January 16-18 Bondi Beach, Baulkham Hills

The enormous crowds on a beautiful sunny day at Bondi Beach.

The amazing mexican fiesta we enjoyed with some new friends.

She’s all moved in!

Sunday Brittany and I really enjoyed the 11:30 service at the Hillsong city campus.  The diversity of the congregation, the coffee & hot drinks sold in the foyer, the TV screens and booths set up for different upcoming events, the 5 ‘jumbo tron’ screens at the front of the sanctuary working together as video/service filming was showing or all working separately to feature different things, 12 piece music worship team, new music...just like we would have expected.  Incredibly, with all the people in the foyer, we were singled out as ‘new’ by a wonderful woman named Sheila (must have been the way we were looking around trying to take it all in :), who welcomed us and let us know where and when to be where we should be.  In the service I sat beside a woman from Uganda, Africa who is studying law & social justice in Sydney...she was overjoyed that I was from Canada as her life was changed by canadian missionaries serving in Uganda.  After the service, we joined many others in the ‘garage’ where free drink orders were taken and biscuits served.  The welcome booklet was full of information and a DVD that we haven’t watched yet.  Very welcoming!  They also have at least 2 buses, as they run a free bus service to and from the Sydney Central Station so that anyone coming from across the city can get to the church from the public train/bus service...it runs every 15 minutes or so for about an hour before and after each of the 1 Saturday night, 3 Sunday morning and 2 Sunday evening services.

Sunday afternoon, we navigated the local bus system and got ourselves out to Bondi (pron. bond-eye) beach.  It was nothing like all the other beaches we’ve enjoyed in Australia...constant waves for surfing = cold water, crowds of people, lifeguards and ‘surf rescue’ personnel on the beach, surfing with the others, on a rubber dingy and on seadoos watching over everyone.  We even got to see the lifeguard in our area in action as he ran in with his surf board and paddled out to help a young man who was okay, but needed help getting out of the tow of the waves and needed to catch his breath.  The tidal waves changed several times in our couple of hours there.  The lifeguards had to redirect those in the water to different sections at different times when the waves became too big to jump into safely.  Lots of action and so many people to watch!

On the bus we met a family from Nice, France (Dad, Mom Patricia, 16 year old daughter Lena) who had already been to Quebec, the rockies, Victoria Island, drove down the west coast to San Francisco, Argentina, Kenya, now Australia and would still be visiting India & somewhere else before returning home.  A 7 1/2 month vacation!  Now THAT is a vacation (not that I’m complaining about mine!)

Sunday night we enjoyed Pizza Hit pizza in our room and watched a movie.  

Monday morning we checked out of the hotel, Brittany watched over our luggage enjoying the free WiFi service in the foyer while I walked to the Hertz depot to pick up yet another Toyota Camry (great for all the luggage!), and we drove out to the Hills campus...only a 40 minute drive at the most!  A wonderful girl from the Texas, Julie, welcomed us and spent time with us while Brittany waited her turn for registration.  We were at the house in no time and were lovingly welcomed by former house resident Elisabeth and housemates Ivonne, Alyssa, and Calli even though they didn’t know we were coming. Calli skyped Ali still in Uxbridge and Brittany was teary as she saw Ali’s excitement to see Brittany here...in the house :)  There will be 7 girls in the house (4 bedrooms & 2 1/2 bathrooms).  Nice house in a gated community.  Not only is Brittany Ali’s housemate, she is actually Ali’s roommate!!!  Ali will be here next week.  In the meantime I am sleeping on her bed (thanks Ali)...I’ll be off to the couch when Ali’s here :)

Brittany and I now feel as we know one of the local shopping centre’s very well as we shopped for groceries, power bars, reverse plug adapters, sheets, hangers, storage bins, lamp, fan and I bought her/the house a George Foreman grill as they don’t have a BBQ.  Otherwise, the house is well furnished and other than a vacuum that doesn’t seem to be working too great, they seem to have everything they need.

Tomorrow the carpets are being professionally cleaned,  and we will be doing laundry, getting her bank accounts opened and funds transferred, and trying out the new George Foreman grill.  Tonight we didn’t need to make our own dinner!  Tonight several other students came over and we had an authentic mexican dinner made by Smiley (mexican) and Justin (southern USA).  REALLY good!!!  Better than I ate when in Mexico with Joe in 2000.  

All the other students have been incredibly helpful and really great helping Brittany understand how things work around here...both at school and in their part time jobs. Brittany plans to get her resume out sooner than later.  Sounds like the best shifts for her will be weekday evenings and on her day off (most likely Fridays, but maybe Mondays).  Weekends sound like they are pretty chalked full of service hours on Saturday morning street teams/outreach programs, Saturday evening & Sunday morning services and then taking in a Sunday evening service for herself where she won’t be serving.  The amazing thing about this program is the practical learning it provides.  Yes, there are tutorials & reports, but academics and theology are balanced by a lot of service hours in regular church activities (services, youth programs, outreach) and at the large conferences throughout the year.  They are a very active student body!

I am so glad to be able to be here to settle Brittany in and see her getting to know so many fellow students.  Looks like she will be attending a retreat with a lot of them after her first two days of orientation.  More beach, a great way to get to know other students better, be personally challenged and spiritually encouraged...ready to get started!  Although it will be hard to say goodbye when I leave next Wednesday,  I am so excited for her!

We aren’t sure just how the next 7 days will look.  We may make some day trips to the Blue Mountains, maybe to some of the northern beaches and maybe not.  We’ll just see how things work out.

Soon,

Kim (and Brittany)