Monday 20 October 2014

Australia & Community

The Bride & Groom
It’s been a bit quiet on the blog front from us for a while as we’ve been away on our big trip down under. While we don’t normally write about holidays on our blog, this one was a bit special. For those of you who don’t know Dan’s sister emigrated to Australia in 2008. She has lived in Sydney ever since, she has also become an Australian citizen and last month she got married to her Australian fiancĂ©. So, for the first time we were able to travel down under and enjoy her wedding. Becky was a bridesmaid and Sam & Mim were page boy and flower girl.
Flower Girl & Page Boy

In addition to the wedding our other main highlight of the trip was being reunited with many former KISC folk. KISC has staff from all over the world, but Australia has consistently been a major recruiting ground for staff for KISC and so we have many former staff spread across the country. You may remember the “Day of 5” blog from a few years back when God came through on providing 5 teachers urgently needed all in one day – all of these were Australian and some of them we were able to meet up with while we were there.

While we were in Sydney we attended a KISC Sydney reunion with 3 other couples all of whom had been at KISC in some form (including as parents) and another day we met with another couple who had both taught at KISC and got to meet there two children who had been born since. Then we went to Brisbane for a week to stay with the former Secondary Principal who Dan had worked closely with for several years, and her family. We were able to meet up with their 4 children, all of whom were former KISC students, and 2 Dan had taught, as well as 2 other former teachers. In all we had 6 current or former teachers and 5 current or former students (including one who was both a former student and teacher!).


KISC Brisbane Reunion
It was great meeting up, sharing stories and being reunited with good friends, most of whom we hadn’t seen since they had left KISC, which in some cases was 4 years ago. It was another reminder for us about the importance and the strength of the KISC community, and the bonds that are forged while at KISC are not easily broken. That is a feature of this lifestyle, we go deep in relationships quick, we have to say goodbye often, but we are left with friends all over the world.