Worst cyclone season in years to come...

Where did October go!

Things have been really busy in the Stockley household during the last few weeks.

Freddie celebrated his seventh birthday with a "boy's only" off -roading experience, followed by a party at the local park.

Alexandra having fun at the park.

Georgie with one of Freddie's best friends, Bianca.

Bianca is one of the other MAF families children.

Other news; a few weeks ago, I began working temporarily at "The Homeland School" in Yirrkala as a teacher aid . A job which I am thoroughly enjoying. The children are beginning to get used to me working and we are establishing new routines to help with everyday jobs.
They are now; clearing up, washing up, drying up and putting everything away after each meal,without too much protesting!

Our next job is to prepare for the cyclone season. Recent reports in the local newspaper and on the local news channel are predicting the worst cyclone season in almost 15 years.

Stronger cyclones than average and more than normal are forecast.

Warmer sea surface temperatures around the Northern Territory coast are providing"favourable conditions" for tropical cyclones, as early as mid November.

As town inhabitants, we are being encouraged to tidy up our gardens and make sure anything outside is secure. We also need to find out the cyclone capacity of our house. All very exciting!

Christmas preparations are under way here in Nhulunbuy.

Every month the main town hall hosts a craft market. This Saturday we were treated to a visit from Father Christmas, festive music, a tree and a hall decked out with tinsel. All rather strange for October. I am only just beginning to get used to the idea of a warm Christmas!

As always thank you all for your prayers and support, without which we would not be

able to serve here, in Arnhem Land.

All our love and prayers

Charley, Rachel, William, Alexandra, Georgie & Freddie.

What a great day...

What a brilliant morning, the culmination of 75 years of a Church presence in Yirrkala.

A laid back, three hour service which included, Bible readings and skits from the five ethnic groups represented. The morning was followed by a super "pot luck" lunch.

It was a packed church with about 130 children and adults from a number of nationalities, all squashed into the Yirrkala Uniting Church for their 75 year celebration.

The Yirrkala children performed a dance to a Christian song and then read the first New Testament reading in English.

A special message from a Tongan Missionary who gave us all a history lesson into why the early Methodist missionaries included Tongans.
We were then treated to a Bible reading in his native language.


Further bible readings in Yolnu Matha and a couple of other regional languages and skits followed.

It was such a lovely day, where God truly was at the centre of the service.

The whole morning was a celebration of God's faithfulness in providing the workers 75 years ago to bring the Gospel to Yirrkala, and His contining provision and calling of new workers. One of the oldest missionaries still in the village came 45 years ago.

It was also a really positive representation of Christian unity and a great witness within Yirrkala.

With nearly forty indigenous people at the Celebrations, the event also acted as a reminder of our personal calling to share the gospel.

Rev. Hala Tupou, the support Minister for the Yirrkala congregation, ended the celebrations by leading Communion.

What a great day, shame we won't be around for the next celebration in 75 years time!



All our love



Rachel, Charley, William, Alexandra,

Georgie & Freddie.

XXXXXX

If you go out in the bush today...

or just clean out your shed you never know what you might find!

In this blog we would like to share with you some photos of the wildlife we have come across so far. For those of you wishing to see snakes, buffalo or crocodiles you will be disappointed,we have not been looking!

A 12 foot crocodile has just been caught at the town beach this week and one has just been seen near Yirrkala. They are around!

We have seen some unusual and sometimes very beautiful creatures which we have tried to capture on our camera. Sometimes we have not been fast enough, especially when it comes to catching the white cockatoos, or the many other birds that are around.

May be next time.

This rather large and not particularly happy spider was found making a nest for herself amongst an old tent that had been left in the tin shed at the end of our house.

Those of you who know me well will know just how much I love my waterproof apron and I would have had it on, had it been here. As it was I had to make do with rubber gloves, a long broom handle and flip flops for protection, as I bravely tackled clearing out our shed.

Not that my rubber gloves or flip flops would have saved me from a very cross snake or red back!

I must have looked comical.

Anyway, I managed to take a photograph of the not so happy spider just outside our shed before she hurried off to find a new home.

She was huge and very effectively camouflaged against the dried grass on our sandy lawn.

This lovely delicate spider below had made her web on our washing line. I nearly hung Freddie's undies on her, which would have given Freddie a tickle on his behind has she decided to hide in them. With the help of my trusty broom handle I moved her onto a near by Pineapple plant.

She spent the rest of the day lazing around and waiting for food to be blown in the afternoon breeze, into her web.

She was a bit larger than a serving spoon and quite pretty. She could however have been extremely venomous and highly toxic.

Perhaps I should have taken a course in " The worlds most toxic and venomous creatures of all time" before we came.

This one was found outside next to our door. I'm told it may be a "Huntsman".

Although this spider was rather quiet in comparison to, "Mrs happy" found in our shed, he was extremely furry and I didn't fancy having him in the house crawling all over me at night...ahhhh!

Either way my broom handle was a very useful tool that day!

I think it should be made a compulsory for all missionaries, world wide, to carry a broom handle as part of their necessary tool kit.

Onto things of a less creepy nature.

Unlike the spiders, house geckos, the pale nocturnal lizards we often see running along the walls, work surfaces and in between the windows guards, are catching moths and mozzies, and are really quite sweet.

They are however a challenge to photograph.

This is a gecko that William found out in the bush. He thinks that it is a Leopard gecko and not as common as the house ones that we hear every night calling, "chuck-chuck-chuck".

For such tiny creatures they do make a lot of noise!

William found this one while exploring some undergrowth.

One Grandma in particular would be horrified if she knew what he got up to.

This little chap below was found in our shed while I was clearing it out along with;

"Mrs Happy", a runner and a skink.

