Wonderful surprises in Sydney

It is amazing how everything works together for the good of those that love the Lord. Pete had the honour of doing a bible study with some of the Stormers guys. A great group of men. We then managed to watch them play live in the Aussie stadium where they WON. How cool is that?! I on the other hand was able to attend the Hillsong's womans conference called colour your world. A real inspiring, challenging and enriching conference. It was really profound as they spoke so much about Africa. I found it amazing how God took me to Sydney to hear about my home land. God is doing something significant with woman, we just need to believe that we are His daughters and take hold our responsibility that comes with this honour.

Sydney-here we come.

What an Awesome place-a real magical city at night. We were hosted by a great guy called Brenden who was a fantasic tour guide and host. We so apprecited it! These are some of the things we did in Sydney: Brenden took us out to an amazing Vietnamese restaurant, Pete and I ran along the ANZAC bridge, we walked in the Botanical garden, went to the fish market for some sushi (thought of you Jono and Taz) saw the Sydney harbour brige, we saw the opera house, went to see Mcdeath sorry Mcbeth at the opera house! Caught a ferry to Manly beach where we ate our first Hungry Jacks and walked along the beautiful beaches. We also walked from Cooggi beach to Bondi-where we swam in these AMAZING rock pools. I know Sydney holds a special place in your heart mom and I can see why....

Food for our souls...

Pete and I then left the rest on the group on Saturday to start heading to Sydney. We had to drive up Tom's car to Sydney-so we were very blessed with wheels-a real GREEN MACHINE. We were so blown away by the sights we saw that we only ended up getting to Sydney by Tuesday evening. We exlpored the various coasts lines, so many 'deserted' looking beaches- we could have been in a movie set. We ended up camping in Mystery Bay and the the green patch-Jervis bay. This was real bonding time and food for our souls. We even saw a whale. God was showing off at how amazing His creation is. At three o 'clock on the Monday afternoon we decided to head to the Blue mountains! Rather spur of the moment decision, after finding that there aren't too many campsites in the "mountains" we had to settle for what we could esecially as it was already dark!! We were expecting the Drakensberg but alas it just wasn't the same. We went for a three hour work along the canyons. This really was great although again it was raining!! The weather however was not going to spoil our fun!! Oh, Chris guess what? We saw a snake YES a HUGE snake parked along the path. Rather heart pumping incident!

Camping time!!

We started with a 7 hour trip to our first camping sight 40 km off road from Canne river. We went with a whole group of families including many wonderful children. (Katie was in her element) We did this amazing dune walk. The weather was rather overcast and we even had some rain, but perfect for the walk we were doing! We went down some of these dunes by foot, tried to go down on cardboard, but proved difficult because the sand was rather wet! The best way to get down turned out to be on Marty's boogie board. Boy did we have FUN!! The camping sight was rather rustic no running water and long drops, but oh SO beautiful situated right next to the sea.

Healesville Sanctuary

A day out with an African American Pastor, the Miller Brady bunch and the full spectrum of Aussie wildlife.

We toured through Healesville sanctuary, a stunning animal rehab centre for Koala's that have eaten too many eucalyptus leaves, echidna's that spike themselves and Wallabies that want to run like a springbok! It was a brilliant place full of amazing animals and Chris, even a few hot Vets (now I know why you studied veterinary science). The highlight though was watching the bird of prey show with awesome eagles, owls and even Beatrice the black-breasted buzzard.

It has also been good to spend the weekend with Pastor Bill Bennot who is the apostolic oversight for Africa - so we have been inspiring Aussies to be more involved in Africa - our Home!

1000 stair challenge

Ok - so Katie and I have joined a running group that meet up once a week in a different part of town to train and socialise...

This week we met at the base of the Dandenong mountain range to do what is called the 1000 stair challenge - OK so I was told it is only 760 steps or something but who cares, my butt and calves assure me that I carried Yogi bear up that mountain twice yesterday!

Anyhow, what a great group of people and full of fun and fitness...