Until next time

I know I haven't written for a few days – apologies, I haven't been feeling well (shall explain a bit more in a minute), but I'm feeling well now, so I'm sitting down with a cup of tea in my safe, but slightly freezing apartment, to write about the last few days of our trip.

Today was a weird day – I had taken an extra day off so I could ease myself into work a bit easier. I have enjoyed watching members of the team upload photos to Facebook today, so many strange and interesting photos. So many smiles. I stood at the petrol pump this morning filling up my car and was tempted to break out into a rendition of “Jesus is the sweetest name I know”, and then I thought, hang on, this is Australia, you don't do that here. There is something profoundly sad about that thought.

So, Sunday morning I woke up feeling a bit seedy. Not sure what it was, no one else in the team seems to have gotten it. I ate only hot food the night before. Might have perhaps been me drinking water as I sang in the shower? Anyway, foolhardy me decides that I should head down and have a coffee anyway, because with something in my stomach I can take my malaria meds. I headed down to the coffee shop with Ashleigh and Nami. We had a lovely coffee, but I didn't feel any better afterwards, in fact I felt worse.

We had been told to turn up at church at 10am, so we turned up at 9:50 and I am pretty sure we were the first ones there – or just about. We have found a little shortcut to the church via a dirt road – pretty handy, and a little bit less gradient than the other way. Always handy. We sat around for a bit waiting for a guitar to turn up, because we had been told to prepare an item for the service. At around 10 past 10 the president of Luli, the cell group that Thomas and I had visited on Thursday night, turns up and asks Tom and I to walk with him. We did. On the way we met Aesach, the guitarist for Luli, who also walked with us. We went back to where the buildings that form the dwellings of the Luli cell group. As we walked down the alley way I could smell a lovely deep smoke smell coming up from a nearby fire, and we walked through the smoke into a dining room, where we were presented with some clothing. Thomas was presented with a shirt, I was presented with the traditional church dress – otherwise known as a “mother hubbard”. I tried the dress on over my clothes and it fit me, so then I proceeded to change while under it. Quite a feat if I do say so myself. Now... I can probably say, without hurting too many feelings, that the mother hubbard is not the most flattering dress in the world, but the feeling of belonging and pride which filled my heart as I walked back towards the church will not soon be surpassed. What a lovely gesture.

Once we had gotten back to the church, we practiced our item “Blessed be your name” in the new (yet to be opened) church, and the acoustics in there were rather beautiful. Then we headed into their current church building and sat down. There was us, and about maybe 15 other people in the church at that time, which didn't fill the seats. It was really interesting to me how the church filled up though. By the end of the service the place was full, plus there were people outside the church. Pretty sure that wouldn't happen at Wesley.

To my delight we sang “Jesus is the sweetest name I know” (twice). I was seated behind a mother with a son who was just learning to walk, she was holding onto him pretty tightly. He kept walking across the aisle (about three steps for him) to get a cheezel from the girl sitting on the other side. As I kept smiling at him he came over for a better look at me during the sermon. Elder Johnny did the whole sermon in English, which he didn't do last week, but while I remember that his theme was about the balanced attitude that Jesus had, I confess I may have tuned out for a little tiny bit of it while playing with the super cute kid. If any other members of the team can remember the content of the sermon can they please inform me? :)

We performed our item which went quite well. The Ni Vans have a habit of clapping during the song. It is really quite a good way of knowing you're doing a good thing, although it is a tad disconcerting. For us they clapped as everyone joined in the singing, during the pre-chorus, and then a couple of times later on as well. After we sang, we gave them a donation to their building fund, and then Harvey choked up as he thanked them profusely, saying that this next Sunday, when we start our service, he will be thinking of theirs. Also during the service we were presented with some extra gifts from the cell groups, of sarongs, and shirts, and lots of hugs. It was pretty special.

After the service we all lined up and shook everyone's hand, or were hugged and kissed (on both cheeks). Ali started to hand out lots of stickers with the Australian flag, we played scissors/paper/rock games, and we also played with a boomerang which we gave to them. They were pretty good at throwing it. We sat down for lunch, and it looked delicious, although I did not partake since I was feeling very seedy by then; which caused a bit of a stir actually, since they always let the visitors go first. I had to explain that I was not going to be eating to at least three people. I think it was ok. I think so...

