Coming Attractions...

Indiana had Snow! Ha! We are finally to the point where it is in the 70’s every day. It is not supposed to get abysmally hot, but stay in the mid 80’s all summer. We’re looking forward to that.

I heard a rumor that the Sumners had them over and watched them all. Troopers. Poor Mason and Emily!

We’ve really jumped into our church here - Narrabeen Baptist. I was talking to Leon (the senior pastor) yesterday and he was telling me about a conversation he had last week with his father. He told him, “Ya these 2 Americans have rocked up [Aussie slang for “come” or “arrived”] and gotten involved in everything which has encouraged others to get involved more. It’s been a real blessing!” I don’t know how true that is, but when you don’t have all the other distractions of lake, family, friends, Grace, less work, television, etc. you find you spend more time at church. I truly don’t know what we would have done without God leading us to this church. Our “normal week” runs:

• Sunday – Church at least once. Clarice often plays the flute. A couple of times she played (is going to play) in both the morning and evening services.
• Monday – our usual “Jon and Clarice” evening
• Tuesday – Women’s and Men’s Bible Studies – these have been awesome at developing individual friendships
• Wednesday – Couple Cell Group Bible Study – “our” friends together
• Thursday – I help in the kids afternoon program (Kidz Arvo) for a couple of hours. Late Night Shopping.
• Friday – something with church friends
• Saturday – Australian Adventure Day

Next weekend we are going up to the Hunter Valley area (2 hours north) where all of the wineries are. Kinda funny for 2 people who don’t like wine! Still, the tours ought to be interesting and we might get a bottle or two for some of the nice people at church here.

Holiday thoughts: We have been invited to a friend’s party on Christmas Eve, plan to spend a little time Christmas Day on the beach just because we can, and then we are thinking about a trip from the 26th thru the morning of the 31st. Either Adelaide or Tasmania. Both have wonderful natural attractions that I’d like to see. We like nature trips and looking at all the wondrous things God has created. Australia is a lot like the US in that it is HUGE and has a little bit of everything.

In January we are taking a long weekend to go to Melbourne for the Australian Open Tennis Tournament. We got ground passes for Saturday morning, then tickets for the main stadium for the evening session. Sunday we’ll explore and shop. Also, in January we are going with some friends to visit the friend’s aunt in Parkes, NSW – famous mostly for the giant radio dish designed to catch transmissions from outer space. It was also instrumental in the lunar missions to allow communication when North America was out of line-of-sight with the moon. That’ll be fun. The weekend between those trips Clarice is speaking at a “Metal Purchasers” conference about global trends and I’m tagging along. It is down in Wollongong – southern suburb of Sydney – so no big adventure there, but maybe fun for me.

Alright. That should hold you for a little while!

Jon