Christmas Pictures

Hervey Bay, The day after Christmas





Australian "snow ball" fight about to begin




R.T. hitting Abbie with a big "snowball"





a true aussie





The best Christmas Present. A Care package from home


No explanation needed

Merry Christmas

For those of you who do not have an insanely busy Christmas and are able to catch up on some blogs.....MERRY CHRISTMAS.
We have come to terms with having Christmas in shorts and are looking forward to celebrating Christmas with some traditions from home and also some newly adopted traditions.
Our children will open stockings tonight (Christmas Eve). This is American. The tradition here is to open a huge "santa sack" first thing on Christmas morning - alot of times prezzies are opened on Christmas Eve. Instead of attending a Christmas Eve service, we will attend a Christmas morning service. We will have our traditional fancy breakfast and a big dinner in the evening. An Australian tradition that we are looking forward to is having plum pudding. We have been invited to a friends house to "fancy our tastebuds".
The kids will be surprised with their final gifts. They get some squirt guns. They get to go outside with dad and grandpa and "cool off" This is an Australian tradition. Supposibly it is against the drought rules, but it is not strictly enforced on Christmas :-)
We will leave on Friday morning and will head to the beach for a couple of days. This is what most Australians do for the holiday.
May God bless you all this holiday season with good times with friends and family and a closer relationship with Jesus Christ.

Clubs

O.k. there is a club for everything. I would say in our town alone, there is probably 25 or more clubs (i.e. woodworking, swimming, autism etc). Most clubs require a gold coin ($1,$2)donation to participate. I have been part of the "go getter girls" for about 6 weeks now. We are a running group. We meet at 5:30am on Mon, Thurs and we run 5k's. On Tues and Sat. we meet at the same time; but on tues, we do cross training and Saturday, we run between 10 and 12k's.
This morning was our last run for the year. When we arrived, we found that we were going to have a party. Our coach started by saying that a surprise guest travelled from a far to attend. Little did I know, I was the surprise guest. They introduced me to an Australian Christmas, including beach chair, cooler, and a decorated beach hat. I also learned to play backyard Cricket. The party ended with an Australian snowball (a cup of water)being thrown at me.
It was a very nice way to curb some of the holiday homesickness blues. I have said before...Australians have to be some of the friendliest people around.

Carols in the park

Carols in the park is a tradition that occurs in towns all across Australia. We were very excited to be a part of it. Ours was not in the park, instead it was in front of the town hall. We enjoyed this outdoor event in our shorts in about 75 degree weather. It started at 7 p.m. with the moderator telling about the true meaning of Christmas. This was followed by the scripture about Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem and finding no

room in the hostel (inn)

After this some public school children sang carols and Christmas songs. The audience also joined in on singing many carols. We then had another scripture reading and another precessional .

After singing and hearing more carols, we enjoyed the highlight of the evening. This was the scripture reading about the wise men visiting Jesus. The wise men arrived in style. What a treat!!!

After the arrival of the wise men, a good friend of ours (a great Christian and a recorded musician) performed a few songs. The evening ended around 9 with the presenting of the gospel message. We were in awe that this performance could be had in front of the town hall. What amazes me even more is that this town of 10,000 has fewer people attending church on Sunday morning than what attends First Baptist WP on Sunday morning.

Even though we miss home, the american traditions and all the snow that West Plains is getting, we feel humbled and blessed to be here and experience Christmas in Australia.

