Filia Dei: Arrived Safe and Sound

So I have landed in Emerald and we have gone straight into it head first! We were picked up from Rockhampton Airport by the lovely Loy and her husband Glen and driven 3 hours west into the rural parts of Australia. Yes, I am living 4 hours from the nearest beach, which is a big change from what I am used to. The heat is ridiculous we have been experiencing days of 35 degrees and up, apart from one day where it went down to 25 degrees and we all felt cold. COLD? IN 25 DEGREES? lol. Also since being here on Sunday we have had 4 thunder storms ... I love Queensland storms! So I have settled into our little house in the center of Emerald a cute little 3 bedroomed house. Ruth and I are sharing the biggest room and the boys are in the next bedroom along, we have cooking and cleaning roster all in place. So we have already settled into the swing of things.

We were greeted into Emerald with an afternoon tea put on for us by a few of the parishioners, so many names to remember! Monday we were given a tour of Emerald, which took approximately 5 minutes as most things seem to be on the one road :) So it was really quite a relaxing day. Tuesday we were introduced to the Catholic High school, Marist College, I feel like there is quite a bit of work needing to be done there, and the school has made me appreciate how Catholic my high school was and still is. For a little bit of fun we have all been put into house, I, naturally, have been put in the best house, Moore with the awesome symbol of a shark, and we will be soon be given our Marist College Staff sports shirts in our house colour. We will be heading along to all house competitions to help out and just hang with the students, coming up is the school swimming gala, where there may actually be a NET team race taking place :( ... that should be interesting, and the school war cry competition! We were introduced to the St Patrick's Primary school on Thursday, and they are all so cute and just fell in love with all four of us!

Friday night we had our first youth group, Zeal, which is for Year 4-7's. Wow what a loud bunch of crazy kids, it was insane, they have so much energy ALL THE TIME! We just really introduced ourselves to them and played games and hung out for and hour and a half.

We have our older Youth Group, Impact, tonight, for year 8-10, so please pray that it goes well, and we have Young Adults Group tomorrow night, for year 11 and 12's, so it's going to be a busy few days.

So life is real good at the moment, I'm missing all my family and friends back home. I'm also really missing all my NET family who have been sent around the country! Love to all and God Bless