The faces of Melbourne…

The town of perpetually changing weather!

Yep I froze! I have come to realise that I have the constitution of a tropical orchid! Take me out of warm temperatures and I just don’t cope! Hmmm I wonder whether Daniel will finally convince me to go serve in Mission on some tropical island! We’ll see….and pray…. Anyway, there I go again, off track! We arrived in Melbourne with great expectations for MOPS commitments and work. We felt very prompted to spend time here so we packed up from Cresswick (nabbed a 10kg bag of potatoes for $5!) and headed for the big smoke!

We set up camp at the Heany Park Scout Camp in Rowville…with a fairly basic toilet, and had to endure that lazzzzyyyy Melbourne wind as we showered outside brrrr. But it was great to be in the bush whilst being in Suburbia! The campsite was prolific with bird life, Eastern grey Kangaroos and Leisl even saw a fox! We were the only campers….but had the distinct privilege of attending both Scouts and Cubs onsite! (check out our scouting section…). This was very close to where Dave and Antoinette Matthew live…We really enjoyed catching up with old friends, and their now grown children, Sarah & Jason! (and once again I have no photographic evidence of these great get togethers!!! grrrr, must train the kids to snap away)

Our campsite, on the edge of suburbia	Rochelle & Caitlyn Spargo popped in to say Hi!
Rosa & Caitlyn were fast friends!!!	What a spunky bunch!

It was a delight to catch up with Rochelle Spargo (fellow MOPS Regional Coordinator) and to visit MOPS @ One Community Blackburn. The beautiful Coordinator there, Natalie, had invited me to visit and somehow I ended up speaking on the subject of friendship, specifically “being intentionally kind to those around you”. I met some beautiful women, and really connected with the Mentor (Leisa) on my table…she was so lovely. I love MOPS! And was immensely humbled when Rochelle sent me home with a meal she had prepared for our family. (Think she should have given the talk)…

We really enjoyed joining One Community Blackburn for Church over 2 Sundays. It was great! The Kids Church was absolutely incredible!!! Very cool. I reconnected with Leisa Vaughan (the MOPS Mentor) and met her lovely family. She was initially concerned that we might have an influence on her Husband, Jason…and that we would be responsible for sending them on there own journey around Australia. Rochelle and David Spargo invited us over for lunch after church….it was so lovely! They have 2 girls aged 7 and 4…so our kids were absolutely thrilled to play with “real toys” (ours must be fakes?) and they all got along super well. I just about fell over when Rochelle called all the kids in to bake meringues with her…imagine…6 kids all wanting a turn! She's a brave woman! I just took photos and stayed out of the way.

Rochelle instructing how to separate the eggs…

The men did what men do….they bonded!

I think with the exception of when they were eating they sat there all day! Hmmm

The Vaughan family also invited us over for lunch after church on Mother’s Day! This was an amazing experience. Have you ever just felt totally comfortable with someone that it’s a shock to realise you only just met them! It was a lovely Roast meal complete with real coffee, classy cutlery, hot showers, a DVD the kids hadn’t seen, a cubby house with lots of dirt, for Connor to get…well…dirty!!! And a dead rat! Oooh and I forgot to mention the gravy…hmm. Leisa is a talented musician, and you should have seen Josie’s face light up when she not only got to tune her violin to Leisa’s Baby Grand…but Leisa sat down and accompanied Josie to one of her pieces “Carnival Of Venice”. That was really special! (I fully expect they will be on the road next year for 6 months! Who knows we may even meet up with them!!!)… so much for not influencing Jason hmmmm…?

(sadly…we didn’t remember to grab our camera and take photos of The beautiful Vaughan family…perhaps we will have another opportunity down the beaten track :)