Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

Not only can I still not get online with my computer, but my camera battery is dead. There is hope, however, Dave is working on the computer and hopefully on Monday it will all be fixed and then the world wide web will be mine, mine I tell you! All mine! ha haaa! (insert manic laughter here). OK, seriously. I had a good week, last weekend I was invited up north of Perth to visit some people with my friend Sarah. Sarah is single, in her thirties, is a movie person and has great love for Dr. Who. Needless to say we get on, although she is not quite a kindred spirit, she is a fun person to hang out with. We went up to the small, small farming community of Buntine, which is about a half hour drive to Dalwallinu (dal-WALL-eh-new), a town with a population of 1,500. We stayed at some friends of Sarah's who live on a farm, a really fun young couple who used to live in Perth, I felt very at home and enjoyed myself. On Saturday we all went to the Dalwallinu Show. Show = county fair. It was fun, just what you would expect at a small fair, a few rides (I have a great pic, hope you get to see it one day), and a few cows and sheep and chooks, remember chickens are called chooks. And food and hand made stuff that got prizes. Compared to, say, Clark County Fair it was very small, walking quickly you could see all there was to see in about 2o minutes, but we took our time and had a nice day. In the evening we make dinner and watched a movie and they made me watch Mr Bean, because I had only seen bits of episodes before. it was funnier then I remember it, but still not my fav. It was refreshing to be in the country, not that Perth is so very urban, but it was beautiful out there. Oh! I forgot, on the way out there, it was about a 3 hour drive one way, we stopped at a Spanish mission. Apparently some Spanish monks started a church and a school out here in the mid 1800's. It is called New Norcia and Sarah and I walked around, there is a museum, a hotel with a pub, a vineyard, and a bakery. It was so late in the afternoon that the pub was between open hours and the bakery was closed, but still it was beautiful and so European. I would like to go back sometime and see more. This week I milled sorghum grain, that was really exciting (she said with great sarcasm). I spend two days at the Department of Agriculture and Food of Western Australia (aka DAFWA), they have a small mill I could use to turn my sorghum grain into sorghum flour. the thing is, I could only put a small amount of grain into the mill at one time because it is so small. So I filled the hopper full of grain and let the mill run for exactly 7 minutes and then detach the container that holds the flour and empty it into my big bag, re-attached the container, fill up the hopper and start all over again. I took me about an hour and a half of milling time to do 25 kg of grains, and I had seven 25 kg bags to mill. I easily got it done in two days, the problem was, what do you do for exactly 7 mins all day long by yourself? I read, I organized my my papers, I talked to myself, I sang to myself. I had to be careful of those last two, because although I was alone in the room, the door was open and you never new when someone might walk past and catch you. But now it is all done and that is a good feeling. Talk to you soon!

Hello, so I had planned have up all my fun pictures of last week up by now, but I ran into a slight problem...technology. (by the way does anyone know where I got the title for my post from? a hint, it is a take off from a song at the end of a movie). I purchased and received a mobile Internet USB drive system, I tried to install it, all day long. I called the help line at least 5 times, no go. They eventually sent me another drive just in case the first one was a dud. Three guesses as to how well the new drive worked? that's right! It didn't. My computer has decided that all programs from the Internet company are bad news and won't run them. grrrr! Luckily I have made a friend, David Gondwe, who is a computer guy. He said he would help me so hopefully sometime next week I will be able to actually use the Internet at my house and more easily keep up with my blog.___________OK, enough complaining! Fun stuff. I introduced my bible study to angel food cake, which some people had heard of, but no one had eaten. It came up last week and so this week I made one and brought it. I had never made an angel food cake before, very easy, Alton Brown's recipe, GO AB! I find it so interesting when something like that comes up. I probably haven't talked about angel food cake in years (how often do you bring it up in conversation?) and then I say the words and find I had a new Americanism to share. On Saturday I went to a women's conference, it was OK, I think I am spoiled by Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, it just wasn't as dynamic as I am used to conferences being. It was all day Saturday and the talks were interesting, I met a few people, and had a most interesting conversation over lunch with some girls who's main understanding of the USA is from The Simpson's and The Daily Show, both of which air regularly over here on network TV. They admitted that the Americans they met had all been very nice and I pointed out that those shows were parodies of American life, not the norm. I think I got through to them :). I have made good friends at my church and enjoy the service and the teaching, but I find that it is only at YWAM that I feel that I am around people who are excited about God. I don't think there is anything wrong with my church, I just think they are more reserved then I am. I don't know if this is a US vs Aussie cultural thing or a church culture thing. I could use your prayers, I find myself once again rebeliously doing nothing. I know that doesn't sound very daring, but leathergy can be a sin and it is a surprisingly hard one to fight. Please pray that I submit to God and living my life for Him? Thanks._________Well, must go, I am having dinner at Tim and Leoni's tonight, they are the couple who are trying to get connected with a church. Leoni and I get on and I enjoy talking with her.

