Australia Day 3: International night!

I'm starting this blog (for Friday) sitting outside in the dark as the sun is beginning to pop up - and the noises all around me are wild.  Actually they're probably music because they're coming from birds - but not any birds that I've ever heard before.  There are about a half dozen squawking wildly in one tree for 15 seconds (they actually sound like monkeys), then a flock in another tree a bit further away will respond.  One came close to me but it wasn't light enough to see what he looks like.  The trees are eucalyptus, so maybe the birds are "kookaburra sitting in the old gum tree laughing merrily as can be" - I am in Australia after all. It's fun though - there are heaps of other birds as well - it's like a dawn party :-)  Oh my, a big one just flapped past me (like small turkey size) - this is actually quite exciting!  I'm including a photo of what I'm looking at (after the sun has come up a bit, but it doesn't show the cold). [Note: I found out later that they were Kookaburra, this afternoon one sat down right next to me - see photo]

The reason I'm outside is that there are 8 of us on our 2 bedroom accommodation, and I get up early to make sure I get use of the 1 shower. One guy is sleeping in the lounge (living room) because of snoring, and I don't want to disturb him.   I now know why they said to being ear plugs - it's not for the noisy students outside before midnight :-)

Last night was the first of 8 hour-long session of ministry trainings for the students - all in small groups of 8-10.  Lily & Jasmine went to different rooms, but both rooms had 2 groups (one in each corner).  Jasmine ended up choosing the wrong group (& learned good things anyway), but Lily chose the right group. When we asked her how she knew which group to go to, she replied, "I just stood there looking lost and someone came up to me, looked at the code on my name tag and showed me which group" - that's a good skill to have: knowing how to look lost :-)

Tonight Jasmine & Lily gave their presentation to 400+ people - they girls did great, I'm so proud of them - Lily shared a story & our need in Tok Pisin (pidgin), and Jasmine interpreted into English. We were praying that God will call many staff & students to come help us in PNG (& that they all will hear & obey His call) - we had 15-17 people come by and at least 7 of them say that they're coming in Feb (we decided to move the project to Feb instead of Easter time - thanks for praying!). It was a late, hence why I'm posting this the next morning :-) Thanks for praying!