Well it has been a little more than a week since we landed in Australia. I want to share our experiences getting here and what we've enjoyed so far in the land of Oz.
Everything had gone so smoothly up to the point we left Pensacola. We enjoyed watching God provide our funding, take care of the administrative hurdles, and generally make everything incredibly easy for us to leave. On Thursday night, May 21st, we took the leap and left Pensacola in my Tahoe with a small U-Haul trailer in tow.
We had a few hiccups getting to Arkansas but nothing difficult or discouraging. We really enjoyed our send off party at Larry's Pizza with our Arkansan family and friends! It was one of the best ways we could have said goodbye for 8 months.
Racheal (Amanda's sister) and Jeff and their two children went with us to Dallas to return our vehicle to Arkansas. (thanks Rach, Jeff, and Mom and Dad!) Brandon, Mikayla, AJ, and Isabella were thrilled to spend a night in Great Wolf Lodge with their cousins, Nathan and Ashley. We hade a blast playing together as a family and I can't thank them enough for coming with us.
We left for DFW Monday afternoon just in time to beat the monsoon that let loose while we were checking in for our first flight. We were warned by the airline that our flight would probably be delayed and their forecast was 100% correct. Our flight that was supposed to depart at 5:10 didn't leave the terminal until 7:30. This of course caused us to miss our connection is San Francisco. After an incredibly long night in the San Francisco airport we checked into a hotel at 6:00 AM. The people at the Embassy Suites were incredibly kind and understanding. I cannot remember sleeping more soundly than I did for those 5 hours. The following evening (Tuesday night) we boarded our flight for Australia.
Originally, we were supposed to fly from Dallas to San Francisco, to Auckland, NZ, and land in Perth. However because of our missed connection we were not able to continue on our original itinerary. We flew from San Fran to Sydney where we had another very tight connection. Thankfully we made it just in the nick of time thanks to a wonderful ticketing agent. Unfortunately, our luggage was unable to join us Sydney. We hustled to the gate as the flight was boarding.
James, Peter, and Greta graciously welcomed us to Australia at our gate as we disembarked from the plane. Peter and Greta are a wonderful couple from Avon Valley Baptist Church and when they heard that our luggage was delayed kindly brought us some jackets and pullovers to keep us warm.
James made us feel so welcome right away. He cooked a delicious pumpkin soup and a pumpkin pie for us that evening. It was hard for us to stay awake before such a wonderful meal and virtually impossible to keep our eyes afterwards. We turned in as soon as the sun went down and slept soundly through the entire night. This helped us from experiencing the worst of jet lag.
The following day we walked into town for our first visit to Northam. We toured the Target "Country", Coles Grocery store and a couple of the shops on main street. The products were pretty similar but the prices are decidedly higher. I've come to understand that everything is higher in Australia and this is especially true in Western Australia.
Saturday and Sunday were ministry days. James took me out and introduced me to some of the homebound members of the community. These elderly men have led extraordinary lives and have some incredible stories to share. Sunday came with a tutorial on the setup for Sunday and then a beautiful worship service.
James's flight was scheduled for departure on Monday morning so I agreed to take him to the airport in Perth. Thankfully, James drove to the airport and I was responsible for getting myself back to Northam. This was my first driving test in Australia. I had driven around Northam a couple of times just to familiarize myself with their vehicles but now I was driving the 100 kilometers from Perth to Northam at speeds of 110 kmh (68.something mph). Surprisingly, everything went super smooth.
Now we are on our own in Northam, Western Australia. (11,016 miles away from where we started)
So far we have seen the shopping centers in Northam and Midland (suburb of Perth), feed wild kangaroos, hiked 2 miles in a national park, ate at a McDonalds, visited a Target "Country" and a regular Target store, a K-Mart, a Big W (think old school Walmart) Cole's, Woolworth's, two bakeries in Northam, Civic Video (like a Blockbuster), and an Australian Post Office. All of the people that we have met have been super friendly and delighted to help us with our (often ridiculous) questions. We are having a blast!
(PS if you want to come visit we would love to host you but please bring a tea pitcher)
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