final happenings

Well, here I am at debriefing with the only thing left on the schedule is the worship service tonight and packing up to fly out tomorrow morning!

The last few days in Cleveland were absolutely amazing.

Thursday: WATOTO CHILDREN'S CHOIR

Such an inspiring concert. I totally want an African orphan now! We fed them dinner before the concert and to thank us they sang us a blessing song and then there was this flood of kids coming into the kitchen to give us hugs. It was so precious! I think I cried through the first half of the concert. Each of the kids have gone through such hardships, but you could tell they were truly worshipping God with all that they had even though they had done the same concert so many times before. If you ever get a chance to see them...do it!




Friday: STRADDY TRIP

One of the most beautiful places ever! The waters were crystal clear, the rocks were great, and the whales were even passing by. Polly, Ashley and I spent the day hiking and laying out on the beach getting some sun! That evening was youth service and I spoke on trusting the Bible. I think it went fairly well, but I'm not entirely sure. Afterwards I actually went out and hung out with the leaders at McDonalds. Yeah, totally cool.

Saturday: SAILING!!!

We spent the day with the Heinrich family enjoying the sun and sailing across the bay. It was so much fun to spend a full day with my Australian family and realizing how much I'm going to miss them. They are such a great and beautiful family and I'm going to miss them so much, I already do :(  Polly and I even swam in the freezing cold Pacific Ocean, but hey, now we can say that we swam in Australia!

Sunday was just church and saying good-byes.

Monday: SYDNEY

We arrived into Sydney at about 1 pm. We headed down to the harbor and took the Manly Ferry across. I got to see the Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge. It was all so neat to see something  so iconic in person. The Opera House wasn't very impressive inside though.

I'll probably post a final post once I get home with a final recap of how amazing God is, but for now, so long and I'll see ya'll State-side!!!

almost there

Quick update on the goings on of my last week here...

All the souvenirs and gifts are bought! I'm already starting to pack up some stuff...only three more days until we fly out to Sydney.

Last week, Polly and I helped serve at a community meal. The people were mostly nice, and it was great to serve others. One thing that has struck me here in Australia is that you don't see the homeless populations here like you do in America, even in the big cities. They are obviously around; they just stay hidden. Another think that hit me was the concept of gratefulness. I know that I take so much for granted, and I saw that in some of the people we served. They thought they were entitled to the meal, even if they came late and we had run out.  That just rubbed me the wrong way, but then I wondered about myself and staying with these different families. Have I shown them the appreciation they deserve?

Another deviation from the schedule was going to Wellington Point on Thursday to initiate conversations with people about Jesus. One girl, Christy, seemed keen, but she said she didn't have time. She believes that something is out there, but has never really sat down to think about it. Please pray that God will make her spirit restless, so she questions what she believes, and that He will put Christians in her life who will share with her about Jesus.

We had our last RE classes yesterday. All of the kids told us "bye forever." It was kind of funny because they'll just tell you how it is. It is bye forever.

One of the big tasks I had in the office while here was typing up all of the church contacts into a new pastoral care system. 350 families to be entered. Such a time-consuming task, but I finished on Monday!!!

Tonight the Watoto children's choir is performing. The kids just arrived to the church! I think it is going to be an amazing night!!!

Besides youth tomorrow night, the last three days are just going to be spending time with people and saying good-bye. I'm so excited to go home. Some of the girls were commenting on it last night =D This will probably be the last post until I get to Sydney or even home.

God bless!

aussie animals

Pictures from the zoo trip a while back:

Additionally, a couple prayer requests for this final week:

• That God will give me strength and sustain me. All I want to do now is go home, and it is kind of depressing to think that I still have 9 days until I get on a plane home. Pray that God gives me the strength and joy to persevere through this week and to leave on a high note.
• Youth group this Friday night...I know what the topic is, but I'm not really getting any enlightenment from God on exactly what He wants me to say. Please pray that He will give me the words and information that I need to share. I'm talking about why we can trust the Bible.
• Safe travels and that the flights get off without a hitch. The pilots are still considering strikes, and I would definitely appreciate it if they wouldn't.

Thanks for the prayers and I will try to give a more informative update later!

TWO WEEKS!

There are two weeks left for me in Australia! I am so ready to be home! I've enjoyed my time here, but there is just a since of closure and it is time to move on to what's ahead in my life (a.k.a. figuring out what God wants me to do for the next step in my life - I can't believe I'm a senior in college!).

