I come from the land down under

Guess what? I'm in Australia! About time.

I arrived here yesterday around 6. The plane landed and it took me about an hour to pass through customs. Stan, the pastor I am working with here was waiting on me at the gate. It was really great to see him on Australian soil. This one is for you Hank. We were going to his car and parked about four cars away was a white Nissan Skyline GT-R. I saw three of them yesterday, the first was an R34 model (my favorite) and two R33's.

He showed me around Brisbane and Caboolture. First thing he stopped and showed me the Southern Cross. No, I'm not talking about the constellation I am talking about a plane. It was flown from California to Australia. Stan said he takes people who have just arrived to show them how it used to be. I'm grateful I didn't have to fly in that thing. It was different riding around on the left side of the road. A couple times I looked away and looked up and for a second had that panic of oh no we are on the wrong side of the road, wait, I'm in Australia.

We arrive at his house and had a bit of tea, some crackers and chat for a while. His wife needed to get a haircut so we took her to do that and he showed me the local mall.

This story is for Matt Rhodes. We were walking around the mall and looking in different stores when I was passed by a girl wearing a Family Force Five t-shirt. I'm not kidding it was the Robot love addict one. I told Stan about it and said I was super surprised to see that shirt.

I got to meet Stan's son Greg. He's a really nice guy and we talked about cars and sports for a bit yesterday. I'm going to try to get him a American Football as a gift sometime soon. I also got to meet a young fella named Andrew. First thing I noticed was he was wearing an Atlanta Braves hat, I instantly liked the kid. He had gone to youth camp a couple years back and has been in and out of church since then. We sat around and talked at McDonalds for a bit. He loves dirt bikes and told me a couple of his stories about riding. I told him we needed to get together and he could teach me about riding and all that stuff.

Yesterday was a big day in the Queensland sports world. Apparently, I arrived just in time for game three of State of Origin. State of Origin is a rugby match between the states Queensland and New South Wales. All the players from this rugby league go back and play for their state of origin for a best of three series. It is a pretty big deal and the good thing is WE WON! After that I was so tired that I went to sleep.

This morning I got up around 6:30 showered and we had breakfast. In a little bit I'll be going over to where I will be living. Tomorrow I am headed to the Sunshine Coast for a few days for youth camp. I'm really excited, it sounds a lot like youth camp in the states except this one is at the beach. It will be a great time and I hope to have a positive influence on some of those young people.

It still hasn't quite hit me I'm in Australia.

Thank you for all your prayers, they mean a lot to me.

More later and pictures soon.

P.S. Vegimite really isn't that bad.