All far too fast for me to catch on camera.

Cane toads are among the biggest frog species in the world. Although most female adults only grow to 12cm long, lots of records show larger ones.

For example, one was caught in the Northern Territories recently. it was reported to be 20 cm long.

Although we didn't find these turtles in the wild they are native to the area, as are water pythons.

This turtle was extremely wriggly and wanted to wriggle his way back into his tank.

I just loved these photographs and wanted to include them for no other reason than sharing them with you all.

Water pythons live in the swamp lands surrounding the town and can become very large. They have a very flat, thin tail, which you may be able to make out in the photograph.

Many of the children here have Childrens Pythons as pets. William has asked if he can have one, Mummy is thinking l..o..n..g... and hard about any snake in the house.

Many of you will know just how I feel about these slithery, slimy, slinky reptiles.

Found in the town swimming pool, this delightful creature doesn't quite live up to his name, "The Water Scorpion".

About the size of two 50p pieces joined end to end, they like to be in and around water, many live permanently in swimming pools.This one was found fastened to the steps of our local pool. They are similar to cockroaches with barbs on their legs for defence, as long as you leave them alone you're fine.

Many children have these tree frogs as pets because of their docile nature and the fact that they are non-venomous. One morning while we were in Cairns, we saw this one clinging to a table leg.

If you go out in the bush today your sure of a big surprise.

Or if you go into the back garden you never know what you'll find!

If you look around the tree's today you might even find a Sun bird or a Tawny Owl...

...for where ever you look,

your never sure what you might find.

Who knows I may one day even be quick enough to take some nice pictures of the amazing bird life we have in the Northern Territories. Sea Eagles, Cockatoos, Ibis, Kingfishers and more.

Hope that you are continuing to enjoy our blogs.

All our love & prayers

Charley, Rachel, William, Alexandra, Georgie

and Freddie

The end of a fun week...

Hi everyone...

Well the children have reached the end of their first full week at their new school and seem to have settled in really well.

Georgie's comment was, "It was weird that we didn't know anyone, but we made lots of friends. I didn't know that there are so many unusual names for people, like Jerusalem"

Freddie came out of school on the first day with the telephone number and an invitation to play from a girl in his class. Proof that it's hard to resist his cheeky smile and cuddly personality!

Alexandra said that she found it, "a bit scary at first, but made lots of friends."

We know that lots of you have been praying for the children and their transition into school life. Alexandra did have one wobbly moment, but we as parents have really felt the powers of your prayers for the children. We know that these have helped to make this potentially challenging time for them smooth.

William has enjoyed himself, any spare time he seems to have at the moment, during break times (recess here!) is spent looking under or behind trees and bushes, or in and around the schools surrounding scrub land. With his new friends he has managed to find several different types of gecko, spiders, lizards and bugs.

As parents we take comfort in knowing that the hospital here is equipped for every eventuality!

Before we go we thought that you might like to see some pictures of our smart little troupe ready for their first day at Nhulunbuy Christian School.

Hope that you have enjoyed the photo's ?

A really big thank you to those of you who took that time to write a letter or send a card to us through the post so that it was here when we arrived. We spent a wonderful first evening reading through your words of encouragement and news.

We are still having problems with our internet connection, so we are writing this from the MAF office at the airport. We will let you know as soon as we have an internet connection.

All our love

Rachel, Charley, William, Alexandra, Georgie and Freddie :-)

Hard work, but fun time in Cairns...

Cairns was a hectic time for us all.

While we were busy with our orientation subjects; language learning, cross culture learning, spiritual warfare lectures to name a few, the children were also kept fully entertained with their own child friendly schedule.

With illness behind them, they all enjoyed days filled with fun activities set up by the child carers. Early evenings were then spent cooling down in the motel's pool having fun with their new found Australian friends.

We also met some really nice people, several of which are just completing their further training in Cairns before joining us in Nhulunbuy in early October this year.

We hope that you all enjoy the pictures below of the children enjoying themselves in Tree Tops pool and the courses fun farewell evening, where we all enjoyed yummy puddings, party games and presentations.

After all the fun activities of our last evening in Cairns everyone was ready for a good nights sleep, even Georgie's toys; Onion, Trotter, Bobin and Mrs Tiggywinkle! (left to right.)

We have now safely arrived in Arnhem Land and are looking forward to keeping you all up to date with things going on here.

All our love

The Stockley's

Goodbye

We wrote this blog just before we left for Australia. Unfortunately we ran out of publishing time before we left, so it has sat as a draft in our editing tray until now.

A kind friend has just given us some internet time, so we are trying to catch up with you all now.

We still wanted to publish it as it shows you all how we spent one fun day in the Lake District on a treasure hunt just, before we left.

It was a great half term week away that we had as a family. A mix of fun and sadness as we said our goodbyes to Charley's parents.

Our week began with a rather long car journey to the heart of The Lake District, where Charley's Mum & Dad live. A trip to the Lakes is good preparation for the vast journey distances that seem to separate most of the settlements in Australia.

One of the days we spent with them was particularly memorable as David had set a treasure hunt up through the bluebell woods behind their house and up onto the open fells and the quarry.

We would like to take you on a picture journey of that day.

First clue...

Charley's Mum, Alex and brother Jonathan.



Brilliant reading Alexandra, onto the next clue this way...


What an improvement!
Mummy & Uncle Jonathan.

Don't fall down through the hole Will, you'll get wet ...

Come back William...

Mummy couldn't watch!

Last clue.

It's got to be here somewhere!

Treasure at last!

Just as few extra pictures we thought that you might like to enjoy...

Hope you enjoyed the hunt. We hope to be able to get internet access again in Cairns, so will give you an update then.

All our love & prayers

Rachel, Charley & Children.