Time to move on

After nearly a week in Wandangula with no car, and no parts arriving, we moved back into Borroloola.

A friend towed the car into town for us, and we are now using Borroloola as our base.

 There are advantages and disadvantages for both places. For many days we were not sure what was the best place to be. In the end, it was the need for food that initiated our move into town. It was too hard to get in to town for food. 

Yesterday, Tuesday, we got our car back. It has half the parts we need. We are under strict orders not to drive too far, and don't tow anything heavy until the rest of the parts arrive and are installed.

I am sure many of you know what NT stands for:
Not today, not tomorrow, not Tuesday, not Thursday, next truck!

It was the same when we lived here, just like it is today!

We were sitting on the Verandah Sunday after noon and saw a huge cloud of smoke. While smoke and fires are not unusual this time of year, these was very close and very black.

Dennis went to investigate. It was a collection of buildings and caravans just on the next block. He was immediately asked to bring buckets of water. But it was all too late. Nearly everything was burned..sheds, caravans, cars.

No one was hurt, and the resident dog escaped unharmed!

Apparently the fire was deliberately lit.

 
Our work has been going slowly. At times it has been frustrating. All was going well until we lost the car.
Since then the workers we were using have gone on to other things. Our best worker had to take her young child to Katherine Hospital.

There was an historical walk on last week that involved most of the town. They walked for 5 days from an outstation called Manangoora all the way to Borroloola.  Nelita was able to participate for a couple of days and she loved it. We could not because we did not have a car.

This has finished, so we are now up and running again.

While we come here with an agenda, and a worthy cause, we cannot expect people to drop things just for us and spend huge amounts of time at the drop of a hat.

We always have to be aware they have lives with commitments. Many have full time jobs so it is hard for them to do as much as we would like.

Car-go.......car-stop

We are having a few problems here at the moment.
We wanted to spend a couple of weeks at Robinson River Station this time here. The roads are so bad we cant take the caravan out there. While it is an off-road van, it is not good to take it 2 hours plus on corrugations as bad as are here at the moment.

Then we thought we could go out for some day trips. Last week we were ready to to out for the Saturday, but something happened, and it was after 10.00 am when that problem was fixed.

Then we decided we would go the following Sunday to Robinson and share with the people there. Friday afternoon, after spending a greater part of the day translating scripts to record the following week, our car broke down.

The guard covering the fan broke and then the fan broke. After talks with insurance, we were able to get it trucked into town today.

We found out our car is imported so the parts may be hard to get.
Please pray for the parts. We are unable to get into town to work with people.  We have 3 weeks left before leaving for Tennant Creek and Alice.

While we are getting some work done we really need more done before we go

One week down..

Nearly 2 weeks at BLA.
So much has changed since we lived here, but many things are still the same.

Corrugated, dirt roads are still so close to town.  The outstation we are staying on is about 10 km from town.  3/4 of that road is corrugation.

We wanted to spend a couple of weeks at Robinson River station, but the road is too bumpy to take the van. This means we are limited to day visits.

Glenys really wanted to take the van until she saw a caravan being brought into town on the back of  a truck minus a couple of wheels and an axle. This put a damper on her ambitions. 

We could probably make it if we had a camper trailer, but not our van, even though it is an off roader!

Dennis & Vincent recording by the McArthur River

Marlene playing and singing

John on electric guitar

We have done some recording, so not too bad for one week into the trip!


Vincent is one of the church leaders who has served God faithfully since his conversion in the early 90's.  We sat down by the river to record. It is close to town away from the noise, but the black cockatoos decided they would serenade us.

John and Marlene have been working with us doing some songs. Sadly John's mother passed away and he has to go back home to Wiepa  to arrange her funeral. We dont know if he will be back in time for us to do any more recording

We have rounded up a couple of people who are willing to record the Garrawa language.  A couple of young men have done some trial with the Aboriginal English, but we still do not have some one to help translate the scripts into Aboriginal English.

Our evenings have been busy at Wandangula. The families have been asking for Christian videos to watch at night time.  We brought the projector and a screen, so it has been a regular occasion but we are fast running out of christian  videos.

Regular  evening activity

Here at last!

Dramas, we had a few!
Just as we were leaving Woodberry, we had a slight mishap. Dennis was winding up the legs on the caravan, so we could leave, and one of the legs broke!  A quick trip off to Jayco for spare parts. While we were grateful that it happened before we left, it was rather frustrating to have to make a 40 minute trip just before pulling out the driveway.

Frustrated Dennis fixing the leg

The trip was uneventful. We stayed at Gympie with some friends and went to church with them. We ended up staying 24 hours there, so we had to keep moving fast to get to Borroloola on the Friday.

