DAY SEVEN: SATURDAY MARCH 26TH ADELAIDE TO PERTH

Some of the Crosslink pastors and their wives from Adelaide and South Australia came to Hosanna Heights for breakfast today; Graeme and Dianne Hore from Tea Tree Gully, Nick and Mary Hawkes from Athelstone, Mark and Colleen White from Claire and Phyllis (?? terrible of me to forget the surname) who is also from near Claire. We had a great time. I doubt that we stopped laughing from more than five minutes during the hour and a half we had together. There are some great stories of things that they are doing both separately and together. No doubt we will hear more as they bring the stories to the Conference in September.

At ten, we piled in a couple of cars and headed for the airport. Our plane didn’t leave till a bit after midday so we had time to relax and read the paper. The other guys all of Qantas Club membership so I get to go in as a guest which is very nice. The facilities are amazing. I headed for the computer area and was able to get a Telstra hot spot happening to load up the blog page and do the email thing. I really find this form of doing business very useful. If I can check in once or even twice each day it keeps me up to date with what needs to happen. For a bloke who almost never wrote a letter (even to my mother) I am really good on emails and associated web connections. We are going to do more conferencing using IP the Skype and other forms of the same. It is the way to make the distances seem less isolating.


It was a three hour flight to Perth and a two hour differential with the daylight saving in South Oz and no daylight saving in WA. The time on the ticket was only one hour. We arrived at what was yet another new airport to me (rebuilt since I was there last) and bundled our bulky load (and I’m not referring to our collective waistlines) into a maxi taxi and headed for our hotel. It is called Kings Perth Hotel and is an older but very comfortable, and quite reasonably priced hotel in the centre of the city. Hay Street for all those of you who would know.
Our host in Perth is John Bond. He is the pastor of South Perth Church of Christ and also is part of the One Heart Core Group. In the evening we went to his home where, with his wife, Julie, we were treated to a great barbecue tea and some time with members of the local Pray WA Servant Leadership Team. They are a great bunch of guys and along with them and their wives we had a night of conversations going ten to the dozen until it was time to leave. The members of that team were: Bob Burton, Robin Cullen, John Yates, and another guy who, with his wife supports unity in towns to the north of Perth. This last couple were celebrating their eleventh wedding anniversary so apart from celebrating the opportunity to be together with terrific people we were able to add that to the list. By nine o’clock (Perth time) we were all getting toward the end of energy supply and remembered that our body clocks were on Central Oz time. John himself had only just arrived back from Malaysia where he and Rod had been meetings with some missions people and he was able to share some pretty exciting developments in Asia.