The Messiah

Dressed up WITH some place to go. On Thursday, Dec. 4th, we were blessed to be able to hear the Handel's Messiah performed by the Sydney Philharmonic Symphony Chorus, Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonic Messiah Chorus. There were about 50 in the orchestra and there were 500 voices. There were also 4 soloists.
I have always been in awe of the Messiah. I think that it is one of the best written Christian pieces. Not only are the instrumentals incredibly melodius, but the words to the songs are incredible. Being able to hear this piece performed in such an awe-inspiring place, made the Messiah that much better.
While listening to the performance this time, I kept a copy of the words in front of me. Words like...."surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him" and "Why do the nations so furiously rage together;...the kings of earth rise up and the rulers counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed" and "Hallelujah; for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth..He shall reign forever" Lastly...."I know that my redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though the worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."
I was listening to the words about nations fighting and people rising up against God and I was just reminded up all the filth that is around me. I was feeling a bit burdened by the economic times and about our future leadership. Just as I was feeling a bit depressed, I was jolted back into the reality of the performance when I heard 500 voices sing "Hallelujah: For the Lord God omnipotent (all powerful God) reigneth." I went from a feeling a despondensy to elation in a matter of minutes. I feel so blessed that I do not have to worry about the stress of the world around me. I feel completely at peace knowing that God knows the past and He knows the future...He is in control of the future....I really hope that during this holiday season that you can also feel the only true peace that comes from God. Hallelujah !!! my God reigns.

Sydney

We can tick Sydney off the list. We arrived home from Sydney yesterday (friday) after being there for a week. We took a ferry to Manly Island, explored the Military reserve (now home of the Biggest Loser - Australia), went to Bondi beach (the side where there are no tan lines and the family side), we ran several mornings in the botanical gardens, went to the zoo, shopping....and yes.....we saw the Opera house. I was not too impressed at first, but on Thurs. we took a tour. That place really does deserve the praise that it gets. It is amazing!!! It is a building within a building. The roof is actually made up of over a million little tiles with 5 varing colors. This allows the building to change from white, to pink, to tan, to yellow. When standing on the side that faces the harbour, it feels like you are on a ships bow. RT actually felt like he was moving. On thurs. night we went to hear the Sydney Philharmonic Ochestra and Choirs perform the Handels Messiah in the Opera House. More on that in a different blog.

We are now back home. We set up our Charlie Brown Christmas tree this morning. The temperature inside of our house is 85 degrees. We heard that West Plains had snow this past week......ahhh must be nice....week......ahhh must be nice....

Thanksgiving in Australia

Bondi Beach

Flowers at Botanical gardens(pic for Dr. Laurie)

sitting in the botanical gardens overlooking the Opera House

On holiday, poll results

We will be leaving for holiday (vacation) tomorrow (saturday). We are going to see the Sydney Opera house. I will not post any more blogs until we get back.
R.T. was somewhat saddened that people do not think of him as a "relaxed kind of guy" :-) There were two of you who thought that he would wear shorts - two who thought that he would wear them when the thermostat reached 100. the other 12 votes thought that he would not wear them. I will keep you updated......he does wear jeans (with dress shoes) a couple of times a week.....so just maybe the shorts will become reality......

What is Tea

This seems to be an obvious question. In the states, we would say that it is the black or green liquid that we would serve as a hot or cold drink.
I have found that is not always the answer here. One day, while waiting for my kids at swim lessons, I was talking with a friend. She apologized for eating her watermelon in front of me, she was having tea....TEA...I call that watermelon. I was checking out at the market the other day, when the manager came and asked the girl checking me out, if she would like tea......
Tea can be a hot drink, but it can mean lunch, dinner, snack or just used as an excuse if you want to get out of doing something. You have to decide on the context of how it is used. I was invited to tea at 2p.m. - that meant snack. My parents were invited for tea at 6p.m. - they were served dinner.

Rain forest

These are our favorite trees. R.T. and Cas dream about building a fort in one





Most of the path was dirt. Here there is a wooden pathway over a swampy area.




There were many parrots out and about Bunya Pine with ferns growing on it.


We were in awe of God's creation while we were in the rainforest. Cas commented that it would be impossible to count the different kinds of vegetation that God created. The rain forest is only about 40 minutes from us and is a nice escape from the summer heat.

Doctors attire

Things are a bit more relaxed here. There is one doctor that comes to work in his shorts and a non ironed polo. There is one doc that is commonly seen wearing jeans and a polo. There is an unnamed doc :-) that is commonly seen wearing kakki's and a button down, ironed shirt. There does not seem to be a dress code. I have not seen a white lab coat yet - just think no "white coat hypertension".

house and scenery

We have had many people inquire about our house. We have a normal american looking house. I have included in this blog a picture of a queenslander house. This is actually a run down queenslander. These homes are elevated and they have windows around most of the house. A lot of times, they have decks that surround the house.

