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Cam's Bday at the base.

July 18, 2011

Hello!  We are finally able to give an update...a summary of the last few weeks here in Australia....I know I said our communications would be short and sweet, but we have a couple of weeks to catch you up on!

First of all, many of you were involved in our final days in Sacramento and we again want to say thank you to all who helped -packing, cleaning, moving and storing our stuff.  Many of you helped with painting and gardening and repairs to prepare the house to sell:  a whole army of helpers that we couldn’t have finished up California life without.  Thanks to you who fed us and to the Young’s for letting us mess up their house for the last few days!  (Kevin, you are lucky you missed it!)

Our team, minus a few

The flight was long, but thankfully uneventful (except missing a connecting flight in Sydney and adding 5 hours to the journey).  Thank God, all our luggage/guitars arrived safely.

We arrived Saturday night and started school on Monday, which for the first few days was registration and tours of campus, doing logistics like registering with the gov’t to be able to work with children and get our train passes. 

Rick and I share a 3 BR, 2 bath house with 2 other young couples, one from America and one from Ethiopia.  We live about a 7 minute walk from the base.  The kids are living in their own dorms, Cameron on base with the boys and Maddie in a separate house/dorm with a bunch of girls.  We see them at meal times and here and there between classes.  They have also come over the last 2 Sundays for a big breakfast and catch-up session.

The cost of bananas

Our school, Foundations of Community Development, is preparing us to enter a community, assess needs and assist with meeting those needs, but with a perspective of moving the community and individuals toward God’s intentions.  The first week we learned about the kingdom of God, and this week about Biblical World View.  Both weeks had the dual purpose of teaching us how to look at communities and to help us see where we might need to be changed, to challenge our own development before thinking we could help anyone else.    

The content of the lectures has been very eye-opening and spiritually challenging and we have found being in YWAM again to be refreshing.  Just to be able to have the time to learn, to pray and meditate on what we are learning has been amazing and we are very thankful to be here.

We haven’t had time to see much of Australia, but we hope to start venturing around in the upcoming weeks.

At the end of September, we will go on outreach to Papua New Guinea, (PNG) and then to the Kimberley’s in northern area of Western Australia.  

The kids don’t know where their outreach will take them yet.  So for now, we are studying hard, enjoying life with our new friends and classmates, not loving that we left summer and are in winter again, but we won’t be complaining when we are spending Christmas at the beach!

We would love to hear from you, and fill you in on more specifics.  We appreciate your prayers for adjusting, learning and getting prepared for what is ahead.  Please let us know how we can pray for you, as we have lots of time for prayer these days!

With love, 

Rick and Gail
P.O. Box 8501 
Perth Business Centre
WA, 6849  Australia