State of Origin - Go Maroons!

I am officially in Cleveland!

Rugby is huge in Queensland! Last night was the first game of the State of Origin, which is a huge rivalry between the Queensland Maroons and the New South Wales Blues! Basically this is America's Super Bowl spread out over three different games, and it is always Queensland vs. New South Wales. The rest of the country doesn't pay much attention to rugby, instead they focus on Australian rules football. Anyway, last night, a huge group of people from the church came over to watch the game and eat a lot of food. I think I kind of catched on to what was happening, but I was so jet-lagged and overwhelmed by so many people being loud and talking at once, that I excused myself at half-time and went to bed. The Maroons won, so that means that Queensland will be happy until the next game at least!

Before the game, Polly and I went to the church to meet the pastor. He is also jet-lagged because he just got back from Israel, so we're going to all take it easy until Sunday, but I think I'm going to head up to the church today and see if there is anything I can do; I just hate sitting around! It makes me miss home. This weekend we're going to head back to the city to shop and the Aussies want to show Polly and I Brisbane. The girls that we hung out with yesterday seem to already have our social calendar planned out for the whole summer, so if the church doesn't keep us busy, they will!

MY MINISTRY
I'll go ahead and enlighten ya'll on what I know so far. From orientation they told us that our mission is three-fold:

1. Evangelism - this is the main goal - while this used to be a Christian society, many people today have no concept of God. Also, Aussies are stand-offish, so the main way to be able to reach them is to listen and express an interest in them. Please pray that I will have opportunities and that I will be prepared for them.
2. Equip - discipleship - During my two months here, I'll be working with the youth group and young adults. Thus, it is so important that I develop relationships with them and help them grow in their relationship with Christ. I know this is going to be a bit harder for me because Polly instantly connected with the girls yesterday while I seemed to fade a bit in the background. I definitely need prayers for boldness to put myself out there! Additionally, the relationships need to be focused on Jesus!
3. Establish - don't limit God to what He can do! This is more of a small group thing while discipleship is individually. However, the same stuff goes for here as discipleship.

The specifics so far are

• Working in lunch-time groups at the school - in Australia there is much more freedom to talk about Jesus in the schools, so we'll be going with some of the teachers from the church to help them out in their programs
• Youth group - the church has a fairly large youth group, so we'll be involved in that in some way - I haven't gotten much information on that yet
• Young adults - also, there is a good sized group of young adults, so Polly and I will be involved in that ministry in some way - again specifics have not been received.

I should get all pertinent information next Monday when Polly and I meet with our supervisor, Mandy, and the rest of the church pastoral staff.

As promised, pictures will be coming in the next post!