Thursday 29 September 2016

Exploring Cloncurry..and a Big Update...

We are still here in Cloncurry and we will be here for possibly 2 weeks maybe longer. We have been without our vehicle for over 2 weeks now. We spend most days walking about 20 minutes to town and 20 minutes back. Once in town, we usually go to woolworths to get some groceries (we usually only get 1 or 2 days worth of groceries because the bags get heavy carrying them home, and we enjoy the walk everyday), we often visit the library, and sometimes the bakery. We've also been down to the skate park so the girls can have a skate on their scooters. We will also be visiting a few museums over the next couple days, but other than that not much else is walking distance.
As always we make the most of it, and we've enjoyed many days by the pool, and evening walks also. The sunsets are beautiful here and although it gets to the high 30's here during the day, the mornings and evenings get very cool and sometimes quite cold which is a nice break from the heat. The starry nights here are just GORGEOUS and some of the best we've seen so far!
At times it has been difficult being in the same spot for so long without a vehicle because you can only walk so far, and we are not at all used to spending more time than ever before around our site, we are usually out and about most days needing to book ourselves a rest day...however, as I said before we always make the most of our situation and I love that about us!
The last week the girls have made some friends here and they've all enjoyed hanging out together, so that has been good, and we have delayed school holidays for the girls and have accomplished a whole lot of extra homeschooling work, including projects on specific things about Australia, so that has been good to do together!
Walking and Exploring the small town...Notice the perfectly blue sky!
DELICIOUS Pastries at the very popular local bakery, YUM!
The skate park beside the pcyc...
Resting in front of the local library...

PCYC...
The Local State School...

We were updated on what was wrong with our vehicle. The drive plate cracked and needs to be replaced and the touqe converter has been damaged and we need to get a reconditioned one built in Melbourne. We are waiting for second hand parts to come from Melbourne hopefully by the end of this week. So far it will cost us around the $4000 mark. However, we've been told that once the job is done and the car is started again, they may find other problems, however, this shouldn't be the case. We are glad the price has dropped from the initial $10,000 plus, however, it is still a huge bill we did not need at this stage of our journey. We've asked what could have caused this and there was no answer, things like this just happen! 
Just pray with us...Pray nothing else is wrong with our vehicle and pray that by some miracle the bill is reduced again. Please also pray the mechanic does a great job with fixing our vehicle.
We are basically taking each day as it comes and crossing every bridge when we get to it! Thank you in advance for praying for us xo 

On a much more positive note, yesterday when we went on our regular walk to town to go to woolworths and the library, we bumped into someone we recognized...do you believe we bumped into one of the three German backpackers that Shane had ministered to about 3 months earlier when we camped at Bulladelah free camp :-0
If you read that post you would know that Shane ministered to them, we gave them coffee and breakfast and we soon learned that we were the second people in 2 days to minister to them. Once the backpackers had left us, the next night they messaged Shane to tell us that a third person ministered to them and they were heading to church that Sunday, WOW (this was about 3 months ago)! 
Well we had just bumped into them in Cloncurry, WOWSA! Shane walked to the motel to say hello to the other guys, and everyone spun out that we would meet once again in Cloncurry. What do you think? Do you think it's the hand of God making all this happen? As always, I think God is up to something :-) 
Shane is hoping to catch up with them in a couple of weeks if we are still here (they work shifts of 2 weeks on and 1 week off on someones farm, so they aren't able to come to church with us the next couple of weeks). 

So that's our long update...Some difficult times, some unexpected things happening, some exciting things occurring, and believing that God has us in the palm of HIS Beautiful hand.
It is a strange feeling not knowing where we will be in a couple of weeks, and what God is going to do next...however, we are taking one step at a time and relying on God in a HUGE way...even when life gets tough (and the last couple of weeks have been tough and tested us...most people only know about the vehicle issues, we've had some pretty hard kicks to the gut the last couple of weeks) we love holding onto Gods hand through it all and making the most of it all, Life is still good either way. 
I'm hoping everyone is well and making the most of each and everyday xo 
Love Dimi xo