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Well it’s been quite a while since I’ve written. The excuse I’m going to use this time is that I was savagely attacked by a wild Australian animal and was near death in the uncomfortable hospital bed with both my hands and feet rendered useless making me completely inept to write a single ingenious word on my blog. But… that’s not true. In reality, I’ve just been busy. It’s a much less exciting excuse but nevertheless true. The hospital bed was comfortable and the animal wasn’t wild. JK

Anyhow much has gone on since my last posting. Gentle spring has become hot, dry crazy summer which is solely to blame for all the sunburns I have had the pleasure of receiving. Flys and mosquitoes quite enjoy my company and on occasion thrill me with an impromptu visit to my room, and upon finding it quite cozy decide to grace me with their presence all night. Thanks to the food packages I’ve received in the mail (thanks Shelia and Jesse!), the American food store by my house and mom loading her whole suitcase up with food I’ve had many opportunities to cook good ol’ Texas food for all the people here. Most of my cooking has not ended up in disaster but there’s always those few times. Yet, most of these people have never tasted that type of food before so I can always say “hey this is how it’s supposed to taste”. “Um… it’s just an acquired taste”. Except for the time when I attempted to cook hushpuppies for the youth. I got the oil way to hot, put the dough in, and immediately the entire church filled up with smoke smelling of burnt hushpuppy. There was to be a wedding ceremony the next day. Ugh. Just blame the American.

Mom came to visit me for two whole weeks! We both had such a great time. Except when I made her hike up a “mountain” that led us to the wrong place and then tried to correct it by making her take a shortcut in the snake infested woods. Or when she went on a bike ride with me and came back unable to sit. Or when she had to walk 2 miles back home with just one flip flop. Or when we got super sun burned at the beach. Or when I yelled at her for missing the train because she didn’t run fast enough. Just a dandy ol’ time. But it really was. We got to go to the zoo, the beach, a day hike in the Australian wilderness, the $17 movies, the huge mall (2nd biggest in the southern hemisphere), the Victorian markets, Wine tasting, Melbourne Christmas parade and heaps of other places. It was hilarious how shocked mom was whenever the youth continually referred to her as “Kristi” instead of Mrs. Wagley. It was such a great experience taking my mom around Australia and showing her all of my favorite places. Oh and she got to see my “sermon” in church at the young people’s service. I told them I would talk for the service but 2 weeks leading up to that I began to get extremely nervous. I had to talk for a whole 30 minutes! But I’m glad mom was there because she helped me with what I was going to say and got to see it all. I’m very blessed because we made great memories and will always go back to that time we were in Australia together. It’s not every day you get to show off Australia to your mom and show your mom off to the Australians (“oh Hannah she looks like she could be your sister?”)

Since mom has been gone I’ve had a lot of down time. All the youth programs are coming to an end for the summer holidays so there will be a while when I won’t have any youth events to help out with. During the holidays the only thing going on in the church is the Sunday morning service. All other programs are put on break. It’s really strange. The past few months I’ve been extremely busy and now that I have more time I’m lost. A lot of the youth and their families go away during this break so it won’t be until the end of January when I see them again. What will I do with all the youth gone? Well, I won’t have to dress up in a koala suite for church anymore (yes I had to do that. It’s a youth thing). I won’t have to be manager for the under 16 boys basketball team while being continually asked if I’m dating one of the players (do I really look that young?). I won’t be burning hushpuppies. I won’t be told that my accent sounds just like a Canadian accent. I won’t have to do skits up in front of church. And I won’t be continually asked by the youth what a Twinkie is. I’ll miss them. But Stephen will come to visit quite soon. And guess when he’ll get here? Christmas day! That certainly gives the “All I want for Christmas” song new, heightened meaning. He’ll be here from the 25th to January 13th. So we’ll try to do a bit a traveling and site seeing.

Funny experience of the month: I teach RE to 3rd graders a few times a weeks. RE stands for Religious Education and in Austria the school system allows the church to come in and tell the kids about Jesus. Well the other day I held up a drawing of Jesus. It was obviously supposed to be Jesus. I then asked the class who they thought this man was. They quickly and confidently replied, “Your daddy!”

Thanks everyone for your support. And thanks to all of y’all who sent me many kind words and food in the mail. It’s all very much appreciated.