After many long hours in the car, we arrived on Thursday afternoon, half a day earlier than we planned. This was great as we had some time to be quiet and rest before setting up for the Rodeo on Saturday.

Every time we travel up and back with ministry, we lament we have to keep to a schedule. There are so many interesting places we have to pass by..... One day we will travel just for fun!

While we were traveling up here, our neighbour rang to tell us he stopped some young kids from breaking into our house. Needless this caused a bit of stress and feelings of helplessness. Jarrod, our 3rd son is home but he starts work at 3.00 pm and does not finish until around midnight. This means the house is empty when the kids are home from school.

The rodeo was a good time to catch up with people we have not seen for ages. We had a table there and shared about the 5 fish app, had phones and bibles and posters to sell. 

Stand at the Borroloola Rodeo

We have now begun the process of finding people to help with the script and recording. There are a few people we have begun to test with recording to see if they are suitable. Finding people to help with the translation work is a bit harder.

We are staying on an outstation called Wandangula.  Don't try to pronounce it as it does not sound as it is spelled.  This is where Nelita's family live.

This has been great for accommodation but not for internet.  We bought a prepaid internet, but it does not seem to work for us. It was fine at home, but does not let us do anything here. The internet at the library is $3.00 for 15 minutes. The net is so slow there that we dont use it.

I tried to upload more pictures but the net is so slow I have given up.

2 more sleeps!!

Well, we are on the final countdown. What a few weeks this has been!

Dennis has worked hard on getting the van and car ready. He spend weeks building and perfecting a drop down fridge slide for the back of the car.

Praise God for the internet and You Tube and sons to help! Dennis & Nathan built the slide for the fridge. Dennis built a frame to bolt it to and some drawers to sit beside it.

 While it was a lot of work, it was so much cheaper than buying a commercial drawer already built. It costs around $800 just for the drawer slide alone.  We paid $200 for the slides and built the frame for about $100.  The drawers are flower boxes we bought on Grumtree for $1.50 each. Not beautiful but certainly functional.

As food is so expensive the further north you travel, we found a way to cut costs. A co-worker from GRN, Helen Sadler, took Glenys to the Flemington Markets in Sydney. Together they braved the crowds and bought huge amounts of vegetables. These were taken home and dehydrated.  This will help with the food bill while away.

Helen also went the extra mile and came to our home a few days later and helped with preparing the vegies and also getting the garden ready for 9 weeks of neglect!

 Dennis does a lot of preaching at Singleton Presbyterian church. One of the parishioners gave him a 12 kg pumpkin. This was duly disected, grated, dried and then ground to make pumpkin flour. This can be made into soup, or into bread or stews as required.  The tomatoes will be used as sun dried tomatoes in oil, and added to stews, spaghetti and the like. We also dried zucchini chips, beetroot chips, grated cauliflower, capsicum and carrots. Time ran out before we were able to dry celery.

Helen's job at GRN is data entry for all the international centres of GRN. She maintains the data base and keeps everything up to date.

While she was with us, she sorted out all the data we needed to take up with us. This and a few other jobs she did while staying with us saved us a couple of days work, especially as she knows what she is doing; when we try these things, it take us much longer. By the way, all the mess on Dennis' desk is colouring in pages and pencil packs. Helen was printing them out and packing them while doing the data entry. So much work, so little time.

Thanks Helen.

Just on a lighter side, we went camping for a few days in the last school holidays. Our daughter in law, Shayna and her children came with us.
Xander was having fun with a campfire, but the smoke was getting to him. He came up with this idea!

Not sure that it worked to well, but 10 points for trying.

Dont forget to look at the prayer and praise section for current prayer points.

Recording Trip

 Dennis has finished his training on the computer programs. He now is getting some recording training.

Borroloola from the air

At last we are off to the Territory. Our dates at the moment are mid August to mid October. We will be spending time in Borroloola and Robinson River. GRN have asked us to visit some churches/communities on the way up and back.

We are looking forward to going back. This is the first time we are going by car. Usually we fly. Flying is much quicker and cheaper, but as we need to do recording and the like, and staying for a longer time, we need the car and van.

Nelita gets car sick, so she will have a fun time getting to the territory and back. Please pray for her as she finds being in the car when it is towing the van makes her quite unwell.

Tablelands Hwy

Our plans are to be there for the Borroloola Rodeo. This is a time when people from different  communities come into town. We feel this would be a good time to show people what GRN has to offer in the area of the 5Fish app, and help them to download it onto their phones.

We will set up a display at the rodeo. (Dennis will have to man it himself because Glenys LOVES watching the broncs. She will be stuck to the fence with her camera!) Not really, but she will be tempted to run away as often as possible and watch the rodeo.