The house with the purple trees is not our house. We are the one with a burgandy roof and tan brick. I have included pics of the purple trees and palms. They are so pretty. We have really enjoyed the scenery. The first pic is at a local vineyard. We actually were taking a break from the election coverage and went to hang out up there. The owners came out of their house while we were there and told us the election results.

If anyone can help me on my format for my blog. I am having trouble posting my pics in the order I want and then writing captions under them.

Praise God

We got news today that our house in Willow has finally closed. That house held so many wonderful memories shared with family and friends that it is probably a good thing that it took 18 months to sell it. It is also a good thing that we do not have to actually sign the papers and hand the keys over :-{. We are also thankful to God for the things that He taught us this past year in regards to holding two mortgages - ie. waiting on His timing and giving complete control of our lives to His perfect will (o.k. we are still working on the latter) Thanks to all of you who have prayed with us and supported us during the past 1 1/2 years.

Chocolate

I thought that you all needed some smaller posts. I have found that when you like to talk alot it translates to writing alot :-)
Chocolate has been a bit of an issue for me. I have found that Americans know their chocolate. I went to the market to get some semi-sweet chips. I could not find them....I went to the other market and found a manager. He led me to a section that had chocolate products about 3 feet long on ONE shelf. I asked him where the rest was. Then I continued to explain america's need for chocolate. I have found that I cannot get semisweet chips. I can get a cooking form of dark choc. and milk choc. Which in my opinion, are very poor quality. (We are going to Sydney in a few weeks and I am going to be on the hunt for some chocolate. I have been making alot of no- bake oatmeat cookies as I can get cocoa powder.
by the way, peanut m&m's and snickers are 1.60. Also, because we do not have hersheys or giredelli's the mocha drinks are different as well.

Mc Donalds

I went through the drive through this morning at McDonalds (I really wanted a mocha). I drove through the parking lot at the front and then drove to the left side of the building. See we don't just encounter the problem of the steering wheel on the wrong side....everything is backwards.

drought

So what does it mean to be suffering from a drought? This is something that we are still learning. It is a big change going from the flooded lakes of West Plains to the "empty dams" of King*roy. We now have a four minute hour glass that has a sunction cup that is in our shower. I was talking with a lady this week and I was telling her that I liked our big bathtub. It was really great to fill it up to the top and relax. She looked at me like I had committed a huge crime and exclaimed "our dam is empty"...I think that I will stick to a four minute shower. We also drink rainwater- It has a very sweet taste-. Our town is on a level 5 water ration right now. This means that we are allowed to use a hose from 5-6p.m. on even numbered days-no sprinklers allowed. Our neighbor told us that the desert ( the outback) is moving out. It is a big fear that in the future there will not be enough of this natural resource to live here. ....I have included a picture of our rain tank that sits behind our hot water heater

Pics

Top Left (our town and countryside)

Top Right (R.T. and kids at local vineyard)

Middle Left( a wing at the hospital)

Middle Right (vineyard)

Bottom (Abbie sitting in drivers seat of our car)

I did not include a pic of our house. It is pretty american looking. We actually love the local houses that are on stilts - I will try and include a pic of them later on this year.

We are loving our house. We feel so blessed and undeserving of what we have been given. We do feel that it is a bit strange that the house has neither air or heat. We have already been a bit warm this week and it is only Spring. It will be an experience when the temp outside is 110. I think that we may go and purchase a fan. I keep telling myself that people lived for many years with out air.....

