Adventures in Queensland

"Beautiful one day, perfect the next" was Queensland's tourism jingle at one stage. Fortunately my time up there was beautiful one day and perfect the next, but not so much because of the weather, but because I had a really fun time catching up with family, friends and the team at AMT. I even managed to squeeze in a trip down to the Gold Coast where I stayed with some relatives and went for a surf. It was great to be back in the water and I AM going to miss surfing when I'm in Queretaro, however, it will all be worth it.

I have included some photos of my travels with this update, I hope you enjoy them.

Here I am with the crew at AMT. It was really good to drop in and meet the office staff, enjoy a coffee and some yummy morning tea and pray together. I appreciated getting some words of wisdom from Ken who is on the board of AMT and also on the board of International Teams (the best of both worlds!). They also let me use their guillotine the Cutmaster 3000 which was excellent (and saved me lots of time cutting up my brochures one at a time!).

This is me beside the pool and the canal down on the Gold Coast. It was really enjoyable to spend a little bit of time relaxing and exploring the coast and having a surf. It was cool to catch up with the Criddles and I appreciated their hospitality lots!

This is me with David, Trina, Zac and Karli - it was wonderful to see my family, though sad to say goodbye for the next couple of years. I know that we will keep in touch and that God will bless us and keep us all wherever we are in the world!

My big bro and I!

So now I'm back in Melbourne and focussing on getting everything prepared and in order to leave on the 2nd of March for Sydney, then on to Mexico on the 5th of March. I'm starting to feel the pain and stress of saying goodbye and packing up. I would appreciate your prayers and thoughts through this period - I want to leave well! I've moved back to Mum and Dad's house and now have a LOT of stuff to sort through and pack up (and I'm already over it without starting!!)

Don't forget the BBQ next Sunday, 24th February, 12:30pm at Deepdene Park in Balwyn. Drop me an email on phil.jones@iteams.org for more details!

Lucky the people are good...

I'm up here in Brisbane and the rain continues to fall! Lucky I'm here to see people and not to enjoy the sunshine! I flew to Brisbane last night and I'm enjoying spending some time catching up with David and Trina (and Zac and Karly!).

This morning I went down to the motor auctions with my brother (as he's in the car industry) and saw cars flying under the hammer. Very interesting. Didn't buy anything though ;-)

Tomorrow I'm going to visit AMT which is our church denomination's mission agency and also catch up with a friend from KPMG.

As usual, I'm in a coffee shop working away on my laptop - so here's me saying hi!

Still got lots to do to prepare and starting to count down the days - under three weeks until Melbourne departure!

My first video update!

Touring Tassie

I'm currently down in Tassie, our very own 'south of the border' state. I've had a wonderful opportunities to catch up with lots of relatives and connect with people down here. The photos below show me catching up with an Uncle and Auntie of mine and also enjoying a mini-Magnum with my Mum.

I talked about my Mexico journey at Hope Christian Centre on Sunday morning and also had a great Aussie BBQ at my uncle's house in Devonport in the evening - an update on that in my next post!