The display will have some phones and SD cards for sale, along with some other items that may be of interest to the Christians there. These will include colouring in books, songs and videos. If people are willing to help with getting supplies to take up there, please let us know.

 Nelita will be given school work from her school, so she will not fall behind too much, hopefully.  For Glenys, it feels like the old days of teaching while travelling.  ..mmmmm.

Caranbirini Conservation Reserve

Some of the time we are in the Territory will be spent in Robinson River Station. We are a bit scared about driving the van  on rough corrugated roads, (approx 3 hrs from Borroloola). Fear of the unknown.

There has been a bit of a revival in Robinson, so it will be great to spend some time with the people there.

flooded road in wet season

 The next few weeks will be busy in getting the car and van ready to go away. We need to put a water tank in the van and some drawers in the back of the car. Dennis is also going to attempt to build a slide out/drop down drawer for the car fridge. That will take some time and brain power, but he feels confident that he can do it.

Glenys is getting scripts ready and organizing Dennis and frustrating him with endless lists.
Our newsletter has just been put on this blog, so feel free to download it and share with others.

Why have we not been on our blog?

Well, Everyone, we are up and running again!
Why, are you saying that?, you may ask!
Let us explain.

A couple of years ago, Newcastle had some very severe storms. Our house had some damage. One of the most significant issues we had, apart from a huge tree falling right down the middle our yard, our shed leaked and revealed some major structural problems.

This shed was used as an office as our house is very small, and there is no room for computers and printers etc inside.

We knew we would have to replace the shed in the near future as it was flooding, the walls were rotting and growing mould, the roofing material was not legal, and compromised to name a few problems.

Removing plaster and insulation

As you know, our ministry involves traveling, but also a lot of computer work. So we needed somewhere dry and not ready to fall to work in.

 Glenys' mother died, and left a small amount of money. We decided to use this money to pull down the old shed and build a new one.

Dennis was spending a lot of time at GRN office doing some training, so it was left to Glenys to pack up the old office, and prepare everything for the removal of the old shed.

Emptying shed

 Dennis would come home on the week end and we would work like mad on the big jobs. Then he would go back to Sydney for the week.

It was scary when we started to dismantle the shed and see how rotten it was. If we had not done the shed when we did, it would have fallen down in the next couple of years!

rotten beams

cracks in the concrete let water into the shed

We pulled down the shed in the wettest month of the year. 

The arrival of the shed

 

Jeff and Jarrod working on the roof

Cameron laying the concrete

We are grateful for the help of Jeff, and  Rhys who gave their time, and Cameron our neighbour who poured the cement for us.

Granddaughter Tueila & Wade the duck

At this time, Daniel & Shayna were having their third child. We were looking after the older 2
Tueila (Tutu) had a lot of fun playing in the puddles.
Wade was never far away either!








The new shed is larger than than the old one. The old one including the carport attached to the side of the shed was about 7m x 7m. The new shed is 9.5m x 7m

Jarrod & Jeff spying on the neighbours!

No show without Punch, Nellie home from school having a ride!

Frame being erected

Nathan, Daniel and Jarrod putting down the roof

Gruntly and Sam watching the work

'Why on earth would we want to have such a large shed?', you may ask.
There is a perfectly valid reason for the size, apart from Dennis having a 'dog house' to live in.

The office area we planned is the same as in the old shed. We have also planned for a small bedroom area, living area and bathroom to go in the shed.

When people come down from the NT to do work with us, there is room for them to stay and have some privacy. The kitchenette is there if they want to make their own meals and be independent.  This way people can be living and eating with us, or having some time out for themselves.

Starting to line the shed

We have worked hard to keep the costs down. The shed was new, and our neighbour laid the concrete cheaply for us on his day off.
The rest of the materials we used to finish off the shed were sourced through Gumtree.

We put in 2 sliding doors in the shed to bring some light into it. This meant we had spare corrugated iron left over, so we used that to line the inside walls of the shed. The insulation was from the old shed. Glenys had packed it up when the shed was being pulled down. We did run out before we finished but were able to get a couple of bags free on Gumtree.

The top of the dado wall was lined with reject ply wood. This is rough, but as it is a shed, it does not matter. The paint was a mis-tint from Bunnings.


There is a lot of work to do, but we are now able to work in the office part of the shed.

Dennis installing the desks

Office up and running

We are very grateful for the provision of the shed, even if it did nearly kill us trying to get it up and running. It is still a long way from finished but we now have some where to work that is dry and not ready to fall down around our ears. ( hopefully!)

We are also very thankful for the people who helped us with putting the shed together. Jeff and Rhys gave us a few days, Our sons also helped and Jay the electrician also were invaluable.