End of an era

Hi all!

Well alot has happened in these past few weeks... I have decided to go back to Australia for one! Yep, I am headed for the beautiful land of Aus on Monday. The Insurance company never got back to me about the job, and our Visa's expire on Tuesday, so we decided (with alot of thought and prayer... and tears!!) that it would be best for me to go back to Aus and start saving for Uni. So yeah! Although I will appreciate having something to do all day when I get back and get a job, I will miss this country... I have grown to love the place, the people, and the laidback atmosphere! I will not, however, miss the power outages!!! They have been REALLY bad this week, with outages everyday at least once for a couple of hours, some days up to FOUR TIMES!! It gets a little annoying... but hey, its a third world country, cant expect perfection! It has, however, made it really hard for me to complete the 'assignment' given to me by my mother-dear... to put all our old video on DVD's. This has driven me absolutely nuts as there has been one problem after another with the computer's disc drive, the program, the DVD's, and pretty much everything else that could go wrong - including the power! ARRRGGGHH...

But now that I have had my little complain... I will get onto the good news! We have seen more saved at church, and are beginning to see some people get some revelation. Alot of people that were coming were answering the alter call every service, and that has for the most part stopped now after preaching about salvation and so on. But I guess its only God who really knows if there is revelation in hearts because of the language barrier, so we'll keep trusting him and relying on him to save - because only he can! This is something I have prayed alot about - how do you communicate to someone, even with an interpreter, the message of the gospel - and how do you know that they really understand what you are saying?? I have had to trust God that HE is far bigger than me and can overcome a little problem like language. So pray that we have breakthrough!

We started Bible study at our house on Wednesday nights, and that has been really good so far. The first night Dad prepared a bit of a long study, and with all the questions they asked - which were quite hard (or maybe deep is a better word) questions!!! it went for over two hours! It was funny, we had one person being translated to quietly in Tetun, as most of the others there spoke English, but occasionally one of the Indonesians who dont speak English really well asked a question to the person sitting beside them, and then others would get involved explaining, and before you know it, there are three different languages flying around the room and we have no idea whats going on!! It was pretty funny, mum and I were just looking at other and shaking our heads! But we got through! The last one we had the power went off... predictably! We had just finished the actual study and were just setting out food and stuff when it went out, so we had a nice candlelit fellowship!

The rest of the family are going to Atambua, a place in Indonesia just over the Indo-Timor border, on Tuesday. They have to leave the country and come back in to renew the Visa's. They are going to stay overnight and explore a few sights, so that should be fun for them!

I got a dress made! I have had a picture of this dress that I tore out from a mag like YEARS ago, and have kept it all this time! I took it into a dress maker and they made it for me... and I am not sure if i like it!! Haha i guess you can never tell what these things are going to turn out like... and rather than look classy and elegant like in the picture, it looks quite little girlish and prom-dressy on me!! Oh well!

The last few days have been busy doing things in preparation for me leaving - I had coffee with mum and Lou yesterday, and then Daddy today. Mum has been a bit emotional lately... her BABY IS LEAVING! I am sure we will all be emotional on Monday when I leave. It doesn't actually feel like I am leaving... I guess it hasnt sunk in yet!

SOO... now that I am leaving I am going to pass the reigns on to my little blister... I mean sister!! ... and she is going to continue regaling you with tales of a missionary's kid! Although she will probably be worse at updating it than I have been! Haha :)

Well, its been fun! I am off to start a new era in my life... in the big, scary, unknown world!!! Love to all my loyal followers (all three of you!!)! :D