Reflections

What a year!

We thought that as we begin the new year we would take this opportunity to recap some of the more significant events for our new supporters. Many of you have also asked to see some photographs of our house, so we have included these.

Last year we were enjoying the cold spell and a Christmas of snow and sledging in Cumbria.

William & Georgie- Cumbria December 2009

Not much has changed as far as the weather is concerned, back in the UK.

Possibly the snow was heavier in some parts of the country!

Here in Oz, we have been getting used to high humidity and temperatures in the mid 80's-90's!

Cairns June 2010

As a family we have seen quite a few changes over the last year, as well as facing several challenges.

Our belongings arriving at the beginning of December.

Moving half way around the world to Australia probably rates fairly highly after marriage, as one of the most significant and life changing decisions we have ever made. But hearing and then answering the call we felt to be part of the work of MAF in Arnhem Land we have been really rewarded so far. We really feel blessed to have so many individuals and couples supporting us and have already experienced answers to prayer. Especially when Charley became very ill and with regard to the children settling in here.

After spending six months support raising, we finally arrived in Australia in June and begun six weeks of orientation training. Then in August we arrived in Nhulunbuy and saw for the first time our new home.

Our kitchen

The sitting room

Our bedroom

The boys room

The girls room

We have now been in our house for nearly six months and it is slowly beginning to feel like home. William and Freddie have managed to make their room into a typical boys room. It seems to be becoming a fisherman's haven. William has managed to pick up a couple of fishing lines from garage sales for him and Freddie as well as some sinkers.The two of them are starting to really enjoy fishing. William put up a sign on the main town notice board for a glass fish tank, which someone answered and gave him one for free!. It is now full of guppies.

The girls room looks very "girly". They were given a lovely duvet each for Christmas and a supporter gave us some pretty flower lights which they have used to brighten up an old mirror.

We have also gained another family member. Some of you may already have met her.

Milo is our cat. We rescued her when her previous owners left town. She has helped to make our house feel more like home. In England we have a Border collie called Molly, and three cats, all now in good homes, so we love having Milo around.

This past year has been great. Charley has now settled into his role as ,"property maintenance manager" and is never short of work. I have lost count of the number of windows he has replaced in various MAF houses. He has built a security wall in a terminal building out on one of the homelands, even managing a bit of piloting on his way out. He has replaced a whole kitchen in one house and has completed a number of other jobs in and around Nhulunbuy and Yirrkala. We look forward to showing you and telling you more about his work though out this year.

In November Charley suffered septicemia. He was bitten or knelt on something and then bumped his knee. This caused a chain reaction and an infection to occur. It was a frightening time for us all as he was airlifted to Darwin for treatment. He is now fully recovered and praise God for this and all of you who prayed for us as a family during this period.

We are reminded daily about Gods goodness to us while we are here. My contract as a teacher aid has been renewed for a further six months which is a real answer to prayer. I was reading about ,"all consuming desire" in my bible note the other day and was really challenged.

The Psalmist cried :"The zeal for (my father;s) house has consumed me..." (Psalm 69:9 NAS)

What's your all-consuming desire/ What are you passionate about? What has God called and gifted you to do? Paul's burning desire was to reach the world for Christ. and he succeeded. When his enemies imprisoned him, instead of giving in to defeat he turned his cell into a writer's retreat and penned the epistles that would change more lives after he had left the world than he could ever hope to touch while he was in it. what are you willing to give your life to, and for?

From Word for the day.(UCB)

If your vision is truly of God, you will feel it.

I just pray that during the coming year we never loose sight of our calling and that God will continue to open doors and reveal the vision that he has for us individually as we share Christ to those around us.

All our Love and Prayers

Charley, Rachel,

William, Alexandra, Georgie & Freddie. Oh! & Milo.

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 :-)