Finishing off our Western Australia trip

We're back in South east Queensland and gradually recovering from our trip. We arrived back at just after 5am yesterday and came straight home to sleep.

Sunday is a blur, as is Monday morning. Yesterday afternoon many of us felt that Monday morning was "yesterday", probably because we'd had a significant sleep in-between!

We visited All Nations Westminster Presbyterian Church on Sunday morning, speaking in the service and running Sunday school for the 8-12 year olds. My exhaustion was obvious (to us) when I stood in front of the 100+ people and had trouble putting together coherent sentences. Afterwards as usual, we talked to a lot of people, including: 

• a Peruvian lady who was intrigued by our youngest son's "Peru" soccer shirt. The shirt was given to him by my parents who went to Peru to visit a missionary from their church. She was even more interested in the fact that there was an Australian missionary working in "the boonies" in Peru.
• some Queenslanders who were on holidays and usually attend the church of good friends of ours. We were last at the same church as this couple when they were cooking for a Wycliffe conference on Mount Tamborine. But we didn't meet them at that time, as is common they knew who we were because we spoke up front at the church. 
• some YWAM workers who know one of our YWAM friends in Tokyo, whose son is our eldest's best friend
• a Singaporean whose teenage brother is a TCK (she is too, but only moved after she was 15, so isn't so profoundly effected). Singaporean, but Brazilian inside, then moved back to Singapore.
• an Australian (adult TCK who grew up in the Middle East) and his German wife who are missionaries in Jordan.

Now that is what I call an interesting bunch of people. A very international church indeed!

We had lunch afterwards with our hosts (ethnic Chinese, but spent most of their lives in Australia), a Filipina who's also a long-term Australian resident as well as a long-time prayer supporter and advocate for us in this church, the above mentioned missionaries to Jordan and some others I don't know who are mission-committee members. It is such a blessings to have been supported by this internationally flavoured church for more than 14 years now.

We rested for an hour after the late lunch and then headed off (sans boys) to another church that has supported us in the past. We weren't speakers this time and it was strange to be there without a defined role. Though we'd told someone we were coming, no one appeared to be expecting us and indeed only one person sort-of recognised us. Not being there in an official capacity was a bit odd, but being at church without the boys was even more odd. We can't actually remember when we last did that.

This super little car got us around Perth and surrounds.
I wish we'd managed to get further out of Perth than we
did, but it turns out I was way too ambitious!

Our plan had been to go from church to the airport for our 10.30pm flight, but church finished early. So we headed for the nearest cafe that we could find open on a Sunday night (that part of Perth was very sleepy): McCafe. We sat there for an hour reading the newspapers, then headed to the airport, which was hopping! Our host brought the boys. He also brought an extra driver to take back the car we'd been lent for the week.

The flight was an hour shorter than our flight over, I think that is because the jet stream flows from west to east? In any case, I must have drifted off to an uneasy sleep for some of the trip because the time went very quickly. There was only one baby on the flight and no toddlers, from what I could see. The baby was the row in front of us and was very good until about 4.30am when he screamed and screamed.

We landed a bit after 5am and hurried home as quickly as we could. David and I crashed at about 7 and I slept for four hours. Then I got up, had a "catch" lunch with everyone and headed out for groceries. Caffeine got me through the afternoon and evening. 

It was a wrestling training/gym night, so we didn't get home until about 7.30, but hurried to bed as fast as our one-bathroom allowed us to. It's getting a bit old now, we've pushed the boys through showers after coming home late too many times this last week. I'm happy to be home and looking forward to a more day-time focused schedule.

This morning I rode to school with the guys, but when I got home I felt so tired. I ended up snoozing for a bit and then reading in bed till lunch-time. Yes, this last week has taken its toll on me. Three midnight nights in four days is too many for this girl.