Day 9 on Mission in Port Hedland

Today is Sunday at it really is our last day in Port Hedland. I actually woke up feeling pretty sad about this. I have really loved the work that we have been able to do this week and kinda feel like I've been more effective in one week in Port Hedland for the Gospel than nearly 2 years in Doncaster.

Today involves church. Our final church service with the people of Port Hedland. It was a great service. Matt preached up a storm and Jonty, Ellisa, Matt, Ainslee and I helped out with the music. Ellisa and Helen ran the Sunday school this week and Matt, Jonty and I went out to do a re-jigged version of our puppet show for the kids (most of them had seen it before, so we had to change it!) Then the kids did some colouring in of treasure boxes.

Treasure has kinda been the theme of the week. Our puppet shows were all about how the greatest treasure in the world is peace with God and it's available through trusting in Jesus. We have been using Jesus' parable of the Hidden Treasure in Matthew 13:44 as an illustration of how much better finding Jesus is than anything else this world has to offer. That was the message we spoke in church today.

After church we had some final goodbyes with some people, I'm glad heaven exists and I will get to see some of these lovely Christian people again one day in heaven if not before. I took great comfort in that!

Following church Ellisa and I went our separate ways to hang out with our billets one last time. This was good and Phillip (my billet) was installing Logos Bible Software onto his computer which I got to have a play with. Very cool... pretty sure I'm gonna get me some of that soon! After having lunch with my billets we headed over to a place called Pretty Pool (which is where the Bloke BBQ was on Monday night) for a final gathering and a swim. Ellisa and I couldn't swim however because we were leaving at 7pm that night.

At about 5:30-6pm, it was time for Ellisa and I to leave. We said goodbye to our mission team friends, our billets and the other people from the church who were hanging out with us at Pretty Pool. Ellisa's billet Sara drove us to the airport where we boarded our flight to Perth. We arrived in Perth at about 9:30pm and had to wait for our Perth to Melbourne flight which left at 12:30am. That was actually 2:30am Melbourne time and we landing in Melbourne at about 6am. When we arrived in Melbourne it was about 7 degrees and raining. What a contrast to Port Hedland which hadn't gotten below 25 overnight and had been hovering in the high 30's most of the week during the day.

We made our way home and I went to bed and Ellisa went to Uni. We were no longer on Mission in Port Hedland, but I think our hearts are still there. It is a great place! I'm sure that the Port Hedland Mission trip will help Ellisa and I gain more clarity about our future ministry life together. Many thanks to you for supporting us either financially, through prayer or simply by reading these posts. We're very grateful for that.

Just so you know, more pictures and things will come in the coming days. I will also tidy up some of these diary posts to make them more complete too.

God bless Port Hedland