Brisbane - March/April

So I know this was a looong time ago. Too long. But I can't really not write about this on my blog! So here it is.

In March this year we went on holiday to Brisbane. It's the closest place to the Solomons to fly so it was the obvious choice and holidays in the Solomons can be rather expensive. Also, we needed to see a doctor.

Jair had a hernia - I think he got it in October - and because of all the work he did over Christmas, building a house among many other things, it certainly didn't get better in a hurry. But we weren't getting anywhere with the health system here either, so we thought, our holiday in Brisbane will be a good time to get this "thing" checked out. The insurance company thought so too.

We were able to stay with friends in Brisbane, who actually weren't home most of the time so we had their house and their car. They're amazing. And they connected us with a GP from their church. Jair had an appointment with her - again another amazing person (is it just something about Brisbane??) - and she got him to have an ultrasound and referred him to a specialist. The specialist said that yep, it's a hernia, and yep it needs to be repaired. Easy as. 

Surgery was scheduled. Insurance company was informed. Insurance company pulled the handbrake. Big time. Jair might have got another hernia from all the stress the insurance company gave him! So then someone else said, go ahead and get the surgery, we'll pull the money from somewhere. But then we'd only received one of the invoices - not the invoice from the anesthetist, or the one for the hospital stay etc etc. So it was going to be more than double what we originally thought.

So we went back to our kind and caring GP who referred us to another specialist who worked privately in the public system, so the bill would be less. By this stage it was Easter Tuesday (the day originally scheduled for surgery). The next day was Wednesday and we had originally planned to travel away and go have an adventure on Fraser Island for a week. So much for that plan!

Jair saw the other specialist, who way more thoroughly pursued the ultrasound report (or rather, actually looked at it - the previous specialist hadn't even asked to see the report!!) , and concluded that while Jair did have a hernia, it was clearly healing itself and it would be unnecessary and in fact, inappropriate to do surgery. 

Wow.

It was amazing because having prayed for months that God would open up a way for surgery to happen successfully, we found that actually the whole time He was busy, behind the scenes, healing Jair's hernia himself.

It reminded me that God supersedes my expectations, again and again.

So, not needing surgery anymore, we went to the supermarket, bought groceries for a week, tanked up the 4wd drive, packed our bags and went on holiday to Fraser Island.

It was amazing. We were so blessed in that someone lent us their 4wd drive and someone else let us stay in their beach house on the island. I would have loved to be camping, roughing it in a tent, digging my toes into the sand as I watched a campfire die down under the stars, but it was hideous weather, so coming back to a nice, warm, airconditioned house with a fridge, a dryer, electricity that worked(!!) was actually really fantastic.

Here are some of my favourite photos from our adventure.

Theresa and Jair doing cartwheels on the sand in a sandblow we visited. This photo wasn't a set up. Somehow they both were in the same point of the cartwheel process at the same time!

Jair and Theresa are that little speck in the middle of the sandblow and I'm taking the photo from the edge where the bush meets the sand. And you can't even see the whole sandblow in the picture. It was amazing. We were the only ones here and we had such a blast rolling around in the sand! 

A lace monitor in a tree. I was fascinated with these guys and kept trying to take photos of them to the point that Jair had to tell me to back off or they would come after me!

This collection of photos wouldn't be complete without a picture of a dingo (that's a deeengo, not a dungo). Dingoes on Fraser Island are the only pure breed dingoes in Australia. There are warnings everywhere about being careful about them because they're not friendly dogs, but ferocious wild animals. We went for a walk along the beach with Theresa one evening and then put Theresa down on the sand to play. Seconds later a dingo came out from where we had just been walking and made a beeline towards us! So we picked Theresa up and tried to look calm and casual. Dingo kept coming. We did the whole, back to back walking thing and I said to Jair, "Do dingoes swim? Maybe we should just go in the water." 

When the Dingo figured out that we weren't going to let the little tike down on the ground again he sauntered off. 

