First week reflections

Well we have certainly had an eventful first week up here in the Tiwi Islands. Last night there was an earthquake measuring 7.3 magnitude, but was 170km deep therefore posing no Tsunami threat. We awoke around 2am to feel our house shaking, Dunstan initially thought he was in a boat as he was dreaming about fishing, but then realized it wasn't a dream, but an earthquake. I woke up to the movement, pronounced that this was my first earthquake and fell back asleep. No damage was done over here to our knowledge, we are all safe and well.  Here are some thoughts/reflections on the week gone by accompanied by some photos. You might want to have a cup of tea or coffee in hand, as this re-cap ended up being a little longer than I had anticipated.

The news headlines we woke up to our first morning in the Northern Territory, were something along the lines of "twelve year - old boy killed by Croc" this didn't really build much confidence in our new surroundings. We then made our way to the local airport for charter flights that  go to the Tiwi Islands and surrounding remote communities. At the small Aviation office for the company we were flying with the pilot asked us if we had been weighed yet, I began reaching for our bags only to learn that he was in fact talking about weighing us (thank goodness I'd been exercising a bit before this trip). As you can see in the photo above the planes are quite teeny tiny so they have to evenly distribute weight to ensure for a smooth journey. Our first glimpses of the Tiwi Islands were beautiful and within twenty minutes of taking off we began to make our descent. Red soil and dust met us, along with some of our friends and the Family group home co-ordinator, we then  jumped into a troopy and made our way to the school.

This the main office. 

Here is our house, it has two large veggie gardens either side (hopefully we can keep them alive). 

We were quite surprised by the schools modern infrastructure and tarred roads. The school the itself is only four years old and has 66 students give or take who attend on a weekly basis. From the hours of 8:30-3:15 the students attend school. All hours in between, they are essentially in the care of the Family Group Home Parents (us). There are six different Family Group Homes (FGH) hosting same sex students from middle school to senior. The houses are quite nice and have air conditioning in the bedrooms. The house above is the one we are going to be staying in next year. At this stage it looks like we will have middle school girls. Dunstan and I are excited to begin the journey of Family House Group Parents in the coming year.

The week gone by was the last week for the students and so it was filled with some exciting activities and celebrations which were really cool to be a part of. We stayed in FGH3 which has the middle school boys in it. The boys in this house were pretty well behaved, very loud and certainly kept us entertained. Talk about culture shock, having to adjust to their fast paced,  profanities   slang, heavily accented english was a bit hard at the beginning but Dunstan in true form managed to pick up some phrases, accents and words in their language. Matthew Hayden (Aussie cricketer) came to do some filming for a documentary he is making about his garden project he has at the school. Above is a picture of Dunstan playing guitar for the Fijian house parents as they sung for Matty and the kids. We have also started doing a nice 3.8k walk/run which if done early enough doesn't result in too-much heat exhaustion. Along this walk we've seen wild horses, dingo tracks, a snake, been swooped by over protective birds and almost landed on by a charter plane (slight exaggeration with the plane).

The kids are... well, they really just need a whole lot of love and encouragement (don't we all). They certainly come with their fair set of challenges. We are encouraged by reports they have made a lot of positive progress, particularly this year in regards to their behaviour, academic achievements, attitudes, general hygiene, relationally etc. The way the children are here at school is really a reflection of what their lives are like at home in their communities. There are certainly positive aspects to their culture and that is what we must focus on drawing out and emphasising rather than the negative. While Dunstan and I know we will face some challenges in the coming year in our new roles, we consider it an honour to work out here in an A grade remote area in a fully indigenous school. God is already at work in this community and we are excited to be a part of what He has in store for next year.

"Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes". James 4:14

Our lives are but a mist, a fleeting moment in time, so here is to making our time here on this earth count.

Whew, that was a long re-cap considering it has only been a week, but hopefully it painted a bit more of a picture of what we signed up for. We are still learning and enjoying the journey ourselves.

On Thursday we leave the Tiwi to make our way to Darwin airport for our flight to Manila at 3am. Yew!

Much love,
Mr & Mrs M

There are new adventures to be had...

So, to announce it officially, Dunstan and I are moving to the Tiwi Islands. 

Yes-Tiwi Islands is still a part of Australia. Yes-it's going to be really really really hot. Yes-we are excited to see what God has in store for us as we embark on a new adventure. 

What are we doing in the Tiwi Islands? Well we are going to be Family House Parents to a group of around 8 children (we're not sure of their ages or whether it will be girls or guys yet).  Pretty much we will be doing everything a parent does-help get the kids ready for school, help with homework, make meals, run some programs etc. We are not entirely sure of what our roles will entail, but hey, that adds to the excitement right?!

Dunstan and I are both passionate about working with communities, discipleship and living a life of love and faith in action. When this opportunity to serve as house parents in the Tiwi Islands came up, we knew it was something we would be honoured to be a part of. 

When does all this begin? On the 1st of December we will be flying up to the Islands for a two week crash course in how everything works and to meet the kids. We will then go to the Philippines for two weeks and return to Brisbane on the 2nd of January. Then we'll have a bit over a week to pack our house up and move everything up and ready to begin officially on the 19th of January. (Yep, we have a busy month ahead of us)

We will keep this post short, we just wanted to give you a brief update on our lives and what is happening. We wanted to use this blog as a means of communicating to our friends and family in hopefully a functional and exciting way, as well as to document the journeys we share together. Feel free to subscribe to this blog via email and that will simply mean you will know when new posts are up, to stay in touch with us as we head up North and beyond in the years to come. 

Please keep us in our prayers as we have a lot of logistics to figure out, as well as wrapping up our time at our respective jobs.

Love Mr & Mrs M

PS: Here is a little more info about the Tiwi Islands- The islands of Melville and Bathurst are known as the Tiwi Islands Northern Territory. Located 80 kilometres of Darwin, these two Australian islands are composed of long sandy beaches, rock pools and thick rainforests. Melville Island is Australia's 2nd largest island. Most of the 2700 islanders live on the island of Bathurst but around 900 people still live on the island of Melville. The Tiwis who live on Bathurst return to Melville every year to learn and teach others about their culture.