Happy New Year!

2011 has come...2010 has already gone by. How did that happen so fast?! We want to wish everyone the Lord's continued blessings for this new year. May it be one in which we all grow even closer to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who alone gives meaning and purpose to each new year...to each new day.

We also want to share with you a few photos from our last church service of 2010, during which our church community said farewell to the VanderHeide family who will be repatriating to Albany, Western Australia after 4 years of working with Reformed Ministries in Lae.

People were given the opportunity to send them off with a gift. So they were laden with 'bilums' (string bags) and other precious PNG mementos.

Many tearful goodbyes...they will be missed!

Various groups like this one sang songs for them.

And of course a feast of PNG kaikai was enjoyed.

We took the opportunity to take a group photo.

Their farewell drew an especially large crowd.

As you can see, Karlyn will dearly miss her beloved friends, as we all will.

The day after the farewell service, we jumped on a plane at 7am and flew to Port Moresby and then straight on to Cairns, Australia, where for the past week we've been enjoying a relaxing holiday. We're staying in Matt and Claire Byl's flat underneath their house which has been great. Andrew and Natalie and the girls joined us here a few days later along with their friends Gerald and Rosita and five children who are visiting from Tasmania. It's been a fun time, and we're thankful for the break from our life and work in PNG.

Here's Caleb, relaxing on the veranda and eating chocolate pudding!

Karlyn and Jono, having fun in the pool at Matt and Claire's.

Just two more days and then we continue our travels and fly over to Perth, Western Australia where we are looking forward to catching up with our Mission Board and supporting churches and some old friends.