Friday, June 27, The Marshall Family (Brisbane)
Today’s update is brought to you by Jaina, so, take it away Jaina! The name of the game Friday was keep your teammates awake. After a good day of preparation and team-bonding, we left LA on Wednesday night, crossed the International Date Line, and landed in Brisbane on Friday morning around 5:00 a.m. The flight went smoothly, with team members getting anywhere from 2 to 10 hours of sleep. Shoutout to Kerri, who recently became a nurse and was able to assist another passenger during an in-flight medical emergency. Praise the Lord the woman ended up being all right. The airline was very thankful to Kerri for her help.
From the time we got off the plane, the goal was for no one to fall asleep again until the evening, with the goal of getting our bodies adjusted to Australian time as quickly as possible. Pastor Marshall, the missionary we’ll be working camp with this upcoming week, picked us up from the airport. We had a little bit of time to freshen up at our motel and pick up the ten-passenger rental van before beginning our day of fellowship with the Marshalls. Pastor and Mrs. Marshall made a delicious breakfast for us at a park by the bay. Several of the team members enjoyed playing on the playground with their five-year-old son Tommy. Between driving around with Pastor Marshall and spending the rest of the day with him, we were able to learn more about his ministry here and the camp we’ll be working about this week.
From the bay, the team, Pastor Marshall, and Tommy headed to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary to see some Australian animals, while Mrs. Cirone went to the Marshalls’ home to fellowship with and assist Mrs. Marshall. We enjoyed the beautiful weather as we explored the sanctuary with Tommy and Mr. Marshall. Tommy was very excited to have so many new friends, and he helped guide some of the team around the park. We were able to feed kangaroos, pet a koala, watch a platypus swim, and see a sheepdog herding sheep. During a raptor show, Josh narrowly escaped being attacked by a barn owl, as its legs hit his head as it swooped past him. We ate a picnic-type lunch packed for us by Mrs. Marshall, and by the end of lunch, a number of us were feeling quite droopy.
We drove up Mt. Cootha after leaving the sanctuary to get a view of Brisbane. The view was beautiful. While there, we stopped at a cafe for coffee in an attempt to reboot our brains and bodies for the next few hours.
From Mt. Cootha, we drove to the Carseldine train station, where we met up with Mrs. Cirone, Mrs. Marshall, and the Marshall’s daughter, Kaitlyn, who recently graduated high school. We traveled to downtown Brisbane to walk around and eat supper in a continued effort to stay awake. Staying awake after the sun had gone down was extremely difficult. If we hadn’t been trying to keep each other awake, someone would probably not have made it all the way to the end of the night, but thanks to the combined efforts of the entire team, we stayed awake until about 10-10:30 p.m. It was a long first day, but it helped our team get to know each other and the missionaries better, as well as prepared us for a much better adjustment to the giant time zone change. Praise God for a great first day in Australia!