Rebas' Adventure in Ozzieland

Sydney Melbourne Two months since I updated my blog, wow, too long by far. So here will be a quick run though of what I did and then we will get back to the weekly posts. First off, my mother came to visit! I met her in Sydney and we spent 5 days there and 3 days in Melbourne before going back to Perth where Mom stayed for another two weeks. It was so good to see her! I swear, I had not been home sick once since coming here, but after Mom left I have been feeling more and more excited about coming home next year. Can you believe it? I have less than a year left, crazy. Anyway, Sydney was great, I loved the Opera house and harbor, the war memorial made both of us cry. I loved taking the opera house tour, I know so much great trivia about it now and it really is an amazing engineering feat. I got a Sydney snow globe to add to my exclusive collections. I had wanted one of Perth, but I haven’t seen one and the Sydney was really pretty and it plays “waltzing Matilda” which is sort of the unofficial national anthem over here. Mom took it back with her, so I only got to see if for a little while, but I am glad it is home safe. Melbourne was also great. The best shopping! There is an open farmers market that is always open called the Victorian Markets. Everything from fresh doughnuts, fresh meat, fantastic cheeses and wine to stuff animals, aboriginal art and hats; I got the cutest hat! One thing we did that is unique was called The Edge it is the tallest skyscraper in the city and on a top flour you can get into a glass cube that moves out onto the side of the building, sort of like a sideways elevator. The whole thing is glass so you can see 80 stories below you, it was fun and gave us bracelets that said “I survived The Edge”. It was so fun having Mom in Perth, she met all my friends and came to church. I had to go back to Uni, but Mom went all over Perth and left me with a list of things I must do before I leave._____________ok, that was my trip, the month of August wsa pretty quiet except for some more drama in my church, if you have been following this blog all year, you may remember that last year at this time, my church was having some problems. Well, they never got resolved and as the churches annual meeting came up again it came to a head. It was (and is) very stressful and I would appreciate your prayers for us. However, no one has left the church and the two factions of people are working together and it looks like we are going to get through it. On top of that we have several members of my bible study in the hospital, one for depression and one with a new baby in intensive care; so lots going on! I am moving ahead with my project, I am still afraid I won’t finish, but I am now praying with a friend once a week and I am feeling very encouraged. God is so good, I was so afraid to call this friend, I didn’t know if she would be interested in praying with me. I bit the bullet and emailed her, explaining how I felt I need some accountability to keep me on task at school, and just to focus on God more. She replied immediately and said how she had been wanting to ask me to have a prayer time for awhile and was afraid to ask me. “What fools these mortals be.” I am really excited about it.______i went the Perth Zoo the other weekend. Our church a meeting there (the zoo has a function room, how cool is that?)so I was not able to go through the who zoo, but I was able to go through the Aussie part and not only did I see a Tasmanian devil and an echidna, along with the kangas and koalas, but they were all active and moving around so we got a really good look. I wish I had brought my camera! Next update soon, I promise!