The Montifiore Manse

The Lipsy and Klaver families in Yellowstone

Dear friends and family,

We're getting settled now, and what a wonderful thing it is to finally be home! Due to steering problems (which were eventually fixed), our flight out of L.A. into Sydney was delayed a bit. this meant that we missed our connecting flight to Hobart and sat in the Sydney Airport most of Friday. But no worries, we made it in Friday evening at about 8pm or so. There we were warmly welcomed by Pastor Iain and Mary Smith and Mr. John Coles. We later found out that our delayed flight caused the cancellation of a surprise welcome-home barbeque. Oops!

The Smiths kindly extended their hospitality to us; it was pretty late and we were exhausted. The next day, we got up in time for brunch (long after the proposed breakfast time!) and then spent some time chatting and showing wedding pictures to the Smiths. In the end, we did not return home until early evening on Saturday. On the drive up from Hobart to Launceston we passed through a rainshower at sunset and were delighted at the sight of an inexpressably brilliant double rainbow. It was a visual reminder of how very loving and faithful our God is.

At home, we were treated to the generous gift of a "wallabee" in the fridge to ensure we would be well fed until we could run to Coles or Woolworths for groceries (actually it was regular stew and soup). On Sunday, Mr. Coles took services so that Terry and I had a quiet, relaxed day with our church family. Between services, there was a fellowship luncheon kindly prepared by the church ladies. It was truly a day of rest.

Since then, we've been settling in and taking things easy. We were strictly charged by the Smiths to not begin visiting right away so that we'd have a chance to get settled together, and we've been doing just that. I must say it's quite good advice and a pleasant way to begin new. The progress thus far: Saturday I arranged the bathroom, Monday we went grocery shopping so that the cupboards and fridge are now well stocked, and Tuesday I worked on putting away our clothes while Terry worked on the Bible study for last night. The study went quite well, and we look forward to going through Colossians together with our friends on succeeding weeks.

Yesterday was also our one-month anniversary!! It's been so wonderful already, and this is just the first month! God has truly blessed us both richly in one another.

The amount of pictures we have is really overwhelming, so for today I'll just post a selection of pictures titled "flowers of Maui." Enjoy!

P.S. In the future, look for postings on Martha's "hen party" with the ladies from church on Sept. 1st (the equivalent to Terry's "buck's party") and our second wedding reception with church family here to be held Sept. 8th in Ross, a lovely historic town midway between Launceston and Hobart.