Thanks for the comments, it is encouraging to know that someone is reading our blogs :-)

Home

Today has been a good day. In anticipation of today, we did homeschool yesterday so that today we could enjoy the moment.....WE MOVED INTO OUR HOUSE. After living out of suitcases for 7 weeks and staying at 6 different locations, we were very ready to settle down into some normalcy. Actually, I have been looking forward to this moment for about 6 months. The last few months in the states were so busy and unsettled.
Queensland Health has gone above and beyond what we expected to make us feel at home. We have a four bedroom home that is only a year old. We have only a few "hand me downs" from other docs and everything else is new (new beds, living room furniture, dishes etc) They have also provided us with a desk in each of the kids rooms and a computer desk for the living area. We feel VERY blessed.
I think that we have found our church home. Our fellowship is about 60 people. We meet on Sunday mornings from 9:30-11:00 and then we have "tea" (a varied collection of hot and cold drinks and fruit and biscuits-cookies). We are one of the larger churches in the area. I was talking with a friend the other day and she was stunned to hear that, even though our towns are similar in size, we have several churches that are over 500 people. I told her that we were in the Bible belt though-not all of America is like that. With that she said that this area is the Bible belt of Queensland. I guess we have our work cut out for us.
We are getting involved in the community. The kids are doing swimming in the afternoons-I think that the Australians idolize Ian Thorpe a little more than we do M.Phelps. Both of our kids are in the beginners class learning how to do the different strokes. Abbie is also doing gymnastics on Monday mornings and I am meeting with homeschool moms fortnightly on Thurs for bible study. Dad has joined a wood workers group and they meet on Sat. mornings.
R.T. is enjoying being home more. Last night was his first night "on call". The ER closes at 10:30pm with just a nurse who stays there. Then they call the doc if necessary. He ended up having to ship someone out via helicopter and was home around 1:30. The hospital staff is learning what "type A" means. We get many good laughs at the difference in the cultures.
I will close this blog for now. We are still using internet library, but we have ordered the internet for home and it should be working in 5 to 14 days. At that time, I will blog a lot of pictures. Thank you SO MUCH for all your prayers. We would love to hear from you .

aliens

Sorry about the quick post yesterday, I had so much to say and so little time.
I wanted to tell you all about our trip to the immigration office last week. We had to go and get our visas put into our passports. It dawned on us while we were there, that we were now the immigrants. R.T. is the one who is a foreign medical grad. We are the ones with an accent. This is a strange feeling.
The day we arrived in AU. Abbie told us that she thought that she already had an accent. We told her that she really did have an accent; but the way that she said her words had not changed in 24 hours.
I was checking out at the grocery store and I was asking if something was "cheaper" and they looked at me strangely. I then phrased my words differently and we communicated just fine.
R.T. went to type up his c/section report yesterday (no there is no dictaphone) and he found that he wrote many of his words wrong. (ie esophagus is spelled with an oesophagus. So instead of doing a TEE they do TOES)
Everything is good though. We are getting used to the new ways and words. I am afraid that we will be foreigners this whole year. There is nothing that we can do about it. :-) It will be good to be home and blend in a little bit more :-)

We are at least in our home town

We are very excited that we were able to drive up to our town. R.T. told us about this option to stay up here, and we were all very excited about moving. We are currently in a 4 bedroom house. It is meeting our needs until we can move into our house at the end of the month.
The drive up here was amazing. We went through countryside, flat lands and even the rain forest. We saw three dead roos on the trip up and many live cacatoos (sp). After arriving, R.T. visited the local hospital. It is very basic...very basic. They have an x ray machine if they call someone in to use it. I told him the hospital looked retro from the outside and he just looked at me saying that the hospital predated retro. He is very much looking forward to the challenge of "real"medicine. He is still doing his orientation in Ip--ich, near Br-sb-ne. They are very impressed with his skill. He flew though the endoscopy part and after doing 2 c/sections this morning, they said that he did not need to show them anymore. They said that he is the most qualified doc. that have had at our rural hospital. I may be a proud wife, but that is now surprise to me.
Our first evening, we were told to go up to one of the local wineries for dinner. we were told that it overlooks the town. While driving up we saw 2 (alive) roos and the countryside reminded up of Italy. It was AMAZING. (Pics will come in Nov. when we have internet at our house) Unfortunately, the winery was rented out for a wedding, so we went to another resturant in town that had great food.
We are very surprised with everything that this town offers. It is the same size as our hometown in missouri, but it offers much more. We have a home store that very much reminds us of our home store in willow (waggoners). We have a small mall, many parks, many resturants etc.
We joined about 40 fellow christians at the local presbyterian church yesterday. It was very good except the aver. age was about 65. The people were extremely nice though. I think that we will try the church of Christ of sunday. We were told that they have a younger/larger congregation and a nice praise band.
I need to go..I am out of time....