Oh my gosh you guys, I just saw the biggest rainbow I have ever seen. It has been raining all night and all day so far (and the forecast is rain for the whole weekend). I just got into my office when the sun came out for a few minutes, and then there was a perfect rainbow right outside my window. I could see it end to end a full half circle and all the colors from red to purple, bright and clear. Just beautiful and so big! like it was right in front of me. Had to share, see ya later

Well, it has been a full week. I last weekend I went on the international student tour of Perth. it was fun. We did the chocolate "factory" (it is called a factory, but they don't make chocolate, they make candy out of chocolate) and a winery. Now these two things I had already done with the Rowbottoms, but then we went on to a wildlife preserve where I pet kangaroos and Koalas and had my picture taken with a wombat. I saw Tasmanian devils and touched a stump-tail lizard. Then we went to an aquarium. The aquarium was extra, so as we are leaving the wildlife preserve, the leaders tell everyone on the bus that those who signed up for the aquarium should meet outside the bus when we get there and everybody else should go to the shopping center for lunch. What about us? don't we get lunch? We did eventually, luckily my experience in these matters came in handy as I had packed myself water and granola bars, so I was able to enjoy the sea life without a rumbling stomach. after this full day I did not go home, but went straight to a quiz night being but on by a friend of a friend. Very fun, I helped my team come in 4th (out of 8) by being able to determine the number of US states that start with the letter N (the answer is 8). I was so tired I took it easy on Sunday after church, but a funny thing happened at church... I was on worship team this week and one of the songs we were singing was a hymn (that for the life of me I can't think of name of right now) that took a lot breath to sing each line and there was no natural rest so you just had to take in a big breath and sing it. I had been practicing this because on the 4th verse we were going to sing a cappella. I got all ready to sing and took in a huge breath when I heard what sounded like the whole church taking a huge breath with me. it turned out that the mic was not working and kept going quiet and then going loud all of a sudden and it had decided to go loud just as I took my huge breath. But at the moment I thought that the church had all taken a comically big breath with me, I started to laugh. I was able to keep it in, but I couldn't sing. I just stood up there and laughed into my sleeve until the song was over. Luckily Sue was with me and she lead the singing.__________This week I started my new job. On Wednesday I met up with my prof, Hannah, and she ran the first tutorial (my roommate shortens this to tut, but I just can't do that with a straight face) and then Hannah left and I ran the second two. It was fun, I just had to explain the assignments and they did them. Hannah has set this time for little projects so I won't be teaching so much as guiding. In the last class, there are 4 masters by course work students, this was a little awkward because I met two of them in the lab the next day and we were all students, but on Wednesdays I am the tutor, Awkward!___________this weekend we couldn't get the room we usually have church in at Uni so we met up with the people in our bible studies at different houses and had pot lucks. however they weren't called pot lucks (although people were familiar with the term when I said it). The guy hosting ours called it a "bring and share" and most people seemed to not call it anything just using the phrase, "everyone bring something to share for lunch". Then we went on a bush walk (aka hike) it was fun and as we walked we saw right next to the trail a stump-tail lizard, just like I had seen at the preserve! How cool is that? Until next time, bye! PS, I will try to post my pictures of the wildlife soon.