Update from Down Under

Hi Everybody!

This is a really long blog, so if you need some reading to make you sleepy, forge ahead...

Below is a copy of an email I just sent to my family. We've been here in Australia since Sunday and spent our first two days near Sydney at the AIM Australia headquarters with Len and Robbyn Lesleighter. We had a really nice and relaxing time with their family and thoroughly enjoyed our time with them!

Our trip was off to an exciting start... because of weather, Leo didn't get to Anchorage until about 30 minutes before we needed to head to the airport. Then when we were at the airport we were told that all the outgoing flights had been canceled until late afternoon due to high winds!!! That would have completely messed up all of our connections. At the last minute, the restriction was lifted and we were able to catch our flight to Seattle. We landed there with just enough time to board our flight to LA! We were in LA for several hours and then flew 14 hours to Sydney-whew! That was a long one. We were missing the kids, but also glad they weren't with us this time. We flew from Sydney to Melbourne on Tuesday, rented a car and drove to Lilydale. Leo is doing awesome driving here and with a few detours, we've been able to find our way around.

We will drive to a place called Research on Saturday night to stay at a B&B (it's called Crest Castle!!) and then fly out of Melbourne back to the states on Sunday around noon. I will definitely post pictures when we get home :) OK, here's the email I sent my family...

*************************************************************************************

This is the first time I've been on the computer since coming to Lilydale on Tuesday. I'm up in the library on campus right now and Leo is back out at the airport at Coldstream for a few hours. I was happy to stay here- a couple hours there yesterday was more than enough for me of airplane and business talk!

Things are going well. We did the devotional time at Coldstream yesterday morning. Again, it was mostly just introducing ourselves and showing our pictures from home. Bruce Searle, who is the dean of the aviation school, was just about drooling over the floatplanes! Leo stayed there the rest of the day and I went shopping with Kristel Clerke. We had a nice afternoon and it was fun to visit with her, although I have to say, the shopping here is a bit disappointing after being in Kenya :( Maybe my expectations were just too high?!

We had dinner at the house of a family who has been here a little over a year. He's a mx instructor at MAC. It was actually really good to talk with them and learn a bit more about the "technicalities" of coming over here.

This morning we spent about 2 hours at Mt. Evelyn Christian school. It looks like an awesome place and the people were all super friendly. They even sang me "Happy Birthday" :) I think I'd mentioned months ago that we'd be visiting them on my birthday and as soon as we walked into the office people started telling me Happy Birthday. I think Leo was a bit embarrassed seeing as he had no clue it is my birthday today. His excuse is that he doesn't even know what day it is. Whatever... :)

While we were at MECS someone mentioned that there had a been a family there earlier in the morning who were missionaries in Alaska and were here on furlough. As we were leaving, the secretary at the school called them and asked if there'd be a time we could meet them and it just "so happened" that they were at the little restaurant just down the street where we were headed! So, we had lunch with them. It turns out they're with SEND and they're actually in Canada, not Alaska. Everyone here seems to think we are part of Canda, but anyway... we had a really nice visit and they know the Bindens and Bill and Wanda Wilson, who are also SEND missionaries. So, they were telling us if it doesn't work out here, we could always join SEND :) We were laughing thinking about meeting them here. I actually took a picture of Leo and the guy standing by each other, cuz they were both wearing Carhartts. I just never expected to see two pairs of Carhartts standing by each other in Lilydale, Australia :)

We are having dinner with another family tonight and then have quite a full day scheduled tomorrow. We are really enjoying our time here and enjoying meeting lots of new people. As far as how we sense God is leading, to be honest, we still have no idea. This is a nice place, but it still seems perhaps a bit too "civilized" for our family. So, for now we will keep gathering as much information as we can and rest in the knowledge that God has a good plan for us!!! I'm feeling quite homesick at the moment and would love to be "attacked" by my children :)

Lots of love-Menda