Newsletter Vol. 2, No. 4
(My apologies for this being so long but we’ve been busy)
Here we are 7 weeks into our time and what have we achieved? Well this question we will need to ask God one day as will we all, none of us truly knows what impact our Christian walk and service has on those around us. All we can do is take each day as it comes, moving forward, each step we take being for the Lord.
13-7-05 Wednesday
What a day. We decided to work on the church property by picking up litter again it blows in from the street, mowing the grass (it was quite long in spots) and trim all the edges. We were able to do this as we are now connected to Lions and they lent us their tandem trailer, mower and edger. It was back breaking work picking up the rubbish, next time we will borrow the litter stick from Lions as well. After 5 hours work we were very tired. We ended the day by taking the trailer full of rubbish to the tip. When you visit the tip you must look at “Mitre 11” which is part of the tip. It is where the usable items of rubbish are stored, e.g. steel, old bikes, strollers, pieces of machinery, in fact a myriad of things. Of course we came home with 2 wooden pallets, 5 unusual shaped bottles for vases and some almost new mower blades. The pallets are for Ian to make shoe shelves for the annexe. The man behind us is very generous to Ian with his workshop tools; this is helping Ian’s withdrawal from his garage workshop at home.
15-7-05 Friday
We were inducted into the “IRON LIONS of NEWMAN” we are now official Lions with our home club being for now “Iron Lions”. The Change Over Dinner (at this dinner the new committee takes over officially) was held at The Sands Hotel which is next door to our Caravan Park. This was good for us as it meant we didn’t need to go far. Why was this important you may well ask?
Well…….. Earlier in the week we had discussed the possibility of going out for the day with Annie & Brian but hadn’t realized that it was confirmed. The plan was to drive to Eagle Rock Falls and Three Pools Gorges incorporating a picnic lunch, the plan was a good one giving us time together. We set out at 9.30am, it was a beautiful day, we turned onto the dirt which didn’t faze us as we have a 4wd, but as the road to the falls progressed we were grateful of our previous experience as the road had been affected by the recent rain. We arrived at Eagle Rock Falls Pool and realized that our map which we bought for $2 from the tourist bureau was sadly lacking in detail. “How do you get to the other side to make it to the falls?” was the question on all our minds. Luck would be on our side there was a man camping at the pool who informed us that we needed to backtrack 3km and turn right by the clump of trees on the ridge. Then we were instructed on arrival at the river to drive into the river, turn right and drive along the river for 100mtrs leaving the river on the opposite side, it was after this that the road really got interesting with washouts exposing large rocks which needed traversing in low range doing what is called “walking the car”. Finally after a number of kms we arrived at the falls, WOW, how beautiful it was and how worth while Annie’s car sickness had been, mind you she didn’t tell us until we had arrived. We clambered down into the gorge but unfortunately only a small quantity of water was flowing never the less it gave us an idea of what a full flow over the 2 falls would be like.
It was now 3pm and after a lovely Barbeque lunch we set off for Three Pools as it wasn’t far. This turned out to be bigger than we thought. After traveling for approximately 20km and were on top of the plateau being able to look for mile in all directions (it was like being on top of the world, an unbelievable feeling) we realized we were lost (don’t panic Judy had her GPS on and had been keeping a track of us), we backtracked and tried another route and behold we had found Three Pools, unfortunately we were running out of daylight to explore them properly, guess we will need to return another time.
Now you will understand the comment that was made at start of this tale “The Change Over Dinner was held at The Sands Hotel which is next door to our Caravan Park, this was good for us as it meant we didn’t need to go far”. Of course we were all very tired but a good day of fellowship had been had by all.
16-7-05 Saturday was a recovery day,
Judy still had her virus and had now lost her voice completely so Ian had to take care of our commitments of cleaning the church as we were on the morning tea roster. Excuse me you say, well when you are on the morning tea roster in Newman you also clean the church on the Saturday.
Our regular activities are Sewing on Monday’s, Lions every 1st and 3rd Tuesday night Bible study Thursday nights and Friday’s with the Fyffe’s doing something adventurous. Our days are interspersed with phone calls asking “Could you come and do ……….. “or a neighbour looking for someone to have a chat with so each day is different. And then there are the trips to town which are frequent, usually each day. Life is good and we will miss the constant interaction with people when we return to live in a house.
22-7-05
After lunch with the Fyffe’s we set out for Mt Newman. Laura was going to friends after school so she was looked after. (School starts earlier and of course finishes earlier here because of the summer weather being so hot) So starts another adventure. Mt Newman is 25 km along the highway, 10 km on dirt road followed by 1.5km up and down on a very rough 4WD track. We got to a point where the road finished with a gorge in front of us. We retraced our route finding a place to park off the track then set off on foot climbing the mountain, the gradient was about 45 degrees with loose surface. After climbing for about 1.5km which found us 200 metres higher we decided that it would take another ¾ hour to find the summit, as evening was coming we decided to return to the car, this is when the fun started as previously stated the gradient was steep and the surface loose to make it down safely we needed to take little steps with bent knees and thus the thighs and knees became quite sore be the end.
23-7-05
Saturday night we had a progressive dinner with church; it was a great night with approximately 25 attending including children.
24-7-05
Sunday was church, Ian going to talk to the Martu Aboriginal Christian fellowship whilst Judy prepared for our 6 lunch guests.
25-7-05
Monday, as Annie had been on night shift and was unable to go to sewing at R’s. – Annie‘s a nurse and works at the local hospital. Annie and Brian also had Spin ifex Ministries, http://www.spinifexministries.org.au arriving for a week to do some work around the property. Judy ended being at R’s all day returning with Ian at night to baby sit the 4 children. God’s hand was very much in this day’s activities.
26-7-05
Tuesday’s was coffee at the Neal’s for locals in our street
27-7-05
Wednesday was a casserole dinner at Lions as the District Governor was in town.
28-7-05
Thursday Annie and Judy stared work on 3 very large painted backdrops for the Ball. Ian spent a couple of hours rescuing an old cement mixer for the Lion’s Club by chipping out set cement. Bible study that night was filled with visitors; it was good to have different people to discuss the bible with.
And we come to today 29-7-05, 2 months since we left home. It has been a good day catching up correspondence and planning the design for the back drops. Ian has been fixing up a bike we’ve been given and hope to bring home if we can work out how. This involved a trip Mitre 11 (the tip for spare parts).
Our relationship with Annie and Brian is deepening. Brian is starting to copy Ian’s sense of humor, not sure if that is good or bad!
We feel that with God’s help we are starting to build our relationships in the congregation in the community at large and particularly with permanent residents in the caravan park. We pray for the wisdom and courage to take these relationships to a higher level and challenge people about their relationship, or lack of it with God. We are always looking for opening that God provides.
We will miss aspects of our life here but we look forward to seeing you all in December.
Give our best wishes to all at home.
Love from Judy & Ian
“Neals On Wheels”
BCA Co-Workers, Newman W.A.
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