Turtle in Lake Alom.

We went to the other side of the island one day and found this vast flat estuary type thing. Again, no one else was there.

Coming back was a bit hairy. Driving on the beach meant you had to mind the tides. High tide had only been an hour before, so there were a few patches where we had to hold our breath. Jair loved it!

The beast - next to another beast - the Maheno wreck.

Fraser Island was the best place ever for Theresa. It's a sand island so it was perfect for sand castles. 

We had a fantastic week in Fraser Island and definitely recommend it if you happen to be traveling to Queensland. One thing I don't have photos of much is the incredible trees and plant life. It was so varied from coast, to inland and even in different areas in land and it's not a huge island. One of my favourite driving tracks we did was actually a wide walking track, and it was this dense rain forest. Very still. Very quiet.

We want to go back one day - maybe give it 10 years or so and walk from bottom to top, and then meet someone (maybe you?) at the top and then that someone can walk down while we drive down. So, I know it's a long way off, maybe you want to start training now, but we recommend you pencil it in your diaries, because we'll need to start looking in a couple of years time, for another crazy couple/family to join in the adventure.

What I Notice

Today I'm in Australia. Sometimes (but not for a year now) I'm in New Zealand. But usually I'm in the Solomon Islands. Solomon Islands is a relatively *different* country to live in. Perhaps the difference is more distinct not in a description of what I notice in the Solomon Islands but of what I notice in New Zealand or Australia. Everytime I step out of the customs protected areas in the international airports and officially into the "West", I notice something different.

By notice, what I mean is that there is always one thing that strikes me, one staggering reality of life in the West that is different, just one thing that hits me hard in that whole trip.

The first time I went back to the West I noticed the fashion. Back then it was the embarrassing (well not for me because I didn't partake of it) revival of ridiculous coloured tights, dresses that looked like long tee-shirts and long undies, or should I say shorts (?) that girls wore in public. Obviously their mothers forgot to mention some things to them (and for the sake of today's post I'm not talking about modesty - I'm talking about distasteful fashion!!).

The second time I went back to the West I noticed how everything smelled so nice. One member of a Short Term mission team said to me in the Solomons, "it just stinks like the masses of unwashed humanity." Sadly, when I live at home (by which I mean, the Solomon Islands), I, too, smell like unwashed humanity. My clothes are mouldy and sweated in beyond repair, deodorant lasts about 10 minutes, and my house always has that musty smell of the tropics. But in the West - even the airport smelt deliciously fresh and inviting. People smell nice. Buildings smell nice. Even dogs smell nice!!

The third time I went back to the West I noticed how biting the cold was. It's like the wind hit you in the face, the hands, the neck, whatever part of your body that was exposed, and went right into your body, streaming through like a bolt of electricity and leaving you energised and shaken into motion. It was spring, the flowers were out, the trees had changed colour - pink and white and green; it was a new season. At home we have hot and dry and hot and wet. That's it. And those two seasons are really rather indistinguishable, except that in hot and dry your body feels hot but the sweat runs off, and in hot and wet your body feels hot but the sweat sticks. In NZ in the spring, particularly the beautiful Hawkes Bay in the spring, the wind came rushing down from the hills, searching for people to give a cold slap of a kiss on the cheek, and leave them flabbergasted and flabbergusted.

The fourth time I went back to the West I noticed that the houses seemed insecure. I couldn't believe that there were no bars on the windows, no fences securing the property, no guards at the gate to screen people coming in. You could open your window and exit via the window. This may sound like an odd idea to you, but in our house if their was a fire or a burglary where would we exit? We have two doors on the same side of the house, but all our windows are barred. At first I felt unsafe in Australia living in a house that had not bars on the window. You could actually see what was outside without the obstruction but, the windows felt naked.

The fifth time I went back to the West (my current trip) I notice that I can put mascara on and it doesn't smudge all over my eyelids and upper cheek. It's fantastic. There's no mugginess here so it dries straight away.

Fancy that!