Craig and Debbie Rayner

Travelling Australia

Travelling in Australia

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Medical Update

Debbie will be having a follow up ultra sound on the 9th March. We get to know the results on the 10th March. We will let you know, but essentially it is a check to ensure that the blood clot is dissolved.

We have travelled much in the South East corner of Australia. We have attached a map of the area we have covered, and a large copy is available on the web site.

The last month has been full of talking and meeting with friends and family. It was great to share about the vision and calling to Kazakhstan which has deepened many of the relationships and brought  new levels of understanding. As well we headed down to Melbourne for a couple of days in a holiday house ( a wedding gift) which saw the highest temperature ever recorded which was followed by the bush fires that have devastated the area north of Melbourne.

It got us thinking about the reaction to disasters in our own countries as people donated more than 60 million ( and raising) to help the thousands of people affected. Patriotic giving, Australians everywhere around the world gave and keep giving. Others give as well but when we can identify with the place and situation, the knowledge that we could have been in that situation is a powerful motivator. What a challenge to so identify with a place and situation that we are moved to action. On a global scale thinking of the body and how we identify with suffering, disasters and need. What would happen if we all identified ourselves not by nationality, beliefs or colour but without boundaries as people, humanity. And all disasters would bring about an outpouring of resources.

Defining Home

The Pauletto’s

One of the questions that we have been asked is "So where is home for you two ?" This is a question that we had asked each other as we discussed our future before we were married. Our answer, then, as now, is that we would define home as the place in which the three of us are together. The difficulty comes in expressing that paradigm, within the paradigm of the questioner, who is invariably asking about location, and our answer is about relationship. Sometimes the question is even loaded with multiple choice answers; Home? Canada or Australia?

Our answer perplexes some, and shows us the depth of the work that we still need to do. As a location, our first home together will be Kazakhstan. Spiritually, our home is not found in a location, but rather in the relationship that we share, and even better, the relationships that we share with the MD, who continues to provide for us, grows us and gifts us to each other daily.

Leaving Sydney

On the 20th March we will be leaving Australia, jumping the puddle on a QANTAS flight. We will be staying most of our time at Palmerston North whilst Craig does some training on the database that the school in Kazakhstan is using. We will take some time to catch up with some of our cheerleaders in New Zealand. We will leave New Zealand on the 6th April, flying back to Australia to visit Craig's brother north of Cairns. We did not travel by car up to Cairns, as originally planned, because of the travel distance. We would not have made the trip in any case, as the roads to Cairns are still cut by the January floods. These happened before the bush fires in Victoria.

We will spend a week in Mossman (North of Cairns) before flying onto Hong Kong on the 14th April. We hope to be in Hong Kong for 3-4 weeks before continuing to Europe, etc. Our time in Hong Kong will be spent bring our club members up to date with our plans, sharing our story and encouraging them.

Our Cheerleaders: Australian Connection