We're Here!

Well, our first weekend as residents of Australia is behind us. We had a wonderful dinner with the Hearns on Friday evening featuring leg of lamb with gravy and mint sauce. Saturday morning the kids went horseback riding. On Saturday evening we went “into the city”, which means we went to downtown Brisbane, for Riverfest. It’s an annual event. It featured the most amazing fireworks display I’ve ever seen in my life. Fireworks were fired from five barges in the middle of the river that runs through Brisbane, as well as two bridges and three downtown buildings simultaneously. We saw fireworks spread out like a fan so that some of them were shooting along parallel to the water, barely above it. We saw fireworks “fountains” on the barges and massive white fireworks “waterfalls” streaming down from the bridges. The display began and ended with a fighter jet flying low over the river “dumping” fuel to create a comet tail of fire shooting out behind it, accompanied by a deafening roar. Extraordinarily impressive.

The nucleus of what will become NewStart-RiverCity church is currently just meeting every other Sunday and this was their weekend off, so we spent Sunday at the beach at Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast south of Brisbane. It was the first time Charlotte or Jake had ever seen a beach, so they had a great time. Their relationships with the Hearn children fell right back into place after nearly four years apart, so that was a great relief.

The one negative note from our first weekend is, unfortunately, a big one. Roland’s dad Colin accompanied us to the beach Sunday and toward the end of our visit to Surfers Paradise he walked from the beach to some shops across the street and, while there, fell and broke his leg. He’s having surgery to put a pin in it today and the doctors assure us he’ll be at least as good as before, but it was very painful for him, and it was hard for us to see such a dear, gracious, gentle man in such pain. A girl who happened to be passing by when he fell stayed with him until we discovered he’d had an accident, which was some time. The ambulance was already there for a few minutes before we saw it and discovered it was for Colin. The girl stayed with him until the ambulance took him away and then exchanged phone numbers with Roland so she could keep up with how he was doing. It was just very, very sweet, and a great relief.

Today we have business details to take care of, like getting started on getting drivers licenses, getting a Tax ID Number so my wages are taxed properly, and getting “visa labels” (whatever that means) in our passports. It’s something the visas and our lawyer say we need to do shortly after arrival.

The weather is perfect, and sitting out on the veranda enjoying a cup of tea together every day with dear old friends is a wonderful privilege. Life is never perfect, but right now it’s very, very good.