our first week

It is hard to believe that we have been here for 1 week. With all that we have seen and done, I have to admit that it seems like we have been here a lot longer. This last weekend we drove down to the gold coast (1 hour south) and went to the beach. We swam in the Coral Sea (in the Pacific Ocean). The waves were pretty big so R.T. got to show the kids how to body surf. R.T. and Cas also made a big sand castle. I decided to relax on the sand and see if the sun felt any different here than it does in the states….I think that I am going to have to do some more research on that subject.
On Sunday we were able to worship at a Baptist church about 15 minutes from here. That was so cool to be able to worship with people that are on a different continent. Once again, I am reminded about how big my God truly is.
After church, we drove into Brisbane (about 10 minutes) and spent a few hours soaking in city life. We wanted to go to the Botanical gardens, but they had a big event there and they were closed. Thankfully, we have a year to see them.
One thing that we have been amazed at is the parks. Before we flew to Australia, we made a stop over in California. While there we really enjoyed their outdoor life. It was so much better than what we were used to in Missouri. Well, I have to say that the parks here are even bigger and better. I don’t think that the Australian gov’t has to worry about lawsuits. Cas and Abbie love the zip lines and the big spider web-like climbing apparatus that towers high above our heads. The parks have electric barbies (not dolls). It is great; you just turn them on and throw on your meat. The park council goes to make sure that they stay clean. There are huge grassy areas, running trails and hiking trails. I am sorry that I am unable to portray the greatness of the parks. The best thing about these outdoor spaces is that it allows the family to gather and to laugh and to enjoy the best that life offers (outside of a personal relationship with God)
R.T. has started work. It has been a bit overwhelming. He has found that with socialized medicine come lots of paperwork and wasteful spending. Instead of ordering a simple test that might cost $15, they order a whole panel (which might cost $250). When he questioned them, they said that it does not matter as the government pays for it. He will continue his orientation through Tues. at least. If they decided that they want to observe him some more, we may have to stay through the end of the week.
There is much more to say, but I know that your time is valuable and that you are not sitting without much to do in a hotel room. So for now, I will close…
Isaiah 40 “Who else has held the oceans in His hand, who has measured off the heavens with his fingers….for all the nations of the world are but a drop in the bucket…He picks up the whole earth as if it were a grain of sand….To whom can you compare God.. The Lord is an everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth.”

koalas and roos

O.k. you all, we had the most amazing day. Before we left the states, I saw that there was a koala refuge about 20 miles from Brisbane (actually it is about 10 minutes from our hotel in Darra). We went there on Thurs. This place is absolutely awe-inspiring. It is basically just Koala's and kangeroos; but, we were able to spend 4 hours walking around, sitting and starring at these amazing creatures. There were pens of male koalas, pouch koalas, year old koalas, the retirement home etc. At lunch we sat in this open air pavilion that had tree stumps holding koalas. We were probably surrounded by 40 koalas. The best part is they were quite active for the time that we were eating lunch. Cas got some great video. One of our favorite parts was the kangeroos. We went into a fenced area that housed 150 roos. we were able to walk around and feed them. I am not able to express the excitement that this brought to all of us. we were able to pet, cuddle and feed them. A great thing about this place is that they take very good care of the animals.

For those who choose to visit us, this is a place that we will take you to :-)

