August 11th

Jon had the opportunity to visit the same couple as last time (two weeks ago). The lady had been at the womens meeting yesterday and had taken a copy of my devotions home with her - she has already given a copy to her neighbour.

While he was out I did some preparation for Sunday. Jon got back just before lunch and I went straight out with Ian to the Foundations group. They were having a pancake party to encourage newbies to the group. There seemed to be more people round and the conversational English class (based around a newspaper article on the water shortage here) attracted a bigger group than the previous time I was there. Afterwards we moved into a time of games followed by worship. As we were waiting for the games to begin I spoke with one girl, from Hong Kong, who happened to have been born in England – near London! Her parents moved back to Hong Kong when she was about 5 so she doesn't remember much about the UK.

I took the girls along to South Bank, leaving Jon to work on his sermon once I had got home. Ian rang me while I was out to tell me youth group wouldn't be happening so having got back and told Jon, he decided to go to Bridges. As we arrived home we found Jon taking pictures of the beautiful sunset - the colours were amazing!

I didn't say anything yesterday but we heard about the news from the UK at around 7pm Australian time. It is a weird experience to know all that is going on back home. We are hoping it won't affect our journey back which is coming all to quickly - we can't believe we've got less than two weeks left!

Jon has just got in from Bridges - he found the group really encouraging tonight as he saw the young people really starting to build relationships with each other and grow as a group. When he gave out a leaflet advertising the prayer event we are planning, they were all shocked that we are going home so soon. They can't believe it any more than we can!