Post-monster weekend

We stayed in inner city Sydney and I enjoyed seeing all the
old sandstone buildings lining the streets. Quite a different
look to a city in Japan. This is Central Station.

Yep, we've been back in Brisbane for a few days now and are still trying to get traction. Actually it feels as though that's been the case ever since we arrived in Australia over nine weeks ago.

David and I were talking about this as we drove home this morning from yet another one-off opportunity to share about what we do in Japan and the needs there—no single work-week looks the same as any other. That means we're having trouble getting into any kind of rhythm. I know that I've written about that before, but it continues to be an issue that we struggle with.

Time in Sydney and Canberra

Friday was an "in house" meeting time for missionaries
with OMF, whether serving in Australia or in Australia on
home assignment. We were also blessed with all the
 members of the international leadership team, including
our international director.

That is probably not going to change until we're back in Japan in January, so I guess we just have to go with the flow as best we can.

The weekend away in Sydney and Canberra played out pretty much as we'd expected. Plus the stuff you're not supposed to talk about: grumpy teenagers, grumpy adults dealing with grumpy teenagers, and four exhausted people trying to deal with all the demands. Even the extroverts on the "team" were struggling by the end of more than three days of constant people to cope nicely. 

On Sunday, after three late nights, we were very pleased to get back to where we were staying before 9pm. And then there was great relief in the troops to set our sights for home on Monday morning. Monday functioned as a "day off", even though we had an 1½ hr flight in the middle of it. We did no other work other than travel, which was a nice mental break.

Our international director (second from right) sitting with Sydney pastors
(and their wives )who've known him many years. 
One of these saw him when he became a
Christian as an international student many years ago.

We had a sprained ankle thrown into the mix too. Our youngest used crutches much of our time away, especially in the longer walks: between hotel and conference venue, between conference venue and inter-city bus stop (a 1.5 km walk, partly uphill!), and in the three airports we traversed. 

Jumping to Canberra. We were excited to see many get involved in our
origami. So many wanted to do it that we had to set up a whole table.

There were many people, but also many encouraging encounters over the weekend. I'm struggling to recall examples, from many conversations at the OMF conference, but I do remember that many at the church on Sunday remembered us from times past. It is the fifth time we've visited this church over the last 19 years and the last time we went to their church camp. That many encounters begins to leave an impression on a group. It's a church that was very much on our team from day one and have stayed with us all those years. Though it is a long journey from here, we're always encouraged to visit them. 

Time out

I spotted opportunity and deliberately took some small slots of time-out on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. 

On the Saturday I got some delicious coffee and stumbled upon the Queen Victoria Building. A place I'm pretty sure my parents dragged us through when we visited Sydney many years ago...but my memory is very vague on that. It has amazing architecture and is just a beautiful place to just walk around. Not a place, however, that I would take my family of boys, they would be very bored unless we found some food.

My photos are woefully inadequate. The scale of the place is amazing and not easy to get into a frame of an iPhone! I was mostly just needing time-out from people (and hadn't planned on photograph opportunities). I brought a book here and read for over an hour.

Queen Victoria building, built in the late 1800s. It's not full of shops.

 A sample of the stained glass windows.

In Canberra, for lunch we went to the house of a friend of David's from uni days. I noticed a park just up the road. Later mid-afternoon I went for a wander and found some cherry and plum blossoms blooming! Not too many people get to see that twice in one year.

Happy to be heading for home. Canberra Airport isn't large. I boarded early
with our son on crutches, and we spotted David and our other son walking to the plane.