Exciting week!

And thanks to God who provided us a car!!What an answer to prayer, thank you all for your prayers aswell! And I will tell how God provided:


Eric was working with Charlie and he knew a friend who might sell their car. So they went there and had a look and a talk. What a perfect car it would be for here in AL and for our big family. The car had been waiting for a year for a good new owner...but now how are we going to pay this. It wasn't expensive at all! But still a lot of money that we simply didn't have. So I decided to have a look on our bankaccounts and also on the website for childsupport, as we were waiting for an answer from them. When I looked, there was a email from them that said that in a few days they would transfer money into our bankaccount. Together with the money from our bankaccount, it was exactly the right amount of money , we thanked God for this amazing provision!! On Saturday we picked up the car.

It has been an exciting week! Because of the heat we have to take it easy, so once a week the kids don't have their schoolbooks but just reading books.

On Wednesday at 8.30 am we had a powercut. So that means no aircondition(which we don't use) and no fans...I decided to take all our stuff and go to Shady beach. We sat under a tree, like the Yolnu people do. And the kids did there schoolwork. Ruben was happy playing in his porta cot and little pool that we brought. When we got home at 2.30 pm there was still no power. The kids just had a bath, and at 3 pm we had no water either... Now we had to improvise. We had just bought some gasbottles for our camping gascooker at a garagesale. We were really pleased with those, now we could cook dinner. And also last weekend I had bought a candle,which came handy too. When Eric came home from doing maintances on a roof the whole day, he really was looking forward for shower. We only could offer him a dirty bath left over from the kids, but he was happy. We invited the neighbors Peter and Tina for dinner, because they didn't have anything. Aron had the idea to make a fire, to make more light and we sat out on the deck with a candle,we had to eat all the icecream from the freezer, it was really good! In the evening we heard that there was one place in Yirrkala that suplied water. So Naomi, Aron, Hannah and I went for a walk with our drinking bottles, there was just a nice atmosphere, the yolnu people were sitting outside, as it was too hot inside. A lot of people decided to sleep on their decks.I think a evening like this the kids never forget. They loved it. Finally the next morning at 7.30 the power came back on. And the water took a little longer, 11.30, yeah!

On Saturday the 12th it was Aron's birthday. We had a party planned for in the afternoon at the playground/soccerfield in Yirrkala. But Jason and Kim had asked me, if we would like to come to the river this day too. I thought Aron would love that on his birthday. So Saturday morning we changed the party. We could use someone elses car and so we phoned Aron's 2 friends if they wanted to come to the river instead of the party in the afternoon. It was a special treat for all of us! It was just fantastic. It's a half an hour drive from Yirrkala. I made a cake quickly to take with us and lunch. It was so refreshing! Aron was a little bit worrying that he only had 2 friends and his present didn't arrive on time(we had ordered a bike for him). But I said, you will have the best birthday ever... And what happened on the way back from picking up our new car, we stopped at the dump to see if there was any good we could use.There was a BMX bike...wow.

We took it in the car and Aron and his dad fixed it at home. He was so excited about his birthday present!

Last week I (Eric) had to work with Charles Stockley our MAF maintenance manager. We had to fly on Wednesday and Friday to Elcho Island to do some repair jobs on the house of 1 of the pilot-families there. The Pett's from the UK have 2 sons who are both homeschooled and use the ACE curriculum just like us!

Charles would do some plumbing, while I kept myself busy fixing the leaking roof before the coming wet season! What was thought to be a few patches here and there turned out into 2 full days on the roof for me in boiling hot temperatures and hardly any wind or shelter.

It was very rewarding to replace 5 sheets completely and have the roof "wet-season" proof!

We were flying via Lake Evella outstation where several MAF staff are based, to drop off and pick-up some passengers. Because of the limited time we only had a quick look around at the airport. The green shed you can see on the photo behind MFA is the MAF office where the Yolnu can come and book the flights. From there we flew onwards to Elcho Island to do our work. At the moment it's very busy with flying as there are funerals and the Yolnu people fly up and down to attend their ceremonies, often MAF also flies coffins to the homelands.

At the moment Ruben is sick(fever, rash, throwing up) we would vallue your prayers for him!

This week the 15th of November it will be Naomi's birthday, please pray for her that she will have a really special day too.