Days 6 and 7: a 2nd conference

These two days (18 & 19) we spent at OMF Australia home staff conference.
It was a "day" conference: i.e. attendees were either staying at their own home, or billetted out. We parked the motorhome in the backyard of one of our Sydney-based colleagues and slept there. So the "where are you staying" questions provided interesting conversation starters!

The focus of this conference was on the people who work in Australia for OMF long term (as opposed to people like ourselves who primarily work overseas). They cover a wide range of roles from finance and other admin, to walking alongside people interested in becoming cross-cultural workers and looking after workers like ourselves. Around 40 or so were in attendance, and had come from around Australia. On Monday morning we also had some field representatives from a few East Asian countries, as well as our speaker from Sri Lanka.

For three nights in Sydney we slept here

This was the first time we’d been invited to attend the home staff conference and it was a great blessing. We’ve had time to get to know some of these people who have served us for a short or long time. The conference included worship and teaching times which were welcome encouragements. 

Plus, we “home assignees” were given opportunity to give feedback to the homeside about our experience of their support of us. Moving in and out of the country takes a lot of effort and moving between admin centres (for us, Japan and Australia) can be tricky for all sides of the equation. We were glad of the opportunity to give our perspective on things, including some constructive feedback.

We’re grateful for a quiet, scenic spot to stay in a big city like Sydney, though were still struggling a little to get used to the bed which is quite solid, so I didn't sleep as well as I'd have liked.

We also got lots of walking in as we left our motorhome in situ and instead caught trains and walked.

One of the beautiful streets we walked along

I had good conversations during the conference with a handful of people, including one with another mum of a child who isn't neurotypical. We cried together. And another conversation with parents of kids around the same age as ours who have had to make hard decisions about their ministry location.

There is a great deal of common understanding when cross-cultural workers get together. It really is something we love to do.

It’s common to feel completely exhausted after multiple days of missionary conferences. By the end of these two days I felt like was running on coffee and adrenaline. I was looking forward to some slower days later this week.

This was the end of our sojourn in Sydney and in the next stage of our journey we headed off to another city and our final "ministry" appointments before our long holiday.