Mothers Day in Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia 🇦🇺 🏊🐚

Sunday, May 12 - Mother’s Day

A blessing God gave me for Mother's Day is that I was staying with a family that has 2 daughters and 1 son living at home. It made me feel kind of like I was with my own family.  Interestingly, Ben, the dad, was headed to San Francisco on Mother's Day morning for work.

I got up early to go with Aisha to the Port Macquarie Christian Surfers gathering in the park at Lighthouse Beach at 7 a.m. It was a beautiful, sunny morning! So awesome after all the rain. We saw a family of kangaroos hanging out on the grass beside the road as we were driving.

George Watt from Bonny Hills was there. It was nice to see him again! He shared about the Bird Rock Memorial Surf Contest honoring 99 local surfers who have died coming up next weekend at Rainbow Beach in Bonny Hills. The contest has been held annually since 1981. CS will host the Memorial services on Friday Evening, and Point Macquarie CS will do a breakfast barbecue. They will also have an indigenous welcome to their country.

CSer James gave a very moving devotional asking “Why do you come to CS?” “And “How can we affect the lives in Port Macquarie?” At the beginning, he asked us to close our eyes and imagine someone we surf or go to school with dying and going to eternal punishment and asking us “Why didn’t you tell me about Jesus and salvation?” It was an impactful devotional!

Life Saving Club House

Adjacent Cafe (I’m starting to expect this)

Some of the CS girls waiting for their coffee

The view from the cafe

The CS group meeting (fewer people than normal due to Mother’s Day)

James (standing) is doing the devotional

Port Macquarie is a university town, so there are many college-age participants

The 4 CSers who  I went swimming with after the meeting (Aisha is the first one)

Gorgeous weather! Good thing I wore my swimmers (aka swimsuit).

In the afternoon, the weather report said it was 71 degrees! I even got a bit of suntan.

The others left, and I stayed there swimming. I had to take advantage of the air-temperature ocean water while I could! Then I gathered 26 stones in honor of Joe & I being 26 years old when we became parents . I tried skipping the rocks into the water (one of Joe’s favorite activities, which he was quite good at!) I'm not so proficient, but I did get a few of them to jump 3 times. After that, I collected shells.

Aisha had gone to help with Kids' Church and left me at the beach. So I had about 4 hours there. I decided to write Mother's Day greetings in the sand.

The Lighthouse from below

A beach butterfly! 🦋

Here's a link to a video of the sights & sounds at the beach

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1im7TzHuDP_V6l8LJ0REahQIdI9uzintD/view?usp=sharing

At 2:00 p.m., Joy & Avi (& Leela), Silas (& Ruby Sunshine) and I did a Google Meet video call for Mother's Day.  (It was 9:00 p.m. Saturday their time.)

Here are some photos of the house  where  I’ve been staying:

Luna, the cat

Sitting area on the back porch. Pool & Hot Tub in the background

Living Room - you can watch the sunrise from the couch

kitchen

We went to an arvo (aka afternoon) Church service. The Point has a 5:00 p.m. service geared toward young people, and the youth meet during that service. The morning service is for families, and they have the kids ministry at that time. Aisha volunteers with Kids Church for the morning services. They meet at a High School with really nice facilities. I thought it was a private school, but Judith told me it was a public school, and she thought it was “run down.”

I wandered the eucalyptus grove on the campus before church.

 It’s cool how the branches wind around the tree trunks.

Lovely artwork at the school

This one is made of bottle caps!

The sun setting behind the eucalyptus grove. They said sometimes there are koalas there 🐨

Young worship team. The drummer is 14.

Judith and her kids were interviewed for Mother's Day. Here's a link to part of the interview:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NoLhUengxFYHkP_xGiO2aDj2BKcUifvw/view?usp=drivesdk

As a recipient of Judith's hospitality, it touches me that both girls put hospitality at the top of their list of things they admire about their mum!