Well, I'll get my mind off of home and fill you in on what's been happening here. I have taught about five different religion classes over the last week, with two more to teach later this afternoon. While the kids don't always pay attention, I've really enjoyed interacting with them and hearing their answers to my questions. One of the religion teachers told me that I should be a teacher because I have a gift for it. It was nice to hear the compliment, but I told him that I didn't think I could handle a classroom full of kids five days a week!

I taught at the youth group meeting this week, and it went way better than my lock-in lesson! First, the video I had planned on showing didn't work and then hardly any of the small group leaders had looked over the guides that I had prepared for them. However, God is Sovereign and His plan prevailed. Oddly, the video not working didn't even stress me out. I just prayed and told God this was His lesson now so He'd have to give me the words and have His Spirit move in the small groups. I gave a little lesson on prayer...no idea what I said...but the youth were riveted, and then after the small group sessions, every single leader said that it was one of the best sessions they've ever had.

It was so encouraging to see God move. I've been asking Him to show me a little glimpse of the fruit from this summer, and He has been giving me so much more than I could have ever imagined. With the boys in my Go West group, the youth group, some of the conversations I've had with the adults in the church and then the young adults camp. This summer has been a struggle, but God is greater than all my struggles and I'm so glad that He has brought me through them.

This past weekend was Young Adults Camp with the church. It was fun to meet some people that I haven't really interacted with yet and just see what their take on life is. The speaker did an awesome job even with the three sessions not being joined together under the same topic. He spoke about not wasting your life, homosexual marriage and God's love. All of them were great sessions. During the weekend I also had a chance to be there for a friend through a very difficult time. She has a long road ahead of her, so I just want to ask if you could send a little prayer up for her right now. Just ask that God will remind her of his love and bring healing into her life.

This last week and a half in Cleveland is going to be fairly busy. I'm going to help in a soup kitchen tonight, doing street evangelism tomorrow afternoon, teaching another lesson to the youth, doing a couple more RE classes and Supa clubs at the school. Plus, I need to buy some souveneirs, spend sometime with the friends I've made, and do a little more sight-seeing! Pray that God gives me the time to do all that I need to do.

a much needed update

My team at their favorite activity

I'm in Cleveland and pushing towards the end. Less than three weeks left in the Redlands area and three weeks until I'll get on a plane headed home (hopefully, pilots are threatening strikes so please pray for that!)

Go West was so awesome! The team was fantastic, and we had lots of discussions about spiritual disciplines, the differences between Australian and American faith communities, what's going on in the world, and how not all Americans are completely ignorant. I was glad I could be of service on that one.

I took so many pictures over the week, but I'm only going to post a few here, but I'll give a run-down of the week and then post pictures at the end!

Two Fridays ago was the youth lock-down. For a service project, they cleaned graffiti off of a wall in the park. I was very impressed with the youngest two girls because they were the hardest workers and were definitely living out 1 Timothy 4:12. I did a short talk on living for Christ that evening, but all the youth were wiped out and not paying attention, so I wasn't as intense as I probably should have been.

Saturday - up at the church at 6:30 am to head to Mundubbera. The whole day was spent driving. We stopped at some markets, but other than that, no excitement other than them making fun of my accent the entire time. We even made up a game called Rick, Pepper, Sisters because I apparently say Rock, Paper, Scissors way too odd for the games to be the same.

Sunday - two church services, lunch at the cattle farm where we were having the camp and then we spent the afternoon setting up. We had a campfire that evening and looked at the glorious Southern Hemisphere's stars. It was just breathtaking! I saw the Southern Cross, the milky way, and just marveled out how huge God is, yet He still listens to my prayers and cares for me!!!

Monday - We walked around town handing out some flyers for the camp and then did leader training. That evening the team threw me a surprise July 4th party! It was so great, and it made me feel super special that they'd go through the trouble. They decorated the dining hall with red, white, and blue streamers; we lit sparklers; and a couple of them made sparkler bombs since we couldn't buy fireworks in Australia.

Tuesday - First day of camp! I met my group of five 7-year old boys. They ran me ragged. We hiked all over the area, did some archery, set up a gunna (fort-like thing made of twigs), and rode a flying fox. Two of the boys informed me that Jesus is fake, but God is alright, and I realized that I was just going to have to show them God's love and tell them why I believe in Jesus.

Wednesday - Second day of camp! I kept the boys busy with all sorts of activities. They climbed ropes, went orienteering, did some crafts, did some archery, and went to chapel. State of Origin was on that night. Queensland won, but I fell asleep and missed the ending.

