And we're home . . .

Last ride with Mario

Australia was an experience of a lifetime. We each had different opportunities, different experiences, but we all had a wonderful trip and we each saw God at work in the lives we encountered and in our own lives, too. Today was departure day and we got up this morning, loaded Mario's "coach" one last time, and headed to Sydney Airport.

Today was all about lines and sitting and waiting, more shopping, card playing, cat naps, snacking, loading planes, sitting, sleeping, standing in lines, etc. We even managed some plane watching! You get the picture.

Looks like we have a LONG way still to go!

Our itinerary said we would depart Sydney at 1:25 p.m. on Saturday, July 21, and arrive at DFW at 1:45 p.m. on Saturday, July 21, which we joked about frequently since that twenty minutes actually translated into 15 hours and 15 minutes! Crossing the International Dateline certainly made life interesting the entire time we were gone as we would discuss things in Australia and at home and never knew whether we were talking about yesterday, today, or tomorrow!

After the 15+ hours flying back from Sydney, we weren't finished yet! We still had to fly from DFW to OKC, and then we boarded the "bus" (we were back in Oklahoma, now!) and drove on into Enid. Fortunately, everything went smoothly. We did have two couples who somehow didn't have seat assignments at Dallas so they were forced to sit . . . in first class! I don't think they were complaining about anything!!

At last . . . it is good to be home (even though it IS hot!) and we look forward to returning to worship at Emmanuel, but Australia will not be soon forgotten. The trip made a deep impact on ALL of us and as we reflect on the trip, the lives, the experiences, this trip to Sydney will continue to live on for a long time to come.