g'day mates

I have been waiting to use that title for about a year. Yes, we are finally in Australia. Things have been a bit unsettled since our arrival and we have not been able to get internet access. We finally were able to get access this afternoon.
The plane trip over was not as long as we expected. Of course, having movies, TV shows, and games at each seat helped our time pass rather quickly.
Upon arrival, R.T. and I left the remainder of the family at the airport while we navigated the roads and took our luggage to the hotel. This was quite the experience. Might I say, that driving on the opposite side of the road is not an easy task. Not only are the surroundings on the outside of the car very different, but some of the controls on the inside of the car are also switched. After R,T, turned on the windshield wipers several times after meaning to turn on the blinker, I told him that he had to give me a nickel for every time he made that mistake. I have to tell you that I am now the proud owner of a new australian twenty dollar bill.....and we have a very clean windshield :-) By the way, we did make it back to pick up the family about 45 minutes after leaving them.
We have also learned that round-a-bouts are not always a bad thing. Did you know that you can keep going around and around and around and around....until you decide which street you want to turn off on. At first, we were really wishing for our four way stops, but we are slowly growing to like our round-a-bouts. FYI, if you are told to go through a roundabout, that means that you head out in the same direction that you came from. If you are told to do a U ie, that means that you go 3/4 the way around.
There is so much to say, but I do not want to bother you all with the minor details. R.T. and I have been able to laugh about wrong turns and have come to appreciate having a "back seat driver". We are stressed with the details of life, but God is good and we feel completely blessed and at peace with what God has for us.
vocab: trolley - shopping cart, or cart
your welcome - no worries
"sure" - too easy

My God is so Big.....

O.K. I said that I was not going to blog until we reached Australia, but this is to big to keep to myself. When we got on the plane in St. Louis, I sat next to this lady. It was one of those situations where you are not sure if you want to get involved in a conversation with a total stranger that you will never see again or just sit and enjoy being quiet and contemplative. After about 20 minutes, I decided to talk (o.k. so maybe I just couldn't stand to be quiet any longer when there was a human sitting next to me :-) It came out early in our conversation that we were headed to Australia. Soon the lady's conversation was broken and I had trouble understanding her. It was not long before her tears started to flow. Between the tears, I was able to make out that before she sat down, she was thinking that it sure would be great to have a person sit next to her that would be an australian contact for her son who was going to be an exchange student there. After thinking that, she thought "how stupid of me to wish something that has 0% chance of happening". ( You have to remember that we are on Southwest airlines going to San Diego. This was not an international flight). But little did she know that with God all things are possible. I also found out that her husband of 26 years died a premature death last year and was very anxious about her son going so far away. I doubt that our paths will ever cross again...with her or her son, but God is so amazing in how he works. ...My God is so Big, so strong and so Mighty, there is nothing my God cannot do.

The time has come

We are leaving tomorrow afternoon. After planning for this trip for a year, it seems hard to believe that we are within 24 hours of leaving. It has been a good week. We have shared some great meals with some great friends. Friendships have been deepened and the realization of leaving these friends behind has been bittersweet.
R.T. will be attending a conference in San Diego through Sunday and then we will be staying with family in Irvine until we leave on the 29th (at 11:30 p.m.). We will be arriving in Brisbane at 6:00 am on the 1st (even though it may seem like a two day flight, we will only be in the air for 13 hours).
Unless there is some big news, I will not update the blog until we arrive in Brisbane.

under a week

We are very excited about leaving in just 5 days. This past weekend, we were overwhelmed by the love and support of our church family. We were given a going away party and we felt humbled by the amount of people that attended. We, in no way feel deserving of the deep relationships that God has given to us. I now know why Paul usually started off his letter by praising God for the friendships that God gave him. "walking the walk" is so much easier when you have dear friends who are walking the same walk.
We have had several more developments in our trip preparations. The first is that we have a place for the fluffiest member of our family. Our kitty cat will be staying with a kind gentleman in our church. Also, our house in Willow has had alot of activity this past week. We actually have a person talking with the bank.
The other development is that suitcases are in every room of the house. We usually throw things in the suitcase the night before a trip. Not so with this trip. We are planning to close the suitcases on Sunday afternoon.

