Leaving for an adventure in Western Australia

We're going to Perth tomorrow, all five of us. I know, it sounds glamorous. I'm classifying it as something of a working-holiday.

But we're not going there as a holiday destination. Our purpose is work. We're visiting

This is about how old our two older boys were when
they last went to Western Australia.

about six different groups of supporters. Some are churches, others are pray-ers. We'll be working five of our nine evenings there, plus some both Sunday mornings. Each time we'll be speaking or leading a program, from the shortest at seven minutes, to over an hour at the longest.

This is the third time I've been to Western Australia on a similar kind of journey. David's been four times. We're so thankful to our faithful supporters over there. Our church is part of a small denomination that began in the west and there are more churches there than anywhere else in Australia. Though they've rarely seen us, they've been faithful in praying and giving over the last 14 years and we're going over to say thank you.

In the midst of all that we're planning to enjoy showing our boys another corner of the country they are citizens of. We'll have three whole days of no work or significant travel, and some partial days. We're hoping to get some serious tourism happening. I've even lined up a possible visit to a Western Australian wrestling club!

This is no small journey. It takes five and a half hours to fly over, and strangely, four and a half to fly back (4,365km, further than New York to Los Angeles). I remember when we first went over we had to beg OMF for funds to cover our fares.  It isn't a cheap way to do deputation, but it's been worth it.

It's become part of our family's story. I have a significant scar on my knee from my last visit there when I fell hard on a ramp down to a train platform. Our eldest son celebrated his first birthday on the flight back. Our middle son has only been there once, when he was two and our youngest has never been there (except in utero). So we want to take this opportunity to introduce our three, now older, boys to the capital in the west.

Hopefully I'll be able to blog a bit while we're over there, so I can share something of our fun and work.