Wednesday we made the (not so long) trek from Australia to Vanuatu. Wow, what a difference to only be in the air a handful of hours and arrive on the same time zone! Makes for pretty quick adjusting...to the time anyway. :) There's still the humidity to get used to and that's going to take awhile. But it is awesome to be back. Our friends Phil, Lenna, Kristen, Don, and Joel accompanied us to the airport, picking us up at 4:30 AM. Troopers and true friends, that's for sure! I thank God for them!
Because God provided our visas right at the last minute, THE DAY BEFORE OUR FLIGHT, it was smooth sailing through all the check points. Praise God for that! The kids did their best ever on the flights and it was a blessedly uneventful day of travel. Our friends the Gibbs and teammates the Kenners picked us up at the airport later that afternoon and we started moving in to our new places. The Kenners treated us to a yummy supper and hooked us up with breakfast in our refrigerators. We have been so blessed by the help of the Kenners and Gibbs with our visas and again, praise God for His timing on those!
Also, one of my last posts was called the importance of team. Wow, did that ever play out big time here. The Kenners had not only fixed up transport for the airport and spruced up our rentals with food ready for our arrival, they arranged for transport for the next day so we could run around town getting all the basic essentials. We didn't have to try to load up a bus here with sacks of flour, mops, spices, toilet bowl cleaners and detergent. They've learned some great tricks while they've been here the last 2 months without us for quick cooking with food available here, where to get the best deals, and the low-down on all the new stores. We had a great day in prayer together, then doing our errands, catching up with them and fellowshipping. They are helping with all the run-around too to get the boxes we shipped over. We've visited 2/4 of the offices needing paperwork and signatures to get shipments in and will hopefully finish up the beginning of next week and get the rest of our stuff! I'm thankful for God's provision of visas, health, team, relationships to be sad about leaving in Australia, relationships to be excited to return to here in Vanuatu, and for my own place to stay - wahoo! Thanks for your encouragement along this crazy journey God has us on.
Wednesday we made the (not so long) trek from Australia to Vanuatu. Wow, what a difference to only be in the air a handful of hours and arrive on the same time zone! Makes for pretty quick adjusting...to the time anyway. :) There's still the humidity to get used to and that's going to take awhile. But it is awesome to be back. Our friends Phil, Lenna, Kristen, Don, and Joel accompanied us to the airport, picking us up at 4:30 AM. Troopers and true friends, that's for sure! I thank God for them!
Also, one of my last posts was called the importance of team. Wow, did that ever play out big time here. The Kenners had not only fixed up transport for the airport and spruced up our rentals with food ready for our arrival, they arranged for transport for the next day so we could run around town getting all the basic essentials. We didn't have to try to load up a bus here with sacks of flour, mops, spices, toilet bowl cleaners and detergent. They've learned some great tricks while they've been here the last 2 months without us for quick cooking with food available here, where to get the best deals, and the low-down on all the new stores. We had a great day in prayer together, then doing our errands, catching up with them and fellowshipping. They are helping with all the run-around too to get the boxes we shipped over. We've visited 2/4 of the offices needing paperwork and signatures to get shipments in and will hopefully finish up the beginning of next week and get the rest of our stuff! I'm thankful for God's provision of visas, health, team, relationships to be sad about leaving in Australia, relationships to be excited to return to here in Vanuatu, and for my own place to stay - wahoo! Thanks for your encouragement along this crazy journey God has us on.
I had some really nice times with the Richards in the months between school and coming back to Vanuatu. The kids and I had some quality time when Houghton & Gretchen spent a weekend in Sydney. I've been trying to practice my Bible story-telling skills at random times. So, we practiced one of the stories I knew from a workshop about Philip and the Ethiopian from Acts 8. Jesiah loves hearing stories and is pretty good at remembering them and then asking lots of really hard questions about them. :) He's a good kid and really interested in God. 
Because of being done with school, we had a lot more time the last few months in Australia to connect with friends from church too, which was really nice. It did make it that much harder to leave at the end, but such is the beauty and pain of relationships, isn't it! Here are our friends John and Joanna on the right here and Emmanuel and Marie Claire, who are just gearing up to be missionaries as well. We talked them into going to Summer School at Equip to get the basic language and cultural acquisition skills we learned there. And they hope to head out to Thailand to work with abandoned and orphaned kids next month, Lord-willing! They have a nice website if you want to check it out at www.ricefields.com.au
I was so fortunate in my months following school to have housing provided by friends from church. I house-sat for my Lebanese friend, Amira for about a month while she and her daughter family in Lebanon. She has 3 cats I fed while I was there, 2 of which were around a lot and very friendly. It was fun to have cats around again. They were very sweet. Once she returned, I stayed with a Filipino friend, Joy (also from church). Houghton & Gretchen were staying there as well and the last few weeks another family of Joy's stayed with us too. Praise God for His provision of housing for the full time we were in Australia. I thank God also for the opportunity to learn about several different cultures as a result of the multicultural mix of our church in Melbourne! What an opportunity to have fellowship with Christians of all different backgrounds. And they were so generous to us in opening their homes and hearts to us. Thanks, friends! 