Thursday - Last day of camp! The boys were pretty tired, so we did crafts most of the day. There was a celebration service that night, and the boys put on a puppet show for it since each group was supposed to do something. The boys turned all shy on me when they got in front of people, but they did a good job. The boys were completely captivated by the story in chapel about Jesus, which is so encouraging after what they said on Tuesday

Friday - We went horseback riding and took down all the camp stuff. Then we packed up as much as we could before going to bed.

Saturday - Headed back to Cleveland

I think this week will have definitely been a highlight of my time in Australia. It was so wonderful to stay busy and to actually see the seeds being planted in each of the kids lives.

Scenic views of the Australian bush

headed to the bush

So I'm going West! I leave Saturday morning at 7 am and will be back the following Saturday in the afternoon. I'm travelling with the Uniting Church of Cleveland to the bush country to put on a VBS-type program with a partner church they have out there.So I'll be roughing it for a week - sleeping on floors, being in the colder weather without heaters in the buildings, etc. Polly is going to a different camp, so we'll both be on our own and not knowing anyone, so that's a prayer request for the week.

There's a month left to my trip, and I'll just ask that you continue being diligent in your prayers. I'm so looking forward to being away for a week because I know that it'll be a good and different experience plus, but I'm hoping that it'll also be a little bit of a refresher so that I can come back with a renewed sense of purpose for the last three weeks here at CBC.

This last week has been kind of slow since the school is out on holidays. Our host family took Polly and I to the zoo on Tuesday and then to the city for dinner that night. On Wednesday we went to an amusement park with the Heinrichs (minus Doug and Ben) along with some other people from the church. Thursday I finished up the lesson I'm giving tonight at the lockdown...please give a quick prayer for the lesson, it may be a little heavy but I think that is very important and is something God has been laying on my heart. Last night we saw Transformers with some of the young adults from the church (the movie lasted way too long and did not keep me very entertained, though the special effects and computer stuff was pretty cool).

I'll update when I get back and will post pictures soon!

aerial ping-pong

aka - Australian rules football

The Jenkins invited Polly and I to head down to the brand new Metricon stadium to check out some Australian rules football. Now this is nothing like rugby or American rules football. The players punt the ball to get it to each other or punch it, no throwing allowed. A goal is scored when the ball is kicked through the middle two poles on each end. It is played more of a zone sport-like soccer. It is played on an oval. The refs are called kermits, and there's these guys dressed in bright yellow outfits that run out onto the field and give messages to the players (bizarre, right?). This game is more popular in southern Australia, but there are a couple teams in Queensland, the Gold Coast Suns being the newest.

My testimony went very well yesterday, and I had many people come up and say thanks for sharing. The breakfast was also really great. Who knows if God sent me to Australia to find another connection to Africa. Anyway, there was a memorable quote that one of the guys going said when he was talking about the absurdity of taking on the challenge of riding 6000 kilometers around Africa in 27 days, and I thought I would share it:

Take a minute and go out on a limb, because isn't that where the fruit is?

We take risks that may seem stupid to the world around us, but with God, everything can make perfect sense. The services yesterday at church were so good and challenging. The morning service was all about forgiveness and how if we don't forgive others, we don't receive God's forgiveness. We think about how sin separates us from God, but we don't often stop to think about unforgiveness keeping us from fellowship with God. I don't think I had any people that I needed to forgive, but I recalled times when I was harboring bitterness and I remember the relief that came when I finally gave it all over to God. It just brings refreshment to your soul, and many of the congregation responded. During the evening service, Philip (who is from Zimbabwe) spoke. He didn't mince words and called upon the church in Australia to stop being comfortable because all that is doing is leading souls straight to hell. I thought his challenge would apply to the American church as well. Many people walk around with no hope, and the church doesn't want to push any buttons so we just sit back in our comfortable pews and say that our actions will speak...our words have to speak! We have to tell the lost people-the souls headed for eternal damnation-about Christ. Philip visited one of the beaches here and said that he just wanted to climb up on one of the dunes and start preaching. However, his host told him that there were plenty of laws against it. His response, Paul, Peter, and the other apostles were continually jailed and Jesus Christ was crucified! That really hit me because I don't know if I am willing to be jailed in America because I choose to speak the gospel. Another country, maybe...but I need to be willing to shout the gospel from the mountaintops no matter where I am. I'm not sure exactly what God was trying to teach me during that message because I'm still processing, but I know that God is working in my heart along with the hearts of others in the church.

I think I'll sign off for now...we're headed to the zoo tomorrow to pet some kangaroos and koalas, so I'll post pictures soon! Thank you for your prayers and I just ask that you will continue praying, God is at work in my life and I don't want it to stop!