An interesting week

I've had some unusual days this week. 

Tuesday
On Tuesday afternoon I caught a train, then bus to visit my parents up in Toowoomba. The plan for the had begun as an attempt to fulfil one of our duties as OMF home assignees. We are asked to go around and visit the various mission prayer groups, that usually meet once a month. They are quite scattered and not easy to get to when you have children at school, but nonetheless we try. My parents usually host one, so I planned to attend their prayer group on Wednesday. 

Australia at its finest. They've had rain
here recently.

Wednesday I went up early because I wanted to see what my parents have been doing at my old high school. They've been putting a simple breakfast on for students once a week as a chaplaincy event. In fact they've been quite involved in supporting the chaplain at my alma mater. But as they live 1 ½ hrs from here and I needed to be there by 8am, I decided to go up the night before.

Then it got complicated. I was going to drive and leave the family without a car for a time, but then we discovered that they'd planned to hold the prayer meeting at someone else's house, 50 minutes north-east of Toowoomba. So we changed the plan so that they could all attend. I would catch a bus to Toowoomba and they would meet us the next day. 

It all unravelled when our car, which was at the mechanics for some repairs, didn't get "discharged" until too late (more than a day after we took it to the mechanics). So it was just me representing the family. But, in hindsight the whole affair, which seemed a little odd, actually meant we did have someone at the prayer meeting. If I hadn't had gone up the night before none of us would have been there. So I'm thankful.

The room where we had the prayer meeting on Wednesday.
Gorgeous! This couple lent us their house back in 2010 for
a holiday while they were away. Great memories.

But then I had a problem, how to get back home again. From the prayer meeting I went back to Mum's and Dad's place and we were considering the possibilities when Mum's phone rang. It was her sister who happened to be in town with her husband visiting a sick relative. They live in Brisbane and were driving back that afternoon. Wow, I had my lift! Plus an hour and a half with my aunt and uncle who I rarely see. Wonderful!

Thursday
We drove to another out-of-Brisbane prayer meeting on Thursday (having received our car back on Wednesday afternoon). It took almost two hours each way, and two hours of chatting while we were there. But thankfully the house had a pool, so our boys had lots of fun and exercise too!

Friday
We dashed to the library this morning to get our supplies for the holidays (we're going away next week till after Christmas).

Then we had some guests for lunch. Mum and Dad were in Brisbane visiting a sick relative (yes, there's a theme there) so they dropped in on their way home and at the same time we'd planned to have the son of colleagues in Japan come with his girlfriend for lunch. So, it turned into quite a festive affair. We "shook the fridge" and came up with a decent spread. Fun!

In between all that and preparing for Christmas and going away, there hasn't been much time to write here or do other computer work. But I do have to say that the boys have been very helpful because of the new rules we put in place on Monday (see here). We've had plenty of help with housework and they've gotten exercise everyday too.

It's been wonderful to get into the Christmas spirit the Australian way. With boys on summer holidays, the summer heat, storms, cricket on the TV and making preparations for Christmas, it's really felt Christmassy. In a way that we don't get in Japan.