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