Christmas in Cairns

We've had a wonderful holiday here in Cairns!

Cairns, Australia is very hot in December, so swimming is a must.  This creek is a favorite swimming spot, called Crystal Cascades

We went looking at christmas lights one evening, and this was our favourite house...

Christmas morning fun:  giving gifts, a second hand shop gift exchange (couldn't spend more than 5 dollars), finding the lychee seed in the christmas tree, and lots of laughter

Nick kept stealing Laura's iPhone and wrapping it up and putting his name on the gift :)

Even Millie got a christmas gift

These are lychees- a tasty fruit that we don't have in North America

Later on, the whole family came over for Christmas dinner- it was wonderful for me to meet everyone!

Australian traditional dessert: Pavlova

Nick's grandfather told the traditional family story of "the lion hunt"

We all felt pretty tired after all that food....

On Boxing Day (the day after Christmas), Nick and I went to visit our friends Ryan and Teneale and their lovely family.   It was a beautiful drive out to their home, the area outside of Cairns is called the tablelands.  

It's been a good visit, and we'll miss everyone here in Cairns, 

next blog update will be from France! 

:)

Nick's hit single makes the news..

Nick has made his singing debut on the Channel 7 Sunday Night program here in Australia...

The program showed footage of Australians who were on the ship during the Congo outreach, and several clips of Nick and a group of us singing to the kids on the ward made it into the final cut.  

The song we were singing was one that Nick made up out of the only words in the local language we knew...."hello" "how are you" "I'm fine" and "high-five".  That silly song was such a hit with all the patients, people were still singing it months later, long after Nick had left the ship.

Here's a link to a blog post I wrote last year about singing to the kids on the ward:  http://suzannemichelles.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/mbote.html

And if you want to see the program, the link is here (I think it only works in Australia, but I'm not sure):  https://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/video/watch/25769184/mercy-ships/


Here are a few screen shots....I even made it into a few clips (just look for the green wig) :)

see ya later, Brisbane!

The Veltjens are on the move again!

We packed our bags and left our first home together in Brisbane, and are en route to France via Cairns, Queensland for the week.  We are here visiting family for Christmas, and then we head to France on the 28th of December.

Our first home together- we lived in a unit on the second floor of this blue house 

We can't believe how quickly the months in Brisbane went by- we will miss everyone there!

We settled into our lives in Brisbane very quickly, which made it a bit sad to leave.  We are very thankful for our friends and our jobs in Brisbane.

On Thursday night before we left, we had a late thanksgiving dinner with our Bible study group, and a wonderful evening of talking, laughing and saying goodbye to friends.

Nick and I are both very thankful for our jobs in Brisbane during this season.  Nick returned to work at the Royal Brisbane hospital, and I worked at St Andrews in the central services/sterilising department.

We had the staff christmas party over lunch on my last day of work- I am so grateful for my coworkers at St Andrews and the way they welcomed me into their team, and patiently answered my many questions as I learned my new position.  Having a job at a hospital really made Brisbane feel even more like home for me, and I'm going to miss this team!

Our next destination after we leave Cairns...

Albertville, France.  We arrive in Paris on the 30th and we'll take a train to Albertville.

appendicitis and kangaroos

So...I (suzanne) had a recent bout with appendicitis and got some firsthand experience as a patient in Australia :)

After a day and a half of feeling pretty sick, Nick took me to the emergency department at the hospital where I work, and within 3 hours I was on my way to the operating theatre.  A nurse asked me if I was feeling nervous, but I was in enough pain that I was more than happy for them to just take the silly thing out.  And I felt much better when I woke up.

Nick took very good care of me the during the recovery, and now I'm feeling SO much more like myself.   :)

Throughout this process we were thanking God that I had appendicitis here in Australia, rather than in France or in rural Africa.  It would have been more complicated in France with the language barrier, and could have been dangerous in Africa.

But as we kept saying "better to have surgery here in Australia than have appendicitis later on in Africa", my next thought turned towards the many people who DO need surgery in Africa.  Because the only reason I get access to good healthcare and so many others don't is because of my nationality, and sometimes the unfairness of it all really gets to me.  

When I was being wheeled back for surgery, I was mostly thinking "bring it on, just get this appendix out".  I wasn't worried about whether or not my surgery would be successful, or whether or not the instruments were sterile.  Needing surgery in West Africa comes with many more risks and fears.  I remember one of our interpreters in the Republic of Congo last year telling us "you do surgery here on the Mercy Ship like it's a piece of cake- I don't think you understand, when someone needs surgery here in Congo, we immediately start thinking of death."

Being a patient in need of urgent surgical care myself was very thought provoking, and gave me a new perspective on the needs that we are trying to help meet in West African hospitals.  And also a new perspective of thankfulness for the very good care I received, free from fear.

.............

On a lighter note, my goal of seeing some Australian animals before we left Brisbane was met last weekend.  Nick took me to the Lone Pine Koala reserve and I loved every minute of it.

One of the main things I took away from this visit was how amazing it is that Koalas can look so comfortably asleep while wedged between tree branches.  

Thanks for reading!