In July we had the privelege of going on a Missons Trip "locally" (4 hours away) with our Church. It was a last minute trip that was taken over by our Church for another local Church that normally does this trip every year - they couldn't this year due to conflicting scheduling of another Missions Trip! So we jumped on this opportunity and went along with 16 other adults and 9 other children. We stayed at a Campground and tented for 6 nights. This is the first time we've camped as a Family since Elijah was 18months! It was great! (besides the wind on the first and second days - it was windy like I've never experienced, and unfortunatly I've developed a wind-phobia in the past couple years. Ugh)
Here we are loaded down with all of our gear and food and bikes on the back - ready to go!
So the whole mission for this trip was to LOVE the migrant workers & fruit pickers that come to this area (primarily from Quebec) by providing them with a big dinner for the 5 week days. We were going up to their Camp (which was just basic with a tap for running water that they drank but probably shouldn't have and an toilet - they can stay at this "campground" for $75/month!) with all of our gear (borrowed from the Church who usually does this trip) like tables, chairs, huge BBQ, pots, bowls...etc.
there were lots of dogs up at this camp - the kids all loved the dogs
we were told to expect about 175 people coming up for meal; but many of the days we were feeding closer to 300! God provided! It was really neat working in a "kitchen" outdoors with the group to prepare salads, cut vegetables, serve food - our Pastor said if he doesn't see another BBQ for the rest of the summer though, he'd be good with that! There was A LOT of que-ing going on!
one evening we handed out these little packs of toothpaste, toothbrush deodorant...etc. and then another night we handed out Bibles in French to those who wanted one
all 3 of my children were hard workers - setting up chairs, taking down chairs, picking up trash and recycling and their favourite job was handing out cups and filling them up with Lemonade... check it out:
there were 2 of these handy dandy backpacks (that Jason has on) - we would pass out the Lemonade to the people in the line waiting for food, great time to converse with them!
At this final meal, we had invited a few of the Workers to serve food with us (in the pink, for example) - and see this Family getting food? They live up at this camp; the husband fruit picks and the wife is with the 2 children. They otherwise live in a nearby town in the off season. Wow, what a brave mother! It is just dirt up there - man our kids came home sooooo dusty/dirty each evening!
Another thing we did for the workers, was provide a Laundry Day for them! We handed out garbage bags one night and said to return them to us full of dirty laundry and we would then return them nice and clean! One morning the Ladies (and one husband - the one whom had the back of his truck full of the bags!) got up early to do Laundry at a Laundromat that specifically let us in 2 hours before he opened the store to regualar customers. That meant 7:00am. It was another neat experience!
And yet another component to this week was the opportunity to work at Gleaners. 4 of the mornings that week a group of us went to work there, cutting onions!
a part of this special Mix sent all over the World:
That was the work part of our trip! In the afternoons we met as a group for a meeting and devotional and then had an hour or two to do whatever before heading up to the camp for meal preparations!
One afternoon our whole group met at a local lake - the kids had a blast! It was almost like a week-long-playdate for the kids!
and one afternoon our Family drove into the next City to get to a Walmart for a new air mattress since we were waking up a bit to close to the ground each morning - and so we stopped for an ice cream cone at Tickleberry's
and finally, our Campground had a pool, so we took advantage of that!
Fantastic week - would we do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat. Am I happy to finally gone on a Missions Trip (never have)? Yes! Even if it was so close to home, I'm happy to have given this opportunity to our Children already as well! (I'm hoping one of my 3 children will want to go on a Missions Trip through their High School (yes, we're taking a decade from now!) and I'll go as a chaperone - that's my plan! I want to get to Haiti yet!)
Our eyes were peeled for Koalas in trees, Roos crossing the road and anything else that would catch our eye... here was our first find: Echidna who darted into the bush as soon as he caught sight of our car
then we came to this view - breathtaking! At this pullover we talked to a couple from Britain who is travelling AUS for 3 months! Nice!!
and then we could have run over this little guy but didn't and stopped to photograph him -
and a stop at Squeaky Beach - the sand was marbled, so gorgeous!
at our next stop, we went on a loop walk which took us on a beach for half of it. We found these little crabs all over the place and found out that they cause the "brown sugar" looking sprinkles overtop of the sand! Unreal! 
So they put a little bit of sand in their mouth, roll it in a ball while pulling out the organisms they need for nutrition... leaving the sand covered in these little balls! Wow!
(wouldn't be a good beach to hang out on - but sure neat to walk past)
A Crimson Rosella from the Parrot Family - we were in a "caravan park" (campground) and these birds were flying around. This one let us get pretty close - so unbelievable to see this in the wild!
a Galah
We stopped at a opening where we were told we might spot some wildlife - sure enough down a path we came to a clearing and there were a number of Emu's
and a Magpie that tried to dive-bomb me twice - freaked me out! (we later learnt when we talked to a local that the kids even carry branches with them on their walk to school this time of year as the Magpies are in mating season and I guess dive-bomb them?! crazy bird...
we continued on into the country - a lot of the rolling hills gave us the feeling that we were visiting Europe; it was beautiful -
and lots and lots of cows
to be continued...