In the afternoon the team wanted to head to Turtle Cove, but by that time I wanted to lie down. We hear there is a place where you can swim with huge turtles, but unfortunately, the place where the rest of the team went, was not that place. It wasn't awful, there was still kayaking and turtles to see, but it did not live up to expectations. Or perhaps that place was it before, and has just been run down. Ah well, there is always next time :)

For dinner that night we went to the Brewery and had a nice meal. Most of the team enjoyed pizza or pasta, I thoroughly enjoyed my green tea and garlic bread. Everyone was either trying to use up the last of their vatu, or they had already used it up, so there was an interesting mix of meals ordered. It was quite a good mood that evening. I think two Sundays is good. You get to see the church in action twice. For us, the first service and the second service were very different. One a big celebration service, and the other a regular service. But it would be good either way. In fact the general structure of the week seemed to work quite well. A few longer days at the beginning of the week – get the big “project” out of the way, but then keep going back, reading with the kids or helping them with the computers, that continues to build the relationship. I'm not sure what we'd do the next time, although at some point I do believe there will be a next time, but we have had plenty of good conversations about what we've learnt.

Next morning we had to be ready by 11am so we could get to the airport in time. We had some last minute shopping to do. I bought some T-shirts for my father and brother, plus some earrings for me. We gathered on a mound in the centre of the park for debriefing at 11:30. Kathy from UnitingWorld had suggested we walk through the trip “survivor style”, and talk about what had happened each day. Seemed to work really well. It was interesting with a bit of perspective on the week how easy it was to talk about our successes and how the things that didn't go as well didn't really matter as much anymore. The other activity we did was a bit of a “speed dating” type conversation where everyone had one minute with everyone else about how we had done. My rules were that you had to speak to everyone, and you had to be positive. Given how different people pitched in to help make everything happen, that was probably one of my favourite bits. It's interesting through how in the process of writing this blog I became a bit of an observer of the team, as well as a member of it.

We then headed back to the lodge to get our bags and get into the cars to go to the airport. We ended up arriving about 2 hours before the flight, which I thought was excessive, but there was no line when we turned up, and about 20 minutes later there was a queue out the door, so I guess … OK, I admit it, being early does help sometimes! Principal Daniel and Rekata came to see us off. Some of us played cards while waiting. We walked through customs and after a short wait headed on to the plane.

I decided to get one of those video sets on the plane and try and watch The Hunger Games on the way to Brisbane. Didn't quite get to finish watching it, but I have read the books so I know the ending. Quite nicely done I thought. We finished filling out our forms, and I ate about half a packet of Sao's. I was beginning to feel better. The landing in Brisbane was good and we filed through immigration and went to pick up our bags. Everyone's bag was there except Jono's, whose bag had been taken by a woman who was in transit to LONDON. There was a tense half hour while we tracked down the other bag, and once it was safely returned to us we had a good laugh imagining the woman opening her suitcase in London and finding it to contain Jono's dirty clothes and wet swimwear. Haha. Crisis averted.

We made it to the domestic terminal in time to grab a bit of dinner and get on the plane with time to spare. And I can also give you a bit of a public service announcement. If you have a swiss army knife, and then you remove it from your suitcase and declare it after getting off an international flight, do not, I repeat do not, put it in your cabin luggage and attempt to get on a plane. That is frowned on apparently.

We arrived back at Wesley at 10:54 to many hugs and lots of “my gosh it's a bit cold here's”. It wasn't long before I was in my bed and very asleep.

And now for a final butterflies and cockroaches from me.

Butterflies

1. On a personal note my absolute highlight was the cell groups, and since that's what I'd been looking forward to most, I was pretty glad about that. When the people in Luli said that I am now a part of their family, I am pretty sure they actually meant it. What amazing people.
2. As one of the leaders and instigators of the trip, I am so glad that it happened, that everyone was out of their comfort zone a little, that everyone is home safely (although I did hear this evening that half of the team has come down with a bad cold – ouch). I feel like we did a really good thing. And not just the "stuff" we did for the people at Seaside Paama, but the conversations, the games, the hugs.

Cockroach – I only have one – that we didn't get to finish the computer room because the keyboards didn't turn up. Anyone have some keyboards they would like to donate and we'll send them over there?  (USB non-wireless connection is best.)

I hear there are plans to finish off the church during this year, and if that's the case I am keen to head on over for its opening. Maybe if it's just for a few days I might be able to treat myself to somewhere that has just slightly more reliable hot showers?

Until next time.

K.