The last few months have been quite the whirlwind as we prepared to uproot from our home in Uganda and make a new one in Australia. I would love to have said it has been a easy process but that would be far from the truth. It has been a challenge in many respects but we also knew it was the right decision so we pressed forward.
We left Uganda on the 8th November and flew to Doha, Qatar and then onto Switzerland to be with Simon's family for two weeks. Before we left Uganda Simon, Joshua and Zara had bad coughs. Joshua being the worst at that stage and any medication we gave him didn't seem to be shifting it. On our arrival in Switzerland the coughs got worse. Thankfully a friend of Simon's in Switzerland is a doctor and so he was able to check out Simon and the kids. He put it down to atypical pneumonia and put them all on an antibiotic. To cut a long story short they are still coughing but not quite so bad anymore. However, we have a MAF friend here in Australia who is also a doctor and she has put them on the antibiotic for another week to try and kill it once and for all. I think the moral of this story is to make sure you have friends who are doctors in different parts of the world (haha). We would appreciate prayers for health and strength to return.
We did enjoy our time in Switzerland with Simon's family despite the health issues. The kids were able to see some snow and enjoy it for a bit which was a big request of Zara's. A friend of mine from Scotland, Sharon Hook, made a quick trip to Switzerland over a weekend to visit with us which was really special and we had a great time.
After two weeks in Switzerland we embarked on our journey to Australia leaving one week ago today. We flew from Switzerland to Hong Kong and then onto Cairns. We are living in a guesthouse for the next couple of months until we get permanent visas sorted out and can locate a house. As I write this post I look out over sugar cane fields and rainforests with an ocean view in the far distance. It is quite the picture. We had a city view when we lived in Kampala and now we have a country view in Cairns. God knows we love a good view.
This past week we have been running around getting orientated as to where the school that Joshua and Zara will be going to, looking at houses and cars and buying bikes. A big ask of the kids was that we would get bikes not too long after we arrived in Australia since we weren't taking their "Uganda" ones with us. Yesterday we had a bit of an induction in the MAF office to meet with different people and today we head to Mareeba where the flight base is to do the the same. Now to remember all the names!
The nice thing about being in MAF for so long is that you meet a lot of people along the way. A few faces here are familiar due to meeting some of these folks when they have travelled through Uganda. This will definitely help us to settle in and get adjusted. Thanks to those who have been very practical in helping us, we are grateful.
One thing we need to get used to is that the sun comes up early around 5am. Combine that with jetlag and 3am seems like a normal time to start the day. Thankfully in the last couple of days we are now sleeping longer although it is difficult for me to stay awake past 7pm at night. All takes time to adjust and there are many thing to adjust to including high temperatures and high humidity. Although some of you in Europe might be glad of a bit of heat right now.
I will keep you updated as time goes on but will leave it for now. Please do pray for Simon and the kids to recover from this coughing. Pray that we learn to slowly adjust to our new home and settle in time. Thanks x
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