puts what Jesus said to work. “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” I didn’t really know that I was consciously following that, but I really haven’t been worrying too much about anything. Whatever is going to happen, will happen and there is nothing that I can do to change it. God has everything under control, so I don’t have to worry. Thank you God, for being in charge of my daily activities. Let me continue to let you lead my life, even after I return to the United States.

I’m in Australia!!

2009-06-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

Friday June 5, 2009

I arrived in Melbourne today! I learned right away that the city is pronounced Mel-bun instead of Mel-born.

All my flights went really well. The Peoria to Chicago flight had very few people. In Chicago, I got to my gate, but wasn’t ready for dinner. I sat and read at the gate for a while. Around 5:00 I got up to get some dinner and found out that the gate had changed. I scrambled around to my new gate and got some dinner after confirming that that was where I was suppose to be. I am really glad that I had to move because there was a fresh bagel stand that you could make into a sandwich or have plain or with cream cheese. I had a veggie bagel sandwich on a cheese bagel.

Once I arrived in LA, I wasn’t quite sure where to go. I went down a flight of stairs to get a tram. When I got down there, there was a large group of people standing around. There were probably 30-45 people standing in the room. I asked the man in charge if that was where to get on the Quantas plane for flight 94. It was, but I was confused because there were so many people. I came to find out that there were three flights leaving that night to Australia and all the people needed to be transferred over to the international airport. The lady in charge was a bit fussy, not very kind. The bus finally came and she told all of us to get in the bus. ALL OF US! She told us that she only had one bus and that we all had to get on. We were squished into the bus with all of our carry ons. It was a bit unpleasant, but thankfully the drive wasn’t very far.

My Quantas flight went very well. It was long, but that was about it. I sat by two women, a mother and her 18 year old daughter who were from Puerto Rico and only spoke Spanish. I thought of Jake the whole time I was there. He could have talked to them and explained to them what was going on.

During the flight there was some funny sounds coming out of the exit door. We were already at our maximum altitude and it sounded like the door was open. The captain had to even come down and check on the door, but after calling the construction people in Melbourne, they said that everything was just fine. It had happened during the last flight and it was nothing to worry about. When we landed in Australia, the captain came over the intercom and said that there was a sick person on the plane and that we were going to have to wait while quarantine came on board and take care of the person.

After going through customs and picking up my luggage, I met Jeff and Rosemary Weston. We traveled back to their house. I have a cute little room and my own bathroom. The beds have not come in yet from the US, so I am sleeping on a really comfy air mattress. I got situated in my room and then came out to have mid morning tea. Jeff and Rosemary left to return the air matterece that had a hole in it, and I got a shower and organized my room – unpacked my suitcases, hung up my clothes, put away things, etc. When the Westons returned home we had dinner.

After dinner we went to the church where I got a tour of the building and met lots of the staff. It is really neat that the church opens its doors so much to the community. In addition to the community center, the life streams meditation center, and the senior citizen housing, the church also opens the church for a group that provides day care to older people who are not capable of taking care of themselves. There is also a certification program for those who have English as a second language. After four years of classes, a person can have the equivalent of an associates degree.

Across from the church is a HUGE mall. It is three levels high and has 3 grocery stores, a theater, numerous smaller stores, and a target. I am really excited to go and explore the mall. We went there for me to exchange my money and to buy groceries. What is really cool about the money is that it is in pretty colors and parts of the bills are see through.

We came home after the mall and I took a nap while Jeff and Rosemary watched game shows on TV. For dinner we had spaghetti, salad, and yogurt.

So far, I am having a lot of fun and it feels like I am really at home. I haven’t had too much of a culture shock as of yet. Everything is so familiar, even things they sell at the store are what is sold in the states. Tomorrow I am going to watch the youth of the church participate in the State Youth Games – a program set up like the Olympics where youth groups from churches all over the state of Victoria compete and have fellowship time for a whole weekend. Monday is the Queens birthday (actually, I was told that it is really in April, but they celebrate it in June?? Strange..) and it is basically a government holiday. I am not sure what is in the schedule for Monday, but I know Sunday is church for sure. Tuesday I start in at work. From what I have overheard Jeff talking about, I am going to be involved in a lot in the church life. I probably will not have a dull moment while I am here.

I'm Leaving. Here I go!

2009-06-03T06:12:00.001-07:00

Today is the day I leave for Australia. After all the planning, I can't believe that it is time for me to leave! Yesterday as I walked the dogs in the park, I thought about how cool it was that God made everybody, even the people in Australia and that there was nothing to be worried about. They are humans too. The only thing that is different between me and them is the culture that we grew up in and are living in.

I think that last summer, since it was my first trip on an airplane by myself, my first trip abroad, and going to a country that didn't speak my language was very scary. I am continuously telling myself that there is nothing to be scared or worried about. When I am worried, I am doubting the power of God in my life. Once I took this last phrase to heart, I stopped stressing over if I was going to have everything packed, if I was going to have enough money, if I was going to make it to all my connecting flights. I am only trusting in God to do what is best for me.

My flight leaves out of Peoria at 3:30 today. Thank goodness for afternoon flights. I get the whole morning to myself! My itinerary looks like this: Peoria to Chicago, Chicago to LA and at 11:30 PM I get on my Quantas plane to Melbourne AU. My last plane ride is 15.5 hours. I will be arriving in Melbourne at 7:55 AM. I am not sure what to expect upon arrival, but I know whatever it will be, will be great!

On Saturday I have been invited to go one hour out of Melbourne with the pastor of Southern Community Church of Christ to watch the church children participate in the State Youth Games. I am not sure what it is, but I will be having fun seeing some of the church traditions!

In case you want to know what time I am doing thing, IL and Melbourne are about 14 hours difference. So to find what time it is in Melbourne take the current time (lets say 8:00AM) change it to its opposite (8:00 PM) then add four hours (12:00 AM Midnight). That's a little bit harder than Thailand, but it still works!

Keep checking in to my blog. You never know what God is going to get me into!

Its packing time!!

2009-05-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe that it is almost time for me to get on an airplane again and travel the world. It seems like I just got out of school! Tonight I was working on my wardrobe packing and decided that I can't take just two suitcases, I have to take three. I guess that's what it means to be a girl...

This summer I will be working at Southern Community Church of Christ doing many many many things, such as preaching, helping with a children's program, the Jr. high and high school groups, and participating in church activities and leadership. Here is a link to the church's website: http://www.southerncofc.org.au/.

I will be leaving Peoria on June 3, will arrive in Australia on June 5 and will return home July 13th. Enjoy reading about my experiences!