whooohooo

Tonight (Wed. 3rd) we got a phone call from our consultant stating that R.T.'s medical license has been approved. We now have plane tickets and our visa's will hopefully be approved by Oct. 6 (R.T.'s first day of work). We praise God for lifting this huge burden from our shoulders. We are now looking forward to seeing how God is going to work in the sell of our house

one month and counting

It is hard to believe that we will be leaving our West Plains address in a little less than one month. Before I get to much written, I wanted to explain why I have not posted in several months. I was waiting to find out more information. I have been waiting for the Willow house to sell and for R.T. to get his Australian medical license. Neither of which has happened. We do feel God's direction in this trip and are looking forward to how God is going to solve these "minor" details. By the way, because R.T. does not have a medical license, that means that he does not officially have a job, which means that we do not have a work visa and also means that we cannot book our plane tickets----all just minor details. We have been assured that all those "minor" details will be taken care of. Thankfully, the Australian gov't is going to get our tickets for us, so we do not have the added stress of making reservations.
I must say that God is good and gives us just what we need. In my devotions, I have been reading in Phil. and this morning, I read Phil 4. It is comforting to know that if I think about what is right, lovely and pure that God will provide the peace that I need. It is amazing to feel His peace , when every earthly thing (activity) is stressful around us. Recently, my dad compared us to Abraham - he knew that he was going to be the father of many nations, but at the time he was childless and advanced in age( we do not feel worthy to be compared, but it does help us to know that we are not the only ones. We know what the end result is, but we do not know how it is going to be accomplished)
Sooo, how do we know that this is still God's will......This summer our house was under contract - for 6 weeks. We knew that we had to get visa's, plane tickets , medical insurance for my parents. We also had to get all the homeschooling material for the kids. All of these things fell into place. Yes, my parents have all the things that we do not have :-) Unfortunately, the sale of our house fell through the day before closing. It was very tempting to take that as a sign from God that maybe we should not go, but with much prayer and counsel from friends, we had to look at the big picture. God has opened all the doors, except the house. We have come to the conclusion that we need to go and trust God to work out the financial details. There is something comforting about being so completely powerless, that you have no other choice but to rest in the palm of Gods hand.
Our plans, we fly from St Louis to San Diego on Tues, the 16th. R.T. has a conf. there until Sunday. We will leave on Sunday and drive to our relatives house and we will stay there until the 29th. We will leave around 11 p.m. on the 29th and will arrive Brisbane on tues. R.T. does not start his job until Monday the 6th. We are unsure what we are going to do for those days in between. By the way, we do have a house and a car waiting for us in Australia.
I will try to update this on a weekly basis for the following 15 months or so. If you would like to be notified when I update my blog, let me know. My sister-in-law told me how to do that.

Australia

We have entered the world of blogging. We have created this blog to hopefully keep you, our family and friends, updated on our Australia plans. We will probably not update this very much in the next few months; but once we get to Australia, we will try to update this weekly...more if we are travelling.
For those who need a little bit of updating....Last October (07) R.T. and I went to a Family practice physician conference in Chicago. While there, R.T. was trying to avoid as many exhibiters as possible when he hastened past a booth that advertised a need for physicians overseas (this was the first prompting of the Holy Spirit). A couple of weeks later, I mentioned this to my parents to see what they thought about moving to Australia for a year - they moved to Missouri to be near us and have travelled with us on vacations - my parents were very excited about the prospect (Holy Spirit's working). Within a few days, that organization that R.T. had talked to happened to call us to follow up on the conference (Holy Spirit again). We were told about a town in Queensland that seemed to fit our families needs/desires, as well as, R.T.'s desire for a medical practice (notice the Holy Spirit's leading). We were offered a contract that far exceeded what we expected and they even emailed back the next day saying they would offer more than what we had said that we would accept (who does that except the Holy Spirit). The next step was for R.T. to talk to his partners about having a year off. They were encouraging, with one partner saying that he wanted to do the same thing (this was a big sign from the Holy Spirit). I could go on and on about the big and little ways that we feel God leading us to go to Australia.
Some have asked us if this is a missions opportunity. Our answer to this is YES! We feel that God uses us no matter what we are doing and where we are going. 14% of R.T's patients will be Aboriginal. This is a very tough group of people to witness to. Praise God that He has called us to the Aboriginals but also to the people who live in Kingaroy.
Please pray with us as we prepare for our move. Pray that God will work out the details of what to do with our house and cars...and kitty cat. Pray that God will sell our house in Willow - this is the one contingency that will keep us in the states. Pray most of all for those that we are going to be able to share God's love with.