Beaches, Unicycles and Music

This past Sunday after church we all went to the beach. The kids enjoyed it their way and I enjoyed it my way. My Sunday afternoon nap yields to no man’s worldly pleasures. And, okay, I know I’m overselling Australia as paradise, but I laid there under a warm, clear sky for 2 hours without sunblock and didn’t burn. AND, Charlotte’s hair is longer and thicker after 9 or 10 weeks in Brisbane than she’s ever been able to get it in Texas. Karen insists her hair is thicker, too. I don’t understand how that can be but it’s obvious.

Meanwhile, Jake and Jon are trying to learn to ride a unicycle that Jon’s pretty cousin Tahlia has mastered. I think they’re both up to about 2 seconds upright, now, but a clever photographer has managed to capture those moments.

Our intention is to plant a new church in Brisbane in 2007. That will require securing an adequate meeting place and sound board. Emmy has secured every Sunday off from Starbucks as a condition of working for them. Since she’s the primary worship leader, that was a necessary hurdle that has now been overcome. Until we have the meeting place, though, we’re settling for worship services every other Sunday morning in Roland’s parents’ living room (“lounge room” to Australians). On alternate Sundays we’ve mostly just been lounging around enjoying the time off and hoping the rapture doesn’t come on an off Sunday.

I’ve been meaning ever since we got here to spend the off Sundays visiting Nazarene churches in the area on my own, but that involves looking up the list of churches on one website, then trying to get service times from their websites if they have them, then printing out the map to get there, and I just haven’t gotten around to it. This week, however, Roland’s mother has agreed to pick me up and go with me to one of the Brisbane Nazarene churches. I’m looking forward to that.

In this entire major city only one station plays country music and none at all play the Mills Brothers or “Homespun Songs of the Confederate States of America”. As more and more of our boxes get unpacked, I now have about half of my music CD’s available to me again. Karen was hoping to convince me to put them all in storage here, but as I write this I’m listening to Ray Price singing “Funny How Time Slips Away” behind closed doors where no one else can hear – which is how they strongly prefer it.