Jurassic Park

This morning as I sit outside our door having breakfast overlooking the sugar cane fields I felt like I was in Jurassic Park.   The noise of the birds was incredible and some of them are the size of China (okay that is an exaggeration) but you get the point.  Not too far from me is a smaller version of a turkey scratching in the dirt.   The colours of the birds are amazing. We have parrots in the tree not far from our room and cockatoos are readily flying around. The other day we had a spider outside our door.  It was also the size of China (haha). Thankfully it was not of the poisonous variety.  Then there are the rhino beetles that really do look like their namesake.

In this part of the world the sun shines 360 days of the year and the temperature is the 30's every day.  It is a bit warmer than Uganda but the humidity is higher.  On some days it feels like the sun is out to get you (haha).

Today Simon left early for Mareeba which is about 1 hour from here to study for his exams in 2 weeks.  This is where he will be based when he starts his new job with MAF. I am sure he would value your prayers as he hits the books again.

Last week we went on a tour round the school that Joshua and Zara will be joining in January. We had a good first impression of it with people being friendly and helpful and keen to help Joshua and Zara fit in.

We have visited 2 churches since arriving and have enjoyed the friendliness that we found at each one.  We will try out another one next week and then see where we settle.

We are making progress in that we bought a car this past week and hope to pick it up this week.  We opened up a bank account which was amazingly easy.  We have also been driving around looking for houses.  We will look at more this week.  There is still a bit of confusion as to whether we can sign a contract on a house with the visa we are on so more investigation needs to be done on that.

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for Simon, Joshua and Zara in the health department.  They are doing much better and coughing less.  The second round of antibiotics seem to be doing wonders.  It has been a rough time for them but glad to see improvement.

The kids and I are off to do some more exploring today so I am sure there will be more stories to tell soon.

Thanks for praying for us in this new stage of life.  It's definitely been a massive step to take but God continues to be faithful and we are thankful.