Yesterday we went to our first church service. It was at Glynde Luthern Church, which is Helene's family's congregation. The service was held in a type of a fellowship hall because the sanctuary would have been too hot. The service was interesting. It started with a baptism for 5 Sudanese children. They were a span of ages from infant to 8 years old, which was interesting to me since most of the baptisms I've been to were for one infant at a time. The service ended up lasting almost 2hrs as a result. Even the congregation members we met said that was a long service. There was a lunch we were invited to afterwards where we met a couple more people from the congregation that were around our age. The couple I ate with talked about Cricket and Australia Rules Football with me and some of the other sports comparisons. I was suprised to find that they follow American sports closely. There are even Cubs fans here! Apparently the last international Cricket match in Adelaide is taking place soon and we are hoping to be able to go.
After lunch Helene and her family invited us to go to the beach with them. They planned to go to the southern coast where it would be a bit cooler. It was about an hour long drive to the coast and it took us through dairy farming and grazing lands. It was very interesting to see something so similar to home. This is with exception that most of the grazing lands were brown because of the drought they're experiencing. The temperature at the beach was so drastically different that I found myself putting a fleece over me to keep warm at first. Jeremy, one of Helene's sons, started to teach us how to do some of the passing in Australia Rules Football on the beach. There are two ways to pass in the game. One is almost like a volleyball serve and the other is a short put. Both, though, are just slightly different. When we'd warmed up we headed into the water. We learned to boogeyboard, or tried to. It was a blast, but I find myself a bit sore today. After a couple hours we packed up to head for home. The Australian open finals were playing and some of the family wanted to catch that on TV. We helped clean up some of the beach gear and passed around the Australia Rules Football and a frisbee in the yard. Helene went out to get a rotissere type chicken and some chips (french fries). We ate outside since it had cooled down at this point. We did discover, though, that since it had reached 40 C in Adelaide that there was a record set of 6 days over 40 C. The day was very fun and exciting. The hospitality here is very humbling, and appreciated. I can't believe that its only 4 days or so into the trip and I've been in the ocean twice and seen some other the other awesome things that I have. 
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